Fights and Failings

The two of them fought, standing in an arena underground.

Or rather, they sparred.

Each held a bamboo stick in one hand, and the aim of the game, as it were, was to never get hit.

The older of the two was calm, confident, and a little cocky. He blocked every blow thrown at him, and retorted with several of his own.

The younger was struggling somewhat, but still calmly took the attempted hits, blocking and dodging expertly.

After several minutes, the older man finally won, hitting the younger man with a blow to the chest that caused him to fall onto his back.

"You're getting better." The older man muttered as he stood over him, reaching a hand downwards. "One of these days you might even win. Maybe even within the next few decades."

They shared the same deadly serious expression, before bursting into laughter, the younger man accepting the offered hand and getting pulled up.

"That's all we have time for today, however." The older man said.

"Oh? What do you have planned?" The younger one asked his mentor curiously. They usually kept training for many more hours, unless his mentor had given him a more… Important task to do.

The oldest in the room sighed deeply, his voice tinged with regret. "I need you to… Do something. I would do it, but I need an alibi, unlikely as this plan is to fail…"

"What is it?" The younger one asked.

"I need you to place an explosive on a soon-to-depart ship." The mentor deadpanned. "I wish I could give this man the honour he deserves. But I can't place the device myself."

"He's a friend?" The apprentice queried, and his mentor nodded sadly. "Well, then I hope you'll be okay. You know my past. I know how it feels to face hard choices…"

"I know." His mentor said. "But I still need this done."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small piece of paper, which he passed to the apprentice.

"Here's the details." The mentor said, and the younger one's eyes flicked down the paper quickly, before he nodded and put the note in his pocket.

"Explosive placed strategically to look like a normal crash, no witnesses…" The apprentice muttered. "You got it, Malcom. I'll get to work immediately."

*Arrow*

When he walked into the world's worst place for an assassin to be, a room full of vigilantes, he knew he was in trouble.

When the archer said that infamous line, he knew he was in a lot of trouble.

Nevertheless, his mind went to work, quickly examining the skillsets and fighting stances of all present in the room, noting the corpse they all stood near (save the archer, who was moving closer to him while readying an arrow), and most importantly, his exits.

The morgue had only one way out: the elevator.

The problem with going for the elevator: everyone else readying their weaponry, and the time-consuming nature of the slowly closing elevator doors, leaving ample time to fire a shot or throw a knife.

Fuck.

He needed to stall.

The best way to stall angry vigilantes?

Making them think too much.

Jansen thought back to what the archer had just said, and found his stalling tactic.

"Oh?" He said mockingly, a sneer beginning on his face. "And how have I failed this city?"

"You killed Detective McKenna Hall." Green Arrow growled.

"Not to mention you are suspected in the murder of a man who was caught breaking into the SCPD's Captain's office." The Black Canary added, sounding as angry as the archer.

"Can you prove that?" Jansen asked cockily. "Where's your evidence?!"

"You fit the profile, skillset and appearance of the killer." The man in the balaclava stated.

"Oh, so I've 'failed this city' by being a bit like a murderer?" Jansen laughed scornfully. "Is that how you operate, archer? Just who seems to have done it? How are you any better than The Huntress, or Swift, or any of the other mental nutcases,who masqueradeas crusaders of justice, all while indulging in their own vendettas?!"

Almost everyone, save the guy in the black suit and the woman with white hair, stepped back and hesitated slightly when he delivered that speech. For even a small moment, they were hesitant.

He had hit the sweet spot.

Time to take advantage.

He took that small moment and turned it into his escape, pulling out a small clump of plastic from his back pocket, and throwing it at the centre of the room. The archer fired an arrow, but he spun to the side, and it missed him narrowly.

They went to rush him, but he raised a detonator in his other hand while making a 'tut-tut-tut' sound.

"Explosive." He said sarcastically, pointing at the clump of plastic, then moving that finger to point at what he held in his other hand. "Detonator. Simple, but effective. Kill me, tranquilize me, whatever. But I'll still have time to press this little button, and blow you all to hell."

He chuckled, moving backwards towards the elevator.

"Bye-bye!"

With that, he pressed the 'up' button, and left the morgue. Jansen immediately moved to the closest wall, and slammed against it, breathing heavily as his wound bled even more.

*Arrow*

Oliver Queen was many things.

But he never gave up without one hell of a fight.

So, he didn't talk to his team, or try to attack China White, when the assassin left in the elevator.

Instead, he quickly pulled out an explosive arrow, blowing the elevator doors open. He ran towards them, looking up to see the elevator slowly ascending to the ground floor.

As soon as the elevator came to a halt, he fired another explosive arrow at it, blowing open a hole. He fired a grapple arrow, and ascended quickly.

He landed with a roll on what was left of the elevator floor, looking back down the hole to see his team. Without hesitating, he threw his bow and a few arrows down the hole.

He might love that bow, but he also loved his team. And they needed to get back up, anyway.

Oliver ran through reception, noticing police sirens loudly screeching outside. He smashed through a nearby window, and stood in some bushes, observing the situation.

The assassin, Jansen, was standing there, bleeding severely from his wound. He had his hands raised, and a cop walked over and went to cuff him.

Then all hell broke loose.

*Arrow*

He played along with the cops, throwing his pistol to the ground and raising his hands into the air.

There were far too many to fight in this situation, after all.

An officer – male, mid-thirties, at least a decade on the force, experienced gunsman judging by the way he handled his weapon – walked over to him, cuffs ready in one hand. Jansen listened to the instructions yelled at him, putting his hands on his head and turning away from the cops.

The policeman grabbed his hands to cuff him, and he responded by grabbing the cop's hand, spinning around and twisting it painfully. With the speed of a cheetah, he pulled the guy into a headlock, and held the cop's own gun to the cop's own head.

He laughed while the police lost it, the detective with the speaker yelling the usual threats and promises, while all the cops readied for a firefight.

Jansen had the situation handled once more.

… Until he heard a certain scream, and an arrow lodged into his shoulder.

He fell to the ground, the vigilantes and the cops surrounding him.

Jansen tried to do somethinganything, really – but his bleeding was out of control, and a certain archer had a boot calmly positioned on his face.

His injuries were too terrible. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't keep track of what was happening. The cops were… Speaking to the….. Vigilantes….

Jansen went to faint, but one thing stopped him…

On a rooftop nearby, he could just see a certain person.

A mystical sort, wearing the outfit he remembered so well from their fight mere hours ago…

"No…." He murmured, blood pooling on the floor as the cops argued with the vigilantes. "Not you…"

He almost fainted again, and when he looked back up, the… Person… Was gone.

He muttered one last thing before he fainted, something so quiet that the vigilante above him almost didn't hear it.

Almost.

"I'm sorry, Malcom…"

*Arrow*

The infiltration was easy, the delivery of the explosive clean, with no witnesses.

Jansen went back to Malcom after his fancy dinner with high society to tell him, with hushed tones in an unoccupied room.

Malcom was pleased with him, but clearly was also sad.

"I'm sorry, Malcom." Jansen muttered.

"It's… Fine, Jansen." Merlyn replied. "I may be sad, but this is… Necessary."

"Okay, Malcom." He said. "I'll meet with you tomorrow. Good luck at whatever next overly-posh thing you have to do tonight is."

Merlyn barked out a slightly sombre laugh, and Jansen walked away.

*Arrow*

Oliver Queen stared at the mugshot attached to the board.

He just stared.

The rest of the team, after a tense discussion about, well, everything, from Jeremy Lance to Jansen Loss, had left. They needed to sleep, to try to heal.

Oliver, however, just couldn't bring himself to leave the base.

He didn't know how long he spent standing there, mulling over his many regrets, before he heard her beautiful voice from behind him, a moment after he heard her footsteps.

"You okay, Ollie?"

Oliver sighed deeply, Laurel hugging him tightly upon contact, and she stood by his side as he stared at the board.

"I really wanted to kill him, Laurel." He said brokenly. "I hate killing. It… It can rip you apart. Tear your soul to pieces. But, goddamnit, I wanted to kill Jansen."

"I know, Ollie. But that's because he killed someone you cared about." Laurel said, somehow both logical and soothing. "Of course you'd want to kill him. It doesn't make you a bad person."

He sighed deeply again. "Whatever my feelings around myself and Jansen Loss, there's something more important, Laurel."

He shoved the board on Jansen loss to one side, and walked over to where yet another board stood.

In the middle of this board, was a picture of a certain someone.

"Malcom Merlyn." Laurel breathed.

"Yup." Oliver said simply. "I want to kill Jansen for murdering someone I cared about. The same goes with you and Merlyn. He killed over 500 people, from Tommy…"

"To my vigilante brother." Laurel muttered. "So? What are we going to do? Where do we start?"

"Laurel, this is personal to both of us. And the team. But they don't need to know the details… The dark details of what we are going to do. We don't need to burden them with everything."

"They'll know what we are doing, and what we will do, but they won't know everything." Laurel summarised, and Oliver nodded in agreement.

"We all have our personal connections to Merlyn. But we can't all get completely involved in this." Oliver murmured. "It's risky, and it may blow up in our face…"

"But it's what we'll do." Laurel summed up, and he nodded again. "Only someone like Sara really understands this… Dark world."

"Yup." Oliver agreed, pulling out a flechete that he passed to Laurel, which she promptly threw. Thanks to his training, it landed in its intended place, stuck in the picture of Malcom.

Oliver smiled at the skills he had taught her, then looked grim once more as he stared at the picture.

"Then let's go kill Malcom Merlyn."

A/N: My deepest apologies for my long absence. For a while, I just couldn't get around to writing this, for which, again, I apologise.

I also apologise for this chapter, as it was intended to be far bigger, and explore the plot points that are beginning in this story very soon. However, instead of leaving this for another week, I wanted to add something to this story, so I wrote this very brief chapter. I hope everyone enjoys it, and I fully intend to make the next chapter both better and bigger, not to mention released sooner.

Also, this chapter is probably less 'edited' (looked over after I completed writing it), so one imagines flaws and errors abound, but again, I just wanted to release something today, so I hope this chapter helps keep the interest going while I work on the next one.

Finally, you may notice that the title of this fic has changed a little, which is primarily so I can release a later Arrow fic without it looking like it is part of this particular universe in this fic. If people really don't like it, I'll consider changing to something better.

Reviews:

(Note: thank you to everyone who has reviewed, feedback really helps and really keeps me going with this story)

LycoX: Oliver's decision will be explored in the future, at least probably. I intended to explain Swift more in this chapter, but alas, it did not happen. Glad you enjoyed the reference. And very glad you enjoyed.

Risinhero14: Malcom is Oliver's blood father. This may or may not be explored in future.

Stand with Ward and Queen: Thank you for reviewing and enjoying the chapter! I always love to see reviews from you, and I am very glad you enjoyed the flashback scenes, and Oliver's decisions.

Devon Goes to Heavan: Thanks very much for the review! I'm glad to hear that my descriptions are getting better and better. I fear this chapter's quality is a decrease compared to the others, but that will hopefully not stay the same for later chapters.

Phillipe363: Thanks for the reviews! I love how much detail you go into, it really helps a lot. Glad you enjoyed the action scenes, the bits about Felicity, all my changes with the team throughout, and I am extremely happy to hear the tone is what I was going for.

I agree with the OC's, and hope that my OCs don't fall into too many of the typical trappings. I'm very happy the whole team-speech thing came across right. These people get that sometimes people have to die.

Thanks heaps for the reviews, everyone. I'll be back, hopefully with a much better chapter.

Until then, enjoy this chapter, and look forward to the hopefully better one coming soon!