What. The. Hell? The commander threw him back against the chair. She knew how to deliver a power-packed punch, but had enough restraint not to render him unconscious, a sign she intended to drag this on for hours.
He barely registered the continued grunts and moans of John being beaten to a pulp in the next room. He had been enduring this longer than Oliver, and he could only imagine the state his best friend was in. Oliver could not back down. Diggle had to get home, they all did.
"Tell me!" She demanded and then said low and menacingly, pointing to the wall that separated the rooms, "or he gets worse."
"What… do you have to do with…Slade Wilson?" He managed to say, his mouth pulsing in pain from the broken teeth and everywhere on his chin and jaw.
"He had a revenge plot against you, Oliver Queen. You were working with the Arrow, or else how would he have known about the mirakuru? Where is he? Tell me what hole you put him in!"
Oliver breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. Several things were becoming clearer to him. At least she was unaware that he was the Arrow, only that Slade had sworn revenge on Oliver Queen.
He snarled, "What does it matter to you?"
That maniacal twinkle re-entered her gaze and she hit him, a growl ripping through her throat because she was enjoying it. Smack. Smack. When she was done, her knuckles were wet his blood.
"Answer me!"
He stared at the floor, his defiance and resilience growing. Oh, I'll give you an answer. Bitch. Whatever she wanted with Slade Wilson, when it came down to it, he could never let anyone find him and set him free. Slade would resume his efforts to uphold his promise, and everyone he cared about would die.
"I won't stop until you tell me what I want to know" she snarled viciously. Not a single golden hair out of place and neither was she out of breath. She could do this all evening until he broke, until his face was an unrecognizable mess.
Oliver glared at her and rolled his tongue in a circle in his bloody mouth.
He spat on her perfect clean white suit.
"Slade Wilson is dead".
She didn't even notice. For briefest of moments she bought the lie. But then it reverted back to that crazed look.
"You're lying!" She yelled and raised her hand to hit him.
Something scattered onto the floor. The commander's hand stopped mid-air and she glanced at the ground at her feet.
Oliver had never been happier to see the Canary's sonic device.
He knew what came next. He was tied up and had no way of covering his ears. The device blared and he howled in pain, feeling as though his ear drums were water balloons rupturing. The commander had fallen to her knees, crying out, hands clamped to the sides of her head.
When it was over he thought his head might actually fall off his shoulders from all the hits and sonic booms it had had to endure. Afterwards it was only silence as deafness took hold. Sara burst into the room. Before the commander could get off the ground she whacked her across the cheek; she fell back. But somehow he knew it would not keep her down.
Oliver would've thanked Sara for being the one to get him his payback if he wasn't so disoriented. Sara cut his restraints.
The commander pushed herself up on an elbow and raised her head. Her hair had tumbled over to collect on one side, covering half her face. Her countenance was pale, one blue eye burning with hatred, and a red trickle of blood down her nose.
They heard the running footsteps of HIVE guards. Sara helped Oliver to his feet and then threw a small bomb. The room was enveloped with thick claustrophobic smoke, pressing around them from all four sides. Sara got his arm around her shoulders to guide him and they ran through it. The barrel of a rifle extended from the fog, a hand, a leg. They passed right by an agent and he did not see them at all. I should ask her to get me a few of these.
Outside, she removed his arm from her shoulders, he leaned on the wall. She tossed him a spare bow and quiver. The sounds around him were muted as if heard from underwater and beyond that as if in the distance, was an incessant high-pitched ringing that drove him mad. His ears were definitely damaged from the sonic device, but he was alive, and that mattered a lot more. Yet the exhaustion was settling into his joints, gravity's hands reaching to pull his knees down to the ground, his bow slipped out of his hand.
"Get up Oliver!" Sara yelled as she kicked down the door of the next room and killed two guards with throwing knives and rushed to Digg. "Get up!" Her mouth moved, but he couldn't hear her say it.
His hands were on the floor, as he experienced the worst splitting headache in his life. He had to power through it, he had too. For Thea, for Felicity, for everyone. He could feel the vibrations in the ground of a dozen pounding footsteps through his hands. They were coming.
One day I'll fulfill my promise to Commander Kane, I WILL burn them to ashes. Oliver grabbed his bow and reloaded, shooting at oncoming hostiles. He raised one leg and then another, and then ran into the room to help his best friend.
Diggle was in pretty bad shape. No doubt he looked like it too. Oliver could feel his eye swelling shut and the stinging cuts on his lip and cheekbones. John had a black eye, blood dribbling out of his mouth, and a limp. Sara and Oliver stood on either side of Digg and hauled him onto his feet. Sara handed John a gun and they helped one another navigate through.
At the end of the corridor they were met with more HIVE agents. Sara cleared the way for them, bo-staff spinning in arches, swatting left and right. Diggle shot at anyone who neared and Oliver covered them from behind.
"Clear. Let's go!" The two men had regained some of their strength, Diggle hobbled along and Oliver stayed at the tail of the group.
For a moment he thought they would get out unscathed, but it was fleeting. A group of soldiers cut them off in a windowed hallway. Oliver turned around and there were more, they were trapped like sheep, herded into a corner. Oliver fished out an explosion arrow. He would blow this damned place to kingdom come if he had too.
Before he could command them to get down, the windows blasted into a million pieces with flood lights and bullets. They dived down as glass was tossed onto them like confetti. ARGUS. Finally. He could cover his ears this time. The HIVE soldiers were either shot at or were tackled by the ARGUS operatives who zip-lined inside from giant military helicopters hovering above. With the cavalry finally here it was time to get out of there for real.
2009
Hong Kong
Maseo and Oliver flattened themselves in the moving back of the ARGUS van, with him still clutching onto the Alpha vial as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. ARGUS soldiers shut the flapping doors and he could finally relax knowing the danger had passed for now.
Even as he panted he could muster a wry remark, "Took you long enough".
The agent pushed himself up on his elbow and sat on the ledge that served as a seat in the truck, breathing out after running for their lives from the Triad.
"I did not anticipate the extra company, Oliver. Now stop floundering on the ground and hand the bioweapon to me."
"The—the bioweapon?!"
He shot up into seating position, his back straight as an arrow and stared with horrified eyes as wide at pennies at what exactly was in his hands, his mouth hanging open. The soldiers in the truck watching the scene unfold started laughing, and thus he'd managed to get his ass kicked and make a fool of himself in the span one night, heck in space of half an hour.
"It is not active. As long as that vial is not open" assured Maseo. Oliver threw a glare his way and handed it to him, with a look that practically screamed 'good riddance!' It nearly got me killed, damn it.
Maseo then handed it to one of ARGUS' men and he gave it to a scientist in a white lab coat. Lucky him- doesn't have to any of the dirty work but gets what he wants.
Oliver sat on the ledge across from Maseo and rested his bow and quiver on the seat beside him. He touched the nick his cheek had gotten from being kicked there. The blood had coagulated but the lesion stung when he brushed it. "Do you have any idea who the blue masked mercenary and the ninja assassin were?" He asked. ARGUS was allowed to share that with him at least, wasn't it?
The truck stopped and they had arrived at the ARGUS base. The same white-washed building masquerading as an apartment block that Maseo had taken him too what felt like a lifetime ago. The truck parked underground and the soldiers filed out, the bioweapon having been carefully placed in a metal containment box to be taken for analysis.
Maseo landed lightly on the cement of the carpark, Oliver hopping out after him with his bow and quiver.
"The mercenary is one of Nefario's enforcer's to whoever her successor is. As for the 'ninja-assassin'-well, we only have one term for them-League".
And he thought his adversaries on the island were complete nutjobs, he should've known it would never end there.
Oliver was skeptical. "What do you mean by 'League?'"
Maseo explained, but with his stern countenance having returned, he was not kidding around with him when it came to discussing whoever this 'League' person was.
"As in, 'the League of Assassins'. His attire indicated he was one of their operatives. I cannot be certain what their motives are for obtaining the bioweapon but it is safer in ours hands than any others".
Oliver corrected him, half because he wanted to be right for once and half because he was still ticked off about being kept in the dark. "'Her' attire actually. And yeah I agree, we don't want anyone who's called the 'League of Assassins' having a bioweapon". The world was much bigger than he realized when you have lunatics who call themselves that running around.
But he couldn't even be pissed at being assaulted by an assassin, because he was frustrated at something else. Oliver stabbed a finger at the bioweapon being carted off. "I would be dead of whatever deadly virus that thing is, if she had not told me not to shoot at the safe!"
Oliver still had faith that he would return home to Starling City— but he was close to done with these people, his patience and tolerance were an inch from rope's end with being treated like an unequal with the ARGUS agent.
His sarcasm was thick enough to cut through "thanks a lot, by the way, for telling me what it was I was getting for you guys. Really appreciate being kept in the loop."
"I was not permitted—"
He'd heard this excuse plenty of times before. "Like I give a damn what you're not allowed to do."
"You are upset Oliver, Nefario's man, the assassin, both was unprecedented. But you are also overreacting."
"Am I? I get it that Amanda needs me around for God knows what sick twisted plan she has hatching but I don't' care who she is or who she works for. And maybe we're not the best of friend's but-" Oliver hated being this honest with his handler but it was spewing out of his mouth at any rate "-at least give me a heads up once in a while, Maseo. I am still your responsibility and whether I comply or not, it will determine your family's fate, because hey-that's what Amanda ordered right?" He said with morbid cynicism.
It was a disgusting, sick command if you asked Oliver, but because of it he would never endanger Akio or Tatsu. Why Maseo wasn't doing something to get out of his occupation under the world's worst boss, was beyond his knowledge. Or any of his business.
"Amanda's got me as her runner boy on these missions? Fine, but if I'd known I would've told you. I would've stuck up for you. Can we at least work together like partners next time?" Because there was definitely going to be a next time.
Maseo absorbed his statement and complied, "I understand Oliver, and yes we can". They were walking within the weapons stash room by then. An agent that Maseo frequently met with strode by and Maseo stopped him.
"Kenzo. Does the lab have an analysis of the Alpha?"
The other agent was older than either of them and was ranked higher too judging from his uniform. Which meant Oliver was far, far, beneath him to even acknowledge. Kenzo scratched his forehead in a way that reminded Oliver of his father when he had a lot of his mind and another problem had added to the growing list.
"We have the Alpha, but for it to be complete, we need the Omega component. Each one is completely useless without its counterpart, but it is still a pressing concern".
Maseo thanked him and Kenzo continued on his way. Oliver could see the shared concern Maseo had and the disappointment. "Of course the Triad would never put their eggs in the same basket, how foolish of me."
"Hey, he did say it was completely useless" Oliver pointed out.
But the agent was quick to disagree.
"Doesn't mean it's not worthless."
2009
Unknown Location, China-Mongolian Border.
In a bunker hidden beneath ashen storm clouds and deep within the shoulder of a snow-capped mountain— a woman laid on a hospital bed in the bunkers medical ward. She was their only patient. The floors were white, surfaces and furnishings sterile and sleek. Hanging above her was a single lamp casting grey shadows in corners but illuminated her alone.
Watching ominously from the end of the bed was a man, standing vigil. He wore an orange and black mask and heavy tactical armour. A long katana was strapped on his back, its blade sharpened from hours of grinding against a whetstone until its tips shone bright and deadly in the light like molten silver. He watched over a woman he had once dreamed of killing. She was assuming a stranger's identity, but beneath the façade she had not changed.
And despite her betrayal, despite the pain she had made him suffer. He had saved her life from the gunshot wound to the chest. Not because he loved her, and not because he was a good person, but because he needed her.
Present Day
2014
Safe house, Corto Maltese
Somewhere beneath the blue and purple bruises, scars and swellings, was Oliver's face. Lyla had directed them to an ARGUS safe house in Corto to hang tight in for the night. Felicity was playing nurse to both Oliver and Diggle who had sustained injuries in the brief period of HIVE captivity. Lyla had been not been kidding when she said HIVE would not deal with them lightly. Merely glancing at the pair made her wince, and the puzzling stories they returned with made her go 'huh?'
Felicity had rummaged in the cupboard and found plentiful of med supplies, from first aid kits, to bags of saline and legs and arm braces. She would do what she could here but they would both need to get checked at a hospital with a proper doctor once they returned to Starling. There was no telling what internal injuries they might have and Felicity was certainly no medical professional, as she constantly had to remind them. Likely Oliver would make an excuse not to go.
"Where did Sara run off too?" Asked Diggle as he strapped the leg brace behind his knee. The HIVE interrogators probably tore a tendon when he refused to tell them the whereabouts of strategic ARGUS bases and where the ARGUS actual had disappeared off too.
"Where do you think?" Said Oliver, he had to shout a bit because he was still half-deaf. Felicity found it a little funny that they were all shouting at each other just so that Oliver could hear the conversation but then she was in that odd state of mind between relief and disbelief that they had gotten out of this bind with HIVE, alive. She examined his torso there were an angry purple bruises spread across it.
Diggle sighed exasperatedly; he was about as exhausted as he looked. "I think you have no idea where she is."
"Not a clue" he deadpanned-then hissed when she pressed it.
"Sorry, sorry. Yikes, that Kane woman really got you hard." Oliver had told them every detail of that piece of insanity.
"Sorry about this" he countered. Oliver started working his mouth left and right, he took a tissue and spat out a gob of blood. There was a tooth in it.
Felicity gagged, "Ewwww."
He looked at her apologetically, "Sorry."
She swallowed the urge to puke and waved it off. "I've seen a cow give birth, so this isn't so bad." It wasn't the most suitable comparison but it was the only one that came to mind, thankfully her stomach had accommodated since. "Damn that looks like it really hurts." She remarked as he put the tissue on the table. Scratch that, he needs a dentist not a hospital. Felicity rummaged in the first aid kit for a tincture to rub on the stomach bruises.
"Thea can't—ahh" he flinched as she started applying the cold cream, abs tensing then relaxing. "Thea can't see me like this. I have to tell her everything, if it makes her come with me. She's not safe in Corto Maltese, not with HIVE and Kane lurking around."
Oliver Queen aka the Arrow; the man who thinks he can be in a dozen places at once. "One step at a time, Oliver. You'll have to make something up since these bruises aren't going to heal overnight and neither will that tooth grow." Finishing the application of the tincture, she un-wrapped a cold compress.
"So this Kane woman, was she strong? Well-built?"
He shook his head, "No, not at all, that was what was so peculiar. She had a slender frame and plenty of guards, so I didn't think she would do any of the muscle work herself. Which made it all seem more perverse. My mistake for assuming she was your stereotypical businesswoman".
Oliver brushed his index on the scar he had earned beside his eyebrow, one of the many he had. "She definitely knew how to throw a punch. But it wasn't just that, when she hit me it felt like I was being punched by a concrete wall, over and over again."
Felicity ceased her movements, her ears perking at his comment. She glanced at Digg and back at Oliver. "Why do I feel like we've used that simile to describe someone else before?"
Diggle nodded, "Yeah, Cyrus Gold. Slade Wilson…everyone who's ever had to take a beating from a person on a mirakurun rampage. They know what it feels like."
"You don't think—?" Felicity looked between them and shook her head, "No. It's not possible, how the hell did she get her hands on mirakuru? We destroyed the last of it."
But Oliver was already several paces ahead of them; "Cyrus Gold was still alive. The League assassin, Artemis, she was after him for some reason and I think it was to take a sample of his blood. She could've easily re-synthesized the drug and sold it on the black market until it fell right into Kane's hands."
Artemis aka Little Miss Assassin; another pain in our asses. "I'll never understand the League and its motivations", said Felicity, "the only person who could really tell us anything is Sara and she's not here".
"She saved us" said John; and he was grateful. They all were. If it hadn't been for her skills and sonic device they would've all ended up in worse shape or otherwise.
"Yeah. It felt like old times" said Oliver, not satisfied with how their conversation in the Foundry a month ago had ended; with Sara storming off and declaring herself a League assassin through and through. But she had helped them, which meant their friendship still existed.
Felicity changed the subject, "So Kane injected herself with mirakuru? Why would anyone do that to themselves?"
"If you met her you would know—"
"That she's a crazy bitch?" Felicity cut in sharply. "Yeah I was kind of getting that vibe already." Suddenly she liked Amanda Waller a hundred times more.
"The drug drives you insane; maybe she wasn't aware of the side-effects" said John.
"Insane, evil and power-hungry are not a good mix." If history had taught them anything, the world absolutely did not need any more dictators who would do better off in an asylum, for everyone's sakes.
"I still don't understand why she demanded to know where you were keeping Slade Wilson" asked Digg.
"Neither do I. But I'm certain she was the one who bombed the restaurant Felicity and I were in. She's trying to finish what Slade started."
"Stellmoor International—the company Isbael Rochev used to buy QC last year might have been a subsidiary of HIVE. Wilson came to Starling as a philanthropic millionaire right? HIVE could have been funding him and hiding his assets, which explains why Felicity could not pin them down. Kane could have given Slade the elements he needed in his revenge plot against you".
"To take away everything I hold dear" said Oliver, "my city, my company…my mother." Felicity peeked beneath her lashes at him because they both knew that list was incomplete. Even beneath the uneven swollen plains of his face she knew there was a pain in his eyes that was not caused by physical reasons, it gave her a random urge to call her own mother once they were in Starling again. Oliver saw that she had noticed and he took sudden interest in his broken tooth.
The computer bleeped, Felicity got out of her chair and went to it, "Well, now that we've established the connection between Kane and Wilson, everything that's happened in the past few months has become so much clearer".
"I don't know" Oliver shrugged, "there's still something off about Kane, other than having mirakuru in her system. It's known to cause hallucinations". Slade saw Shado, what does Kane see standing behind her when she looks in the mirror?
When the Canary had struck the HIVE Commander she had bled, Felicity collected the blood on Sara's bo-staff before she left. She opened the transmission from the agency and announced, "ARGUS confirms the blood sample belongs to a deceased Elise Nefario aka Commander Kane."
The tech opened an old picture of her. The one Oliver had seen before he went to assassinate her. There were a few differences; she used to be a brunette with dark eyes, now she was blonde. Felicity leaned in closer to the screen, "looks like she did come back from the grave. She has really nice skin for a zombie."
"But you say you killed her six years ago?" Diggle asked to confirm it, because it was still not conceivable to him or Felicity.
"I shot her through the heart, though at the time she was Elise Nefario not Kane. I never saw her again until today. She must have survived and changed her identity."
"Always possible" Felicity agreed. "The world thought she was dead for the past six years. At least now we know what one of the HIVE leaders looks like. Judging from the timeline, she could have been part of them for at least a decade now."
Oliver stared at Nefario's image. As a brunette she looked warm, like she could never hurt a fly—but him and his broken teeth knew better. A troubling thought was beginning to sink in for Oliver, sitting like a stone in his stomach, a theory he did not wish to express to his teammates, but maybe they were already thinking it too.
They knew how he always blamed himself for every mishap and wrong turn that befell them; but this one—this one in particular could haunt him for years to come;
ARGUS had given him a task, to assassinate Nefario. In the moment, on that rooftop with Maseo beside him; when he rested his fingers on the trigger and stared down the scope, he had not wanted to be the one to take Elise's life. From the get go he had been against it, but circumstances forced him to be there and execute the task given to him by Waller. Elise was a mother and he was going to orphan her son—well, if she had truly had one at all, that record could have been falsified.
Nevertheless, just perhaps, even as he slowed his breathing and switched off the part of his brain that would sympathize for Nefario—he had hesitated. Just a little, but it was enough.
And thus that hesitation led to failure. And that failure had allowed her to survive and commit countless atrocities to the citizens of the world with her organization; expand it further too, gain more allies and leaders, making it that much more incredibly complicated and challenging to dismantle in the present. Slade, the Siege, Andy's assassination, even the possible civil war in Corto Maltese is all connected to HIVE in one way or another.
Because of him, HIVE still existed.
"She could've ordered Andy's assassination" said Digg as if he was slowly realizing how it all pieced together in Oliver's head. "If only I could sit her down and ask her myself. She's probably not even in Corto anymore."
Oliver swallowed that sickening ball of guilt and stared at John. "We'll get them Digg. All of them. This is the only the beginning."
Felicity scrolled through more old photographs of Elise Nefario aka Commander Kane, nodding approvingly with each passing image. She wolf-whistled "I've got to hand it to the psycho-bitch; she definitely knows how to dress, and apparently stare death right in the face and tell it to F-off."
Corto Maltese had great weather, great, fun people, and beautiful scenery, it was a gem when tropical islands were concerned even with the civil unrest. She was walking back late at night after a bonfire party on the beach, remembering all the things she loved about Corto.
Thea liked joking in Spanish with the locals at the café she worked at, exploring the town square; listening to old men and women talk about their youth in the numerous conflicts their country had suffered; beach parties that were held every night on the sand dunes.
She liked breathing in the fresh air without the smell of car exhaust and the garbage that Starling City had. She liked the silence at midnight where you could only hear the crickets in the garden, the birds singing as they soared across an azure blue sky at dawn. No annoying horns or sirens or the chatter of large crowds.
But she would especially miss the anonymity of being called Mia and not Thea Queen or Thea Merlyn.
She would miss it all when she left.
If she left. Thea was still thinking it over. Oliver, Roy, Starling was she ready to face it all again?
She was less than a block from the Mansion when she knew she was being followed.
Thea stopped in her tracks. The neighborhood was considered safe due to the many expats and rich foreigners who holidayed on Corto. But as Malcolm taught her, she should never overestimate the security of a home, nothing was impenetrable, and nowhere was truly safe. She called her father.
"I think I'm being followed" she said without a hello. He didn't believe in unnecessary niceties anyway, besides, this was urgent.
"How many?" He said calmly but decisively to the point.
Thea glanced around; there was nothing but large homes and perfect gardens everywhere she looked, there was even a BBQ party going in one of them from the laughter and smell of grilled meat that drifted into the air. But she knew something was wrong, Malcolm's training had not gone to waste after all. "I don't know, it's just a gut feeling, and you told me to trust my instincts."
"Where are you now?"
She took a step forward. "On my way home."
"No" he ordered a little too harshly for her comfort and she stopped again, panic rising in her chest. "Don't draw them here. Turn around and walk back to where you came from. Listen to me very carefully Thea."