Starling City Docks

The man ran. This was supposed to have been a simple exchange. The trip across the Pacific had gone smoothly enough, having picked up about 100 Chinese girls of varying ages to be sold in Starling City. He had a buyer lined up to be waiting at the docks. Instead when he arrived at the buy all he found was two dead bodies and a scary looking man in a black armoured suit wearing a panther mask on. The panther guy had drew a katana and pointed it at the man. Thus the present situation.

Speaking of the panther guy, the man stopped hearing footsteps following him. Turning around, he saw that he had lost his mystery attacker. Starting to leave the scene, he bumped into someone. It was the panther guy. The man's stomach dropped to his ankles as he looked into those glowing green eyes.

"Going somewhere?" Karl asked, and then thrust his katana through the traffickers body, ending it.

"You done playing?" Floyd wondered peevishly through the comm link.

"It's boring when you always end it before I even move," Karl complained, "I wanted a kill this time."

"Whatever," Floyd sighed, "Just get what we need and let's move on."

Karl moved towards the cage where the girls were being held. Arriving at the cage, he quickly eliminated the two guards standing there. The girls in the cage all shrunk away from the sight of the Panther in full glory. Karl realized this, and removed his mask, although he doubted his scarred face was that much less intimidating than the mask. He then broke the lock to the cage.

"You are now free to go," Karl announced in Chinese, "where you go is of little consequence to me, but I will not hurt you, nor will I stop you. If there is a little girl under the age of 10 who is not scared of me, I will provide support for you."

Most of the girls were more than happy to leave, some eyeing him with trepidation and fear. As they were filing out, one of the smaller girls walked up to him and announced, with little to no fear or tact, "I'm 9 and I want support, but I don't want to live with you. You're ugly and scary."

Karl smiled, and crouched down, "What's your name, little one?"

"Lin Wei, but the white man who came to my village would always call me Linda," Linda announced, utterly fearless.

"Well, Lin Wei," Karl continued, "My name is Karl, and today is your lucky day. Because I will provide you with support, and you don't have to gaze on my ugly mug."

Central City Suburb

"Ughhhhhh, Iris wants to have another girl talk about her and Eddie," Sara moaned, looking up from her phone, "I swear if I have to deal with those two being dysfunctionally in love for another two hours I'm gonna puke!"

"You were the one who suggested we move to the burbs and make friends with the barista, not me," Leonard pointed out while sipping his coffee and browsing the morning paper. Sara glared at him. It had been her idea to move to the suburbs after their honeymoon, but somehow Len had taken annoyingly well to civilian life, while she was the one feeling bored and restless.

"Well maybe then you could go talk to Professor Allen about the cold gun again while I'm busy?" She suggested with all the sweetness of a viper, and was rewarded with a glance that was equal parts horror and annoyance. Before she could press her advantage, the doorbell rang.

Sara went up to get it, opened the door; only to find the Lawton twins there. She almost didn't recognize them, all dressed in civilian outfits, but the eyepatch and the hint of scarring showing at the top of the lower half of Karl's face gave it away. She reacted quickly, getting a hand on the knife hidden in her dress and calling for Len who came running.

"What are you doing here?" Sara asked with menace. Karl and Floyd both held up their hands to show they were unarmed. Sara relaxed minutely. Floyd opened his mouth to speak, but before he could speak, a little voice piped up in Chinese.

"I thought you said these people were supposed to be friends," Lin accused, "They don't look very happy to see you." Sara hadn't even noticed the small child in baggy clothing

"Friends may have been overstating it, " Karl admitted, also in Chinese, "They misunderstand our purpose."

"What do you want?" Leonard asked, "I don't speak Chinese."

"We are giving young Lin Wei here to you for adoption," Floyd announced, "We rescued her from being sold into slavery, and are giving to you two to raise. We will cover all her expenses, and ask that we be allowed to see her if we want to."

"Why are you giving her to us?" Sara asked, "And why did you rescue her in the first place?"

"Well, you're the only person we know who speaks Chinese, plus it's not like you two are doing anything with your lives here," Karl answered, "As for why we rescued her, after...what happened in Starling, we tried to go back to how things were, but it just wasn't the same. Before, we had a purpose. We were providing for Zoe. But now that she's dead, we just didn't have that purpose that we did before. So, we thought that if we had a similar purpose, it could help make it easier."

"So why not raise her yourselves?" Leonard asked.

"Because she's not Zoe," Floyd responded, "and she deserves to not be a replacement in the eyes of her guardians."

"All of this still assumes that we agree to take her in," Sara pointed out.

"Will you?" Karl asked.

Sara and Leonard exchanged a glance, and she knew he would support her in this.

"Yes."

"Good," Karl nodded. He then crouched down to Lin, telling her, "They've agreed to take you in."

Lin nodded, then walked up to Sara, "I like you," she announced, "you're much prettier than Karl is."

Sara laughed, then led Lin into her new life.

Leonard turned to the two professional assassins, "Any other ways to make my life miserable?" he drawled.

Karl smiled, "I'll call you when I think of something." And with that he and his twin walked out to their car and left as suddenly as they had come.

A/N So that's it! My first ever full fic. Please leave a review, let me know what you liked, what you thought could be improved, overall thoughts, etc. I plan to continue with more fics in this universe, so please also let me know whether you would prefer a series of prequels about how the Legends, Karl, or Oliver came to be; or whether you would prefer a sequel that focuses on what happens next in the lives of our heroes.