Written for my sister
Artemis' room was dark, a little light escaping through the blinds on the windows to show the room's one of two beds was occupied.
Artemis snored softly, completely oblivious to the world around her.
Until her cell phone rang at top volume...
NaNaNaNaNa NAAANAAA!
"Zzz-Kzuh?" Artemis snorted, flinging her torso up and preparing to fight an invisible intruder until she realized it was her phone going off. She rolled her eyes and groaned, picking up the phone and flipping it open.
The name read WALLY, Artemis was tempted to hit the reject button, but a small inkling in the pit of her stomach nagged at her to press accept. She sat there for a second, wondering what to do. It could be important, she reasoned, or it could be a prank. She wasn't sure which.
She finally caved and hit the green accept button.
"Hello?" She thought she still sounded slightly asleep. She hoped it wouldn't affect her screaming abilities in case she needed them.
"GET OVER HERE NOW! WE NEED YOU!" Wally screamed and then hung up. Artemis yelped from the volume but ended up staring at the cell phone for a few seconds before leaping up and running over to her closet to grab her Artemis gear.
"Aremis, B-Zero-Seven." The computer announced as a bright yellow light flashed and Artemis walked through the Zeta-Tube.
"Hello?" She called through an empty command center, it was deathly quiet. Artemis walked around, trying to detect any senses of life from within the cave.
She finally found a sign of recent activity in the kitchen: a dropped tin of muffins, blueberry muffins scattered across the floor. Also an abandoned dish rag next to shattered plates. Someone had been in a hurry to get out of here.
Artemis ran down the hall towards her friends bedrooms, M'gann's room and Conner's room seemed untouched, but Zatanna's room was trashed, like she'd been in a hurry to get dressed and get out of there, much like Artemis who winced thinking about the current state of her room and how she was gonna probably spend hours cleaning it up.
Artemis moved on, walking into the living room, where she found a note hastily scribbled to Red Tornado:
Went to meet Wally and Robin
-Conner, M'gann, Zatana
So they were fine? Artemis thought it was weird she was the only one being led on this goose chase.
NaNaNaNa NAAANAAA!
Artemis had her phone to her ear in seconds, "Where are you?" She creid into the phone.
"Transmitting coordinates... now!" She heard Robin say in the background, Wally snorted into the reciever and hung up. Next second, Artemis got a text telling her the longitude and latitude of where she was going.
Not bothering to try and figure it out, and becuase she didn't have this kind of navigation memorized, Artemis walked over and plugged the coordinates into the caves computer.
"You have got to be kidding me." She groaned when the results came up.
Main Event was a plain white building with a giant purple light up sign, with large lightbulbs around the perimeter and the words Main Event made up of smaller lightbulbs that lit up constantly with the outside perimeters of the letters blinking on and off to attract more attention.
Artemis felt her face flush from all the looks she was getting. Why would a hero be here? Should they run? A small boy carrying a box wrapped in paper with a silver bow on it was pulled away from her frantic mother when she saw Artemis. Artemis tried not to feel guilty for ruining the little boys night.
She entered the dark and musty gaming center to see none of her teammates around, and plenty of scared and/or amazed stares coming from parents, children, and workers alike.
"Ah, the entertainer for Party Room 3!" Someone cried and pulled Artemis off to the side and down the hall. The rest of the establishment slowly went back to their own endeavors upon hearing this.
"Hey!" Artemis hissed, "Hey! I'm not an enployee here!"
"I know." The dark haired middle eastern woman said, then turned back to face Artemis and grinned, "Neither am I."
Artemis analyzed the cocky grin and sighed in relief, "Don't scare me like that M'gann."
M'gann laughed and pulled her into the Family Restroom, extracting a large shopping bag from behind the trash can and handing it to Artemis. Inside was a pair of dark skinny jeans, a purple jacket, and a white shirt.
"You're hilaroius." Artemis flatlined when she saw the shirt contained the symbol for the Flash.
"Can't wear your own now can you?" M'gann laughed as she dodged Artemis' boot, wich she'd flung at the young heroine. "Now hurry up, I wanna get out there and beat Conner at Skee-ball!"
Artemis grumbled something about M'gann and beatings as she pulled the Flash shirt on.
Artemis was just tyeing the glittery converse laces when she and M'gann walked out to meet three young men and a young girl standing by a game. The youngest of the boys, a dark haired boy wearing shades and a leather jacket over a batman t-shirt, was jumping up and down as he made his way father and farther into the game, obviously enjoying what seemed to be an easy victory. The girl, also dark haired, was jumping right along with him, cheering him on.
"Dude!" A ginger haired boy with freckles cried when the youngest boy released the controls and did a victory dance with the girl. He high fived the kid and joined them both in their victory dance.
"I didn't realize such a game had so much meaning." Artemis commented as they approached the group. The tallest boy, with dark skin and a thin fuzz of blonde hair, walked forward and welcomed them to the group.
"We've been waiting for you Artemis." He smiled.
"Thanks Kal." Artemis smiled, "So, now what? What's so important that you made me sneak out of the house and over here for?"
"You snuck out?" Zatanna asked.
"Left a note in case I didn't make it back." Artemis corrected.
Robin grinned and jumped up onto the control board of the game he'd just beaten.
"First one to lazertag is a loser!" He jumped off and began to run for it with Wally when Kaldur grabbed him by the collar and Conner did the same to Wally.
"We indulged you while waiting for the rest of the team to show up, now tell us what is so important."
Robin gulped and his eyebrows raised, then turned to Wally who was rubbing his neck, "You start."
"okay," Wally said, walking right into it, "Well, see, we believe the team needs an easy mission; something to relax the team after such a stressful time."
"So I interrupted a transmission from Batman and learned we were to be sent here to take the night off!" Robin announced.
The rest of the team stared at them in silencem minus Zatanna who grinned and clapped her hands together, obviously excited.
"Really?" Conner asked, not believing them for a second.
"Yes." Robin smiled, trying to look innocent with shades on.
"And this has nothing to do with the fact that you just wanted to come here on a whim but thought it would be lame tagging onto another group for lazer tag so made sure you had a ready team with you?"
"What ever would give you that idea?" Robin asked, Wally was facing away from the group trying to rearrange his face into one of complete and utter seriousness. He turned back to see Conner had grabbed Robin by the shirt, the leather jacket having slid to the floor from a previous escape attempt.
"Nice try." Conner sneered.
"I'm serious!" Robin cried, "Batman, the man, told us to do this."
Conner raised him a little higher, "Your a liar, and a bloody genius." He dropped him to the floor, and Robin, confused by the insult-compliment mix, landed with a painful thud. Conner pulled him up and the two stared intently at eachother.
"You've injured my pride." Robin challenged.
"I can see that."
"There's only one way to fix this."
"Yes, only one." Conner echoed.
"TO THE TUMBLER!" The two screamed and ran off.
"Let's make sure they don't kill eachother." Zatanna grabbed M'gann's forearm and the two chased after the boy's, giggling.
"I guess I'll go see about refreshments." Kaldur shrugged, thinking intently about an order of Nachos waiting for him.
Artemis started to walk towards the Tumbler with the others but Wally grabbed her from behind and pulled her over to the Air Hockey table.
"One on one, to the death!" he grinned, tossing her a mallet. Artemis stared down at the large white mallet, considering. Beat him and gain ultimate bragging rights, or lose and gain ultimate shame rights?
"Your on." She grinned, not one to back down from a challenge.