1: TRAITOR
"...OLIVER!"
Felicity's voice echoed through the empty warehouse as she and Diggle raced through the building, desperately searching for their friend. He had been gone for hours, taken from right in front of them, and it had taken them all that time to hack the captors' communications and pinpoint a location. Felicity's heart was beating faster than it ever had while Diggle pretended to be calm, inside praying that Oliver was safe and well.
Their search moved further into the building and eventually the two found themselves facing two tables in the corner of the warehouse, lit by dim, flickering lights. On one table, many knives and medical instruments soaked with blood, and on the other table...Oliver, lying unconscious.
"Oh, crap. Oliver!" Diggle exclaimed as he and Felicity rushed to Oliver's side. Felicity checked his pulse and breathed a sigh of relief to find he wasn't dead. He still had his green vigilante suit on, but his jacket was open and his chest was exposed. Felicity and Diggle looked at their friend's chest in horror as they saw a huge cut across his stomach that had been very unprofessionally stitched up.
"Who did this to you?" Felicity asked, tearing up as she gently stroked Oliver's cheek.
"We need to get him out of here. Call Roy; get him to set up the medical area so it's ready when we get there." Diggle ordered, and Felicity obeyed, grabbing her phone and quickly calling for Roy. Diggle carefully lifted Oliver in his arms and rushed out of the warehouse and into his black van, where Felicity was now sat in on the phone. He placed Oliver on the back seat and moved to the front, driving off just as Felicity finished her conversation with a panicked Roy.
...
"Holy crap, what the hell happened?" Roy said, worried at the awful state Oliver was in as Diggle and Felicity carried him in and put him on a table. Roy had set up many medicines and instruments that may be needed to treat Oliver, but just as Diggle ran some kind of gel on Oliver's wounds he woke up with a start and lunged forward at his friends, stopping once he realised where he was before screaming as he began to feel the pain.
"Oliver! Oliver, are you okay?" Felicity asked, extremely concerned. Oliver eventually controlled the pain he was feeling and subdued it, trying to think of other things. He sat up on the table and looked at his wound on his chest, sighing heavily.
"Oliver?" Diggle said. Oliver looked at the three people around him.
"I'll be fine. I always am." Oliver said, standing up and wincing in pain and sitting on a nearby chair.
"What the hell happened? Who where those guys that took you and how did they know to come here?" Diggle asked. Oliver looked at Diggle, concerned.
"...I don't want to talk about it."
"No, this is one secret you definitely can't keep from us." Felicity said.
"I need to, Felicity." Oliver said sternly.
"That's not gonna be good enough for me, because they could've killed you. They did god knows what to you and then abandoned you. Why?" Felicity pondered.
"We should at least take a look at you, Oliver, see what they did to you." Roy suggested. Oliver got up again.
"No, I'm fine. They just cut me open to hurt me then stitched me back up so it would hurt more. End of story." Oliver snapped.
"...What aren't you telling us? You seem more reluctant to answer our questions than ever before." Diggle said.
"Just leave it, Digg. Okay?" Oliver said, putting on a shirt Roy had prepared for him, trying desperately to ignore the pain.
"Please, just tell us something. Anything." Felicity pleaded. Oliver faced the three of them.
"You already know the how; three men came down here, knocked all of us out with some kind of gas and then took me to the warehouse. The men worked for someone named The Martyr. He's the one who ordered the kidnapping and did this to me. It was a simple revenge attack." Oliver explained.
"Wait, who is The Martyr exactly?" Felicity asked.
"I can't tell you." Oliver replied.
"Well, why would he want revenge on you?" Roy questioned.
"I can't tell you that either. I can't tell you any more than what I have." Oliver said.
"And why's that?" Diggle puzzled. Oliver's face turned stone cold.
"...He told me something in the warehouse. Something that means I can't trust any of you. I'm sorry." Oliver said and walked out, leaving the other three gobsmacked.
"...He seems...different." Roy pointed out. The others nodded in agreement.
"I know. This Martyr guy has really got to him." Diggle said.
"And they've met before today. Oliver did something to make The Martyr want revenge on him. Why can't he trust us anymore? Normally he would've told us everything about The Martyr and what he did to him. Something smells fishy." Felicity said.
As the three of them wondered what was happening, Oliver walked out into the fresh air and closed his eyes, trying to forget what The Martyr had told him for a brief moment, trying to forget everything while reliving the painful experience of only a few hours ago...
...
Oliver woke up and looked around him, recognising he was in an abandoned warehouse. He was tied to a table and saw another one next to him with surgical instruments all over it. He tried to snap the cabled tying him to the table but nothing was working.
"There's no point trying to escape, you know. The gas my men used to knock you out weakens you for approximately an hour and a half. What a pity...for you."
Oliver froze at the sound of the voice. He recognised who it was immediately and it paralysed him.
"How...how did you find me? How are you even here?" Oliver asked.
"Oh, it was simple really. I know you better than you think I do." The voice said and appeared out of the shadows. The voice came from a tall, thin man in a grey suit, shirt and tie with jet black shoes. He had a scar down the side of his left cheek which was clearly visible despite the white make-up that was smothered all over his face with black patches of make-up around his eyes, making him look skeletal.
"It is so good to see you again...Oliver." The man said with a grin. Oliver began to shake in fear, something he wasn't used to feeling.
"TELL ME HOW YOU FOUND ME." Oliver snapped.
"Now, now, Oliver. Stop thinking you're in control here. You're very much mistaken." The man's slow, whispered, piercing voice said.
"Tell me."
"Very well. I knew, of course, you'd hide your secret hideout right under the nose of your 'alter ego', so to speak, so once I knew Oliver Queen owned a nightclub, I knew exactly where to look. So, I sent my boys there with the gas and they eventually found your little gang. I always thought you preferred working alone, so it was a surprise to see you had help." The man explained.
"And what do you call yourself now? Do you use your real name anymore?" Oliver asked.
"My real name is lost in time Oliver, just like yours is. You're only accomplishments in this city have been under an alias; the Vigilante, the Hood, the Arrow...I plan to follow in your footsteps. My accomplishment is getting revenge on you for what you did to me, and I am known in Starling City as The Martyr. THAT is my name now." The Martyr said viciously.
"The Martyr? Why would you call yourself that?" Oliver asked.
"Because THAT is what YOU made ME into!" The Martyr screamed.
"No, I didn't!"
"Don't lie! You know I NEVER lie! And I'm not lying when I say that YOU did this to me! You MADE me into this! You gave me this scar on my cheek and you twisted my world, Oliver, and you're lucky that after today we are done. All I want is to watch you suffer and scream for a few moments and I will be satisfied. Consider yourself lucky as you have no idea what I'm capable of." The Martyr said.
"What I did to you...I had no choice. It was the only way of saving all those people." Oliver said.
"Those people didn't need saving! They DESERVED TO DIE! They deserved to burn and bleed and cry! But you just couldn't let that happen, could you? You just couldn't let my city burn like it was destined to. So when I heard about the vigilante protecting Starling City I knew it was you, so I waited until I felt the time was right to have my vengeance." The Martyr squealed, the fury behind his voice clear as day.
"...I'm sorry." Oliver whispered.
"Enough. It's time for you to suffer. You're going to burn and bleed and cry in the name of my city." The Martyr taunted, unzipping Oliver's jacket and exposing his bare chest. The Martyr moved over to the next table and picked up a large knife.
"Hello, you beauty. Let's have some fun with Ollie here, shall we?" The Martyr said and returned to Oliver, who tried desperately to get out of the trap he was caught in.
"Don't worry, Oliver. This won't hurt. Oh, wait...yes, yes it will. Lots."
With one slow slash, Oliver's chest had been cut open and he was screaming. All The Martyr could do was laugh. After an agonising few minutes, Oliver passed out from the pain.
...
Oliver woke for a brief moment and saw the slash in his chest, causing him to scream again. The Martyr, who was sat on a chair beside him, stood up.
"Oh, good, you're up. Now we can finish up, can't we? But before we do, I need to tell you something, and you know me Oliver. I don't lie." The Martyr said, and leaned in to Oliver's ear.
"...There's a traitor in your team." He whispered before picking up some thread and a large needle from the table and began stitching up Oliver's wound. Oliver screamed in agony once more and quickly passed out again.
The next thing he remembered was waking up with Diggle, Felicity and Roy. Oliver knew The Martyr never lied, meaning that there was a traitor in his seemingly trustworthy team. Even if The Martyr had finished with Oliver like he said, something else was only just beginning.