Dispatch part 2

Amy Reyes walked through the front doors of DSN, the once-shining headquarters now left half-burned, half-rebuilt, the air still carrying the faint smell of ash. Sparks popped inside cracked lighting panels. The walls were scorched black like someone had tried to erase the building with fire and failed halfway through.

She clutched her new uniform against her chest — custom-made, clean, crisp, marked with the new program name:

REBOOT

A second chance disguised as a rebrand.

She stepped into the waiting room and sat down. The chairs were mismatched, one melted on the side, another patched up with duct tape. Across from her sat a creature — a mutation so strange she had to blink to make sure he was real. He looked like someone had crossbred a dinosaur with a cheetah, long tail flicking, claws tapping impatiently on the tile.

Amy couldn't tell if he used to be a villain or a hero.

So she guessed hero.

Safer that way.

The wall clock clicked loudly with every passing second.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The mutated creature stood up and casually plopped into the seat beside her. He leaned over with a toothy, sarcastic grin.

"So," he said, "what you in for?"

Amy froze.

And suddenly—

She wasn't in the waiting room anymore.

She was back there.

Back in the moment she lost everything.

Her arm — Toxic's arm — the green, sharp, bubbling version she had shifted into without thinking.

Her fist slamming into Toxic's body again and again.

His voice taunting her even as she pummeled him into the cement.

"You're just like that mother of yours."

Blood poured from his mouth as he smirked, knowing he was getting to her, knowing his words hurt more than his wounds. The street cracked beneath the impact of her blows.

Then that last punch — the one caught on camera — the one that crushed his face in two, splitting it like a fault line in an earthquake.

A punch no hero was supposed to throw.

Amy blinked hard, forcing herself back into the waiting room.

The Dino-cheetah thing was still staring at her, waiting for an answer.

She swallowed.

"Just... a new scene for me," she said. Her voice didn't shake — she wouldn't let it. "What's your name? And why are you here?"

The creature smirked again, proud of himself.

"Chitarrasaur," he replied. "Phenomaman caught me robbing a bank by myself and brought me in. Blonde Blazer said if I didn't want to spend the next twenty years in prison, I had to come here."

He looked around the half-destroyed waiting room like it was a hotel lobby.

"Joke's on them. This sentence is only ten years, and I get to be out free when I'm off the clock."

Amy's hand curled tight around her uniform.

Her fist balled until her knuckles went white.

Amy inched away from Chitarrasaur, her fist curling tight, every muscle in her arm ready to unload onto him.