Laurel's Apartment
Sara bit her thumbnail, pacing the length of her sister's living room. Her heart was in her throat, it was the waiting that was killing her. Laurel was watching anxiously from the couch, muttering small comforts to her that weren't easing her nerves at all.
This has to work, it has too.
"Sara." Nyssa finally replied on the other end. Sara had to blink back sudden tears. She's alive, she's alive.
"Nyssa!" She tried to keep the emotion out of her words, "I-I've been trying to reach you for days. What the hell is going on?"
"Talia was blocking your calls to me," she said. "Father's been absent for weeks, everyone's taking sides; we're splitting at the seams," she could hear the mounting distress in her tone, "I need you here."
"I have something important to tell you; Talia's in Starling, she's making a mirakuru army composed of League assassins."
"It's worse than I presumed," she said, her voice shaking, though already through this crowded satellite line it was difficult to hear what she was saying. "She wants to take the League for herself. As is tradition she must strike down any competitors; that includes me, and father too, since he will never agree to step down prematurely. She has truly lost her mind."
"She is still your sister, Nyssa," which only added to the problem, "and I must adhere to the code when it comes to the Demon's kin."
They both knew what this meant. "I have to kill her myself." She sighed heavily, "I never wanted it to come to this. To spill the blood of family, intentionally, it has always felt like a sin to even consider such a course of action."
Often Sara found it hard to believe Talia had been anything but the manipulative power hungry bitch she was. But there was a time when family meant something to her. And Nyssa remembered it.
She wished Laurel wasn't there, this moment felt too intimate and private. "I know," she said softly.
To hear the vulnerability, the moral conflict Nyssa had within, Sara saw it as strength, when most members of the League would view it as weakness. Maybe that's the part of me that still clings onto the light.
"I'll be there by tomorrow morning. Keep her locked in Starling City," she instructed her as if she were any other soldier. "Gather any evidence you can. Don't get too close to her, it'll be your word against hers and you know Sensei will have no choice but to do his duty if she's in danger. I need to amass my strength here before I leave."
"I understand. Be careful." She racked her mind for something else to say, anything. Last words were always the most difficult thing for her to conjure. Suddenly she felt a pang of regret for leaving her for those nine months, and joining team Arrow, knowing how much it had hurt her to betray her.
But Nyssa filled the silence, "Sara..." She began, hesitantly, "you... you asked me to choose between the League and running away together."
She bit her lip uncertainly, "I don't remember that." The connection was getting worse, but she could roughly make out most of it.
"You—were—drunk—night."
Typical Sara, ever since she discovered alcohol she could never keep her mouth shut when she was inebriated, it had gotten her into a tight situation more times than she could count. "I'm sorry...I-it was a moment of weakness, I never wanted to force that kind of decision on you. I know you asked me not too, the night Lacroix escaped."
"I just wanted —tell you that...I would've—chosen you. I know—now... I love you."
The line disconnected abruptly, and her voice was replaced with a long dial tone.
Outside Mercury Labs
The Arrow observed the guard routine once, twice…and by then he knew it like clockwork.
There were at least two of them with her. Talia may be a master manipulator, but she was proud, and she would believe that any guard routine organized by her would be infallible.
Felicity said, "I have thermals of the building; four, including the guards outside."
"Noted."
"So what's our call?" Barry asked, crouching beside him.
Oliver took out a length of rope from his quiver and handed it to him. The Flash nodded in understanding and ran vertically down the face of the building towards the labs.
Warehouse 67
The rusted entrance doors groaned in protest as he pushed them open. The Flash sped past him, the moment he took a single step inside the gloomy, empty atrium the assassin they had captured was already secured to a chair in the center. Barry turned on whatever lights still worked in the dusty, old place as Oliver slowly approached their captive.
He felt for the seam in her mask and yanked it off. She was a dark-skinned girl. Her beady eyes were like two onyxes staring at them with withering scorn, making Barry's skin crawl with their unblinking stillness.
Her hands strained against the rope; she was trained by the Legaue, it would not hold her for long.
"You're going to answer some of our questions," Oliver said, low and intimidatingly. Barry looked at him sideways, unsure if he liked where this was going.
"Bite me," she bared her teeth at him.
He recalled what he had stated to Malcolm in the middle of Nelson Square. He could not let Merlyn get to him. HIVE, Ra's Al Ghul, the League, he was not going to be pushed around by them. It was about damn time he started calling the shots and taking the fate of his city into his own hands.
He drew his bow and shot her in the shoulder before Barry could even comprehend what he was doing. She cried out, but where a normal person would be in tears she could control the pain that radiated from the wound.
He was not going to let her get off that easy.
"You know what's more painful than an arrow in the shoulder?" He held the shaft, but did not move yet. Spit flew out of her mouth as she prepared herself for what they both knew what going to happen.
"An arrow being pulled out of the shoulder."
She screamed and squeezed her eyes shut as the arrow head ripped and grazed a path out of her.
"Hey!" Barry called, horrified and enraged, unable to stomach what he was witnessing. He had seen enough of this demonstration. If this was meant be some sort of sick lesson the Arrow wanted to impose on him, then he wanted no part of this depravity. He clamped his hand around Oliver's shoulder but the other man had forgotten he was even in the vicinity.
Every basic instinct he had was screaming at him to stop Oliver. But he couldn't. He was at a loss at what was right and wrong. Everything Joe had taught him about morals and justice became blurred. He clenched and unclenched his fist, let go of the Arrow's shoulder and backed off.
"What trap did she set up for us?" He kept pulling on the arrow and she groaned, short, wet breaths hissing between the caged teeth.
"D-Death is all I know and all I will ever know…" she mumbled. First line of the League code, Talia chose her followers wisely, they are loyal to the last breath...but they haven't met me yet.
He released the shaft and leaned into face her fully.
"How about I break your fingers, until you tell me what I want to know?"
She sagged in the chair but still managed a loathing glare. "Go ahead," she said, hoarsely.
He untied one of her hands and held her wrist like a vice. Without warning, he broke her middle finger like a glow stick and she could not swallow the agony of it. Barry was clutching his head between his hands, shaking his head because he had completely lost control of the situation. But the young man was wrong…he had never been in control to begin with.
He mentally kicked himself for showing this side of him, but he had to push those guilty feelings aside. He isn't used to this: watching someone he looks up too, turn into a monster.
Oliver pulled his focus back to the assassin. She did not budge. "Looks like I made a mistake," he remarked, face flat as a closed door. And Barry was disturbed by his calmness.
"You're left-handed aren't you?" He re-tied her right hand and proceeded to untie her left. She won't be using a bow for long while once I'm done with her.
"No," she gasped, "no—no…"
"Listen to her!" Barry shouted at him, half a plea, half a command.
He held her wrist and showed her the positioning of it, if he did not like her answer a small amount of pressure would break the bone.
"What is she planning?" He shouted.
The assassin kept her eyes on the hand he was threatening to crush, afraid he might destroy the only asset that made her worth anything to the Al Ghul no matter what she told him.
"She…she did it! But it didn't work! She had to try again, or else. She has two hours left..."
'Or else' it was pretty clear what the alternative to failure was. If Caitlin was able to do the impossible and create a successful drug, Talia would have God knows how many liters of serum to distribute. If she won Nanda Parbat from her sister, it would never end there: she would unleash her army on the world. She would become undefeatable.
"Bombs."
She blinked, but the hesitation to respond to him told him she knew exactly what he was referring too.
"Where?" He tightened his hold, "WHERE?" He demanded voice deeper and grating.
"Don't! On—on the doors. You, you go in, you die, and she dies."
Using a dart of Tibetan pit viper venom, he stabbed it in her neck to sedate her. He released a breath he did not know he had been holding. Barry yanked his shoulder and spun him around.
"The hell was that? That was awful!"
"I got what I needed," he replied with icy blankness and shouldered past him.
Barry stopped him short, "by torture?! What is wrong with you?"
He gave him a sharp look, "Welcome to Starling City, Barry." He jabbed a finger at her, "She's an assassin. She's killed more people before she was twelve than I did since I was stranded on the island." When he tried to move away, Barry used his speed to invade his personal space.
"Because she's a killer, that justifies why you have to act like one? I thought you were trying to be a different kind of hero, someone who didn't need to do this."
He did not want to have to explain himself to Barry, to anyone. He had never been a role-model for the younger man.
"I have done unforgivable things, Barry. You want the truth?" He asked darkly, "I don't regret them." He must have seen something must pass over his face, because Barry withdrew a step, eyes widened slightly, as if the idea of turning and running in the opposite direction was suddenly preferable.
"My mother was killed in front of me, and I didn't defeat the man who murdered her by asking him nicely to stop destroying my city!"
But Barry took a stand and narrowed his eyes at him, "my mother died in front of me too. But I don't take out my personal issues on anyone who pisses me off!"
There was no use arguing with someone who did not understand the sacrifices he had had to make for this city, the price every dark act had on his soul. "Well I'm sorry I'm not as emotionally healthy as you. I told you if this was going to work we were doing things my way, if you have a problem with that, Central City is in that direction."
Oliver pointed at the distance behind him, but Barry looked somewhere over his shoulder, and a different kind of horror passed over his features.
"Um… where did she go?"
The Arrow turned and saw the empty chair; the rope used to tie her was torn to shreds. He drew an arrow.
Barry said, sounding less worried, "one assassin versus the Flash and the Arrow? She doesn't stand a chance."
Normally he would have agreed with Allen. But the hairs on his neck stood with trepidation, out of the corner of his eye he saw Barry lifting his foot, getting ready to break into a run and find her.
"Wait," he warned, "didn't she say Caitlin already made the drug?"
A low groan echoed over the warehouse. Hitting its unseen corners and bouncing towards the two heroes.
They followed the sound. He stood his ground when he saw two bloodshot eyes staring at them, the whites of them were brighter in the dim light. He directed the arrow at her but she flipped over it gracefully. With throaty growl, she came spiraling down towards them.
Her fist meant to connect with Barry's nose, but the speedster put a good twenty feet between them before she could cause any damage. Oliver had leaped out of her path. When the assassin landed, her knuckles slammed into the concrete with a bone crushing sound, except her hand was perfectly intact…and the finger he had broken was mended.
She yanked out the first broadhead he used to torture her and tossed it like a twig. He quickly noted that she did not display the normal symptoms of mirakuru. There was a lack of bloody tears and her arms and neck were veined with purple.
She exhaled loud and satisfied, adjusting to the wealth of power surging through her. Her gaze locked on him and she charged.
He shot an explosive arrow, but due to her assassin lightning-fast reflexes and the added strength of the serum—she caught the exploding bulb as if it were a fly. He backed up several paces as the light affixed to it turned from green to red.
To his incredulity, instead of what he was expecting—fire and a burst of light, pressure waves that would rip off her arm and leg—the explosive detonated with a loud pop in her fist, and then spat weak wisps of smoke.
This was not a mirakuru soldier.
This was something much stronger than that.
Barry shared this jarring realization. The League assassin slowly and menacingly moved towards him, she looked like a rabid animal from hell. Fully intent on getting payback for the arrow and broken finger.
"Uh, Oliver, I think she's mad at you!"
"You don't say!"
The next two explosive arrows had the same fate as their predecessor. This was what happened when you inject a cocktail of super-steroid drugs into someone trained by the world's deadliest organization of assassins.
"A little help, Barry!" Oliver dived to the ground when she broke into a run for him.
The Flash pushed her out of her course and into the wall, she left a crater in it. Barry felt the ache from his shoulder to arm from the effort of moving her. The Flash took over the defense and sped around her, throwing a hundred punches in a second.
In the meantime, Oliver filled Felicity in on what had occurred in the last few minutes.
"Collapsing the building on her won't kill her!"
Oliver couldn't agree more, when the assassin managed to pinpoint the exact place in the red blur to aim, she socked Barry Allen in the face. He flew across the floor.
There was a shooting pain in his arm when he landed. Barry was seeing double of everything; two Arrows, two assassins fighting each other somewhere in front of him. He moaned and clutched his dizzy head.
"Hey, Barry, it's Cisco!"
"C-Cisco?" He mumbled, sitting upright.
"Super-punch! Do it man!"
It took a second or two for him to get back on his feet. "I have a plan, keep her busy!" He hollered to Oliver.
He grunted in response as he blocked a swing with his bow…it snapped in two—probably any archer's worst nightmare. Barry tried his best not to imagine someone's spine getting broken like that as he ran two miles out of the warehouse.
When he reached the required distance he turned, bent his knee like a sprinter at the starting line and then ran at full-speed. The world slowed for him, to heartbeats, to fractions of seconds, to microscopic movements of single muscles.
She rushed at him. He punched her, the force of it ricochet through his arm like a resonating fork being tuned. The pain almost overwhelmed him.
He effectively knocked her away from the Arrow by fifty feet, she tumbled into the wall—
—Then the Canary descended from an open window. Her bo-staff twirled, he slowed, thinking this was back-up arriving.
But he misunderstood.
He saw the glint of the silver spear head she had attached to her weapon and how it came down on their captive's neck.
"NO!" Barry yelled, but he was too late. Always too late. His feet slewed against the concrete a few feet before the two assassins, one dead, one alive.
The moment he saw a literal freaking decapitated head-roll across the floor, Barry could do nothing but stand absolutely still in stunned silence. He glanced at his costume; there was blood splattered all over him. Even being a forensic lab assistant could not have prepared him for this gory show.
After a few minutes of absorbing the aftermath of the brief bloody battle, Oliver looked at the Canary with an unreadable expression.
"This was not how we dealt with them, Sara."
She didn't look conflicted by her decision to chop off the assassin's head. "I wasn't going to wait around for a cure." She looked with distaste at the beheaded girl at her feet. Because that was what she was...a girl. Couldn't be a day over 18.
"This is how we should have dealt with the super-soldiers."
That angered Oliver, "you know why that was not an option."
"You don't understand the threat we're up against," she said, raising her voice in frustration, "and you're not prepared to face it. You can't accept the kind of man you have to be for this city, and it's failing because of you!"
He looked at her coldly, "I see. So that's what you really think of me?" His knuckles were bloodless as they clutched his broken bow. "What the hell has gotten into you, lately?"
She took in a breath and blew it out, "I know what I am," she stared at him, "Do you?"
The Foundry
A strained silence enshrouded the foundry when they returned. The argument between Sara and Oliver had gotten a tad too honest and they stayed on opposite sides of the room. Oliver wanted to blame his confrontation with Malcolm for how crap he felt, but he couldn't. Not really. Not entirely.
Diggle had been called in by Felicity. She looked at Barry, curious as to what the situation was between Sara and Oliver but he made a gesture telling her it wasn't the right time and place.
"Do I even want to know?" Said Digg, nearly choking on his water after Barry sped towards him in the blink of an eye. He asked the room the question, but no one cared to ease the fact that his world had just become very weird and very meta-human filled.
"It's cool story, maybe later?" Barry offered with a smile.
He nodded, mouth slightly open , still a little dazed, hardly able to understand what was happening.
"But it's not mirakuru?" Asked Roy once Oliver summed up the interrogation in the warehouse.
"It's different than last time," Oliver said. "The effects were delayed."
"Really?" Barry guffawed. "Are really not going to talk about what just happened? The blood that's literally on my hands?" The stains on his costume spoke for themselves. He was met with a pitiless gaze from Sara.
Obviously the Arrow and his team had no issue with cold-blooded killers, even if they themselves weren't of that group.
"Ammonia and cold water, should come right out," Diggle said with a brief smile. But laundry advice at the moment was really unhelpful.
Sara pointedly ignored him, "Why did you take a hostage without consulting me?"
"To find out what trap Talia set for us and organize a prisoner exchange, if possible," replied Oliver.
"You think Talia gave a damn about her?" She snapped, "She used Azura like a guinea pig! You nearly got yourself killed."
"It's not like we knew she was injected with the stuff," Barry stated, his previous, gushing admiration of her waning greatly.
Oliver said, "Don't call the shots when you've been gone for half the night, and don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing!"
"I had to get through to Nyssa," she hissed, "find out what's the story on her end."
"Is she going to be alright?" Felicity asked.
"She's being watched but she isn't without allies in Nanda Parbat; it's her psycho-bitch of a sister causing all this mess."
He was still not over their argument in the warehouse, "Are you forgetting it was your precious protégé that got Cyrus' blood for her? You said you would handle it," Oliver barked, "But look at what's happened!"
Barry shielded the two Starling heroes from each other before they came to blows.
"We can't start pointing fingers here! Talia won't have any use for Caitlin if she knows the drug works. We have less than two hours to save her!"
With some reluctance, Sara backed off, still disgruntled with how everyone was throwing their trust with Oliver, when he had no clue how to wage a battle with the League of Assassins. Let alone come out alive at the end of it. Especially with HIVE in the mix.
She crossed her arms hotly, "So how do we do this?"
Barry said, "Cisco's thinks he can disable those explosives remotely, but with the limited time we have and the design they won't be disabled for long. But when he does, I have the opportunity to run in and grab Caitlin."
"They will transport the drug by hand," Oliver continued, "Digg and I will catch any stragglers and make sure the serum's destroyed."
Instead of Oliver taking sole charge he had allowed Barry's to add his insight to the plan and they formulated it together.
Sara snorted, "it's not easy to put four walls around league assassins and tell them to sit quietly." That would be about as easy as forcing an elephant into a bird cage.
The Central City hero bristled, "maybe we should take a page out of your notebook and chop their heads off," he snapped. "What was the sub-heading again? Oh yeah: 'Welcome to Starling City.'"
She pouted in annoyance and looked at Oliver, "where did you get this boy-scout, Oliver?"
Barry shook his head, lifting his eyelids to the ceiling, "Now that I've met you. Not so much of a fan."
She leaned to him confrontationally and this time it was Diggle who stopped them. "Easy," he cautioned.
"What do you plan to do with Talia?" Asked Sara, with a final challenging glare at Barry, "If you capture her, the League will hold the city hostage. By code, you touch a hair on the demon's daughter, you bring upon the wrath of the Demon's head. A horde of assassins will be here by noon."
"So instead we let her roam free?" Oliver queried.
"Oh. Like you're letting Malcolm walk?" From her crinkled brows and pointed stare, he could tell she had been withholding that to allow the argument to stew until just the right moment. No one said anything, but they all looked at him accusingly.
"Yeah, I know you met with him," she said bitterly, "I was this close to putting an arrow in him, and in you too, for obstructing our justice. You've changed your mind about him haven't you?"
He glared at her and then drifted his glance over his teammates.
Felicity was squeezing the edges of her tablet hard; her blue eyes glinted behind her glasses with a mix of anger, disbelief and worst of all, disappointment.
"Tell me she's lying Oliver," she implored.
Oliver winced at their judgement. "We can argue about that later," he said slowly, trying to be reasonable. She ripped her gaze from him and shook her head.
Diggle crossed his big arms in an irritated huff, "oh I'm looking forward to it."
Thankfully, Barry knew when to leave internal affairs alone.
Digg dropped the topic for now; he did it for Caitlin, not to spare Oliver the guilt of a dispute. "Whatever we do we're courting war with the League of Assassins. Which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place by leaving Malcolm Merlyn alone."
"Didn't I tell you to try to not get yourself killed?" Sara said sullenly, "I told you that I was taking her to trial."
For a moment everyone was occupied with their own thoughts on the mission, yet also waiting for Oliver's capture or no capture verdict. They were walking a dangerous line here, and it would be easy to fall onto one side or the other, but there would always be consequences.
"And how long is that going to take?" Oliver said, they had been asking for her help, but maybe...maybe they had always been better off without it. "I think it would be better if you left, Sara."
"Don't you dare play the 'protection card' on me," she fumed, holding up a warning finger.
But there was no anger left in him. He snorted and shrugged, "I'm not," he said shaking his head. "I really don't care about some sacred code I don't even know, and I'm tired of this fifty-fifty attitude from you," he stated. "First the lie about Komodo, and then you let Artemis go. Then you used Thea to get to Merlyn, and now this? I tried leniency, I tried to hold my fist back. But I'm done. Either you're with us, or against us."
He was being harsh, but he had every reason to tell her to go to hell. And judging from the uncertain glances everyone exchanged, no one wanted to argue with him either. Barry was obviously on Oliver's side, Diggle and Roy would always be good soldiers, her only possible advocate was Felicity who looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Sara scanned the team and folded her bottom lip, her hands upraised in mock surrender. "Fine," she furiously snatched her staff. "Have it your way Oliver, like you always do."
…
"That had to be done," intoned Diggle, who could always promise to be blunt and honest with his sage counsel. "As much as your secret meeting with Merlyn bugs the hell out of me, that had to be done."
But even his friends' immediate support could not shake the heaviness in his chest.
He went towards Felicity, but she ducked her head and went to her station before he could reach her, carefully avoiding his eyes. He closed his fist, bowed his head, and said nothing. She asked for a second chance. But I couldn't give it.
He stood in the center of the foundry, his teammates preparing for battle. He took a deep sigh, and replaced his broken bow. It was a stark reminder of how broken he was on the inside, how broken his team was. He could see the cracks forming even if they could not.
Barry moved forwards to Oliver, rethought that decision, and then went anyway. They scrutinized the map of the labs together for a few minutes before he brought it up.
"That was intense."
His fingers swiped the screen, Oliver looked straight ahead as if there were no on else around him. It didn't appear as though he was going to answer him, so Barry was surprised when he did.
"I do what I have to do," he said in an emotionless monotone.
"I understand that. I do. But are you okay?"
He puffed his cheeks out. "No. not really." He gave him a forlorn, tired smile; it ought to have been a grimace. His dad used to give him that sad smile on days when he lied to him about being 'okay', sitting in jail for a crime he did not commit while his son was alone, the only human being on the planet who believed his innocence.
Barry sincerely hoped he would never have to wear it one day.
Oliver smirked with melancholy, "You're sure you want to do this? Be like me? It's a lonely path."
"You're not alone. Everyone here has faith in you. And Sara…she'll be back," he said the last part doubtfully.
"To do what I do Barry, it takes conviction, but more often than not it's the will to do what's ugly. Everytime I do that I'm… trading away little pieces of myself," he said, his hand wavering near his chest as if he meant to give some of that soul away to Barry or like it was already gone and he had only just realize it wasn't there.
"So you asked what's wrong with me; that's what's wrong, because the part that I'm trading away is Oliver Queen. And lately I've been feeling like there is nothing left except the Arrow."
Barry stared back at him, really seeing the Arrow AKA Oliver Queen for the first time.
"I think you're full of crap." The other man's brow rose slightly at his pluck. It had been a while since anyone had been this frank with him.
Oliver had just poured out what was left of his dark soul to him, but Barry didn't believe that everyone was beyond repair. And someone like Oliver, who had gone through a crucible no human should have to live through, would not have made it to this point, to this time and place if he had allowed his sins to consume him.
"You've convinced yourself that everything you've been through took away your humanity, I think it's because of your humanity that's kept you alive. You wouldn't have survived, much less come out a hero if you didn't have a light inside of you."
He could see the edge of Oliver's mouth lifting, it was heartening to it, but then Felicity needed to brief them on Cisco's analysis of the explosives and it was time to go.
Nanda Parbat
They worked fast. They hung the traitor's wrist from a meat hook like a carcass, cut, flayed, and beaten. Hot coals simmered orange, yellow and red below his feet. For endless hours he was awash in a sweltering, torturous heat until the water in his body was leeched out of him. His lips were cracked and throat raw. Nothing of the proud man remained when Artemis went to inspect Lacroix, he was a haggard shell of what he used to be.
As she approached, he lifted his head with a laboured effort. He observed her glumly from bruised, blackened eyes.
"You won't be escaping this prison again," she leered at him.
She didn't expect him to respond since every breath must feel like sandpaper on his lungs. That was the way of League torture; to make their captives prefer death over life.
But he managed in a choked rasp, "And what are you… but a prisoner… yourself?"
"I was born to become an assassin and to die serving the League."
"Because you know, of no other, life," he said, the world were almost incoherent but she was close enough to interpret them. "You gullible… fool. If you knew the truth…" he coughed for a long while. "The—the trick they played on you…now you… follow Talia Al Ghul like a lost dog!" Simon's laugh was half a titter half a whimper, "You stupid bitch..."
"What truth?" She demanded.
"I was never free, of this place, was I? As much as I tried… it somehow found a way to drag me, back to it … only to devour me… once more…" He was in-between reality and fantasy, fever dreams taking his wits with them. His eyelids fluttered.
"What truth?" She asked more forcefully and drew a knife. Artemis pressed it below his naval, "If you pass out, I promise I'll geld you, you traitor!"
"Traitor?" He made the same laugh he did before, choked with pain but still mocking her. "The traitor is Talia; I only escaped these bars…when she brought them down for me. And your mother was the scapegoat..."
In a fit of anger she throttled his collar, "You're...you're lying!" She yelled, refusing to accept it. She dug the knife into his skin, blood stained his torn shirt, "You tell me the truth or I'll keep my promise!"
The pain was dragging him down into its depths, his words were slower, more exhausted. "I...I have nothing, to lose…nothing they haven't already, taken from me…"
The undeniable truth was there, hanging in the air between them, and she dared not touch it. Her entire world was shaking below her feet, and if she let the truth in, she would have nothing left to keep her from falling to her knees.
"You tell me the bloody truth now, goddamit! Simon! SIMON!" But his eyelids clamped shut. The asshole, he chose this moment to drop this bomb on me, he's enjoying this, his final vengeance.
She stood there, arms trembling, screaming at him to wake up, shaking him, shaking him.
"Al-Sayad!"
She let him sag. He would have crumpled directly into the hot coals if not for the chains.
"Talia Al Ghul wishes to speak with you," said the acolyte, a loyalist to Talia. Did they all know? Did they let me be the dumb fool?
Fear shot through her heart. She had always been afraid of Talia. But now, there was an insurmountable hate to accompany that fear. It tasted bitter on her tongue. Her world was still shaking and she could not respond to the messenger without stuttering.
She pointed at Lacroix, unsure if he was still alive or not. "He…he—"
"The pain can cause erratic behaviour and blackouts," he said blandly. "We'll finish him off at dawn, death by a thousand cuts."
She swallowed and he led her to secure phone where Talia was waiting.
She was torn. Could she believe Lacroix? Could she believe Talia? They were both liars. The only person I should have believed was Sara. But I betrayed her.
Talia ran down a list of orders. But she didn't hear any of it. She killed my mother…she used me…she killed my mother…she manipulated me… repeated through her mind on an unending loop. She only surfaced from images of herself killing Talia when the Al Ghul said;
"—unfortunately I have to resort to drastic measures. I order you to kill Sara Lance."
Suddenly it was hard to inhale any air. "W-what?" She sputtered.
"Do I have to repeat myself?" Talia snapped.
She gulped, her mouth felt dry. "But…but why, why do I have to do it?" She found herself saying. She wasn't stupid, if she told Talia to go fuck herself, she would only have to call another loyalist on the phone and order them to kill her. She had to play the dumb fool to live. To live, and to warn Sara.
"She is protected, and anyone else who could follow through with this is preoccupied. She trusts you; she will bring her guard down for you, and that's when you strike her down."
"Wouldn't it look suspicious?" God, her stalling methods were absolutely pitiable, and Talia was getting impatient.
"'She will eventually betray us', father's exact words to me. Thus I have to speed things up a bit. You plant evidence on her body after you kill her. Nyssa will be shown as the love-sick daughter who despised her father for his disapproval and wanted nothing more than to overthrow him with the help of her lover. She will be ruined."
"I would be breaking the League code," she tried.
"I proved that she had her loyalties were muddled with the Arrow."
"Taer-Al-Asfar was protecting her home—"
A debate on morality with the demon's daughter was the absolute wrong choice to make.
"Are you defending her?" She screeched all of a sudden, making her jump.
"Defending the Arrow? Perhaps I should be questioning you for treason Al-Sayad, you sound rife with it. What has Oliver Queen been telling you? Feeding you chivalrous fairy tales about his brand of justice?
"No—nothing like that, I—"
"If you can't form the words to speak…" Artemis felt a cold sweat across her forehead at her tone, suddenly she couldn't imagine Talia's death, but could only see her own. "...Then maybe I should cut your tongue out, since all I hear from it is excuses and disobedience. Don't presume I won't kill you if you get in my way. Do as you're told or else."
Mercury Labs, Starling City
She watched Talia out of the corner of her eye from where she worked. Talia wrung her hands after a heated phone conversation with someone called Al-Sayad. Her face was scrunched so tightly in concentration it was a wonder it did not break. In addition to that, Azura had not returned from guard duty and David was out on the streets tracking her.
But Caitlin had other problems to worry about. Her well of brilliant ideas had run dry, and the clock on the wall was ticking closer and closer to zero. The hour hands seemed to move faster than her own heartbeat. Her serum had failed, now it wasn't about giving Talia what she wanted; it was about not getting killed when she didn't give her what she wanted.
Unbeknownst to Talia, Caitlin was making a strong dose of ketamine. Roughly five milliliters would be sufficient to sedate the assassin. She would put it in a syringe, and inject it into her. She just had to get close enough to deliver it. And then there was David Cain to deal with, and what he would do to her when he found his leader on the floor, unconscious. That is, if he returned after Talia was out cold.
Unfortunately he came back sooner than she would have liked. And he did not return empty-handed.
He ceremoniously lowered a wrapped canvas at Talia's feet by way of greeting. Caitlin leaned on her toes to get a better view….and immediately regretted it.
"She was taken by the Arrow and the red steak. I was too late to stop Taer-Al-Asfar from butchering the poor girl."
Azura's head had been severed cleanly from her neck. She looked unreal in the stark fluorescent light that illuminated the dried ruby blood of the cut flesh. Her stomach felt uneasy. One of her tormentors was dead, but vengeance and relief didn't make her feel any better.
"Get her out of my sight," Talia looked at it like it was a mortal insult.
David said, "My investigation of the warehouse and the fight that occurred there showed me that the Mirakuru-Venom was a success. The symptoms of the serum merely did not display themselves immediately."
Caitlin might have clapped herself on the back if she knew this did not mean her death.
Reinforcements came for Talia and David. Two more assassins entered the labs through the overhead window. Marco and Luka. This lessened the fine lines of concentration on Talia's forehead but made Caitlin glance desperately at the doors.
There was no alternate timeline where this ended with her living happily ever after. She could sedate Talia, but fight three other assassins? It was suicide.
Come on Barry. Of all the days you decide to be late.
Then the entirety of the Al Ghul's attention fell on her. She wore a sly triumphant smile that made her spine curl.
"At least something worthwhile came out of Azura's death. Congratulations Dr. Snow, you have accomplished a feat with numerous constraints and with so many lives on the line." She was in front of her now, standing tall while she tried to make herself as small as possible. She had the syringe hidden in her fist.
"But you never faltered," said Talia, cocking her head to the side thoughtfully. "Although, I do require an explanation for the non-instantaneous reaction to the serum."
Caitlin arched her back and inhaled deeply, trying to keep Talia's eyes focused on her face. "T-the additives to prevent heart failure, I presume. As far as my observations go, each of you are of peak human condition and have trained your heartbeats to slow down. The serum must be activated by an emotion that stimulates blood pressure."
"There was evidence of a torture at the warehouse," chipped in David, as Marco and Luka helped him load the serums into carry cases.
Talia continued to stare at Caitlin as if she could see through her. "Indeed. The stress of it would elevate the heart rate of someone her age and expertise. An issue I should put to Sensei. This is an example that our recruits aren't being trained with enough vigour to prevent them from squealing at the sight of their own blood."
Caitlin's palm sweated around the syringe, but she gripped it tighter.
"Our position is compromised, my lady," David called, as he set the explosive charges. Everyone started to move with more urgency, yet Talia remained unmoving, hands clasped behind her back.
"As much as I would love to keep you around so you can fix this issue with the additives, your super-speed friend has recovered from the little trap I set for him. It was costly, and the criminal was so far beneath me that I had to wash my hands after the agreement was sealed. But clearly my discomfort was worth it, since it kept you focused on the task at hand."
Talia was suddenly closer to her. Her heart thudded in her ears and the syringe was getting more slippery.
"My, my, you've impressed me, Dr. Snow, and not many can boast that they've impressed me. Your talents are wasted at STAR Labs. HIVE would have great use for you…especially with what's to come."
The curse and blessing of being a scientist, you never knew if what you were creating would be used for good or evil. But she knew. And she knew that whatever she would be forced to create for HIVE would cost thousands of lives.
"Please…" she held her other palm out as if to stop her from coming closer, when that was what Caitlin wanted. She just needed to get a good shot at Talia, and then figure the rest out later. She would rather die trying to escape than live to create and unleash more evil. "I did what you asked of me, I did the impossible. Don't hurt my friends, don't hurt anyone."
Almost.
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
Just a few more inches.
"I-I'm begging you. T-take the serum and take what's rightfully yours."
There.
Caitlin lunged forward, arm raised high, and the needle hit home. She shoved the plunger down.
Talia grunted in surprise, her feet criss-crossed, they switched positions as the Al Ghul lost her balance. Caitlin fell against the counter, and held onto it for dear life. Her eyes fell on a scalpel and she grabbed it. Marco and Luka appeared twelve feet from her, double katanas and sai's drawn respectively. She didn't know the first thing about combat, she had never had to fight for her life.
"Wow!" Someone exclaimed, with feigned amazement. She went cold all over and glanced behind her.
Talia rolled her shoulders, stretched her neck left, right, taking her time to get the kinks out and then pulled out the syringe from her vein. She dropped it like a piece of trash and smashed it with her boot, relishing at the horrified look on the scientist's pale face.
"You continue to impress me, Dr. Snow. Really. What a heroic effort that was."
Tears pricked her eyes. No. NO. She didn't understand. There had been an extremely high concentration of ketamine in the syringe, enough to sedate three horses.
And then David Cain was there. He punched her in the ribs. When he stepped away, the sword he had in his hand was slick with blood. Her blood.
Pain washed over her and she fell to her knees.
The last thing she saw was Talia, saying something she couldn't hear. She tried to call out a name, but all that came out was a strangled cry.
…
"Remember," said Cisco over both of their headsets, "the charges can reactivate themselves. That gives you a window of forty-five seconds to get Caitlin out, destroy the super drug, and tie-up bad guys before the place goes kaboom from your disturbance of the sensors."
Diggle reported his position. There were two other assassins that joined Talia and who ever remained after Azura was killed. The plan remained the same however. They deduced that Talia and her followers would attempt to escape. Any of them left behind when the charges went off, well, he would leave them to fate. The drug was to be destroyed either by Digg and Oliver or by the wreckage. Either way it couldn't leave Starling City.
"The Flash is in position."
"Sick name, man," Cisco approved.
"Ready," Oliver crouched on the ledge that looked over the eastern doors of the labs.
"I'm sending out the signal to deactivate the sensors," Felicity said, everyone held their breaths as they waited for her count.
"In three…two…ONE."
Barry ran into labs just as the last intonation left her mouth. The world slowed down. Several assassins tried their luck with arrows on him. They were all on the catwalk on the floor above. He managed to snatch a carry case and smash it to pieces, blue liquid burst from it.
When he found Caitlin, she was lying on the floor…in a dark red puddle.
"Caitlin!" He hoisted her into his arms. She was so weak she barely weighed anything. He was aghast to see there were chains on her ankles. They chained her like a slave. Anger rose and rose in his chest until it was hard for him to even breathe.
There were ten seconds before the labs exploded, but rest of the plan faded away to him, because there was Caitlin, and she was dying in front of him.
He dashed out, but not fast enough, he was thrown by the pressure of the explosion. She fell out of his arms and tumbled across the gravel. Tendrils of fire licked at his back. There was a ringing in his ears that wasn't going to disappear for at least a few hours. There was a stabbing pain in his side where glass shards were stuck in him. He ignored it.
He stumbled to her and knelt in the middle of the road with her in his arms. Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle were all screaming at him over the comms but he was deaf to them.
She stirred. "Barry?" She whispered, wet and painful. His throat tightened in anguish, he couldn't speak. He remembered his mother, remembered finding her just like this. He was never fast enough to save the people he loved.
He unlocked her stiffening hands with his own shaking ones; she was still clutching a scalpel in one of them. He squeezed her cold white hand.
Caitlin's breathing was getting shorter, faster, "I—I thought—"
"E-easy, now," he said softly. He was disorientated and his legs felt as heavy as stone. But he lifted one and then the next, taking her with him. "It's going to be alright, I promise. I promise."
...
He cursed at the lack of vision to what was going on inside. Talia had disabled the cameras. Outside, he was on a high vantage point with view of the roofs and the southern and eastern perimeters of the labs. Thirty seconds were left on the timer.
Oliver slashed the chest of the assassin in front of him, and quickly rolled under the kicking legs of the other one. With every punch, he aimed at the black cases in their hands. The first one used it to block a shaft and then charge at him. He lurched to the side and tripped him with his bow.
In the middle of this fight, there was still the nagging reminder that they didn't have Talia Al Ghul.
"Flash, have you secured her?" He shouted into the ear piece in the small opening he got to take a breather before he had to resume attacking. Diggle used the element of surprise and shot one of the League members in the leg. John yanked the black case from his fingers and threw it onto the roof of Mercury labs which was set to explode.
Ten seconds.
His bow got stuck between the teeth of the sai and it freed his chest. The Leaguer mashed him across the head with the case. He fell onto the ground with a thump.
"Oliver!" Diggle ran to him.
The assassin knelt over him, sai angled to core through his forehead.
Before Oliver could realize it; black arrows sailed through the sky like a dark omen.
They impaled the assassin three times, in the neck, the chest and the stomach. Like a triple bullseye on a dart board. Perfect. Lethal. Malcolm Merlyn.
John had ducked before he could get shot, muttering several expletives at the close call. Oliver rolled over to avoid getting smothered by the dead assassin. The labs sensors were about to reset in three seconds. He took cover just in time to see several things in their plan go wrong.
A/N: I know this was a super long chapter but I simply had to finish this crossover and get the focus back on Team Arrow. I just realized that Barry has yellow lightning and not red when he runs, apologies for the error in the previous chapters. I hope you enjoyed this one. See you next time for the aftermath.