Disclaimer: I do not own Arrow.
Ware house by the docks
Early morning
Roy walked inside the ware house, looking around. There didn't appear to be anyone there. Roy was started to think that this whole thing had been a hoax when someone snuck up behind him. Roy suddenly found himself restrained from behind with a metal baton pressed against his throat.
"First lesson: never let your guard down." The Canary hissed in his ear before she released him.
"Was that really necessary?" Roy asked as he messaged his throat.
"I won't show you any kid gloves, kid. You want to learn how to fight, then don't expect any mercy." The Canary warned him.
"I can fight." Roy protested.
The Canary then lunged for him and Roy was on the floor within two seconds.
"You can take a beating kid; you're here to learn how to fight. " The Canary told him as Roy got off the ground.
"So what's the first lesson then?" Roy asked impatiently.
The Canary gestured to the left. Roy followed her gesture and saw a table in the corner. At first he was confused until he walked over to it and saw there was a large bowl of water on it.
"What am I supposed to do with a bowl of water?" Roy asked incredulously.
"Hit it." She told him to his confusion.
Lian Yu, five years ago
Day
"Wonderful, now we have a dead Japanese soldier in our home." Slade said sarcastically as he walked away from the skeleton.
Shado leaned down to better examine the skeleton. "Those men were looking for these corpses, aren't you the least bit curious as to why?"
"I'm more interested in how many more of them there are and where they're operating from. They'll be coming for them, which means they'll be coming for us," Slade pointe out as he put a bag of tactical gear together, "and as we've already seen, they're not the friendliest bunch."
"So, it kind of looks like you've done that before." Oliver pointed out to Shado.
"Before Fryers kidnapped her, Shado here was pre-med. She's been teaching me some stuff." Sara told her boyfriend.
"She's a woman of many talents. Come on." Slade said, tossing the bag to Oliver before he walked out of the fuselage.
"Come on where?" Oliver asked as he followed Slade outside.
"To higher ground. We need to get to a vantage point where we can establish the enemy's position." Slade said as he looked over his shoulder at Oliver.
"What about them?" Oliver asked as he looked back at Sara and Shado.
"We'll be fine Ollie." Sara assured him.
"We shouldn't split up." Oliver hesitated.
"Let them play with the corpses, we'll be back before she knows it." Slade said crudely as he walked away.
Oliver looked one last time at Sara and Shado examining the skeleton before he followed after Slade.
Arrow lair
Night
"So how's Roy's training going?" Felicity asked as Oliver and Diggle trained on the mat and Sara pulverized a punching bag.
"I'm trying to teach him patience while I built up his arm strength. It doesn't appear to be working that well." Sara grunted as she punched the bag.
"Hey, I need your help." Everyone stood up as Quentin walked down the stairs, a file folder in his hand.
"What is it daddy?" Sara asked as she unwrapped her hands.
"Barton Mathis." Quentin said as he handed the file to Oliver.
"The Doll Maker?" Diggle asked as Oliver opened the file.
"Yeah, they call him that because he suffocates his victims with a flexible polymer that he pours down their throats and then he dresses them up like dolls," Quentin explained at Oliver's clueless look, "I put him away, but because of the quake he's back on the streets and he's killing again."
"These are from six years ago." Oliver noted.
"These are from my personal file." Quentin explained.
"Daddy…maybe it's not just the file that's personal." Sara said gently.
"He got eight girls before I caught him, I don't want any more on my conscious." Quentin said firmly.
"We'll see what we can do." Sara said as she took the file from Oliver and walked out of the room.
"Hey, is she okay?" Quentin asked as he stared after Sara's retreating from.
"I don't know, nothings been the same since she killed White. I'm worried about her; she's never had a kill like that before." Oliver said and Felicity scoffed.
"Of all the people she's killed, that's what makes guilty, despite what White did?" Felicity asked as she thought of the blurry images of her face's face, "Sara's killed people before, why is this one different?"
"Because Sara's never enjoyed it when she killed someone before," Oliver said and Felicity quieted, "something like that…it changes you."
"Speaking from experience?" Diggle inquired.
"…when Sara and I thought we had lost Shado, I took the man I thought responsible for her death. I tortured him, for hours until he lost consciousness. So yes, I speak from experience." Oliver said before following his wife.
Oliver and Sara's loft
Later
"Good thing Shado's staying with Laurel this weekend," Oliver said as he watched Sara at the kitchen table going over the file, "you got anything?"
"Last time The Doll Maker was active, he killed a girl every three days." Sara read from the file.
"Can we connect the victims?" Oliver asked.
"They were young and pretty. My dad could never figure out how he chose them." Sara said as she looked at a photo of one of the victims, "God, if this was Shado."
"I'd kill him," Oliver said bluntly as he sat down across from her, "are you okay?"
"I don't know," Sara said as she looked up from the file, "I thought once I killed White; I'd feel closure and I did at first. But now…I just feel like I'm no better than White. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's how I feel."
"Sara, this isn't like Russia, you're not like White." Oliver told her as he reached across and grabbed her hand.
"Considering what happened in Russia…are you certain?" Sara asked curiously.
"Yes. If I have to get Quentin and Laurel in here with me to convince you, I will. You're not like White." Oliver told her.
"Wait a minute," Sara looked back at the file, "Mathis had no family, but he had a right to an attorney."
Starling City, next day
Late Afternoon
"Tony Daniels?" Quentin called as he walked into the building.
"Can I help you will something officer?" Daniels asked as he put on his coat.
"Barton Mathis. You handled his post-trial appeals and I'd like to know where." Quentin told him.
"So you can give him a parking ticket? You want to talk to me about one of my clients, come back with a detective shield. Or a court order," Daniels said as he packed up his brief case and Quentin laughed, "What, you find that funny?"
"Yeah, a little bit." Quentin said amused.
Daniels opened his mouth to reply when he saw a shadow along the wall. More specifically, two shadows, one man and one woman. Daniels turned around to see The Arrow and Canary standing before him.
"Tell us where Mathis is." The Arrow growled.
"Iron Heights prison." Daniels said immediately.
"He got out." The Canary growled.
"What, how?" Daniels started to stutter.
"You spent hours with him, where would he go? Where!?" The Arrow snarled.
"I don't know, I swear." Daniels lied fearfully.
Growling in frustration, The Arrow took out an arrow. Notching it, he fired the arrow and Daniels cried out in pain as he was hit in the shoulder.
"Hey, we agreed no killing!" Quentin protested.
"He'll live." The Canary said indifferently.
"Yeah, but he'll report me to my lieutenant!" Quentin said angrily.
"No he won't, he still has another shoulder." The Arrow said as he leaned down and pushed the arrow deeper into his Daniel's shoulder, causing the lawyer to cry out in pain.
"Okay okay okay, there is-there is another place. He was always drawing it, sketching it; his cell was filled with drawings of the place." Daniels finally cracked.
"Where is it, is it in Starling City?" Quentin demanded.
"Yeah, the Bisque Museum. He said it reminded him of Germany, where porcelain dolls were invented." Daniels admitted and The Arrow let go as the two vigilantes walked off.
Apartment complex near the Bisque Museum
Later
"The lady at the desk said a guy matching Mathis' description checked in last week, room fifty-two," Quentin told the two vigilantes as the three walked down the hall, "and he paid in case."
Thy trio rounded the corner and saw room fifty-two. The Arrow and Canary were about to head over when Quentin stopped him.
"Listen, I don't want him dead, I just want him arrested. Okay?" Quentin told them and they both nodded in understanding.
The three moved in, Quentin going in first. Quentin kicked the door in and raced in, Gun out and raised. The Arrow and Canary walked in and saw an empty room, save for a porcelain doll on a small table. On the doll's chest was a newspaper article that showed a younger Quentin bringing Mathis in. An old phone near the doll rang and Quentin reached out, taking it off the hook and putting it to his ear.
"Detective, it's been too long." Mathis told him.
"Felicity, try and trace the call." The Canary told the other blonde through the Comms.
"You sick son of a bitch." Quentin snarled.
"Sick? I've never felt better. Fresh air agrees with me." Mathis said mockingly.
"Yeah, well don't get used to it. I put you away once and I'll do it again." Quentin growled.
"Fair enough. In the meantime, I have someone who'd like to say hello to you. Say hello dear," Quentin heard a young woman shriek, "She's a little inarticulate."
"Please, she's done nothing to you. Let her go, just don't hurt her." Quentin begged.
"And allow her to wither away in a mediocre and forgettable life? No, she deserves much better. She deserves to see her beauty preserved. Pristine. Forever. Don't worry; I will turn her into something special. Pay attention Detective. What comes next is really quiet exquisite. The sound of an esophagus slowly hardening," Quentin heard the girl shrieking in the background, "like a symphony."
"I can't get a trace, he's blocking me!" Felicity said through the Comms.
"Mathis, please, I'm begging you. Is that what you want? Please, just stop!" Quentin shouted.
"It's for the world to enjoy. After all, everyone enjoys a pretty doll." Mathis said madly.
Quentin dropped the phone, horror, guilt, and defeat washing over him.
The lair
Later
"The police found her body an hour ago." Felicity told Oliver and Sara as they walked in.
"Does the new victim give us any forensics we can use?" Sara asked as she walked over to the computers.
"CSI did a complete forensics work-up but they sent everything up to a private lab." Diggle explained.
"Sara, Felicity, see if you can get in." Oliver ordered.
"Already tried that, they took their systems offline. Seems like someone hacked into a lot of police related systems last year." Felicity mentioned idly.
"Then we do this how we did Merlyn Global." Sara said firmly.
Granger Laboratory
Later
The guard dropped onto the floor, unconscious as The Arrow and Canary walked out from their vantage point, Quentin following them, and the three entered the lab. The Canary walked up to the mainframe and plugged in the computer link and tapped her comms unit.
"We're ready on our end Felicity." She said.
"Alright, I got toxicology first." Felicity said and they saw the data being pulled up on the screens.
"What are all these?" Quentin asked as he looked at the screen in confusion.
"Chemical ingredients of all the makeup found on the victims. Skin cream, nail polish, lipstick," The Canary explained before laughing at the look on her father's face, "I didn't just learn how to fight and hack while I was away."
"Wait wait, stop. Scroll back," Quentin said as he saw something on the screen, "this one: Ethyl Paraben. Sodium Laureth sulphate. I've seen it before."
"It's skin cream, forensics found traces of it on her fingers. Probably something she used before he grabbed her." Felicity explained.
"Skin cream. Mermaid something. One of the victims from his last run, she had that in her purse and I had the lab analyze it. "It's the same gal, the same formula." Quentin realized.
"Felicity, run a search." The Canary ordered.
"Already on it." Felicity said as she pulled up the label of the skin cream company on the computer in the lab.
"How could she do that?" Quentin asked surprised.
"It's in her blood." The Canary said simply.
"Ethyl Paraben and Sodium Laureth sulphate is Mermaiden's proprietary formula." Felicity explained.
"Two victims with the same taste in skin cream, that can't be a coincidence." The Arrow pointed out.
"I could never figure out how he chose his victims." Quentin breathed.
"I think we just did." The Canary said.
Lian Yu, five years ago
Day
"We shouldn't have left Sara and Shado." Oliver told Slade as they walked through the woods.
"It's their lives. Their choice," Slade said as he put off a branch of a tree that was in the way, "you listen to my advice."
"What advice?" Oliver asked confused.
"To avoid attachment." Slade reminded him as they started to climb up a cliff.
Yeah, that was bad advice." Oliver told him.
"It'll save your life." Slade insisted.
"Maybe I don't want to live under those terms." Oliver snapped.
"Maybe you're an idiot." Slade said irritated.
"Hey, you think caring about people gets you killed. I think it's what keeps people alive." Oliver said and Slade stopped.
"I was wrong about you," Slade turned around and flashed a tight smile, "You're definitely an idiot."
"That's who I am," Oliver said and Slade scoffed before turning around and starting to walk up the cliff, "I'm not changing."
Slade was walking up the cliff when part of it collapsed underneath him. Slade cried out in surprise as Oliver raced towards him, barely catching him by the arm. Oliver started to pull Slade back up the cliff.
"You should be happy I haven't avoided an attachment to you." Oliver grunted as he pulled Slade up.
The lair, next day
Afternoon
"Skin cream, that's our lead." Diggle aid skeptically.
"It's all we've got at the moment," Sara said as she looked at it on the computer, "it's made from crushed mother of pearl and extremely high end. Only a hand full of boutiques carry them and it's made for women with extremely delicate complexions."
"He picks his victims from their skin; the cream is how he finds them." Oliver put together.
"Only four stores in the city carry it and all of them have surveillance. I've run facial recognition through all of them looking for Mathis but come up empty." Felicity told them.
"He's staking out the stores from the outside." Sara realized.
"Then let's do the same." Diggle suggested.
"That could take days and Mathis could kill another girl by then." Oliver growled.
"I'll go into the store and buy the cream from each one to cover our bases." Sara suddenly stood up as they all looked at her.
"That…is a good plan." Oliver reluctantly greed.
"You don't look pleased.
"This plan involves using my wife for bait. I said it was a good plan, not that I agreed with it." Oliver told her pointedly.
Lian Yu, five years ago
Day
"There are only two ways off this island," Slade said as he and Oliver finally reached the top of the cliff, "by sea and by air."
"So what, you're gonna steal whatever they used to get onto the island?" Oliver asked.
"Well I'm tired of living here, aren't you?" Slade asked.
The two took out there binoculars and started to look out over the island. It didn't take them long to locate what they were looking for: a ship just off shore. Oliver lowered his binoculars, shock, awe, and hope filling him.
"It appears to be two or three clicks off shore." Slade said slight excitement visible in his voice.
They were startled by a series of loud booms. Slade looked into his binoculars and saw the smoke trail of missiles coming from the ship.
"It appears to be firing off its location." Slade noted.
"The plane." Oliver breathed.
"They must have found it." Slade agreed.
"Sara!" Oliver shouted as he turned around and ran.
"Wait kid!" Slade shouted as he ran after Oliver.
Oliver and Sara's loft
Late afternoon
"So you're really doing this?" Quentin asked as Sara got ready.
"It was either me or Felicity. Take your pick." Sara said and Quentin nodded.
"You were right last year," Quentin said and she looked up, "about the doll maker. I found this case less than a month after you and Oliver were ship wrecked. I threw myself into it, I think on some level I was trying to save you. He caught eight girls your age before I stopped him."
"I get that, I get throwing yourself into something to hide from grief," Sara told him and he looked at her curiously, "after Hong Kong, Ollie and I went to Russia, looking for White. I became…obsessed with finding her, with killing her. It didn't matter how I did it, I just wanted her dead. I was trying to hide from my grief by focusing it all on White. I was on the edge of an abyss."
"So what happened?" Quentin asked curiously yet not sure he wanted to know.
"I hit rock bottom." Sara said and didn't offer more and Quentin didn't pry.
Starling City
Night
"I'm leaving the last store now." Sara said as she walked out of the store.
"Were all set, get to the rendezvous point," The Arrow ordered as he watched from a rooftop, "stay in public."
The Arrow followed her on the rooftop as Quentin and Diggle kept an eye on her from a distance. There was nothing a for a minute until Sara spotted a man that appeared to be following her. At first she thought it was Mathis but he went off in a different direction. Sara relaxed but walked right into an alley and, wouldn't you know it, Mathis was there. She gave a scream to alert the team before punching him as he attempted to grab her.
The Arrow, Diggle, and Quentin all moved in on them. Remembering Quentin's words about wanting him arrested, The Arrow fired an injection arrow from his place on the rooftop. The arrow struck Mathis right in the back. There was a hissing noise as Mathis wobbled lightly before slumping to the ground. Team Arrow stared at Mathis' unconscious form for a moment before Quentin pulled out his police radio.
"Dispatch, we have a gift from the Arrow." Quentin announced as the other three disappeared into the night.
Ware house by the docks, next day
Early morning
"What is the point of all this!?" Roy finally lost his patience as he threw the bowl aside.
The Canary did not react. She walked over to a crate and pulled out a bow. She tossed it to him and he barely caught it.
Draw back the bow." She ordered him.
Confused, Roy did as he was told. Quiet easily, he pulled back the string quite easily.
"You would not have been able to do that before. The point was to build up your arm strength. We need to work on your patience. Out in the field, being impatient will only get you killed." The Canary told him.
"Oh. So…what now?" Roy asked.
"Now…the real training begins." She told him.
Starling City police department
Morning
"Lance, a word in my office." Barnes told Quentin.
Quentin nodded and they stepped inside Barnes office. Barnes gestured for Quentin to take a seat and both men sat down.
"So, it's a little odd how you just happened to come across Mathis knocked out by the arrow." Barnes said suspiciously.
"If you have something to say sir, say it." Quentin said in a respectful voice.
"Are you working with the vigilantes?" Barnes demanded.
"The Arrow and Canary? No." Quentin lied easily.
"You did once." Barnes pointed out.
"The city was under attack by a madman and me working with them saved The Glades from complete destruction." Quentin shot back.
"I've been asking around about you, you used to hate the vigilantes as much as I do. What happened?" Barnes demanded.
"The city needs help sir. I don't care if it comes from the police, I don't care if it comes from the vigilantes, I don't care if it comes from a business man ,so long as it's help. Is that all chief?" Quentin asked starting to lose patience.
"Dismissed officer." Barnes told him and Quentin got up and walked out of the room.
Lian Yu, five years ago
Day
"Oliver!" Slade shouted as the pair ran through the mining field.
The two ran through the field before a missile detonated in front of Slade and behind Oliver, sending them both flying. Dazed, Oliver looked up to see Slade on the ground, half his body on fire, before he passed out.
The next thing Oliver was aware of, he woke up in a cell on the ship.
So, what do you guys think? Please leave any thoughts or comments in a review, feedback is greatly appreciated.