Past is Prologue

by Naitch03

We all have regrets. But one person now has the power to do something about it. 25 Years in the future Thea Queen, the Green Arrow, has gathered the most important people in her (and her brother's) lives from the past for one purpose- the change the Past. Join them as they watch the first two years of Oliver's journey to become the first Green Arrow.Rated T for language & Violence

38. Chapter 36: Three Ghosts

Disclaimer: Arrow is owned by The CW, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Bros. Television. The characters of the Green Arrow and the Justice League is owned by DC Comics. I own nothing; I'm just playing in their universe.

Chapter 36: Three Ghosts

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The memory set picked up where the last one left off. Oliver, now hooked up to a heart monitor and a saline drip, started convulsing on the table.

"Hold him!" Barry ordered, running over to the table.

"He's not going to make it." Dig said darkly.

"He will." Felicity responded fiercely. "We just have to find out what's in his system."

Barry stared down at Oliver in a panic. "I-I-I usually only work on dead people." He stammered.

"Give him a minute…" Felicity said worriedly.

"Barry!" Felicity shouted sharply, bringing his mind back into focus.

"All right, I can think of four possible diagnoses for what's causing his body to react this way." Barry said, moving quickly around Oliver's body. "Make that three possible diagnosis." He pried open his eyelid and shined a penlight in, checking pupil dilation. "Two. Start chest compressions." He told Dig. As Diggle started the chest compressions, Barry ran over and grabbed a surgical dish with an empty syringe. He moved back to Oliver and stuck the needle in his arm, then withdrew a few CC's of blood. He pulled out the needle and examined the blood, swirling it around in the syringe. "Got it. He's suffering from intravenous coagulation." He announced.

"What?" Diggle asked.

"His blood is unnaturally clotting. It's like maple syrup." Barry explained.

"You're very good." Malcolm complimented. Barry, not knowing how to take what appeared to be a sincere compliment from a mortal enemy, merely nodded respectfully in reply.

"You can save him, right?" Felicity asked.

Barry looked up, then around the room, searching for… he spotted what he needed and ran over to the corner of the room, picking up the box of rat poison.

"Lucky you guys have a rat problem." Barry noted as he poured some into a beaker.

"You're solution to saving my poisoned son is so poison him some more?!" Moira exclaimed.

"It's a blood thinner." Barry explained. "A small enough dose will thin out his blood, but not be lethal."

"Are you kidding? That'll kill him!" Diggle exclaimed.

"He dies if I don't." Barry said simply.

"Felicity…" Diggle looked to the hacker

She paused only a moment before looking back at Barry. "Do it!" she ordered.

Barry poured in some saline and mixed the solution before drawing it into a fresh syringe. "Just the right amount of this stuff will thin his blood enough to get it circulating again." Barry said as he injected it into the line. Diggle continued the chest compressions as they waited for it to take effect.

On the table Oliver began to regain consciousness even as his vitals continued to crash. His head lolled to one side as, for the first time in five years, he heard a familiar voice.

"Let go, Oliver."

Slade's hands balled into fists.

"He's crashing." Diggle said in alarm, continuing the compressions.

Oliver looked over and saw Shado standing there. "Don't fight anymore."

"Oliver, stay with me!" Felicity said in alarm as the alarms got worse.

Shado held out her hand. "Stay with me." Oliver's hand reached out towards her…

"Get away from her…." Slade growled lowly. Mia stared at him with narrowed eyes.

The monitors were silent now. Oliver had passed out once more as the rat poison began to take effect. Diggle and Felicity were over at her station, and Barry was slowly peeling off a piece of evidence tape from his neck when Oliver shot awake. On instinct he reached out and clamped his hand around Barry's throat. Barry gasped and tried to get Diggle's attention; finally he succeeded.

"I've wanted to do that, from time to time." Bart said.

"Oliver, let him go." Diggle shouted, running over and prying Oliver off of Barry. The young scientist collapsed back against a table as Diggle held a confused Oliver back.

"Oliver!" Felicity said sharply.

"What the…" he gasped slightly. "What the hell is going on?"

"New team member. Forgot to send the memo, I suppose." Felicity said with a wry grin. "Oops."

"You were injected with a strong-acting blood coagulant." She explained.

"You would have stroked out," Barry said, then cleared his throat. "But fortunately you had a very effective blood thinner handy. Warfarin." He rubbed his throat. "Better known as rat poison."

"Kid saved your life, Oliver." Diggle told him.

"This is the point in a lifesaving emergency where you thank the person that did the lifesaving." Felicity said warningly.

"Good luck with that…" Diggle muttered.

Oliver looked at her incredulously. "You told him who I am." He accused.

"Yeah, I did." She said bluntly.

"That's not your secret to tell, Felicity." Oliver argued hotly. "I decide who finds out my identity."

"Well, we didn't have time to get your vote, what with you unconscious and dying." She said acerbically, moving around the table to stand in front of him.

"You go, girl!" Thea told Felicity with a grin.

"What happens if he leaves here and goes right to the police?" Oliver asked accusingly.

"Technically, he IS the police." Wally pointed out.

"CSI. Totally different." Barry replied.

"He wouldn't do that." She replied.

"I wouldn't do that." Barry added.

"I trust him." Felicity stated.

"I don't!" he exclaimed weakly.

"What are you going to do, put an arrow in him?" she asked sarcastically.

"I am considering it." Oliver threatened.

"Wouldn't be the last time he did that…" Barry muttered.

"Ollie shot you?" Thea asked, horrified.

"He heals fast." Wally said, as if that explained it all.

"Don't worry, he's kidding!" Felicity said to Barry. Then she turned back to Oliver. "How is this any different from when your mother shot you and you came to me for help?" she asked.

Moira winced at the reminder.

"Your mother shot you?" Barry asked. Oliver held up a finger in warning; Barry shut up. "Or when you brought Dig down here when he was poisoned with curare." Felicity continued.

"The difference is that I did my homework on both of you!" he exclaimed. "I don't just tell people easily."

"I'm not going to tell anyone." Barry said, moving closer. "And you don't have to thank me, but you should thank her instead of being kind of a jerk." He added. Oliver moved towards him threateningly, but Barry held his ground. "Mr. Queen." He added.

"You tell him, Uncle Barry." Wally said with a smirk.

Oliver looked ready to continue the argument, but his phone buzzed. He grabbed his phone from the table and looked at it. It was a text from his mother.

::Can you please come home.::

Oliver sighed. "I have to go home." He said breathlessly. "That man that I fought in the bunker, he has what he needs to mass produce the serum from the island. And we have to stop him." He started shuffling towards the stairs.

"He touched your skin when he grabbed your neck." Barry told him, holding up the tape. "I was able to absorb the residual oils from his skin, which, when added to a gel-based polymer, might be able to recreate his fingerprint." Oliver gave him a look then nodded slightly before he slowly moved off.

"Wow. You actually managed to pull a fingerprint off of a person's neck." Felicity said, impressed.

"I don't like to boast…" Barry said modestly.

"Flash fact!" Wally and Bart both said together, causing Barry to scowl at them.

Felicity came up behind Barry. "Never meet your heroes, right?" she asked. Barry sighed.

The scene changed to Queen Manor. Oliver, cleaned up and dressed properly, walked into the parlor to see her mother decorating the Christmas tree. "Mom?" he said, getting her attention.

"Oliver, thank you for coming home, sweetheart." She said wearily as she moved over to him.

"Is everything all right?" Oliver asked; worried.

"Well, I don't know." She started. "Your sister has locked herself in her room and she won't talk to me."

"Again?" Thea joked.

"Must be Tuesday." Tommy teased.

"Don't worry, I'll talk to her." Oliver assured her.

"Ok."

Oliver looked at the tree again, and it finally registered in his addled brain. "It's Christmas."

"Yes. But given the last gala that we threw, I think we're going to skip this year's Christmas party." Moira added with a smile. Oliver chuckled, and then moved off to see his sister.

A few minutes later he walked up to his sister's door and nocked. "Thea, its Ollie. Open the door." He yelled.

"Not-not now, Ollie." She yelled back.

"Speedy, open the door!" he yelled back, annoyed.

"Is mom with you?" she yelled through the door.

"No!" he exclaimed. He heard Thea walking towards the door; a moment later, it opened. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I didn't want mom to see." Thea began.

"See what?" Oliver asked, though he already had a sneaking suspicion. Which was confirmed a moment later when she opened the door wider, to reveal Roy lying on her bed, his pants leg cut and a towel laid out to catch the blood from the arrow still stuck in his leg. Sin was seated on the bed beside him, tending to the wound. "What happened to him?" Oliver asked nonchalantly as he walked into the room.

"You SHOT me, you self-satisfied schmuck." Roy growled.

"God, Roy. It's been 25 years! Let it go!" Mia said.

"Vigilante decided to use him as target practice." Thea said. "You're right- the guy's a psycho."

"No, just over-protective." Tommy said approvingly. Thea rolled her eyes at him.

Oliver stopped beside the bed. "Why didn't you go to the hospital?" he asked Roy.

"In this city, an arrow's the same as a bullet if you want the cops involved." Roy said through gritted teeth.

"And mom actually likes Roy, but something tells me she'd revoke his tree trimming invitation if she found out he was messing around with the Hood." She said, that last part added sharply to her boyfriend.

"Uh-huh." Oliver said. He looked over at Sin. "Hi." He took a towel from her. "Roy. This is going to hurt." He said as he climbed onto the bed.

"My anger's dulling the pain." Roy said.

"This will dull it better." Sin said, offering him a bottle of Vodka. He took it with a shaky hand and took a small sip.

"Should have had more." Laurel said, and then grimaced. "Which is highly ironic, coming from me…"

Oliver wrapped the towel around the shaft of the arrow, and then very slowly and very deliberately pulled it out.

Malcolm snickered- he actually snickered- seeing Oliver so obviously enjoying putting Roy through that pain.

Roy glared at the elder Merlyn. "Don't make me get Dinah back in here." He warned the other archer. Malcolm glanced over at Mia; she winked at him.

Roy groaned loudly in pain as Oliver set the arrow down and put the towel back on the wound. "Going to put pressure on it." He said, taking Roy's hand and placing it on the towel. "Right there." Roy took over, and Oliver slid off the bed and pulled out his phone. He quickly dialed Dig. "Diggle, I need you to come to the Queen Mansion." he said. "Roy's been shot. With an arrow." He added, glancing back at the trio. "It's a long story. Look, just bring the first aid kit to Thea's room." He said, cutting off Dig's lecture. "Thank you." He hung up and turned back to the three. "Roy? My driver, Mr. Diggle; he has medical training from his time in the army. He's going to patch you up." He said.

"Thank you." Roy said weakly.

"It's the least I can do." Oliver said awkwardly. "Look, I don't know what the three of you are up to, but maybe the vigilante was just trying to keep you safe." He offered.

"By shooting Roy?" Thea asked incredulously.

"I…I'm just saying. Maybe you should let this go." Oliver said. He walked out of the room and closed the door.

"THAT'S likely." Thea said.

Sin looked at her friends. "So," she started. "Are you going to let this go?"

"No." Thea said firmly. "But now we're going to do things my way." She said, looking sternly at Roy.

Moira made a disapproving sound, but Thea merely smiled back at the woman.

Out in the hallway Oliver was walking back towards his own room when, from the corner of his eye, he spotted a woman walking round the corner down the hall. He moved down and turned the corner. "Mom!" he called out, but there was no one there. "Hello!" He looked down the hall in puzzlement.

"Nǐ hǎo, qīn'ài de."

Oliver spun back around to see Shado standing in the hall. "Shado?" he said in disbelief. He moved closer and hesitantly reached out, touching her cheek tenderly. She smiled up at him as he rubbed her cheek gently. "You can't be here." He said sadly.

"Because you let her die." Slade growled lowly. More eyes turned his way at the comment; several filled with worry.

"I had to see you. Had to warn you." Shado said.

"Warn me?" Oliver asked.

"You can't fight what's coming. Put down your bow." She told him gently. "Take off my father's hood."

"I wear that hood to honor your father." He argued softly. "And to honor you."

Slade made a disgusted sound.

"If you want to honor me, stop fighting…and live. Or everyone you love will die."

"Ollie?" Oliver spun around to see Thea standing there. "Who were you talking to?" she asked. Oliver looked back, but Shado was gone.

"Who was he talking to?" Thea wondered.

"Technically it was his subconscious." Mia said. "At least, that's what I've always believed."

"Well, it's not as if there are such things as ghosts." Tommy said confidently. His confidence faltered when he saw the looks the heroes were giving each other. "Right?"

"There are things in this world," Barry began, "that defy logical, rational, scientific logic. Things that are beyond the realm of mortal men. Things that just can't be explained. Now, were those ghosts?" he asked, gesturing at the screen. "I don't know, and neither did Oliver. Maybe they were ghosts, or maybe they were echos of his subconscious, voicing his thoughts and fears to his conscious mind. As a scientist, I prefer to think it's the latter. But as someone who has dealt with beings like The Spectre, Etrigan, Shazam, Deadman and Constantine, I can't discount that it actually may have been ghosts."

Tommy sighed. "This was all so much easier when it was just you acting like a homicidal maniac." he complained to his father.

"The man who trained me has been alive for well over two hundred years, and is kept youthful and vigorous due to a mystical pool of water." Malcolm replied.

Tommy glared at him. "I hate you so much right now."

FIVE YEARS AGO

The miracle had failed. Slade was dead. And now Oliver, Shado and Sara were at the mercy of a madman as Ivo and his men burst into the compartment.

Ivo spotted Sara, standing frozen by the door. He grabbed her arm and shoved her towards Oliver and Shado. "Get over there!" He shined his light down on Slade, and knelt down. He slowly reached towards his body and felt for a pulse, but found none. He noted the bloody tears, then saw the empty syringe on the ground and picked it up. He was examining it when the new captain walked back into the compartment, the wooden crate in his hand. "Mirakuru." He said, rising to examine the box. He looked at the rows of syringes in wonder. Then turned back to his men. "Take them." He ordered.

A short time later the group was walking back through the forest towards the Amazo. Oliver, Shado and Sara all had their hands bound behind them, and Ivo led Sara at gunpoint personally.

"Anthony, you got what you wanted. You can let them go." Sara said, trying to reason with the man. She turned back to face him. "If you ever cared about me." She pleaded.

"But I do care about you, Sara." Ivo said. "Which is why I won't choose to kill you." Sara blinked as Ivo's insanity came to the front. "But he might."

Oliver, who had stopped with the rest, looked at the doctor in confusion as he forced both Sara and Shado to their knees.

"What are you talking about?" Oliver asked in dread.

"Time to choose, Oliver." Ivo said with insane glee. "Who lives, and who dies. But pick quickly, because in 30 seconds, I will shoot them both." Oliver stared at the two women in horror.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Thea exclaimed, drowning out Slade's angry growl. "If he was just going to kill you, why take you at all?"

"He didn't need to take us." Sara said wearily. "He had what he wanted; he could have just cut us loose."

"Why didn't he?" Laurel asked.

"Because we hurt his pride." Sara said. "Oliver by outsmarting him, and me by betraying him."

"And Shado was just there." Slade said coldly.

"Yes. She was." Sara replied.

PRESENT

In Blood's warehouse, Cyrus gave the man himself an update as the scientist ran the blood, serum and sedative through the centrifuge.

"The incubation process has begun. Serum will be ready for distribution in 48 hours." Cyrus told Blood.

"Two days." Blood replied. "And we will be able to create a hundred more like you. And the people who run this city will see what real power looks like."

The scene changed to the Lair. Barry, who had recovered his earlier enthusiasm, was examining the costume in the display case. "I knew the Vigilante had partners." Barry said, moving to look at more of the gear around him.

"He likes to be called the Arrow now." Diggle noted.

"You three have messed with some really nasty people." Barry continued, picking up an arrow from the weapon's case. "The Doll Maker, Count Vertigo, Dodger, The Huntress."

"AKA Oliver's psycho ex-girlfriend." Diggle said.

"She actually turned out to be a hell of a woman." Barry said. "Granted, it took a few years; several of which were on the Suicide Squad…"

"We weren't keeping score." Dig said.

"I was." Barry replied.

"Barry." The scientist turned as Oliver walked into the lair. "The rat poison that you gave me- are there any side effects?"

Barry thought quickly. "Um, yeah, I think hallucinations, maybe." He said after a moment. "And excessive sweating. Are you sweating excessively?"

"You're hallucinating?" Felicity guessed worriedly. "What are you seeing?"

"A girl named Shado that was with me on the island."

Felicity sighed shortly. "Shado. Sara. How many women were you marooned with? Are you sure this wasn't fantasy island?" she quipped sarcastically as she moved back to her computers.

"That would be funnier if we didn't just see two of said women being held at gunpoint." Felicity said.

"You did train in a jungle or forest environment, hence the green." Barry said excitedly. Oliver gave him a look. "Hey, let me draw some blood, see what's up." Barry continued, back to business.

"Very smooth, Barry." Bart said with a chuckle.

They moved over to the medical station and Barry grabbed a syringe. "Hey, can I ask you something? Why no mask?" he asked as he drew the blood. "Not to tell you how to do your vigilante…ing, but the grease paint thing? It's a poor identity concealer."

"So find me a mask that conforms perfectly to my face and doesn't affect my ability to aim while I'm on the run." Oliver said wearily.

"Compressible micro fabric would probably be the best bet." Malcolm noted absently.

"You should look into a compressible micro fabric." Barry suggested eagerly. "It could be great."

All eyes turned to Malcolm. He shrugged. "I thought about ditching the hood for years. Too claustrophobic." She shuddered lightly. "Still, I found it to be more intimidating, so I kept it."

"Plus it allowed you to blend in to the rank and file of the League." Sara noted. Malcolm nodded in agreement.

"I always did like my illusions." He said.

"Found Cyrus Gold." Felicity announced.

"Who's Cyrus Gold?" Oliver asked.

"The human weapon that left you nearly dead the other night." Dig replied dryly. "The kid did manage to pull his print off your neck."

"I've had facial recognition software scanning closed circuit cameras all over town." Felicity said. "He's at the corner of Delgado and 25th right now, but we're just about to lose him."

"What else is at that intersection?" Oliver asked.

"A parking lot, a market, a motel." She said.

"Could be where he's holed up." Diggle noted.

"I got this." Oliver said, moving towards the weapon's case.

"Oliver," Dig said, getting the man's attention. He moved in close and dropped his voice low. "Why don't you let me handle this one? It's just recon." He pointed out.

Oliver sighed. "Fine." He said. "But I'm going as your back-up." The two walked out.

Barry smiled at Felicity. "Don't worry." He said. "I'll figure out what's wrong with Oliver."

"He'd be the first." Thea quipped.

"You'd be the first." Felicity quipped.

Thea held up her fist; Felicity gave her an awkward fist-bump.

Diggle chuckled and shook his head. "That was the whitest fist-bump I've ever seen." He lamented with a grin.

The scene changed to the D.A.'s office, where a large vase of lilies had been delivered to Laurel. She looked at the card, 'Need and Alderman to go x-mas shopping with?' and smiled.

Laurel sighed. "Great. I AM going to date the nutjob."

"I'll try not to be jealous of the psycho." Tommy said with a small grin.

"He's definitely a trade-down." Laurel assured him.

"Secret admirer?" a familiar voice asked.

"No, actually, they're from my father." She lied. She looked up to see Thea and Sin walk in.

"Well, this is awkward." Thea noted.

"What brings you by?" she asked cautiously, knowing full well she had just tried to have the girl's mother sent to prison for life, or worse.

"We need your help." Thea began, slightly reluctant. "Cindy's friend was murdered, but the police aren't going to investigate. They said that he OD'ed, end of story."

"Check this out." Sin handed Laurel the pamphlet about the blood drive. "He earned extra money donating blood. We found it in Max's apartment. They wouldn't have accepted his blood if he was using, right?" she added.

"Max went missing the same day as the blood drive." Thea continued. "If he did donate blood there, maybe they at least know something that happened to him."

"I'll ask around." Laurel promised.

"Thank you, Laurel." Thea said. She and Sin left, leaving Laurel with the pamphlet- and her flowers.

"Ah, guilt." Thea said smugly. "Much better than working with a vigilante that could shoot you at any moment."

"Though to be fair, it was Roy." Mia said. "Lord knows I'VE wanted to shoot him."

"You HAVE shot me." Roy pointed out, and Thea blanched.

The scene changed to downtown. Diggle got out of the car, leaving Oliver to watch the street. "If you get bored, I keep a book of crossword puzzles in the glove box." Diggle said.

"That's not funny." Oliver said sourly.

Upstairs, Diggle cautiously opened Cyrus's door. He had his pen light out and gun drawn, and he moved slowly into the apartment.

'Ok, what do you see?' Oliver asked over his headset.

"It's clean." Diggle replied. "Really clean." He looked around, and then noticed a book laying on the kitchen counter. "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday." He read off as a shape moved behind him, unseen.

"Uh-oh." Felicity said.

"I've seen this movie." Tommy said. "The black dude dies first."

"Very funny, Merlyn." Diggle said sourly.

"Christened on Tuesday." Oliver continued. "I know the poem. It symbolizes the seven stages of life- from birth to death."

"What stage is this guy in?" Diggle wondered. Then he heard the floor creek and he spun around to see Cyrus, in the faceless mask, right behind him. Dig brought up his gun, but Cyrus grabbed his hand and forced it away with contemptuous ease. The man squeezed, and Diggle's finger tightened reflexively firing off several shot into the room. He brought his other hand around and hit him hard on the face, but it had no effect. Cyrus punched him once and sent him flying across the room. Assessing the situation, Dig decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so he jumped up and jumped through the window, grabbing onto the fire escape.

"Talk about a leap of faith!" Felicity said faintly.

Diggle scrambled down and dropped to the ground just as Oliver rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. Dig jumped in the car. "Go, go, go, go, go!" he urged, and Oliver took off, leaving Cyrus behind.

Diggle gasped in pain. "He picked me up like I was nothing." He noted sourly.

Oliver dialed the lair. "Felicity, call for back-up." He ordered.

'On it.'

A short time later, Officer Lance came up to the roof opposite the stadium to find the Arrow standing there.

"Heh." Quentin said. "Figures. He's about the only partner I'd have at that point, besides Hilton."

"This about Sara? You heard from her?" he asked eagerly.

Oliver sighed and activated the voice changer. "No." he said apologetically. "I'm sorry, this is," he sighed. "This is something else." He handed Lance a file. "Cyrus Gold. He robbed the Applied Sciences Division of Queen Consolidated last week. Detective, he's extremely dangerous." He added.

"The CSI kid from Central City, he said this guy was like some kind of monster." Lance said as he flipped through the file.

"He is." Oliver assured him.

"Well, what is it, steroids?"

"Worse. It's—" he trailed off. Behind Lance, on a higher portion of the roof. He saw Slade Wilson standing there, glaring at him. "…it's…"

"Your conscience, perhaps?" Slade noted smugly.

"Well, assuming I believe you, why come to me?" Lance asked curiously.

"I've been compromised." Oliver admitted.

"What does that mean?" Lance asked in confusion.

"It means I'd be a liability. You have to take my word on this, Detective. Gather as many men as you can, and do not hesitate to kill Cyrus Gold. Because if given the opportunity, he'll do the same to you." He said in a rush, still glancing up at Slade. He then withdrew a grappling arrow and fired it into the roof, then jumped over the side, repelling down. Once he hit the ground, he threw back his hood and panted heavily.

FIVE YEARS AGO

"You don't have to do this!" Oliver exclaimed. "You got what you came for! Just take it and go!"

Ivo pointed the gun at Shado's head. "10 Seconds."

Slade was gripping the arms of the seat so hard, the wood underneath the fabric audibly creaked.

"You freaking psychopath!" Oliver shouted.

He was shaking in impotent rage.

"History will make that judgment." He moved the gun to Sara "Five seconds." Oliver stared at the two women, torn. "Time's up." Ivo raised the gun.

"No, no!" Oliver ran in front of Sara, dropping to his knees in front of her.

"I guess you made your choice." Ivo said coldly, then turned the gun on Shado and fired once into her head.

"NO!" Oliver screamed, then collapsed to the ground. One more person he had cared about, dead.

The arms of the chair snapped as Slade leapt to his feet, roaring in anger. Mia, Roy, Sara, and the Flashes all jumped to their feet as well, even as Slade grabbed his chair and threw it at the wall, causing it to exploded into tiny fragments.

"SLADE!" Sara shouted.

"YOU!" he snarled back. "She's dead because of you! You and him, that whiny, self-absorbed punk-"

"He tried to save her." Mia pointed out. "Don't you see? He tried to save them both!"

"He put himself between the gun and his girlfriend!"

"No, he put himself in front of the gun." Mia corrected. "Ivo was the one pointing it!"

"If it had been pointed at Shado, he would have jumped in front of her." Sara told him. "And Ivo knew that. Oliver chose to sacrifice his own life for theirs; Ivo just wouldn't accept it. He wanted Oliver to suffer as much as possible."

"You have spent years blaming Oliver for Shado's death." Sara continued "But the truth of the matter is that it was all Ivo. And then he spun the truth so that you would blame Oliver instead of him. To save his own life, or to get a measure of revenge on Oliver, I can't say."

"You were a good man, once." Mia said. "You were his brother. Then they gave you the Mirakuru, and Ivo spoke his poisoned words…" she sighed. "This- monster that you've become, it isn't you! Can't you see that?"

Slade stared at the two women coldly. His eyes moved around the room- Kara was approaching him slowly on his right; the three Flashes were still standing in front of their couch, but Roy had moved behind them, his bow out and armed. Sara had her escrima sticks held loosely in her hands, and Mia held her bow at rest, but he figured she could draw and shoot in a matter of seconds. His own hands were in his pockets- his left hand grasped his phone; his right rasped the small lead container he had taken from the museum.

"What I see," Slade said after a moment's consideration, "is the shadow of a boy saving his mistress because he felt guilty for killing her once before! I see a punk kid who had no problem using whatever or whomever he could as long as it gave him personal satisfaction! And I see a little girl trying to cover up the mistakes of her cherished brother- a boy who did not deserve cherishing!" Mia stiffened at his comment. "I made your brother a promise once," he continued. In his left pocket, his thumb wiped over the screen, unlocking the phone. A further press of his thumb on the screen sent a command to the station's computers that instantly locked all the doors and activated the power dampeners. In his right, he popped the lid off the small container. "I promised him that I wouldn't kill him until he suffered the same way that I had suffered. Until he had known complete despair." He glared at Mia, raw hatred rolling off of him in waves. "How much despair do you think he'll feel when he returns home to find everyone he ever loved is dead?"

"Kara." Mia ordered sharply.

Kara moved over to Slade and grasped his shoulder tightly- and that's when she faltered. A wave of nausea and weakness passed through her like a tidal wave, and her eyes widened in realization- a split second before Slade withdrew his right hand, the shard of kryptonite held firmly in his grip. He jammed the shard into Kara's neck, and then slid across it, cutting her throat before withdrawing the shard and slamming it into her chest. He followed that up with a stiff kick that sent the Kryptonian flying across the room into the far wall, where she hit with a sickening impact before sliding to the floor, still clutching her bleeding throat. Even before she hit the ground, Slade kicked the long end table up at the three Flashes, catching them unprepared as they tried to run out of the way- only to discover their powers were blocked. The table seemed to explode against the three heroes, sending them crashing over the couch and into Roy, whose shot went wild.

5 Seconds.

Mia drew a cure arrow and fired, even as Sara surged forward. Slade grabbed the arrow, spun it around, and swiped it across Sara's forehead, opening a deep gash that began to bleed profusely. Even so she began her attack, but was no match for the younger, faster warrior. Slade blocked a left, grabbed her right arm and twisted, breaking it. Sara gasped and instinctively let go of the escrima stick, which Slade deftly plucked out of the air. He rapped her across the skull with the stick, sending her to the ground, dodged another arrow from Mia, and then threw the stick like a spear. It landed true right on target- in the stomach of Laurel Lance, who had stood up in alarm. Laurel's breath exploded out of her as she was driven back by the impact, tumbling over the couch and collapsing to the floor.

8 Seconds.

Enraged, Mia rushed Slade. She swung her bow like a staff, even as she withdrew another arrow and tried to stab him with it. Slade took the hits, but grabbed the arrow, twisting Mia's arm and wrenching it from her. He backhanded the archer, and then threw the arrow at Roy, who had started to recover. The arrow buried deep into his collar on the left side, and he cried out in pain as he fell back down.

10 seconds.

Slade spun towards Thea. "You're so intent on saving your brother." He spat as she looked at him fearfully. "Let's see how well you do if I kill you 25 years before you even start!" Slade rushed at Thea, and even as Moira threw herself over her daughter to protect her, Slade was met with another challenger.

Malcolm roared as he leapt from his seat, tackling Slade through the second end table. "Moira, take Thea and run!" he shouted to his former lover as he took the fight to Slade. Both clambered to their feet, and then it was assassin versus mercenary.

"Laurel!" Tommy screamed as he and Lance ran over to the fallen woman, who was mercifully unconscious as she bled out all over the floor.

"Felicity, get out of here!" Diggle shouted, pushing the hacker towards Moira and Thea as he moved to help Malcolm.

The three women ran to the door- then ran into it as it failed to open. "Not again!" Thea shouted, pounding on the door even as Felicity moved to hack the system again.

Slade landed a hard shot into Malcolm's solar plexus, sending the man staggering back into Diggle. He jumped towards the door and grasped Felicity by her hair. He yanked her head back hard, and she screamed in pain. "You're not going anywhere!" he snarled, then smashed her face into the control panel. Her glasses broke, along with both her nose and the panel which shorted out, and Felicity collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Slade turned to Thea, who screamed in terror as he reached towards her-

Then suddenly Tommy was there, throwing wild hay-makers at the mercenary's face and driving him back. "Get the hell away from her!" he screamed, landing two more shots to the gut before a backhand from Slade sent him flying across the room. But then Lance was there, wielding a chair leg like a club. He decided to forego body shots and focus on the monster's head instead. "You try to murder my girls! You son of a bitch!" He landed three solid hits, with the third one cracking the improvised bat in two, but the Mirakuru was too strong in his system. Slade deftly grasped Lance's arm and squeezed, breaking it. The cop cried out in pain as Slade maneuvered around, flipping him over his shoulder to the ground. Slade scooped up the broken piece of wood, now little more than a long, jagged stake.

"You can join your daughters in the afterlife!" Quentin's eyes widened as Slade brought the stake down-

But his arm was intercepted by Malcolm, who drove it up and away. Malcolm used his forward momentum to swing Slade around and sent him right at Diggle, who drove his shoulder into the man's gut even as he lifted him up, spun, and slammed him spine-first into the wreckage of a table. Diggle started laying in with punches, trying to knock Slade out even as Malcolm began kicking his side. Slade reached out and grasped Malcolm's foot, then yanked it forward sending the assassin crashing to the ground. He followed that up with a heavy punch that sent Diggle flying up into the ceiling, then kicked him hard in the chest as he came back down. Slade staggered back to his feet- but was then speared back to the ground by Tommy, who mounted him and began laying in heavy shots to Slade's face. Slade reached up and grasped Tommy's throat, then threw him forward off of him and back into the wall. Slade staggered back to his feet, but was beset immediately by Malcolm and a recovered Mia. They worked in tandem, one attacking while the other withdrew slightly, one drawing the fire while the other moved in for the hit.

Thea watched them in awe from the still locked door, where she was tending to Felicity. 'It's beautiful.' She thought to herself, stunned by the notion. But it was beautiful- it was poetry in motion; and for the first time Thea began to see how deadly a duo they must have made in another life. Slade was wounded now, with bruises and cuts even the Mirakuru was having a hard time keeping up with. As his pain increased, so did his anger; and as that increased, his skills seemed to evaporate. Now he was brawling like a drunken sailor while the two assassins's danced around him, landing hard hits onto pressure points, never clusters and joints. The pair stepped past him as he swung wildly, then as one kicked backward. They each stuck behind a knee, sending Slade to his knees; then they reached for his head- Mia grasped his hair, while Malcolm grasped his forehead, and yanked backward as they drove their knees into the back of his neck and head. Mia followed that up by grasping his right arm, yanking it up, and putting a reverse triangle choke on Slade as Malcolm put the left arm into an armbar. Slade struggled mightily, the breath being choked out of his body and Thea watched him struggle for several moments before the man finally fell still.

1 minute 47 seconds.

Mia glanced at Malcolm, who looked back warily. Just as they both started to loosen their grips, though, Slade roared back to life. He ripped his arms free, sending Malcolm and Mia flying across the room. Just as he staggered to his feet, though, a small explosion forced the door open- and standing on the other side was Dinah Lance. With a look of pure contempt, Dinah opened her mouth and SCREAMED.

The canary cry, tightly focused, slammed into Slade and sent him back against the far wall. Dinah held it on him for 30 full seconds- the sound devastating his heightened senses. By the time she had to pause for a breath, Slade was collapsed back on his knees, blood pouring out of his nose and ears. He looked up drunkenly at the vigilante, and could only stare impotently as Rose walked in behind her, calmly drew her tranq gun, and fired five darts full of Mirakuru Cure into his chest. He gasped in pain as he felt the source of his strength being ripped away, and the last thing he saw was Dinah walking up to him and, her face filled with rage, lifting her tonfa stick up towards his head…

Rose stalked up to the deranged man , lifted the tonfa stick, and whipped him hard on the side of the head. She felt a surge of satisfaction as Slade fell back onto the floor, unconscious and bleeding from the head.

2 minutes.

Dinah looked around the devastated room, and gasped when she saw her younger self. "Barry!" she shouted as she ran over to Laurel's prone form. The speedster in question pulled himself up and shook his head, then paused for a minute as eh once again felt the Speed Force at his command.

"Who the hell turned on the power blockers?" he demanded.

"Slade did. Somehow." Rose replied.

"Barry!" he looked over to Dinah. "I need you to get her to the sick bay and prep the tube. She needs to go in right now!"

"She's going to need blood." Barry noted, looking at the massive red puddle on the floor.

"Good thing there's a donor handy." Dinah said wryly. "Go!" Barry lifted Laurel gently into his arms, and then sped off. Dinah, wasting no time, ran over to Kara. Spying the kryptonite sharp embedded in her chest, Dinah reached down and ripped it out. Kara gasped weakly in pain, her hand still clutching at her bleeding throat. "Bart! Get her to the solarium!"

"On it!" Bart said even as he lifted the Kryptonian and sped off.

"Sara's alive!" Rose called out. "I think it looks worse than it actually is. Wally-" before she could finish, Wally picked up Sara and ran her down to the sick bay. He was back moments later, picking up Felicity, and soon everyone was down in Sick Bay.

---

When Roy woke, it was to his wife sitting by his bead, holding an ice pack on her head as Lian sat next to her, coloring in a book.

"How bad?" he asked.

"Daddy!" Lian said excitedly. She threw down the book and jumped down from her chair, then climbed up the bed frame to give her father a hug. Roy tired not to wince as she jostled his newly-injured shoulder.

"Be careful, sweetie." Mia said. "Remember, Daddy got an owie."

Lian placed a light kiss on his shoulder. "There! All better!" she announced. Roy smiled warmly at his daughter, then drew her in to a hug with his good arm. He then looked up at his wife expectantly.

"Sweetie, could you go visit Aunt Sara for a bit? Dad and I need to talk."

Lian sighed dramatically. "Okay." She jumped down off the bed (ignoring her mother's protestations) and scampered away from the bed to find her Aunt.

Roy Looked up at Mia, but before he could say anything three more people walked in and moved towards his bed. "Can someone tell me," Stephanie said with a growl that would make Batman proud, "Why Kara is spending the next TWO DAYS in the SUN burning off Kryptonite fragments?"

"I would like to know that myself." Roy admitted.

"And I think I can answer you." The second person said. Barbara Gordon- formerly Batgirl, formerly Oracle, now retired held up her data pad. "I've been running forensics for the past few hours at Dick's request."

"What did you find, Babs?" Mia asked.

"Slade got the hunk of Kryptonite from the Kryptonite Cannon in the museum." She announced.

"And how the hell did he get in there?" Stephanie demanded.

Mia closed her eyes in frustration. "That was me." She said. "Or rather, that was Thea. She unlocked the door, and I never bothered to secure it." Mia shook her head. "Stupid. But how did he get the shard out of the weapon? It's locked in a display case."

"Going through his room, I found several pencils." Barbara started. "He dumped out the lead rounds and crushed them into powder, then used the dust and some clear tape to lift fingerprints off of the Merlyn display case. Then he used that fingerprint to open the cannon's case and extracted the round."

"Kara looked slightly off when we were in the room." Roy said. "But she got really sick when she touched him. That's probably when he withdrew the crystal from the lead casing."

"Agreed." Barbara said.

"How about the Flashes?" Mia asked. "Half the reason for having them in there was to subdue Slade quickly."

"The power dampeners were turned on remotely." Rose reported. "So were the door locks."

"Slade had a program on his phone that allowed him to do that."

Mia stared at Barbara incredulously. "There was seriously and APP for that? What the fuck?!"

"He wrote a rudimentary app." Barbara said.

"How?" Mia demanded.

"That would be because of Felicity and Dinah." Barbara explained. "When you had Felicity hack our system when Dinah went on her rampage, it left our firewalls in tatters. I've been working to fix it, but it takes time. Slade was able to slip in while the walls were down and input some of his own code. That gave him the ability to turn on the dampeners and lock the doors, trapping you all within the room. Look," Barbara pulled off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "It's been a long time since anyone here has faced Deathstroke, so I think we all forgot one very important fact- Slade Wilson is a master strategist who has beaten the full Justice League before single-handedly. You're all surprised that he managed to take out every Justice League member so quickly; I'm surprised you're all still alive." Barbara gave Mia a disappointed look. "You never should have brought him into this, Mia."

"Oliver would have wanted me to try." She said weakly.

"Oliver knew a lost cause when he saw one." She countered.

The meeting broke up, and Mia wandered over towards the bed that Laurel now occupied. Quentin and Sara both flanked the sides, and standing off to the side was Dinah. Mia walked over to her nemesis. "How is she?"

"She'll live." Dinah said, sipping a bottle of orange juice. "I'll live, too; even if I'm a quart or two low." Dinah added lightly.

Mia nodded, staring at the younger woman in the bed for several long moments. "You can go ahead and say it, you know." Dinah looked at her curiously. "I told you so." Mia clarified.

Dinah gave her a wan smile. "You were right." She said instead.

"About what?"

"Oliver would have wanted you to try. And at least in one case, you may have been right." Dinah walked off, leaving Mia standing there with her mouth hanging open.

In the bed at the far end of the room, Malcolm once again lay in a bed as the bacta strips did their work on his broken bones. He lay there with his eyes closed, trying to meditate through the pain with little success, when he sensed a familiar presence approach. "Moira." He said softly, startling the woman slightly. "What can I do for you?"

"I didn't even realize you were awake." Moira said. Malcolm chuckled, then winced.

"Hard to sleep when you can feel your ribs mending themselves. It's a curious sensation."

Moira took a deep breath. "I wanted to thank you." She said finally, causing Malcolm to open his eyes and look at her. "For protecting Thea."

"She's my daughter." He said simply. "There isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect her."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that when she starts dating," she said lightly.

"I'm sure she won't." Malcolm replied. His eyes moved past her to Dinah, who was staring at him from the doorway. For a moment he thought she might attack him again, but she surprised him by nodding at him in respect before walking out of the room.

---

Later that night, as everyone in sick bay slept, a lone figure entered the room. Thea took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness before she made her way over to Malcolm's bed. She stared at the sleeping man in silence for several minutes, feeling torn. This was the man who killed her real dad, who almost killed her brother and Sara and sentenced them to hard, painful lives. He was the man who was planning on killing thousands of people because he felt guilty over the death of his wife. He was the man who had terrorized her mother for five years, forcing her to work with him to destroy so much just to spare her daughter's life.

And now he was the man who had risked his own life to protect, not only her, but her mother, Detective Lance, and everyone else in the viewing room. Could he be a good person? Could he be redeemed?

Could he be saved?

Hesitantly, she reached out towards his hand- but pulled back at the last second. Maybe he could change, maybe he WAS changing- but she wasn't ready to accept it. Not yet, at least. With one last conflicted look, Thea spun around and quietly made her way back out of the sick bay towards her room.

She never noticed Malcolm's eyes following her wistfully.

---

It was another two days before the party (minus Slade) was reconvened into the viewing room. The room itself looked pristine; no hint of a battle remained. The remained viewers sat on the long couch as a humbled Mia stood before them, flanked by Sara, Roy, and the Flashes.

"I owe you all an apology," she began. "I brought you here to help me create a better future for yourselves, and when I did I promised to keep you all safe. I think it can be said, however, that I have failed miserably." She smiled wryly at Malcolm. "I did a better job watching your back when we were working as assassins."

"We all have our off days." Malcolm quipped.

Mia sighed. "I brought you here to glimpse the future, to see what Oliver was going to do so that you could make more informed choices when you went back- and maybe, just maybe, things would turn out better. You've seen that future, now. You've seen what will happen. So if you want to return home now…"

"What about Slade?" Laurel asked suddenly.

"He was given the cure for the Mirakuru." Mia told her. "We'll wipe his memory of these events and send him back to just after we picked him up. He'll wake up weak, with no idea how. The only power he has now is in his mind. But when he attacks, Oliver should be able to stop him relatively easily."

"Like you did?" Laurel shot back. Mia tensed and Sara stepped forward.

"Laurel-"

"He took out six highly-trained super heroes in under a minute." Laurel said. "Okay, fine. He had that Mirakuru crap in him- but he did it by being smart, not just by being strong. And if his only power is his mind, then I'd be worried about just how easily Oliver could take him down." She shook her head. "No, I'm not going back. Not until we finish this."

"What do you mean?" Diggle asked her.

"Slade is behind all of the things we've been watching, isn't he?" she asked Mia, who nodded in agreement. "Even without the Mirakuru in his system, there's no guarantee that he won't try to attack Ollie. So I say we stay, we watch, and we learn. So if Slade does come for us, we'll all be ready."

"I'm with Laurel. Better to be safe than dead." Tommy agreed.

"I'm not too thrilled about seeing my girls laid up in the hospital," Quentin said, "But if we leave now, it would be for nothing. I vote we stay and finish."

"I agree." Felicity said. "The guy rammed my head into a wall. I want all the details I can get to make sure I can beat him when he comes around again."

"I'm in." Diggle said simply.

"Me, too." Thea declared.

"I vote we stay as well." Moira declared.

Mia turned to Malcolm. "I think I've suffered the most out of all of us here, including Miss Lance." He said. "I'd hate for it all to be for nothing, though."

"I wouldn't say nothing." Sara noted.

Malcolm smiled at the woman. "Let's finish this, shall we?"

Mia smiled at them all. "Thank you." She said softly. The heroes took their seats.

"On the bright side, you get to see how I became the Fastest Man Alive." Barry said.

Bart rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You could hear him capitalizing that when he said it, couldn't you?" he asked the room in general.

"Settle down, kids." Sara warned. "Let's pick up where we left off."

"Where did we leave off exactly?" Laurel asked.

"Shado just got killed by Ivo in the past; you were looking into Sin's friend for Thea, Oliver was hallucinating so he set dad on the trail for Cyrus Gold." Sara reminded her.

PRESENT

The scene changed to Queen Manor the next day. Oliver opened the door and was surprised to see Laurel.

"Hi." He said.

"Hi." She replied.

"What are you doing here?" Oliver asked.

"I came by to see Thea." She said.

"Oh." He moved aside to let her in. "Go on in. She's upstairs in her room." He told her as he shut the door.

"I noticed on the drive up that your house wasn't festooned with Christmas decorations." Laurel started.

"Well, we didn't feel very much like festooning this year." Oliver admitted wearily.

"I know what you mean." Laurel sighed. "I remember last Christmas, Tommy and I came here for your party. It was one of the best holidays I'd had in a really long time." She told him.

"That DID look like a fun party." Laurel said, smiling at Tommy.

"Anyway, I should probably go talk to Thea."

A few minutes later, Laurel was talking to Thea and her friends in her room. "I checked into the blood drive, and it's all legitimate." She said. "In fact, what Sebastian's done has helped save a lot of lives."

"Ooh. It's 'Sebastian'." Thea said teasingly.

"Be nice to me; I was recently impaled." Laurel shot back.

"I bet she doesn't complain about being impaled when Tommy does it." Bart muttered, just loud enough for EVERYONE to hear.

"GAH!" Thea cried out in disgust. "I do NOT want to hear that!"

"Seconded." Mia said, casting a dark look at Bart. The younger speedster gulped audibly.

"So if the blood drive is on the up and up, then how are we supposed to find Max's killer?" Sin wondered, dejected.

"There's one other thing." Laurel pulled out a file and handed it to Thea. "All of the blood donors at the drive were subjected to a psych evaluation by the Langford Institute."

"Is that, like, legal?" Roy asked.

"It's not entirely out of the norm." Laurel replied. "And while someone at the institute might know if Max was on drugs, there's no way of finding out without a warrant. Which we're certainly not going to get." She added regretfully. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help." She told Thea, who nodded her thanks as she read the file.

"I sense a breaking and entering in my future." Thea said wryly.

"Not quite…" Roy muttered.

The scene changed to the Lair. Barry was running an experiment when Felicity walked up to him. "What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

"Uh, just messing around with something." Barry said.

"Shouldn't you be trying to figure out what's causing Oliver's hallucinations?" she asked pointedly.

"Sample's still being scanned." Barry said. "Shouldn't be too much longer." He looked at her as she sat back down at her computer. "You're really worried about him, huh?" he asked knowingly.

"He takes crazy chances. Even when he's not hallucinating about beautiful island girls." She said, annoyed.

Sara snickered.

"Hmm." Barry hummed. "The other night, I asked you if you liked Oliver." He asked leadingly.

"I told you. I don't." she said at once.

"Denial. It's not just a river in Egypt." Laurel joked. Felicity rolled her eyes, even as she blushed.

"I remember." Barry said. "But if you did I could see why. I mean, Oliver Queen. He is a billionaire by day and saves the city by night."

Felicity chuckled. "Sounds like you want to date him." She teased.

"It really does." Wally noted with a grin.

He laughed lightly. "I just have a little experience with liking someone who doesn't see you the same way." He admitted, staring at her, but seeing another face in his mind. Suddenly he glanced at his watch, and then jumped forward to turn on the news.

'Protests continue into the final countdown for tonight's ignition of S.T.A.R. Lab's controversial particle accelerator.' The broadcaster was saying. 'S.T.A.R. Lab's founder Harrison Wells promises a new era of scientific advancement is at hand.'

"I guess I won't be back in time to see them turn it on." He noted glumly.

The scene changed to the SCPD, where Lance was trying to convince his old partner of what happened at the Applied Sciences building, and who had done it.

"I know, it sounds crazy." Lance was saying.

"Human weapons?" Hilton asked incredulously.

"Look, his name is Cyrus Gold. He's the one that broke into Queen Consolidated last week. He's the one that robbed the blood bank. And he killed all those people."

"Where are you getting all this intel?" Hilton asked suddenly. At Lance's silence, he sighed heavily. "Oh, man, what's a matter with you? Talking to the Vigilante's what got you demoted in the first place." He told his friend.

"Look, we take a small squad." Lance said. "McCarthy and Evans from SWAT, Jones. We can bring this guy down."

Lance stared at the screen worriedly. "Oh, I got a bad feeling about this…"

"I promised Jeannie I'd take her Christmas shopping." Hilton dodged.

"Lucas. Please." Lance begged.

Hilton sighed again. "Fine. But you get to call Jeanie and tell her I'm not taking her shopping." He said pointedly.

"Hey, sir." They looked over to see Daily. "I don't mean to overstep, but could you guys use an extra man?" he offered.

Hilton walked off to get his gear. "Grab a vest, Officer Daily." He told his fellow officer.

Lance sighed. "And that bad feeling just got a hell of a lot worse."

A few minutes later, Blood got a call at his warehouse lab. 'The police are onto Gold.' Daily told him. 'They're looking for him. I made sure I'm in the loop.'

"We are too close to let the police interfere." Blood said, and then hung up. He looked over to Cyrus. "Brother Cyrus. The police are eager to meet you. Introduce yourself." He ordered.

"I'm going to put that dirty, rotten, son of a bitch behind bars." He cops growled.

"Which one?" Laurel asked.

"Why stop at just one?" Sara added.

The scene changed to the Lair. While they were watching the countdown, Barry looked over at Felicity. "So, any plans for Christmas?" he asked.

"Lighting my menorah." She replied glibly. She smiled at Oliver as he walked in and grabbed a tennis ball. "Hey." She said warmly.

"Hi." He replied.

"How are you feeling?" she asked at once.

"Fine. Just," he smiled tightly. "It's a little bit crowded at my house, and I wanted to come down here to get a little privacy."

"Yeah." Felicity rose from her chair. "Come on, Barry. We can watch the countdown at Big Belly Burger."

Barry rose to follow, but paused and looked back at Oliver. "Your blood analysis is almost done." He told him.

"Thank you." Oliver said. The other two left, and Oliver walked over to the weapons case. He grabbed his bow and an arrow and stepped back into the center of the room. He bounced the ball once, and then tossed it up into the air. He let it bounce away once before nocking the arrow and firing it-

And gasped when it was caught by Slade Wilson.

"Well, THAT'S just who I wanted to see." Laurel groused.

"You'd think he tried to kill your or something." Felicity said dryly.

"What's the matter, kid?" Slade asked with a sneer as Oliver stood there, dumbfounded. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

The scene changed to a building in the Glades. Lance, Hilton, Daily and the other officers approached the door on the side with their guns drawn and flashlights out.

"Are you sure he's in?" Lance asked a female officer.

"Yes, sir. Sector car spotted Cyrus Gold entering." She replied. "He hasn't left."

"Safeties off." Lance ordered. One of the SWAT men popped the lock off the door, and the small team entered. They looked around what looked to be a carpentry shop, shining their lights and trying to find the suspect.

Suddenly a sawblade flew through the air and impaled one of the SWAT officers.

"Jesus!" Lance gasped.

The other cops looked up just as Gold dropped down between to cops. He shoved the female officer hard, throwing her across the room and into several barrels. He grabbed the second one's arm, twisting it and forcing the shotgun away. He kicked a desk, sending it crashing into another officer, who was sent flying into a wall. Gold broke the arm he was holding, then picked the SWAT officer up and threw him across the room like a ragdoll before vanishing into the darkness.

"Is it just me," Felicity said hesitantly, "or did Slade actually move FASTER than Gold is?"

"It wasn't just you." Mia said darkly. "Years and experience. Sometimes it can make you faster and stronger."

Hilton and Lance walked over to the female officer. Hilton knelt down and felt for a pulse, then shook his head mournfully at Lance when he found none. The two officers then moved back into the shop to find Gold.

"Get the hell out and call for more backup!" Quentin yelled at the screen.

As Lance moved in deeper, suddenly several boxes fell onto him, sending him to his knees. And then Gold was there, grasping him by the neck and picking him up one-handed, pinning him to a stack of wood. Lance threw a few ineffectual punches, but then spotted something- a ring of keys on his belt. Lance ripped them free just as Hilton came around and opened fire on Gold. Cyrus dropped Lance, who fell to the ground, unconscious.

Hilton looked in vain for Gold, who had once again vanished into the shadows- but then he was there. He grabbed Hilton's gun hand and twisted, the pain sending Hilton to his knees. Slowly he forced the gun back, so that it was under Hilton's chin- then pulled the trigger, killing the cop.

"NO!" Quentin yelled. His shoulders slumped in defeat. "God dammit…."

"There won't be any Mirakuru." Laurel reminded her dad. "Lucas will be just fine." Her face darkened as the scene changed.

The scene changed back to the Lair. "This is a nice place." Slade was saying as he waved the arrow around. "It's a bit more comfortable than the fuselage on the island."

"You're not real." Oliver said bluntly.

"Neither are you." Slade said, walking up to the display case and staring at the hood. "You told everyone when you started this crusade that it was about making up for your father's sins. That was a lie." He snapped the arrow and dropped it to the ground. "This charade is to atone for your sins." He accused.

"You're dead." Oliver said plaintively.

"You are not a hero." Slade shot back. "Or a friend. Or a brother. You are nothing." Oliver turned away from Slade. "Do not turn your back on me, not again." He thundered.

"You're gone." Oliver said softly.

"Wherever I am It's time you joined me." Slade rushed Oliver and sent him tumbling into one of the tables.

Moira and Thea gasped. "Is he really there?" Thea demanded of Mia.

The elder woman shook her head. "No. His hallucinations are just getting more violent." She explained.

Oliver looked back in shock, and then swung his bow, aiming for Slade's head. Slade ducked, blocked another hit, and then sent Oliver stumbling into another table. Oliver hit on his injured ribs and gasped. "They say a coward dies a thousand deaths." Slade continued. "But even that wouldn't be enough for you."

"I tried to save you!" Oliver protested. "And her."

"But you couldn't." he replied, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Just like you couldn't save this city."

Enraged, Oliver rushed Slade. The older man easily blocked his attacks, deftly disarming him before striking Oliver with his own bow. Oliver was sent flying over a table, knocking a computer monitor down as he tumbled over it to the ground. Slade stalked forward, flipping the table out of his way and hauling Oliver back to his feet. "The island didn't make you strong, kid." He hissed. "It revealed you to be weak." With that, Slade threw Oliver through the glass display case. He crashed to the ground, landing heavily on the mannequin. Oliver gasped in pain, then raised his head, looking around the Lair for Slade-

But the apparition had vanished.

The scene changed to the waterfront shopping district. Laurel and Sebastian were walking along the pier after a night of shopping.

"And the hits just keep on coming," Laurel said.

"You really have horrible taste in men." Quentin told his daughter. Then he glanced at Tommy, who looked slightly offended. "Well, I guess Merlyn didn't turn out so bad."

"Gee, thanks." Tommy said dryly.

"Thank you for being my shopping guide." Blood said, then noted Laurel's distracted look. "Are you ok?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah, it's just, um, can I ask you a question?" Laurel said suddenly. "It's about the blood drive you sponsored."

"Of course. It's a wonderful cause." Blood said. "Especially with the underfunded hospitals we're dealing with." He looked at her curiously. "What about it?"

Before she could ask a question, her phone rang. She sighed in annoyance, gave Sebastian an apologetic look, and answered it. "Hello?" her face suddenly fell. "What?! Ok, I'll be right over." She hung up the phone.

"What happened?" Blood asked.

"My father." She started as tears started to fall. "Um He's in the ICU. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I have to go. I'm sorry." She repeated as she ran off, leaving Blood behind.

"And he's in the ICU because you sent your friend after them!" Laurel growled. "Asshole."

The scene changed to the Lair, where Oliver was sweeping up the broken glass.

"What happened in here?" Felicity asked as she and Barry returned. "Did someone break in?"

"No." he said shortly.

A computer beeped, and Barry went over to it as Felicity took a seat at her station. "Your blood analysis is done." Barry told him. "Good news."

"So you know what's in my system?" Oliver said hopefully.

"That's the thing- your blood's clean." Barry said. "There's nothing wrong with you."

"Then why am I hallucinating?!" he demanded.

"I don't know." Barry replied quickly. "But whatever your problem is, it's not pharmacological. It's psychological. It's in your head."

"It's in my head." Oliver finished with him. He sighed.

"Oh, my God." Felicity looked at her screen in horror. "Oliver." She called out.

The scene changed to Starling General ICU, where Laurel sat by her father's bed, waiting for him to wake up. As Lance groaned and started to move, Laurel moved in closer.

"Dad!" she exclaimed tearfully.

"Honey. Honey." He reached over and grasped her hand. "Well, I can wiggle my toes; it must be a good sign." He looked at his daughter. "I'm all right, honey, I'm fine." He assured her. "How's Lucas, is he all right?"

Laurel looked at him sadly. "I-I'm sorry."

Lance stared at her. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly. Then he realized, and his tears started to fall. "I got to call Jeannie. I got to call his wife." He said weakly.

"No, Dad, I'll do it." Laurel said through her own tears. "You just stay here. Get some rest." Laurel walked out of the room, nodding to Officer Daily, whose arm was in a cast as she pulled out her phone. Before she could dial, she looked up in surprise as Sebastian Blood walked towards her. "What are you doing here?" she asked, surprised.

"Wanted to make sure your father was ok." Blood said sympathetically.

"He is." She assured him.

"I wanted to make sure you were, too." Blood said. He pulled her gently into a hug, glancing over her shoulder at Daily, who nodded subtly at the alderman.

"Mother fuckers." Laurel growled.

"Laurel!" Quentin said, shocked.

"Don't tell me you weren't thinking the same thing!"

"Well, I was." He admitted. "I just thought I brought you up better than to curse like that in public."

"Yeah, sis. That's my job." Sara said lightly.

Back in Lance's room, The Arrow climbed in through the window. "How are you, Detective?" he asked softly.

"I'm alive. Unlike most everyone else in my unit." The cop replied bitterly.

"I'm sorry about your partner." Oliver said.

"I took him in there."

"Because of me." Oliver said sadly.

Lance gave him a look. "I hate to disappoint you, but not every death in this city is on you." He reached over to the nightstand and set a key down. "I got this off Gold." He told him. "Hopefully you can do something with it." The Arrow reached over and picked the key up. "I didn't believe it at first, but this guy, I mean, it's like he's not human."

"He's human." Oliver assured him.

Lance struggled to sit up. "Well, then you can kill him. For Hilton. And me." Lance said harshly.

"Wow." Sara said. "Never thought I'd hear you say something like that."

"Hilton is family." Quentin said simply.

The scene changed to the lair later that night. Oliver sat in front of the grinder, sharpening an arrow head while his mind wandered.

"I think those are sharp enough." Diggle called out.

Oliver pulled the arrow away and shut off the grinder. "Apparently I'm not." He said ruefully. "Diggle, do you think I'm losing my mind?" he asked plaintively.

"Is that a trick question?" Tommy asked rhetorically.

Diggle moved closer to Oliver. "No more than the rest of us." He assured him.

"I saw Slade Wilson." Oliver began. "Slade was my friend on the island, and like Shado, he is dead because of me. Mr. Lance just told me that not every death in this city is my fault." He sighed. "Fine. There are plenty that are."

Dig contemplated his friend for a moment. "When I got home from Afghanistan, I saw a ghost, too." He admitted. "Survivor's guilt. Why us, not them." He explained.

"I know why." Oliver argued.

"Then the 'why's' not your problem." Diggle told him.

"How'd you make your ghost go away?" he asked.

"I figured out what they were trying to tell me." Dig said.

"Which was?" Oliver asked hopefully.

Diggle smiled sadly at him. "That's for me to hear, Oliver." He said. "You have to figure out what yours is trying to tell you."

"Duck." Mia suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

"A little to the left." Roy said.

"Quit hitting yourself." Barry said.

"Ask the woman out already." Sara quipped, looking at Felicity.

"Man, these pants chafe in the crotch." Roy said, then noted everyone's looks of disbelief. "What? Was that just me?"

"Guys, we got something here." Felicity called out. The two men headed over to her. "I scanned the key Lance gave you, and traced its serial code back to the manufacturer."

"This particular key fits a locked gate somewhere on Crescent Circle in the Glades." Barry stated. Oliver nodded, and then reached for his bow.

"Where are you going?" Felicity asked worriedly. "You can't go out there in your condition."

"I have to stop this." Oliver said.

"Oliver, Gold left you half dead, which is 50 percent better than how he left Detective Hilton." She said in a rush.

Felicity winced and looked over to Quentin. "Sorry." She said.

"You're not wrong." Quentin replied wearily.

"Felicity," he cut her off. "I don't have a choice. I'll come back." He said.

"Promise me." She begged.

He gave her a sorrowful look, and then moved off.

Felicity sighed. "Dumb jock." She muttered.

The scene changed to the Langford Institute. Roy smashed the window on the door and unlocked the door. He hobbled in on his bad leg, and then went to the file cabinets.

"Speaking of dumb jocks…" Thea shook her head, looking at Roy. "I'm surprised it wasn't me."

"Be glad that it wasn't." Roy said darkly.

He ripped open a drawer and rapidly flipped through the files until he finally found a folder with Max's picture on it. He flipped through the file, looking for any kind of evidence. Closing the file, he looked at Max's picture. He lifted it to see if anything was on the back- and there was, a large black stamp that read 'Mirakuru'. A noise sent Roy scurrying of cover behind a desk, and from another office, the Doctor from the warehouse appeared. He looked around, but seeing nothing, he returned to the office and carried on with his task- pouring gasoline all over the floor in preparation of torching the place.

Roy jumped up and ran into the office, shoving the doctor into a wall hard and taking out through the back door. He ran down the hall- but at an intersection was clotheslined by Gold. Roy landed hard, and passed out as Gold loomed over him wearing the black featureless mask.

"Oh shit!" Thea exclaimed.

"It gets worse." Roy said.

When he awoke, he was strapped to a chair in the warehouse lab. Behind him stood Gold, sans mask; to the left stood Doctor Langford, who opened the centrifuge to reveal a dozen glass vials filled with the Mirakuru concoction. Langford took out a vial and slipped it into an empty hypo.

"It's ready." Langford said as he handed it to the third person in the room, Brother Blood.

"Is this where you killed Max Stanton, hmm?" Roy asked as the masked man approached. He eyed the needle fearfully. "What are you doing? If you stick that in me, I'll kill you." He threatened.

Blood grabbed Roy by the throat and forced his head to the side. "No, Brother Roy. You'll kill for me." He said ominously as he stuck the needle in and injected the Mirakuru. Roy screamed in pain as the drug started to take effect…

Roy winced at the memory, unconsciously rubbing his neck. Mia reached up and pulled his hand away, holding it tightly in her own. "Dumbass." She told him without any real anger.

"Is that stuff, like- mind control juice?" Thea asked.

"Not exactly." Sara replied. "But it does make a person highly susceptible to suggestion. It's just a matter of getting into the person's head. Like Ivo got into Slades' head."

Suddenly there was an explosion. A large hunk of the ceiling fell into the room, and from the hole dropped The Arrow. Langford clumsily drew a gun to shoot the vigilante, but an arrow to the leg took him down. Oliver drew another arrow and held it on Blood.

"Brother Cyrus told me he killed you." Blood said.

"Guess he's not as strong as you'd hoped." The Arrow growled. "Where'd you get the Mirakuru? Who gave you the formula?!" Oliver demanded.

"It was a gift." Blood said, holding the hypo almost lovingly as Roy screamed in pain. "A gift I would use to save this city from itself."

Cyrus rushed Oliver, who turned and fired his arrow. The arrow hit Gold in the shoulder, but didn't slow him down at all. Oliver grabbed the line he had rappelled down on and swung around it, hoping to land a kick to his head- but Gold grabbed him by the leg and tossed him across the room. He hit the concrete wall, indenting the concrete, and then collapsed to the ground.

"Damn!" Diggle said, winching. "Come on, man. You got to move faster!"

"Come on, Oliver…." Felicity repeated softly.

Roy continued to writhe in pain as the bloody teas started to fall, and Blood leaned down close, watching the process eagerly.

"Sick fuck." Roy growled.

Across the room. Oliver grasped desperately for his bow, grabbing it just as Gold kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him sliding across the floor. He bounced off a concrete pillar, and then crashed into a desk. He shook his head to clear it, looking up as Blood felt for a pulse on Roy.

"Another failure." Blood said, disappointed.

Oliver collapsed back down to the ground, seemingly defeated. How would he explain this to Thea? Would he get the chance?

"Damn!" Tommy exclaimed tensely. "Come on, get up!"

"Get up, Oliver."

Oliver looked up to see Tommy Merlyn standing before him. "Tommy?"

Tommy knelt down beside his friend. "You're not going to die down here." He told Oliver.

"Tommy, I'm sorry." Oliver said sorrowfully. "I let you die."

"No you didn't." Tommy said quietly. Laurel took his hand and gently squeezed it.

"You didn't let me die, Ollie." Tommy said forcefully. "You fought to save me. Because that's what you do. What you have always done. You fight to survive." He looked down at Oliver determinedly. "I know I called you a murderer, but you are not. You are a hero. You beat the island. You beat my father. So fight, Oliver." He ordered. "Get up and fight back."

"Even in death," Mia told her brother, her eyes moist, "You were always with him." Tommy smiled gratefully at her.

"Kill him." Blood ordered.

Cyrus rushed in to kill Oliver, but he jumped up out of the way. He landed a punch, ducked Gold and punched again. He then let loose with a furious combination, sending the stronger man stumbling back. He ducked another wild swing, and then hit a reverse crescent kick, sending Gold stumbling back to the centrifuge. Oliver spun, drew an explosive arrow and fired at the centrifuge, blowing it up. The resulting detonation destroyed the device, sent more of the roof crashing down, crushing Langston, and sent a spray of chemicals into Gold's face. The man screamed in pain as the chemicals began eating away at the skin. He fell back against the wall just as more concrete came crashing down on top of him, killing him.

"Die, you son of a bitch!" Lance shouted.

"You talking about Gold, Blood, or Slade?" Laurel asked dryly.

"All of the above." He replied.

Blood, enraged but helpless, took off, leaving Oliver alone- except he wasn't. Oliver dropped down besides Roy, whose chair had tipped over and quickly cut his bindings free. He pulled him away from the chair and started chest compressions. "Come on, Roy." He muttered. "Hey. I am not leaving anyone else to die!" he yelled. "You're strong, kid. Come on! Come on!" he said in time with the compressions. "Come on, Roy! Fight." He grasped his head in both hand and shook him. "Come on, fight!" he shouted.

Suddenly Roy began gasping, then coughing. Oliver sat back, relieved.

Mia let out a long sigh. They had been lovers, they had been enemies. They had fought more times that she cared to remember. But she had never really wanted him to die. Even when she herself had shot him, it had been to wound and incapacitate, not kill. To see him so close to death- especially after what Slade had done… Roy squeezed her hand, sensing her fear, and she took comfort in the warmth his hand provided.

The scene changed to Queen Manor. Roy began stirring as a familiar voice penetrated the fog on his mind.

"Roy?!" his eyes opened, and the first thing he noticed was that he was in a comfortable bed. A quick glance around showed it to be Thea's room, and the girl herself called out his name as she and Sin rushed into the room.

"Hey, Roy!" Sin said in relief.

"Where have you been?" Thea demanded in a panicked tone. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"I was…" his mind flashed back to the man in the mask giving him the injection. "I was running down another lead." He told her. "It didn't pan out."

"I thought you were chasing after the Vigilante again." She said, almost in tears. "I got so scared. I thought something happened to you."

"Hey," he grasped her hand. "Hey, don't worry. I'm alive."

The scene changed to a high rise downtown. A man sat in a well-appointed office, watching a news broadcast of Sebastian Blood's announcement to run for mayor.

'I want to serve the people of Starling, not the men and women who think they own it.' Sebastian was saying in the previously taped conference. 'Together, we can help rebuild our city into a place where there are no elites and no oppressed. Where we are all brothers and sisters.' The man turned off the TV as Blood himself walked into the office.

"So your campaign begins." He said.

Laurel scowled. "Slade."

"Guess whose life I'm ruining first?" Felicity said, staring coldly at the screen. The meek, timid woman of before was gone- this was the hacker of MIT, Lady Death, who had helped crack the Department of Education's secure servers.

"The city needs a leader." Blood said. "And putting the copycat hoods up to assassinating the mayor was just the first step."

"Son of a bitch!" Lance exclaimed.

"Oh yeah. He's going down." Felicity promised.

He took a few steps closer to the desk. "The Vigilante..." he began. "He destroyed the centrifuge and the serum along with it."

"I will arrange for you to receive another sample of my blood, and then you can begin to mass produce the serum again." The man said. "When I ask you not to confront the Vigilante, you will listen. Remember, your mask can be worn by another." He warned.

"You know who he is under that hood, don't you?" Blood asked.

"I know exactly who he is." Slade Wilson said. "He's my friend."

"That's why you don't want him dead." Blood said in realization.

Felicity's eyes narrowed. "And you're number three." She promised Blood.

"Three?" Laurel asked.

"Isobel." Felicity and Moira said at the same time.

"Death would be a release from this life, and his sentence is yet to be carried out." Slade said. "I am going to tear everything he cares about away from him."

In the hospital, Lance stared at Hilton's badge mournfully.

"Destroy those who choose to follow him."

Roy sat up in Thea's bed and threw off the blanket. He stared at his leg disbelievingly, as it has fully healed.

"Corrupt those he loves."

In the Lair, Felicity stared at her screen.

"And once he has lost everyone and everything he values- I will drive an arrow through his eye." Slade finished.

FIVE YEARS AGO

On the sub, Slade suddenly awakened, fully healed.

"Shado…" he looked around. Suddenly, he knew she was in trouble. "Shado!"

Slade ran up the sail and back to land, running through the woods at incredible speed. He arrived at the small clearing and grabbed the first man he saw, throwing him back against a tree where he nearly folded in half. He attacked the other two men, killing them with his bare hands as Ivo fled into the forest. He stared down at the AK-47 he had taken off of one of the soldiers, then snapped it in half like it was a twig. The new captain clubbed him on the back with the butt of his rifle, but all that did was piss Slade off even more. Slade punched the man through the chest, then withdrew his hand and let the man drop to the ground, dead. Oliver and Sara looked on in surprised horror as Slade stared at his blood fist.

He looked down and saw Shado lying there, dead, and dropped to the ground next to her. He gently picked up her body and held her close, the blood from her head wound smearing across the side of his face. He looked to Sara and Oliver. "Why?" he asked plaintively.

"I…" Oliver started.

"Ivo just shot her." Sara said, cutting him off. "He didn't say why."

Laurel looked at Sara in surprise. Sara noted and sighed. "If you just saw him do all of that, would you tell him exactly what happened?" she asked.

"No." Laurel decided.

"Whoever did this to her is going to suffer." Slade promised.

PRESENT

Oliver clambered down the steps into the Lair into a welcoming hug from Felicity.

"Still have a ghost problem?" Dig asked.

"No." Oliver said. "I got the message." Reluctantly he pulled away from Felicity. "But we… we have other problems." He said, walking over to the weapons case and putting his bow away.

"Wouldn't be us if we didn't." Dig noted wryly.

"Roy was injected with the serum." Oliver revealed.

"Oh, my God, is he ok?" Felicity asked.

Oliver sighed. "He's alive." He said. "But we are going to have to keep an eye on him."

"And Cyrus Gold?" Dig asked.

"Died on Saturday, buried on Sunday." Oliver said. "But he was working with someone. I saw him; he wore a mask with the image of…of a skull." He looked to his friends. "He's trying to mass produce the serum to build an army."

"For what?" Dig asked.

"You're a soldier. What's the primary purpose of an army?" Oliver asked.

"War."

Diggle shuddered. "An army of super soldiers… god, think of the damage they could do."

"It would make the Markov devices look trivial in comparison." Malcolm said.

Oliver nodded, and then noticed the silence. He looked around and noticed there was something- or someone missing. "Where's Barry?" he asked.

"He went back to Central City." Felicity said.

"Oh."

"Wanted to get home in time to see them turn on the particle accelerator." She said. Her phone rang, and she looked down at it and smiled when she saw who it was. "I should take this. Hi." She said as she answered the call. "Hey. Did you make it?"

"I made it back to Central City in time, but I missed the cut off in line at S.T.A.R. Labs." Barry said from the Central City Police Precinct. "I was late, as usual." He swiped his I.D. card at the door to his lab, unlocking the massive door which he then slid open. "But in spirit of not being late again, uh, if you ever decide that Oliver Queen isn't the guy for you;" he walked through his lab, under a light shower of rain that was leaking in from the faulty skylight, "if you decide that you want to go on a date with someone else, um…" he smiled to himself. "You should know that that guy, he'll be on time."

Felicity smiled "Good to know." She said warmly.

"Oh, hey, and I left something for Oliver." Barry added. "I hope he likes it."

"Bye, Barry." Felicity said, looking down on her desk at the small box Barry had left.

"Bye, Felicity." Barry said. He hung up the phone and tossed it onto his desk, then turned on his computer and opened his TV app. He tossed his coat onto his chair as he watched the live broadcast from the lab.

"You always wondered exactly how I got my powers." Barry said to Wally and Bart, and to the rest of them in general. "Well, hold on to your hats."

'I'm Linda Park and we're live outside S.T.A.R. Labs despite the inclement weather, which is only going to get worse.' She was saying. 'The torrential downpour has driven away almost all the protesters though S.T.A.R. Labs CEO Harrison Wells has assured us that the storm tonight will in no way affect the particle accelerator, which is up and running smoothly.'

Barry took a news clipping about the Cyrus Gold case and walked over to his board that held a pull down map of Central City. He raised the map, rolling it back up to reveal his 'wall of weird', news clippings of dozens of strange and unexplained crimes that had happened over the years dating back to 1999- the year that Nora Allen was murdered. He stared at the old article pensively as the lightning flashed and thundered boomed outside.

'Wait, we are now being told to evacuate the facility.' The reporter was saying, drawing Barry's attention back to the news. 'The storm may have caused a malfunction to the primary cooling system. Officials are now trying to shut down the particle accelerator, but so far have been unable to regain control of the system—" Suddenly, the power went out. Barry looked up over the top of the monitor to the city outside, and though he couldn't see S.T.A.R. Labs, he most definitely could see the explosion as the particle accelerator blew- a massive yellow burst, flowed by a shockwave that passed through the city in a flash. He looked around his lab, and for the first time noticed the water leaking in from the skylight. He walked over, grabbing the chains to close the shutters, but a sudden charge of static electricity seemed to flow through him. He looked around, and to his unbelieving eyes the chemicals in the beakers on his shelves started to swirl and float. He glanced back up at the skylight, and a moment later, lightning struck.

The blast shattered the glass and hit Barry straight in the chest, sending him flying back into the shelves. The floating chemicals splashed onto him as he fell, and he landed unconscious on the metal shelves. As he lay there, red energy seemed to flow under his skin from his hand up to his brain. And in the darkness, with rain pouring in through the shattered skylight, The Flash was born.

"Holy shit!" Thea exclaimed.

"I'm surprised you weren't killed." Quentin noted.

"I was lucky I wasn't." Barry replied.

"My cousin was struck by lightning once." Diggle said. "All he developed was a stutter." Barry grinned at the soldier.

"I was in a coma for nine months." Barry said. "And even after I woke up, it took a while to get my life back in order. Ah…" he smiled as the image on the screen changed to the Lair.

Back at the lair, Oliver opened the box to reveal a green domino mask. He looked at it approvingly.

"Even the Arrow deserves a Christmas present." Diggle said.

"Here." Felicity said, taking the mask and placing it on his face.

"How do I look?" he asked.

She smiled at him as she stepped back to admire the mask. "Like a hero." She told him softly.

Oliver nodded, and then put his hood back up, preparing to go back out to patrol.

"Much better than the grease paint." Quentin said. "I could even pretend that I didn't recognize him now."

Mia made the decision to call it a day after finishing the memory set. She wanted to give everyone some more time to process everything and recover- plus, she had business to attend to.

A few hours later Mia, flanked by Zatana and the Martian Manhunter, entered the transport bay. Sara, Dinah, Rose and Roy were already there, keeping an eye on their prisoner; Slade Wilson stood stoically on the pad, his wrists and ankles bound in solid titanium cuffs hooked together by a short chain.

"Are you going to kill me now, Miss Queen?" He asked her with a smirk on his face.

Mia shook her head. "I swore an oath I wouldn't kill anymore."

"I didn't." Rose said darkly.

"Neither did I." Dinah added.

"Believe me, we are well aware of the fact." Sara told her sister crossly.

"No," Mia continued, ignoring the conversations around her. "My friend here will wipe your memory. She hates doing it, mind you; but she knows that it is necessary." Mia nodded at Zatana. "Then my other friend will read your mind to make sure everything's gone." She nodded to J'onn. "Then we're sending you back. Have fun living your life without Mirakuru. Should make your job more interesting." She said snidely.

Slade stared at her coldly. "I made your brother a promise, once." Slade said. "I swore I would take everyone from him; make him suffer as he made me suffer, before I finally killed him. I now make that same promise to you." He surged forward, but Rose was there holding him back. "I will take everyone from you?! Your mother, your father, your friends! I will do it slowly, intimately, and when I finally get to you, and I'm finally through, you will BEG me to kill you! I promise you that!"

"Promise me whatever you want. In about five minutes, you're going to wake up and you won't remember a fucking thing." Mia said coldly. She turned to Zatana. "Do it." She said, then walked out of the room

"I keep my promises, kid!" Slade shouted at her back as the door closed. "I keep my promises! I keep my promises!" Slade continued to shout at her back for a few moments before the spell started to take hold.

---

It was after one A.M. when Felicity's door chimed. The hacker in question sat back in her seat, her eyes grateful for the break from staring at the computer screen as she continued to hack in. When the door chimed a second time, Felicity got up and opened the door. "Thea!" she said in surprise. "Is everything alright?"

"No." Thea replied, moving into the room and shutting the door behind her. "I don't think it is." She sighed, and then looked up at her friend. "I need to ask a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Felicity asked cautiously.

"When Mia brought us here, she kept saying that secrets and lies were what destroyed us all. And then she said she'd expose all of the secrets, so that we could make informed decisions."

"I know." Felicity replied. "So…"

"So, she lied." Thea replied. "I've been thinking about this non-stop ever since we watched Tommy die in that memory. Ever since she told me what happened…"

"What you became?" Felicity suggested gently.

Thea nodded. "But see, she was probably never going to tell me that. She was probably hoping that she could confine her answers to what we saw in the memories. But then Tommy freaked out, and I freaked out, and she let things slip. And then she let more things slip."

"Thea, where are you going with this?" the hacker asked tiredly.

"Something happened in her past, my future, something so terrible, she's risking screwing with the timeline to make it right." Thea said. "Look, if every member of this Justice League has a file like Oliver's, Mia will have one as well. And I want to see it. I want to see exactly what she's hiding. I NEED to know! Please," she looked at Felicity with pleading eyes. "Can you see if you can break in and find it? I need to know."

Felicity stared at the younger woman for several seconds. She had so many misgivings about this that she could barely start to list them. But the look on her face…

She sighed. "Fine. Give me a day or two. But Thea," she looked at her warningly, "You may not like what you find."

"I already know I won't like what I find. I still need to find it, though." She replied before taking her leave.

After the door closed, Felicity dropped back into her seat and squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Oh, boy…"

TBC

Nǐ hǎo qīn'ài de- Hello beloved

As I was writing this chapter, I was also watching the first Halloween. The bit near the end when Blood leans down to watch Roy after he had been injected reminds me a lot of Michael Meyers cocking his head to the side after he stabbed the boyfriend to the wall. Great little bit there.

Fun fact: when Slade first speaks to Blood in his office, before his face is revealed, the closed captioning reads: 'Man with New Zealand accent.' Manu Bennett is a New Zealand actor who was best known for his role in Spartacus: Blood and Sand and the subsequent series, along with playing the Pale Orc in the Hobbit films. As a side note, I got to meet him once at WizardWorld in St. Louis in 2014. He was a truly wonderful man, very gracious and friendly. A fan of Spartacus told a story of how watching that show with his wife, who he was having problems with at the time, actually saved their marriage, and he gave the man an Arrow head pendant he was wearing.

A/N: So this chapter presented me with a unique problem. I REALLY wanted to include Barry, Wally and Bart in these chapters for obvious reasons, but this chapter also had a moment that I've been planning on for a season and a half- the Death of Shado and Slade's reaction. That meant I had to figure out a way to have the three Flash's in the fight, without powers. This also meant going back to a previous chapter an putting in a way for powers to be blocked. Thank god I'm hording these chapters instead of posting as I go. Also, I was going to split this chapter, but I figured you all could handle 40 pages and 16,119 words.

A/N2: I was made aware that there is actually a deleted scene for this episode in which Thea offers Sin a place to stay instead of heading to a shelter. Funny thing is- I have a one-shot planned for Sin where something similar happens. I chose not to include it, and for the most part deleted scenes will remain deleted (though there will be one exception later this season). As for the one shot, I'll be releasing it during my hiatus between this story and its sequel.

A/N3: Finally, a lot of people have been guessing at what the sequel will be about. Some have even guessed that the main villain of the story would be Ra's and the League. But remember- I started planning this story out well before Season 3 started, and in planning this story I also roughed out the sequel. So, while the League will play a part, they won't be the big bads. I'm sure you all can guess by now who THAT will be, even if you can't guess how…

Lastly, thank you to the guest reviewer who left me the tidbit about the Fountain of Life. I honestly have no recollection of that at all, though I was only reading sporadically back then. And if you are saying you were surprised that Malcolm didn't use that to bring back Thea, think about it- if it only worked on those with pure souls, Thea wouldn't qualify. Even if she doesn't remember killing Sara, she still did it, and that would stain her soul. Also, she wasn't the best person before that, with the drinking and drugs.