Now you understand why I consider myself dead? After that day everything changed for me, my life had been thrown into a living hell.
Maximus went back to the palace to a waiting Rapunzel who was desperately waiting on news on what happened to me. But when he showed up empty handed with his head hung low she knew it was bad. She thought I had died and started weeping in her fathers arms. She was right in a way about me being dead, just not the type of dead she believed I was.
After floating in the ocean unconscious for who knows how long I finally washed up onto a deserted island. Well it wasn't completely deserted, there was one other guy there, the guy who found me and dragged me into a cave.
I woke up several hours later to find my head was resting on a rock, I looked and saw a blonde guy with shoulder length hair and a scraggly beard cooking meat on a fire, the meat was dangling from a stick.
"Where am I?" I asked confused looking around the cave. It was dark with the only light coming from the entrance of the cave.
"On a island that the sailors who pass by call Purgatory. Because it is right in the middle of heaven and hell on earth." The guy said. It was then that I noticed that the arrow that I got shot with was still inside me. The strange man knew that two, and he got up and walked to me and grabbed the arrow.
"Just to warn you." He said "This is going to be extremely painful."
He couldn't of been more right. As soon as he started pulling the arrow out it felt like I was being mauled on the inside, it was painful as hell. I didn't even have time to scream for long before I passed out again from the extreme pain.
I woke up again a few minutes later to see that the guy was holding a bowl on front of me with some strange liquid that I assume was medicine.
"Drink" The guy said. "It will make you feel better."
"Thanks." I said grabbing the bowl. "What is it."
"Medicine to heel you." He said "I was able to stop the bleeding after you passed out but if you ever want to use that arm again and get better soon then you better drink that up."
I did what he said and drank right up. It tasted like shit but I didn't care, the faster I got to feeling better the better.
"Thank you sir. For everything." I said "Who are you anyway?"
"Names Ollie Amell." The guy said. "Question is, who are you?"
"Eugene Fitzherbert." I said. "From the kingdom of Corona and husband of Princess Rapunzel."
"And what caused a man of royalty like you to wash up to my island with a arrow in your shoulder?" Ollie asked
"Me and Rapunzel both got attacked by a group of terrorist that call themselves the Wolf pack I was able to get Rapunzel to safety but sadly I wasn't so lucky."
"Wolf pack?" Ollie asked "Did you say the Wolf pack?"
I didn't even get the chance to answer before he just got up and walked out of the cave leaving me there laying in the grass mattress that he made for me to lay on.
"Hey wait where are you going?" I asked as he walked outside the cave. I tried to get up and follow him but as soon as I tried to stand up extreme pain raced threw my body causing me to immediately fall back to the ground.
"Shit!?" I screamed collapsing back onto the grass and grabbing my shoulder that the arrow had been in. Looks like I was going to be stuck here until the medicine kicked in.
After a couple of hours of laying there in the grass alone the medicine finally healed me to the point that I could stand up on my own. I immediately walked out of the cave to find out just where the hell Ollie had ran off too. I walked to a wooded area to find a grassy path that looked like it had been walked through and decided to head that way.
"Ollie!" I cried out hoping for a response, I didn't get one. Nevertheless, I kept searching for him.
After walking down that path for a little ways I finally stumbled upon what looked like a shed. No it wasn't a shed, it was more like a wooden trailer. Now why is there a trailer in the middle of a deserted island?
Curiosity consuming me I entered the trailer. Just like the cave the only light that was in the trailer was from the sun shining from the windows and door. However unlike the cave this trailer was cluttered with newspaper clippings on the walls. Now why would Ollie have saved old newspaper articles? As I went in for a closer look, something caught my eye about these articles. They all had a connection. A lot of them were about a old vigilante that use to roam the kingdom called the hood. I don't remember much about that vigilante except that he was a problem when I was a kid. He wore a green hood and used a bow as a weapon to take down a lot of crime around the kingdom. I always considered him a guardian angle but the law always considered him a criminal. Then there was another article that really caught my eye. It was about the Wolf pack, the terrorist group that nearly killed me, no doubt now that Ollie indeed had at least heard about these guys. There was another article right next to it that said that The Hood's partner in crime had been killed in apparent confrontation with the wolf pack And the Hood had disappeared after the indecent. So that's what happened to the Hood, he must have been overbearing by grief from losing his partner that he quit vigilante work and went into hiding. Could Ollie be the Hooded vigilante? I had to find out, I had to know more. I walked into another room inside the trailer and then I saw it, Inside a glass case in the far side of the room was the green hood. The same hood that was in the pictures of the vigilante. In another glass case was a bow with several green arrows next to it. No question about it now. Ollie was the vigilante.
"You really shouldn't be back here." I heard Ollie say, startling me.
"I'm sorry." I said. "After you didn't show back up after a couple of hours I came looking for you and stumbled upon this. Your the vigilante are you. The one that use to roam Corona, you used to take down a lot of really bad people."
"I was the vigilante." Ollie said in a sad tone. "But that was a long time ago."
"I also know that you went after the Wolf pack and it got your partner killed. Is that why you disappeared? Over grief?"
"I loved that boy Eugene. He was like a son to me. It was my fault that he got killed because he begged me to take him in. That Wolf pack was unlike any crime organization I had ever fought. They are strong in numbers and feed off of peoples fear. Their only purpose in life is to cause mayhem."
"So naturally you quite after they kill your partner." I said
"He was just a boy Eugene." Ollie said "Barley eighteen."
"Well because of that they are still out there. And by the looks of it they are planning something bad otherwise they wouldn't have attacked me or Rapunzel. If you are not going to go back out there then train me, let me go back out there and finish what you started."
"That is out of the question." Ollie said "I am not going to let anybody else die because of me."
That is when I sort of lost my cool. I grabbed Ollie by the collar and slammed him against the wall and stared him straight in the eye.
"Listen here you washed up former vigilante. If what you said about the Wolf pack is true then they are not going to stop until the whole kingdom burns. Now maybe you are to grief stricken to care anymore but I'm not. Those guys nearly killed me and my wife and I'm not going to sit around and let them take anymore lives. You said you don't want anyone else to die because of you but if someone doesn't go out there then a hell of a lot more people are going to die!"
I then released him and walked back outside to get some air. It was upsetting that this guy just walked out and quite after one bad encounter. And he was so willing to let them destroy the kingdom instead of getting out there and finishing what he started.
It was getting dark when I looked up out into the distance and saw lanterns floating in the sky. I knew why those lanterns were floating in the distance. Rapunzel thinks I am dead, and the kingdom released those lanterns in my memory.
"The kingdom thinks I'm dead." I said when Ollie walked up to where I was standing.
"Maybe it's for the best." Ollie said
"What do you mean?" I asked
"If your going to go after the Wolf pack, then being dead could work in your advantage." Ollie said
"Your going to let me go after them?" I asked, kind of surprised at his change of heart.
"Your right Eugene, the Wolf pack is dangerous and needs to be taken down as soon as possible. It's time I come out of retirement and it's time for you to step up and fight for your kingdom. I will train you in the skills of the bow. Your training starts tomorrow."
The next two weeks must have been the roughest two weeks of my life, I was up each morning before dawn shooting at targets that was barely in eye distance. I was also taught martial arts and how to make myself invisible to the enemy. I was taught that camouflage was one of the most important skills of any hero, and that if the enemy couldn't see me, they couldn't expect me. I had to hunt for my own food, not only to survive the two weeks on the island but also to learn how to hit a moving target. By the end of the two weeks I was faster, stronger and more skilled with a bow then what I had ever been before. I was ready to dawn the title of the vigilante.
Ollie led me back to the trailer and led me to a separate room that I hadn't explored yet. Inside waiting for me in a glass case was a black leather hood and mask.
"Black, the color of night." Ollie said "It will help you camouflage int the night and make it harder for them to spot you."
I was also given my own bow and a multitude of black arrows, including trick arrows that included grappling hook arrows, explosive arrows and a zip line arrow to swing through buildings. As the finishing touch I also had a utility belt that had smoke grenades packed in them. The smoke grenades would help me blind the enemy so I could sneak up to them without them seeing me coming.
Two weeks ago a arrow nearly killed me, now it will be used for me to track my enemies down and bring them to justice. To take them down though I can no longer be Eugene Fitzherbert. I had to let him go, I will have to become the vigilante I have to become someone else I have to be something else.
Well Eugene has now donned a new identity and has became a masked vigilante. Oh and f you see a lot of similarities between this story and the show Arrow. I actually got the idea of this watching Arrow so I will be borrowing references to that show a lot in this story. Anyway please leave a review and hopefully I will see you back next chapter.