++++++ There's a surprise at the end of the chapter for you.
I hope you enjoy.
I do not own ++++++
Forty-Three
"Aren't we a bunch of sore losers?" Laurel muttered as she sat on the couch in Queen Manor still covered in dirt and dust from the attack on the lair. We'd told everyone that we would meet them here to get away from the cops and emergency services that were coming towards the lair.
"Speak for yourself," Tessa laughed.
"Thank god none of you were hurt," Felicity huffed as she sat on the couch. "Had you been inside when the explosives went off you'd all be dead."
The three of us looked at each other and nodded. On the way over, Laurel and I had agreed not to say anything to each other about Tessa and what she had done. Magic indeed. I'd explained it to Laure as best I could but she just fussed over the magician to see if she was okay.
"Yeah," Laurel sighed. "Not wrong."
"None of you would have been there if you'd just listened to me!" Oliver argued. "I told you training Laurel would be a bad idea. The loss of the lair we can handle, but losing any of you isn't acceptable."
"Look who I picked up on the way here," Diggle announced, standing beside Charlie.
I jumped up and crossed over to hug her. "Thank goodness you're okay!" I gasped.
"Gee I'm fine thanks River," Diggle deadpanned.
It was at that point that I noticed he had a large gash in his head and Roy wasn't with him. "Diggle-where's my husband?" I asked.
"I found Diggle cornered by some Mirakuru soldier," Charlie confessed. "Well I thought it was a Mirakuru soldier-it was Roy."
"He's been weird and jumpy the past couple days," Diggle confessed, slumping down as Laurel jumped up to check his head wound. "We all decided to keep you out of it River because Roy could hurt the baby if you went after him. Charlie chased him off. I did manage to get a tracker in his pocket before they got him though."
The whole time I sat there, my eye was twitching. Tessa put her hand on my shoulder and kept it there to make me grounded.
"And it's useless now that the lair has been destroyed," Laure sighed.
Felicity paused. "Um-well not entirely. We um-we have a backup. After what happened to the Watchtower we found somewhere for a new lair in cause the arrowcave got attacked." She looked at me and cleared her throat. "It's a combination of both our spaces, actually. Bruce helped design it. I used your shell company to by an old gym. They had a bomb shelter underneath-it was supposed to be a surprise. All we have to do is boot the computers up and we can find Roy in-say-forty-five minutes."
"I've got some Ketamine in some arrows ready to go," Oliver assure me.
I stood up, glaring at him. "You should have told me. I appreciate the concern but you should have told me." I whistled and Midnight came running out. "Come one girl, you and I are going to track daddy down."
"River," Oliver objected.
"Bite me," I snapped.
Oliver groaned and followed me outside. "River! This is serious! We didn't tell you because if you and Roy ended up in a fight and you lost the baby can you imagine what that would have done to him? And to you?"
I sighed. "Okay. I can see why you kept it from me. But honestly-you could have told me and used the same argument."
"You two better get back in here," Felicity shouted. "Suki's back!"
Oliver and I looked at each other and rushed back inside where Suki was pouring herself a glass of whisky. "What happened?" Oliver asked. "You've been gone a few days."
"Meetings with Amanda Waller happen on her time," Suki answered. "But ARGUS are aware of the situation. They won't help."
"So what then?" I asked. "Is it just us? We have six days left, my husband's gone crazy and who knows how many Mirakuru enhanced soldiers Slade has. Seven versus the world."
"Well look what I have," Charlie grinned. She dug around in her backpack and pulled out a cooler bag. Inside that cooler bag was roughly fifty small vials of clear liquid. "These can be fitted to arrowheads and dart guns. Cisco was in awe that you needed his help," she told Oliver. "They work. So once we find Roy-stick him with one of these and Doctor Snow is sure it will cure him."
"I'm not done yet," Suki announced. She shifted a little. "Amanda told me that if we can't halt Slade's army, there's drones ready to launch. She'll destroy the city. I told her I quit."
"This is bad," Charlie frowned. "I say we go and look for Slade. We don't wait six days for him to come to us. We go to him."
"Tessa," Felicity spoke uneasily to the girl. "Can you do what you did the other day to find Oliver?" she asked her. "The blood thing?"
"What blood thing?" Oliver asked.
Tessa shook her head. "No-I can't. The blood needs to be recent-within a month or two recent. Do you think that anywhere would have some of Slade's or Isabel's blood from during that time frame?"
"What blood thing?" Oliver asked again.
Felicity sighed. "Tessa used your blood to find you after you were kidnapped," she explained as the girl's phone started ringing. She stepped out to take it with a smile on her face. "It was like magic or something."
"Magic?" Oliver asked her.
Laurel and I looked at each other. She shifted and cleared her throat. "We weren't outside when the lair blew up," Laurel confessed. "We were inside. Tessa shielded us. The bomb blew up at her feet but it didn't harm her."
"She's a friend of John Constantine," Suki informed him. "Remember John?"
Oliver sighed. "Great. Just great. Slade we at least understand but bringing magic into this is when it becomes different."
Tessa came back in looking a little pale. She cleared her throat. "I-um-I have to go. Okay? We'll-we'll talk later." She didn't wait for an answer before she grabbed her bag and headed out the front door.
"So let's go to the secondary lair and sort this shit out," I suggested, not worrying about Tessa at the moment. "I want to find my husband."
No one really paid us any attention when the six of us got to the run down building called Gary's Gym and Boxing Ring. The place was boarded up but we managed to get in via the back door. Dust covered every surface on the inside, there were cob webs on just about anything and I'm pretty sure I saw a rat. There was a kitchen in the back of the gym that showed considerable foot traffic mostly leading to an old double door fridge
Felicity opened the doors, inside there was a set of stairs leading down. Everything was clean in here, the stairs were lined by LED lights on the floor and more every few feet on the roof. The stairs went on for about fifty meters until we hit solid ground.
"Oh my god we have a batcave!" Charlie squealed in excitement.
There were white reflectors installed in an organized way throughout the bunker, along with several glass panels containing equipment and arrows. Various storage containers containing various material were double all across the floor. There was a semicircle of computers where any of us could sit and watch the monitors and also watch the mats set out in front of it watching us train. Oliver's bow sat on a specific glass case beside a case holding a mannequin with the Arrow suit. Next there was a case for Felicity's Katana that sat beside a case holding a mannequin with Cypher's suit inside. This was followed by a case holding a mannequin with the Black Canary suit and her staff inside. My suit was next to Sara's. A case held my sias blades as well as my boe staff sat beside that. A small square case sat next to my suit with a watch in it. I never noticed but it was similar to the watch that Charlie was wearing. There were two more empty cases-I'm guessing that these were for Roy and Suki. A series of cots were lined up against the other wall and right at the end where the last cot was sat a change table and a bassinet for a baby as well as a dog's bed for Midnight.
"Welcome to Arrowcave 2.0," Felicity grinned.
