Who: Laura (and later Green Arrow) What: A mugging & display of abilities Where: An alley in the good part of town When: One of these evenings Warnings: Criminals up to no good (thwarted)
There were nights when Laura got so caught up in working at the shop that she simply forgot to close when it was time. People rarely came in after hours, but her forgetfulness still kept her out until late some nights. Mostly she didn’t mind - she liked it in the shop - but the walk home was sometimes less than ideal, even in the best neighborhoods.
Which was how she found herself trapped in an alley, two men blocking her way out again, each of them with a knife in their hand. She held her bag close to her chest and was thankful that it wasn’t guns. She was nearly certain she could defend against the knives, but there was only one thing she’d be able to think of if there were guns, and she wasn’t sure that it would work - would whatever crazy thing her voice did be able to destroy a bullet before it reached her? ...it wasn’t something she wanted to test. With her luck lately, it would just break into piece but still hit her.
The men headed down the alley toward her, malice in their movements, and Laura had a suspicion that her bag might not be the only thing on their minds. She hadn’t spent years training for nothing though, and hopefully she could keep this fairly quiet. She didn’t want to have to deal with the questions that might arise from the neighborhood if she had to try defending herself vocally. She tried to clear her mind and handle it like any sparring match in the gyms, even though she knew it would have a more serious outcome.
The first man reached out for her, and Laura dropped her bag in time to grab his wrist and twist it to the side, causing him to drop the knife in surprise. She barely thought about her actions before she was doing them, muscle memory taking over more than logical thought. Somewhere along the line, she managed to get the knife away from the other man and knock one of them against the wall hard enough that he was dazed from hitting his head. The other man still blocked her escape from the alley, though, and he’d had more than enough of her fighting back. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun, and Laura screamed without even thinking about it.
It was brief but sharp, enough to set both of their ears ringing and to stun them momentarily. The scream wasn’t long enough to cause any real damage to the surrounding buildings, though a bit of dust did shake itself free from around the bricks and showered down on them. While the men were disoriented, covering their ears with their hands, Laura grabbed her bag and ran from the alley, not slowing until she was blocks away.
The neighborhood wasn’t Arrow’s normal patrol, but he’d deviated for more visible locations lately, wanting to make a stir as Arrow and not as Orin Monarch.
That night was no different. He saw the men head down the alley with a walk and a demeanor that meant trouble, and he changed direction and scaled the building that went alongside the corridor. It was tall, but not tall enough so that he couldn’t see whatever they had set their sights on.
He recognized her almost immediately, and he swung into motion just as fast, grappling over to the lower building on the other side of the alley with nothing more than a hiss of rope.
He stopped once he got to the other roof.
She was fighting, and she was holding her own, and that wasn’t just random self defense. He actually stared, slack jaw, and then she opened her mouth and the sound that reached his ear was almost painful, even as high up as he was. He could tell, too, that it had taken down the men below.
Huh.
He watched her run, and he moved to the edge of the building, to the end of the alley to make sure she’d gotten clear before returning and jumping down to where the men were still curled up, hands over their ears.
“We’re not going to make a damn habit of this, are we?” he asked them, green hood pulled low over his face as he grabbed one by the shirt and sent a gauntleted fist into the man’s nose with enough force to send bloody spray over both of them. The other man got a sharp kick to the ribs, and he was barely done crying out before Arrow had them both wrapped in rope with arrows at the end.
He dialed the police, even as he scaled the building again and tried to follow Laura’s path home.