! Warning: This story may contain adult themes, such as nudity, sexual content, torture, mass murder etc. Reader discretion is highly advised. !
Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or the CW TV shows Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl or any other characters or elements pertaining to the mentioned franchises.
Mercy was in a remote area, restrained to a chair as Barry, in his Flash suit, looked at Slade in his Deathstroke suit, who was sharpening his sword, unsure before dragging Oliver, in his Green Arrow suit, aside.
"I get that this is 'desperate times, desperate measures' but isn't torture a bit too far?" Barry asked, clearly uncomfortable with what they were about to do.
"They've already crossed a line. Kidnapping and torturing and illegal experimentation on American citizens with no due trial." Oliver pointed out.
"Tell us what you know about Lex's operation." Slade growled as he approached Mercy.
"Fuck you." Mercy sneered.
"Wrong answer." Slade said, pulling out pliers as he grabbed Mercy's nail on her finger.
Mercy felt the painful pressure before Slade forcefully pulled out her nail as the roots were ripping out and Mercy screamed in pain as her finger was starting to be painted in blood before she clenched her teeth. "I've done nothing wrong and you're torturing me." She taunted with vindication in her tone.
Hearing the self-righteousness in Mercy's tone, something in Barry snapped as he whirled on her, glaring. "You kidnapped and tortured my friend. Made him tell you who we are, when we did nothing wrong."
"Nothing wrong?" Mercy laughed. "If I recall, you tried to hurt a cop, your colleague and your foster sister four years ago." She gloated and Barry winced but kept himself in control, trying not to let Mercy get to her. "Also, if I recall, your metahuman friend… Snow, was that her name? She kidnapped your colleague too and you yourself knocked him out."
"That's all different. We were both under influence of something else. Another metahuman whammied me and Caitlin wasn't in control of her actions." Barry justified.
"You see, that is what I am talking about. Metahumans can't be trusted with their powers, they need to be kept in check." Mercy sneered.
"That doesn't give you the right to kidnap metahumans, innocent or guilty, and experiment on them—"
"None of who we have taken were innocent, Mr. Allen." Mercy taunted. "Besides, we have the green light from the White House to take in any potentially dangerous metahuman."
"Where did you take them?" Barry demanded. "One of my best friends, a good person, is missing and she might be suffering pain that she doesn't deserve to go through."
"You mean 'Killer Frost'?" Mercy laughed. "If I recall, she isn't exactly… in her right mind. She is too unstable to be left unchecked—"
Something in Barry snapped as he grabbed Mercy's hand and vibrated his own, shattering the bones as Mercy screamed.
"Hey!" Oliver dragged Barry aside. "What are you doing?"
"Exactly what you would have done." Barry retorted. "Getting information—"
"It is one thing to torture to get information in order to find out what you need, it is completely another to torture just for the sake of torturing, to make someone suffer." Oliver said and Barry glowered.
"She tortured Julian and who knows what are they doing to Caitlin, Dinah and Laurel—"
"Barry, I get how are you feeling, believe me, I do but listen…" Oliver trailed off and the look in his eyes made Barry stop and listen. "Once you go this deep into the darkness… it stays with you forever." He took a breath as Barry could see him reliving the pain and guilt. "Almost nine years ago, a man unleashed a deadly bio-virus in Hong Kong. And many innocent people died, including a son of a friend of mine. I wanted that man to pay for what he did, so I tortured him for hours. Not for intel but for the sake of torturing him… because I wanted to see him suffer. But in the end… I only found out that I had let in the darkness that might never go away."
Barry paled at listening to Oliver's story, now understanding. "You've never told me that."
"I never told that to anyone. Only few people know about it." Oliver admitted before looking at Barry pleadingly, holding him by his shoulder. "Barry, listen to me very carefully. It is one thing to torture people in order to get from them what you need and another to make them suffer and there is a fine line between these two things. Just don't forget who you are and don't let it take away your humanity. Because in the end, you'll only find yourself turning into someone you don't even recognize anymore… and you of all people shouldn't have to go through that."
Barry considered what Oliver said before nodding in understanding as he remembered seeing Oliver torture Klaus Marcos, when they chased Digger Harkness three years ago.
"You must know that what you're doing is wrong." Barry pleaded with Mercy. "We don't want to hurt you but we will, if that's what it takes to find out what we want."
"The self-righteousness in your tone." Mercy laughed. "You still think you're on the right side, do you, Mr. Allen?"
"What are you planning to do with the metahumans you catch? Cure them? But before that, you experiment on those, you deem as evil, do you?" Barry scoffed. "You're no better than Nazis were in World War II. No trial, just right to the punishment you see fit—"
"The way I see it, they've already had their trial." Mercy sneered. "Mark Mardon, tried to tear down a whole city with a storm. Adam Fells created an earthquake that hurt dozens of innocents. And you… you may dress like a hero but how many times will the Flash go rogue and the public renounces him, only for the Flash to redeem his good name, until one day, the public casts you aside and brands you as an outlaw again? It has happened once, if I recall, hasn't it? Who's to say that it won't happen again?"
"Where are they?" Barry demanded.
"And where is my son?" Slade asked, running out of patience slowly as he was reaching for his sword as Mercy paled, while Barry neared her slowly.
"Normally, I'm against torture but you already have tortured two of my friends. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to save them. I'm giving you a chance to tell us everything and spare yourself a lot of pain." Barry said.
"The Flash? Torturing?" Mercy laughed. "You don't have the guts to do that." She taunted. "You'd be…"
"…an outlaw?" Barry scoffed. "Half the country already believes that I'm an outlaw. Might as well live as I have been branded. Last chance, Miss Graves." Mercy paled, sweat covering her face but remained silent before Barry stepped back, his expression unchanging the whole time. "Fine. Have it your way."
Mercy paled at Barry's blank cold stare before he left the apartment and Slade neared the tip of his sword to Mercy's shoulder as Mercy hissed upon feeling the metal piercing into her skin.
"Torture?" Cisco demanded as he was with Barry outside, hearing Mercy's screams as he felt uncomfortable. "Isn't this a little too—"
"I know." Barry nodded. "But look at what they did to Julian and what they might be doing to Caitlin, Dinah and Laurel and God knows who else."
Cisco considered Barry's point before remembering Snart torturing Cisco's brother Dante over the information about the Flash's secret identity. "I… I don't like it… I understand… but I don't like this, not one bit, Barry." He said uncomfortably.
Central City
"You think Dad and Slade and everyone else is going to be OK, Felicity?" William asked as he and Felicity were watching TV in her rented apartment about the news of potential metahuman threat.
"I can only hope, William. But if there's one thing I know is that Barry and Oliver will always find a way." Felicity said hopefully.
Elsewhere
Mercy stopped screaming, when Slade pulled his sword away from her bleeding arm, while she was slowly paling from the blood loss. "I take great caution in not cutting any artery. I can make you bleed for days until you tell us everything we need to know. Where's my son and where is Luthor's operation?" He asked but Mercy remained silent. "How much more pain you can endure before you break?"
"You'll only be making yourselves outlaws. All of you." Mercy said.
"Last chance. Where are they?" Slade demanded.
After a moment, Mercy sighed, not being able to take it anymore. "Alright… the flash drive in my purse." She turned to the purse on a drawer as Barry pulled a flash drive from it. "It's a facility called Sector 33.1. That's where we keep all metahumans we track down. We want to test their powers and then—"
Suddenly, they heard rotor blades as a chopper neared their location as Mercy laughed.
"They found us." Oliver realized.
"How?" Barry demanded.
"Doesn't matter, we need to get out of here." Cisco tried to open a breach but nothing happened, while Barry tried to speed everyone out of the building but, much to his shock, his powers weren't working either.
"What the—"
"They're blocking our powers somehow." Cisco realized as soldiers burst in, surrounding them.
"Stand down and drop your weapons, now!"
Everyone raised their hands as the soldiers looked a bit in shock at Mercy's injuries.
"Oh, God… they tortured Miss Graves…"
"You're all coming with us." The soldiers ordered.
Slade reached for his belt and threw a pellet on the ground as it exploded as the soldiers coughed out and Oliver, Barry, Cisco and Slade used the smoke to conceal their escape.
"Somehow they managed to block our powers." Barry realized as they were running down the forest before he was finally able to speed them away.
"How did they even find us? I thought we got rid of Mercy's tracker." Oliver said.
"I don't know." Slade admitted.
"Doesn't matter. We need to get out of here and find out what this 33.1 is." Oliver said, when more soldiers converged on them.
Cisco tried to open a breach but nothing happened. Barry tried to speed everyone off to safety but he was running in normal speed and running out of patience, Oliver shot two of the soldiers down, while Slade lunged at one of the soldiers, stabbing him in the chest before pulling out his gun and shooting another one in the head. Slade spun around, cutting a hand off another one and kicking him in the chest, knocking him down. Another soldier tried to shoot Slade but the bullets just bounced off his armor as Slade rushed at him and decapitated him. Barry and Cisco groaned at seeing Slade's brutality and a dreadful memory from S.T.A.R. Labs resurfaced, when Slade was trying to kill Cisco and Caitlin.
"Can't believe he's on our side now." Cisco muttered.
Dinah opened her eyes weakly and felt like if someone had just dragged her down the pavement like a bag full of garbage as she felt pain surge through every inch of her body, like if she was on fire.
"Must hurt, does it?" Dinah weakly looked up to see a man around 40 years old in front of her. "All that pain…"
"Vinnie…" Dinah murmured weakly.
"Do you even realize how much have you betrayed what we stood for? How many people did you kill to avenge me?" Vince asked.
"After… what they did to us…" Dinah whispered. "I… I just wanted to make things right."
"I never asked you to go on slaughter. You betrayed everything the badge stands for. And you are not worthy of becoming the Black Canary. She was kind, compassionate and you have shown none of those qualities for four years. Once you got your powers, you used me to justify your killing spree. And despite what you and Oliver Queen may be telling yourselves, you're not a hero. And you never will be. Metahumans like you and Black Siren are nothing but monsters. And if this is hell… I hope you burn in it forever. The woman I loved, died four years ago."
"Vinnie, please—"
"You're a killer… killer… killer…"
Dinah sobbed, wanting for the pain to stop.
Team Flash's secondary lair
"OK, we need to get out of here and get somewhere safe." Cisco opened a breach as they entered some kind of an underground compound that was similar to the lair of Team Arrow in Star City, with computers around and the Flash's suit on a mannequin and a makeshift lab.
"Where are we, Ramon?" Slade demanded.
"This is underground of S.T.A.R. Labs hangar outside the city. It's not on any blueprints, so they shouldn't be able to find us. We built this in case someone would attack the first lair." Cisco explained.
"Thank God you're OK." Patty hugged Barry tightly.
"You had the right idea. Few hours ago, some militants raided S.T.A.R. Labs and tried to seize everything. The Time Vault is not on any blueprints though, so they won't find it." Harry said as he showed the video feed of soldiers invading S.T.A.R. Labs and going over computers and labs.
"Hey, that took a month to build!" Cisco snapped as he saw one of the soldiers smashed one of Cisco's inventions.
"They can't track us here, can they?" Barry asked.
"I had Gideon rig the place with a virus, in case someone from the outside tried to compromise S.T.A.R. Labs. They've got nothing useful on the computers and they won't find this place. And I moved Gideon from S.T.A.R. Labs here, too." Harry assured.
"We got this from Mercy." Barry pulled out a flash drive as Harry examined it. "It may be able to give us clue about where Caitlin and Laurel are."
"And if we're lucky, we just got the silver bullet we need to take down Luthor." Harry smirked.
"We're gonna need a backup. And a very big one. Even with Deathstroke, it won't be enough." Barry said, when right on cue the door opened.
"Heard that you need help." Sara entered with Ray, Mick, Stein, Jax, Nate, Zari and Amaya.
Suddenly, a breach opened and they all gasped at seeing a Hispanic elder man with a moustache and black leather jacket and biker outfit.
"Cisky! Where's my daughter?!" Breacher demanded.
Elsewhere
"So, Allen and Queen are trying to play leverages, huh?" Lex smirked. "Fine. He used one of mine as a leverage, I'll use one of his."
Central City
Felicity and William were on the couch, asleep as William was leaning onto her shoulder, while from the outside on the wall were rappelling down soldiers with guns, with Kane in charge.
So, what do you guys think?
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