'Oh my God,' Elliot gasped as he and Isaac joined us in the Wildcat lair. 'Why didn't you tell us about this sooner?'
'It's supposed to be a secret,' Ted said sarcastically. 'So I kept it as a secret.'
'Fair enough,' Elliot shrugged, looking at all the collection of knives with a shiver.
'This is amazing,' Isaac smiled in wonder. 'You'll have to teach us how to use all this stuff.'
'I was planning to,' Ted nodded in agreement. 'I have more than enough for everyone to use.'
'And then we can stop more gangs like the Culebras and criminals like Bellini!' Helena exclaimed excitedly.
'We need to hide our identities first though,' I announced, looking at Ted's balaclava. 'We can't just go round exposing ourselves all the time. That's why Ted wears his mask; he needs to mask his real identity.'
'I can look tomorrow in Queen Consolidated if they have any products that could be of some use to us,' Isaac suggested smartly.
'I can always look in the police department as well for any gear they might be getting rid of,' I remembered. 'It's a good job I know how to sew.'
'You know what we need?' Isaac asked rhetorically and excitedly. 'Those little ear speaker things!'
'Yes!' Elliot responded just as excitedly. 'And code names! I personally think that I should be 'The Amazing Elliot'!'
'You're not a famous boxer or anything, Elliot,' I rolled my eyes. 'Plus having your name in your code name defeats the whole purpose of even having a code name.'
'Don't be such a killjoy,' Elliot rolled his eyes. 'So you're better than me at thinking of codenames then?'
'I wouldn't know where to start,' I laughed in denial. 'But I'll try my best.'
'Don't think too hard,' Elliot added sarcastically.
---
The next coming months were testing and rewarding ones. We fought the remaining parts of the Culebra gang into the ground, and destroyed copycats and other gangs along the way, making Starling City a better place, day by day.
As we fought for justice, hidden under our masks and leather suits, we were given identities by the people of the city. They thought of us as their heroes, their guardian angels, who couldn't possibly be real. No one guessed who we were and we liked to keep it that way, masked from humanity.
We were a team, the five of us. Ted, Isaac and I would be out on the scene, fighting all the criminals of Starling, while Helena and Elliot worked down in the lair, Helena's computer finding a new home tucked away in our secret base. Elliot would stay with Helena as her second pair of eyes, as well as being our medic when we became injured out on the field.
Merlyn would also drop by from time to time, checking up on us and making sure I spent time with Tommy. I did, continuing our relationship as friends and nothing else.
Our little arrangement was great, and it worked to our advantage. But one night, one unfortunate night, changed our dynamic forever.
---
'Cecilio Martel,' Ted announced as he dropped some files onto the table we were stood around. 'He's a notorious drug dealer in the Glades. We need to find him and stop him.'
'There are hundreds of drug dealers in this district,' Elliot pointed out. 'Why him?'
'He's been using the drugs as a way of... Controlling people,' Helena explained. 'They've been committing crimes such as theft, bank robberies, and even murder.'
'With drugs?' I asked in surprise. 'I know it's not the craziest thing we've seen, but still, how?'
'I have no idea,' Helena shook her head. 'I've only just been able to link every one of the crimes together just now - the criminals all have a transaction to Mr Martel.'
'Do you know the name of the drug he's selling?' Ted asked sensibly.
'No,' Helena said. 'They're not onsale publicly, that's for sure. It's like he's manufactured the just for his few customers he has.'
Strange.
'Do you know where he sells these drugs?' Isaac inquired. 'If you do, that'll make tracking him down a whole lot easier.'
'I'll run the facial recognition program across the city cameras,' Helena said at once, typing on her keyboard quickly and soon finding a match. 'It's at an old block of apartments near Barker Street.'
'Now we have a lead,' Ted started. 'We can go stop this dealer tonight.'
'Suit up,' I smiled.
---
As I finished zipping my dark teal leather jacket up, I saw that Isaac was lost in thought, but as though something had deeply upset him. And he hadn't said anything to me all day.
'Isaac, are you alright?' I asked concernedly. 'You seem a bit down.'
'It's nothing,' he said unconvincingly. 'Alright, alright. It's Elliot. I feel like I'm not on the same page as him. Like we're drifting apart. And I have no idea why.'
I had definitely noticed a change between the two, but I had assumed it was just me who was imagining things.
'Maybe you should talk to him?' I suggested helpfully. 'Sort out your differences?'
'But it's not like that, Aria,' Isaac disagreed. 'We still love the same stuff and all, but it's like Elliot's got no time for me anymore. I can't put my finger on it, but I know that Elliot is becoming more and more distant with me.'
'I don't know what to suggest, Isaac,' I shook my head helplessly. 'I can go talk to him if you want and ask him what's up.'
'Really?' Isaac asked, wide eyed.
'Of course!' I exclaimed. 'You are my friend, after all.'
---
The night was cold as we crept behind the complex where our drug dealer, Martel, supposedly sold his craft. The area was in one of the most run down parts of the Glades, and Martel had quite the business. A giant group of citizens and other dealers were surrounding boxes and boxes of the drug, each box labelled with the words 'Vertigo Pharmaceuticals'.
'Do you recognise that name?' I whispered to Ted.
'No,' Ted answered immediately. 'But it looks like Martel really does have a source.'
'Is he even here?' Isaac breathed, running back to us, clad in scarlet leather. 'I've searched the perimeter and Martel isn't there. I think we've picked the wrong day to find him.'
Just as we were about to leave, we were confronted by the sudden sound of silence. The customers were stood as one, facing us, trying to scare us. They moved as one, coming closer and closer to our hiding spot. They had found us. But where was their controller?
'What do we do?' I hissed. 'Lena?'
'The stairs on the outside of the old apartment block are still safe to use,' Helena answered back through the earpieces we all had. 'Run as fast as you can up to the top of the building so you can get some high ground.'
We ran as fast we could, Isaac swinging from railing to railing to help us up a bit faster. The group soon became further and further away from us, their drone-like behaviour giving them a disadvantage.
'Now you can shoot,' Ted smirked as though we were dealing with an easy task.
Taking my tranquilliser, I knocked a few of the fastest ones out like skittles, slowing the rest of the congregation down. Ted stood ready to fight, his nunchakus at hand. Isaac joined me in the attack, his recreational skills paying off as he threw his tranquillised darts at our opponents.
Without warning, our earpieces screeched and screamed, impairing my hearing as I tried to remove the device from my ear. The sound made my whole body cringe and crouch to the ground, my eyes scrunched up to try to tolerate the pain of the noise tattling through my ears.
When I recovered, we were not faced with the group of doped up bodies, but one man. And that man was Martel. He looked as though he was in a rage, completely annoyed at is tackling his customers like we did. And that he hadn't been able to stop us without doing the dirty work himself.
'The famous Vigilantes of Starling City,' he spat, seething. 'I wonder why you're here. Probably to stop me and bring me to justice. But you'll never stop me!'
Taking a tank to the front of his chest, he sprayed some sort of gas in to our direction, blurring our vision and making it hard to see where Martel was. As the substance dissipated, we found that Martel had Isaac by the throat, threatening his life with a knife at Isaac's neck.
'Stop fighting my customers or the red one gets it,' Martel shouted over the late night traffic below and referring to the red colour of Isaac's suit.
'Put him down,' I shouted over protectively.
'The girl standing up for the man?' Martel smirked, as if it was some joke. 'That's something you don't see everyday. I thought girls were supposed to be the damsels in distress.'
'First of all, you sexist scum,' I said disgustedly. 'I am no naïve little girl who needs saving. And second of all, I am pretty good at distracting people like you.'
Ted had snuck up behind Martel and had him at gunpoint, ready to shoot. This was a fairly rare sight; we didn't kill lightly, as we had decided to keep the city safe as well as keeping the body count low. But this was an exception.
However, Ted wasn't as quick as we had thought.
The next few moments were such a blur, but I constantly replayed them in my head after they happened. I hadn't realised what was going on until I saw Isaac fall to the floor, his body nearly lifeless and crumpled with a large gash in his chest. Ted broke down and wept as I came to my senses and draped Isaac over my shoulders with a struggle, the weight of Isaac's muscular body making it hard for me to move. Ted soon helped me out, also supporting Isaac'a body on his shoulders.
The quick journey back to the gym was a silent one. Helena and Elliot had realised what had happened through the CCTV cameras surrounding the area, and so Helena drove us back to the lair. Although it was silent between us all, the muted company of each other gave us strength and a strange hope, thinking that Isaac would pull through.
Elliot was ready for the medical procedure as soon as we entered the lair, his eyes already red and shiny. He tried reviving him, resuscitating, and even injecting solutions into Isaac's muscles to somehow bring him back. But nothing worked.
Isaac was dead.
'Why?' Elliot cried out. 'WHY?'
The whole room sobbed, none of us being able to accept that Isaac had gone. It couldn't be real, none of it could. But it was.
'He- he can't be d-' Helena started with a sad stutter.
'No! Don't you say it!' Elliot yelled. 'Don't you dare say that word!'
'Shh,' I whispered just so Elliot could hear me, holding his hands. 'It's going to be alright. It'll be...'
But I couldn't carry on with the lies I was trying to tell myself. It wasn't going to be alright, or fine. It was going to hang over us like a dark cloud and split us apart.
And it really did.