Enigma | A Young Justice Fanfiction

Chapter 17

Aspen sat in the Arrowcave, reading through old mission reports from the Team on her laptop. For a covert-ops team, they sure did break their cover a lot. And explosively at that. She clicked to another file and skimmed the details but stopped as the Arrowcave's system read out Artemis's designation.

"Recognized: Artemis, B08."

She waved to the archer as she materialized onto the Zeta platform. The blonde walked over to Aspen and looked over her shoulder at the computer screen.

"Case files?"

"Yep"

Artemis nodded. "Cool. Which one are you looking at?"

"August 8th, 2010. You guys were protecting a scientist from—"

"Cheshire and Black Spider," Artemis finished. "Yeah, I remember that one. It was my first mission with the Team." Her face scrunched up. "Well technically my second, but my first 'official' mission."

"Oh?"

"I saved them from AMAZO."

"Wait, but the mission report never mentioned anything about that," Aspen said, looking between her screen and the archer.

"It was an android made by Professor Ivo a few years ago," Artemis explained. "Long story short, before I was an official member of the Team, I shot an arrow at AMAZO to distracted his while the Team beat him and disassembled him."

"Cool," Aspen said, trying to wrap her head around the idea of an android that could mimic the powers of the League. "So, what are you here for?"

"Training."

"Cool, want me to get out the targets?"

"You can shoot?"

"Not well, but I could always use some practice."

Aspen and Artemis grabbed the targets from a corner and set them up on the other side of the room. While Artemis started her target practice, Aspen grabbed one of the extra bows that was laying around the Arrowcave. She inspected it and pulled it back a few times to see how stiff the string was. Not too bad.

She looked around for a specific quiver of Oliver's trick arrows. When she was sure Artemis wasn't looking, Aspen grabbed one of them and went back over to the targets.

She lined up next to Artemis, who's arrows had almost all hit the red bullseye.

"Wow, thanks for setting the standard," Aspen said as she let out a laugh. She nocked an arrow, pressing a small button on the shaft before pulling the string back to her cheek.

"I don't expect you to be able to—"

Aspen let the arrow go. It glided through the air and hit dead center on the bullseye.

Aspen looked over at a speechless Artemis and gave her a smile. "What," she said, "didn't think I'd hit it?"

Artemis looked between Aspen and the target multiple times. "No, I just wasn't expecting you to get a perfect shot like that one a first try. Like I get that Green Arrow is you dad, but..." she trailed off, looking once again at the arrow stuck in the center of the target.

"Don't worry, I didn't actually hit the center," Aspen said. "Well, the arrow itself hit the center but I didn't make it do that," Aspen explained to a bewildered Artemis as she walked towards the target. She pulled out the arrow and showed it to the archer. "It's a prototype trick arrow Oliver got a while ago. I think he planned to use it for extreme weather conditions, but he hasn't touched it since. But it's fun to prank people with it sometimes. Oliver forgets that he has these at times."