The first thing that registered in Tommy Oliver's brain was that it was damn hot. The second was that he was pretty sure he had swallowed a mouthful of sand. He felt groggy and disoriented well before he opened his eyes, aware of the unpleasant heat and little else. When he finally dared to crack open his eyes, it only confirmed that today was not going to be a good day. He was lying face-down on the ground, his head wrenched painfully to one side, with the sun beating fiercely down on him from overhead.

There was sand everywhere. He groaned and pushed himself up and onto his hands and knees. His vision swam alarmingly, but he managed to keep from falling over and within a few moments it had passed. He was finally beginning to think that he should wonder what on earth had happened to him when a shadow fell over him.

He started at the sudden realization that he was not as alone as he had assumed. Pushing himself into a crouch and hoping against hope that this would not come to a fight, he peered blearily in the direction the shadow had come from.

A humanoid figure wearing an overabundance of clothes, considering how hot it was, loomed over him. Whoever it was, it had made sure to put the sun behind it when it approached him; the light dazzled his eyes and made it next to impossible for him to make out any details of its appearance. But he saw one thing clearly: in its right hand, the figure held a bizarre looking weapon that was nonetheless very definitely a gun. And it was pointing that gun directly at Tommy's face.

"Oh, good," said a very familiar, very female voice. "You're awake."