Today was not my day. Maybe not my week. Month, I guess.

It's cool though. Maybe I should introduce myself. I'm called Aimee. I wasn't always, but that's irrelevant. I'm a junior in college majoring in chemistry. I'm also supposed to be asleep. But of course, someone always has to ruin that. This is why I don't like people.

"Get up, you need to eat," A disarmingly cute voice said, shattering my train of thought. Except her. She's ok. She may also be my only friend. Whatever. Her name is Sunny. Currently a psychology major. She's short and slim with a tan baby face framed by short dark hair and dominated by a large set of dark brown eyes. Combined with her voice, it means no one ever takes her seriously. She is however, surprisingly agile.

"First, tell me what's in the fridge. Then I'll decide if it's worth it." I mumbled, my lips brushing against the carpet. Looks like I fell asleep on the floor again. At least it's comfortable. I could barely hear her dainty footsteps as she approached the fridge. Empty bottles rattled as she swung open the door.

"Looks like you've got lemons, ketchup and five quesadillas. I feel inclined to ask why." She called backwards over her shoulder.

"Don't ask about the quesadillas, you're not ready." I raised a hand into the air. "Lemon me." Her accuracy is pinpoint, the yellow fruit reaches its intended target. I finally rolled over and ripped it in half, nibbling on the sour insides, feeling my mind snap back into focus. I grabbed the edge of my desk, and rose up to my considerable height. Rolling my broad shoulders to get the blood flowing again, I could feel the scars on my back and upper thigh tighten as I stretched. I reached up to rub my probably red rimmed gray eyes, my hand pausing slightly on my thin nose to pick off a patch of dry skin. It was then I noticed my view obscured by a curtain of sky blue hair. I started dying it when I got to college, it's usually in a ponytail. I thought I had a hair tie somewhere around here… I felt something hit my face and fall to the floor.

"Thanks." Sight restored, I could view the room properly now. Good; it's mine. Bad; it's a shit hole. I hadn't had much time to clean. The floor was littered with fast food wrappers and lemon peels. As I turned my attention to my bed, I realize why I hadn't fallen asleep there. Strewn across it were various pieces of body armor, my gauntlets, and of course my tri-lensed goggles. Seems a little random huh? Well, in my spare time, I enjoy kicking ass out in the streets, and you can't just do that unarmed.

I should probably expand on this violent hobby. A few years ago, this town was fairly quiet. Large, lots of businesses, but in all, fairly slow for a college town with a business district. Then they came. They took over the business sector. They pumped poison into the streets. They armed the lowlifes moving their drugs. People began to disappear. People began to die. People's lives were shattered. You might know them as Elicondic, the pharmaceutical juggernaut, but I've seen what they really are. In fact, we both have.

Sunny's boyfriend was stabbed our freshman year, assaulted when he went out to buy them ice cream at 4am. She was furious. She may be small, but she was determined. She went out with a ski mask and knife and tried to get some revenge. She probably would have died if it hadn't happened in front of my apartment. Sunny's got amazing accuracy, and she's fast, but she's not very strong. Fortunately, I stepped in before anything serious happened. She needed help, and I was bored. So, after about four more months of development, getting Sunny to work out, and dozens of lemons, Night Hawk and her pal The Silence were ready to hit the streets.

We had a surprising amount of success for two 20 year olds who had no clue what they were doing. I put Sunny's accuracy to good use with a pair of non-lethal gas gauntlets. A trench coat, fedora and old style gas mask with a built in voice modulator completed the look. This ensured that when morning came, no one would go looking for a short Indian girl with a surprisingly foul mouth.

I on the other hand, was a little more heavy-handed. Light weight chest and shoulder armor, coupled with goggles that boasted night vision, heat vision and inferred. A pair of electroshock gauntlets provided the knockout punch I needed. Sky-blue hair was a dead giveaway, so temporary black dye fixed that problem. Washes right out. Which, is how I knew I took a shower before I passed out.

"Uh, you've still got your running leg on. How tired were you?" Shit, she's right. I better not have worn this thing in the shower. I can't have it rusting. I'm missing my left leg below the knee. No big deal.

"Well, you and James had date night. I had to pick up the extra slack myself," My lemon finished, I discard it in the trash can.

"Anything interesting happen?" She asked.

"More of the usual, not too tough." That was true, aside from the occasional hired gun, the groups of lowlifes that owned the night streets never became an insurmountable challenge. Things weren't getting any better, but they weren't getting any worse. But hopefully that was about to change. "I heard some chatter though." This piqued her interest.

"Oh?" She asked, the curiosity prevalent in her voice. Ha, gotcha.

"Yeah, apparently there's a pretty large shipment of CF-419 moving at 10pm tonight, Phila Street." I was actually proud of this one, I waited inside a dumpster for two hours to get that information. Unfortunately, I fell asleep there when the dump truck came around to collect the trash. I got out before the compactor closed, but it did a number on my gear. It wasn't something I couldn't fix, but I'd need a couple of hours. Speaking of which… "What time is it anyways?" I didn't keep any clocks in my apartment. Don't ask. Sunny checked her phone.

"It's about 9:30 at night actually," She sighed. "You slept through an entire Saturday. You really need to take better care of yourself." She walked over to the dark window, which I now realized wasn't just dark because the blinds were closed. "You have 5 minutes to get changed, or we're going to miss them." She turned around and gave me a look that on anyone else would have been stern, but on her just looked pouty. "Now."

Four minutes and forty five seconds later, which by the way is a personal record, and we were out the door. Luckily, Sunny kept all her Silence gear at my place. It would be pretty awkward if James found it in her closet at home, and it made quick changes like this possible. The two of us hopped on my motorcycle, and away we went.

"So, how much do you think a 'large shipment' is?" Sunny yelled over the roar of the engine.

"No clue, I'm guessing a few crates of C-Fuse." I replied, not completely sure if she was hearing me. For those of you at home who are a little confused, CF-419, or as it's known recreationally, Crystalic Fusion or C-Fuse, is a high grade injectable wonder drug. It takes away all pain, puts the user in a constant unwavering state of mind (the feeling of which depends entirely on the composition of the hallucinogen mixed in) and even boosts a person's natural reaction times and baseline physiology. Think super heroin, mixed with steroids and programmable LSD. It was highly addictive and extremely degenerative if withdrawal kicked in, which is why it never was used for it's intended medical purpose of trying to increase the quality of life of the terminally ill. Miss a dose, and it could kill you.

Thousands and thousands of vials already produced for research purposes before the project was shut down. So, to cover their loses, Elicondic started flooding the streets with it. But of course, no one could ever prove the drugs came from them. Officially, all the CF-419 police have recovered was supposedly home brewed, backed up by the break in and theft of the chemical formula from Elicondic just before the drug went viral. Sunny and I know the truth though. And maybe after tonight, we'll actually be able to prove it. The C-Fuse tonight was supposed to be in crates that could be traced directly back to Elicondic's lab here in town. Which meant security was going to be very tight. Good thing I actually slept more than a couple of hours today.

"We're here." I said. I parked the bike a few blocks away so we could approach on foot. Less noise that way. Phila Street was on the west side of town, in the heart of the warehouse district. From here, you could just barely make out the tall, graceful skyscrapers that dominated the south side business district.

"Where is everyone?" Sunny asked in a low voice. It's true. The place was completely deserted, as the warehouse district typically was this late. I checked the heads up display on my goggles; 10:03pm.

"We're not late, and there's no way that they could have gotten out of here without us noticing," I whisper back. The air felt uncomfortable. Something was wrong. I rotated the left lense on my goggles and switched it to heat vision. Nothing.

Then, a single gunshot pierced the night. The concrete at my feet exploded, leaving a small hole where my foot had been half a second ago. Had I not started to turn around to talk to Sunny, I probably would have lost my good leg. I could feel Sunny crouching next to me, ready to go on the offensive. I, on the other hand, hadn't moved. The initial shock was gone, replaced by calm. That wasn't an attack, it was a warning shot.

"Let me guess," I shouted into the darkness. "Either you're a shitty shot, or you had a reason for doing that!" The sound of a low chuckle answered my words. Apparently, I made a joke. A figure dropped down from the roof off to my left.

"Darling," a thick southern accent rang out. "I never miss." Fuck. The man stepped into the light, revealing a rough, handmade poncho, and a wide brimmed hat… what the hell? As far as I'm aware, only Sunny and I got to treat every day like it was Halloween. With his left hand, he tipped his hat at me. "Ma'am," He inclined his head slightly towards Sunny, who was still crouched, gas gauntlets at the ready. "Tell your fella there to calm down, we don't need this to get out of hand, and he seems pretty trigger happy." Oh no. He said "he". Three…Two…One…

"I'm a woman you ignorant southern fuck face!" Sunny screamed at him. Sunny was normally very sweet, but as the Silence, she figured she could get away with being loud, dramatic and foul mouthed. It was pretty amusing to watch. I threw her a sideways glance.

"I think not," I scoffed, mock offended. "After all, that hat with those gauntlets? Ludacris." She aimed her right arm at me, while keeping the left trained on our newcomer.

"Don't you start with me!" I rolled my eyes.

"Let me guess, mama said knock me out, and you're gonna?" I turned my attention back to the man. I could just barely see the barrel of his gun, sticking out of the right side of his poncho. Holy crap that's big, it looked more like a canon. How was he even able to hold that with one arm? Wait… "You've got quite the firearm there. And I do mean that literally." He smiled, and moved his poncho aside like they do in the old westerns, revealing his weapon of choice.

"Yeah, it gets the job done. A nice improvement over the old appendage." He smirked as he flexed the now fully exposed robotic arm, complete with a sizeable gun.

"Performance issues?" I asked, pulling a sympathetic face. "I'm guessing all that gear comes with an equally flashy name." His facial features twisted into something I imagine he believed to be intimidating.

"They call me the One Armed Bandit."

"Hey, Hawk…" Sunny started. I brushed her off.

"It's rude to interrupt sir." I quipped. She punched me.

"Look." As I turned around, I realized that in the time it had taken to have out little chat, we'd been completely surrounded. Not just the usual lot either, this was a serious escort. Matching uniforms, fully functioning gear, unwavering composure. They were the real deal.

"And now ladies," The Bandit began, "Let's get this wagon train a moving."

Ok, I was really starting to hate this guy.