The Glades 7.25am
Roy was free running across buildings he hadn't encountered any crimes since the Merlyn Towers incident from 2 months ago which caused most of his team to leave other than Felicity. He had done the usual since then gone after the rich and corrupt exposed evidence of their illegal endeavors, give it to Lance and that's how most days are. Every now and again he went after a gang or something. Just as he was reflecting Felicity spoke over his communicator.
"Roy there was a 911 call on Lemire drive near the high school." Felicity told him.
"Sure I'm just near there." Roy said as he turned towards the school.
Once he got to Lemire drive he found a bald, black man wearing a lab coat and glasses being beaten up by two thugs in an alley.
"Give it to us now!" The first thug shouted, he was clearly high as well as the other.
"Leave me alone!" the man said.
"I don't believe it," Roy said while examining the scene.
"What?" Felicity asked.
"That's my old science teacher." Roy said while readying his crossbow which he got from Cisco, he objected to it at first but realized it would be more efficient for dispatching enemies quickly, he still kept his bow but more for utility than combat.
"Then you better save him" Felicity said.
Roy turned on his voice modulator and jumped from the building while using his grapnel to slow his descent.
"Get away from him!" Roy shouted.
"Fuck!" The second thug said while he charged towards Roy.
Roy immediately shot a Taser arrow at the thug knocking him down, the other grabbed Stone and held a knife to his neck threatening to slice it open.
"Listen, you better go away now!" Shouted the thug.
"C'mon man, you don't need to do this." Roy said trying to calm him down.
"I'm not going to be tortured ANYMORE!" The thug said as he started to slice through Stone's skin, once Roy saw a slight trickle of blood, he hesitated for a split second but eventually realized there was only one way to save Stone's life.
Roy shot a Taser arrow from his crossbow into the thug's head causing him to fall back from the electricity overwhelming his brain. Once Stone was safe he rushed over to the thug and knelt down.
Luckily he still had a pulse but he had no expression on his face, his eyes were wide open starring into the pavement.
"Harper?" Stone said catching Roy's attention from the thug.
"You're The Red Arrow." Stone said but Roy looked away from him not turning back for even a second.
"You've got me confused with someone else." Roy said bluntly but the heard a police car from around the corner. He shot a grapnel arrow to a nearby building then surveyed the alley but noticed that the thug he shot with an arrow was gone.
Abandoned parking garage in The Glades
The thug from earlier stumbled into an empty room void of any life, it had mold all over as well as leaking pipes creating puddles everywhere.
"You come back to me with failure, not a smart move." An eastern European man's voice came from behind.
The thug cautiously turned around to find a man clad in a dark brown block and hood staring him down.
"Please don't hurt me, it was him The Red Arrow." The thug said on his knees.
"Well, that's of no use to me without a way of Identifying him." The man said.
"The science guy, he called him Harper." The thug said.
"That could be both a first or last name, heck maybe he was wrong. But that's better than most so I won't torture you anymore." The man said cunningly.
"Thank you Count Vertigo" The thug said feeling relieved.
"I'm going to kill you; don't worry it'll be fun!" Vertigo said removing his hood to reveal his face, he was middle aged, he had blond hair with some greying on the sides but his most prominent feature was a monocle over his left eye which emanated a screeching pulse that broke the thugs brain and shocked his heart out of its rhythm causing him to fall into cardiac arrest then death.
"Arrow you are really frustrating." Vertigo said.
Lemire High School 9:52
Stone dismissed his class, once he did so, they scrambled from their seats with only a few deciding to be polite and tuck them in and say goodbye to him, he went around putting the seats back when the door was opened causing him to turn back. Roy stood in the corner with a clueless expression, the awkwardness engulfed the two.
"Hey." Roy said sheepishly.
"So are you here to kill me, or just hold my bank account as leverage." Stone said smugly, leaning back and putting his hands on the lab bench behind him.
"I'm here to talk." Roy said bluntly.
"Funny you hardly seem to talk to a lot of your victims." Stone said firmly.
"I do what I do to help people." Roy said trying to defend himself.
"That's what you tell yourself, whatever, what do you want?" Stone said while turning back to his desk.
"How did you see through my disguise?" Roy asked trying to lighten the mood.
"The face you made when you found out that that the thug was brain dead, was the same face you made every time you looked at one of your tests. You did eventually quit before the first semester of senior year was over." Stone said making fun of him.
"Aren't teachers meant to inspire their students?" Roy asked.
"You didn't want to be inspired, you were the worst student I ever had. And now I can see that you don't want to make anything of yourself." Stone said looking at his computer making Roy feel increasingly ashamed.
"Not making anything of myself? I'm out there every day helping people!" Roy slammed his fists on the desk.
"That's The Red Arrow, what's the point of wearing a mask if Roy Harper doesn't exist?" Stone said finally looking up.
Roy couldn't find any words to say, just as he let the words sink in Felicity called him.
"Yeah?" Roy said turning around.
"Lance's CSI's pulled something, the thug has heavy amounts of a drug in his system." Felicity said over the phone.
"What drug is it?" Roy asked which made Stone cock an eyebrow.
"He's not sure but it's got similar properties to Vertigo." Felicity.
"You've got to be kidding me, Zytle again?" Roy sighed.
"Roy, a couple days after you guys took him down at Merlyn Global he was found in a vegetative state in his cell, about a week later he died and he had a similar drug in his body." Felicity explained.
"Did Zytle have any enemies?" Roy asked.
"There was a constant turf war between him and another gang called the High Rollers." Felicity said.
"I've ran into them before I know one of their hideouts" Roy put his phone away and turned to Stone.
"Your secrets safe, there's no point in having one anyway." Stone said looking back down to his computer.
Big Belly Burger Store Downtown.
Roy entered the Big Belly Burger which was a front for the gang. The lights were off and the place was deserted, no one was there. Roy scoped out the back store room and found a half dozen High Rollers passed out, he ran over to a thug, and shook her waking her up, he turned on his modulator.
"What happened?" Roy asked.
"This guy just. Ahh!" The thug blurted out before a headache overcame the two of them.
Roy managed to look over by the door and saw Count Vertigo, just then the headache stopped and the woman collapsed.
"Who are you?" Roy said raising his crossbow.
"Oh please you can't aim after what I just exposed you to." Vertigo said smugly.
"That doesn't answer my question." Roy commanded.
"I'm the true Count Vertigo, you and your friends have taken down my associates here before, and I'm not going to let you get in my way further." He said strongly.
"What so you can make more drug money? Doesn't seem like anything huge for someone with that power." Roy said.
"My plans are none of your concern, now time to die." Vertigo said causing another headache with his cane.
Roy fell to the ground in pain.
"Roy, Roy! What's going on?" Felicity shouted over the earpiece.
"The shockwaves, I can't fight it." Roy barely managed to say through the onslaught of shockwaves.
"Shockwaves?" Felicity said as she hacked into the staff and turned it off.
As soon as the waves ceased, Roy fumbled through his quiver knocking a few on the ground but managed to pull one out and slammed it into the ground creating a smokescreen, allowing him to escape.
"Oh whatever his mind will give out in about an hour anyways." Vertigo said as he went over to the thugs and noticed that there were some arrows left over and proceeded to stab all of the thugs through the heart with the arrows.
The Foundry
Roy stumbled in barely holding on and managed to get onto the table, Felicity pulled off his jacket and tried to figure out what was wrong.
"My brain it, it hurts." Roy screamed.
"Roy listen to me; I need you to calm down." Felicity said trying to steady him.
"I'll try ahh" Roy couldn't help but scream from it all.
"Oh, God what do I do? I don't know how to help him." Felicity shouted as she looked all over the place for something.
"I know how" Stone said as he entered the room with a brief case.
"I'm not going to ask, just save his life." Felicity said.
30 minutes later
Roy woke up to find Stone and Felicity by the computers.
"What happened?" Roy asked noting an odd feeling in his right arm, he then looked over the floor and saw blood all over the place and empty packets of his spare blood that he kept for a rainy day, it was pouring. He then looked down at his right arm the inside of his forearm was made of metal as well as his ring and pinkie finger, he could also see silver veins across his arm with a few other metal plates on his elbow and triceps. "What the fuck did you do?" Roy said bluntly.