Chapter Five

The Rise of the Red Arrow

Lilly Sanders funeral was a week after her death. Roy felt he needed to be there not just to pay his respect to Lilly, but to be there for his new friend Eric as well. The service was small, and Eric looked as if was on a distant world for the entire funeral. Roy understood why, grieving was an awful thing. After the service, Roy approached Eric and spoke.

"Hey man….how are you holding up?" He asked.

"I….I quit my job yesterday." Eric replied, not looking Roy in the face, as if his mind was still processing everything that was going on.

"That seems...extreme." Roy replied, "Why'd you do that?"

"The night Lilly was shot, after you left….I couldn't sleep. I was just, so angry, and obsessed with wanting to get back at Alan Trevit. I mean, of course he was the person who called the hit, the Wolf Pack were all his lackeys. I felt so useless, I couldn't save my sister, and I couldn't save myself. So I obsessed over him, and google searched the Timber Wolf...and then I may have hacked into some more secure files about Alan Trevit and I learned something..."

"What's that?" Roy asked.

Eric continued, sniffling up some tears. "His dad was Morty Trevit, and his mom was Clarissa Trevit. The thing is, Clarissa eventually changed her last name when she remarried Cornelius Widener which means..."

"Derek Widener and Alan Trevit were step brothers." Roy finished Eric's sentence. "And you think..."

"I think Derek was working with Alan to supply him what he needed for the V100 engines, obviously. But less obvious, and probably something I'll never be able to prove...I think Derek was privy to all of the Timber Wolf's crimes and underground activity. I think they were working together. And if what the Wolf Pack wanted me to do with the V100's was part of a greater plan by Derek….well, that was no company I wanted any part of."

"What is it they wanted you to do with the tech?" Roy asked.

"Nothing good, that's for sure." Eric replied, as he walked away to say good bye to his sister for the last time before she would be put in the ground.

As Roy was walking back to his car, he looked in the distance and saw Sin standing beside a tree smiling at him. She motioned her head in a way that told him to come see her. Roy shook his head with a smile, she had such a weird habit of appearing in the weirdest places.

"So way to go on saving the day and all." Sin said to Roy, as he approached her. "Do you think anyone spotted you?"

"Nah." Roy replied, "Without any kind of real costume, I thought it was best to stay in the shadows. This city isn't used to masked heroes like Star City was."

"Maybe we can change that." Sin said with a smile, "I might have called a mutual friend who knew someone that knew someone in the leather crime fighting clothing business….and that person may have whipped up a special something for you."

Sin pulled out a gift box that clearly had clothing in it. Roy opened it up to see a sleeveless black tunic with red streaks on it, and black leather pants. There was also a black leather mask of much better quality then the one that Sin had given to him earlier.

"No hood?" Roy asked with a smile.

Sin shrugged as she responded, "I always thought the hoods were geeky. Besides, this city should see clearly the guy with a bow and arrow out there kicking ass. It will make people behave more. I did think the name Arsenal was pretty cool though. Give some more time and maybe I'll come up with a cape with a big A on it or something."

"Um definitely not..." Roy smiled, humored by the idea of a cape. Then he thought of the code name. "And, no on the name Arsenal. That was me in Star City, but I think here I should go for something a little different. I was thinking, Red Arrow."

"How very original." Sin said sarcastically, and then she put her hand on Roy's shoulder and spoke genuinely. "But how very fitting."

"So what are you up to now?" Roy asked as he took the gift box and put the top back on it. "Going back to Star City?"

"Nope." Sin said with a wry smile, "I think I may stick around here for a while. I have this other friend in the area that has a nasty habit of getting his ass kicked. I think I may need to keep an eye on him."

"I'm sure he'd appreciate it." Roy replied warmly, and then he remembered something else he needed to do in the near future. "Hey Sin, I'll catch up with you later, I have to go somewhere real quick.

Meanwhile, a few hours later, at the top of Widener Corp, the tallest building in Paragon, Derek Widener standing by his desk, was watching the NEWS in his office privately on his giant wall sized HD TV.

"The criminal Timber Wolf has finally been apprehended, after years being the kingpin of crime in Paragon." The newscaster spoke, as Alan Trivet's face was plastered on the screen. "His involvement in illegal street racing and vehicular warfare combined with the murder of Lilly Sanders was more then enough for the authorities to finally have a strong basis to throw him behind bars. There are stories floating out there about a lone individual dressed in red who single handedly stopped Alan and his Wolf Pack, but none of these details have been confirmed.

Suddenly, the TV shut off as all power in Widener's office suddenly disappeared. Derek stood very still, as the moonlight cast a shadow of a figure behind him holding a bow. Widener spoke calmly, not at all wanting to show any signs of weakness to his enemy.

"We're a little far from Star City, aren't we?" Derek spoke. "And what's with the new look? Tell me, do you have a different look for every city you visit? Honestly, before last week I'd say I am a big fan...you're shorter then you have looked on TV though."

"I'm not him." Roy spoke, with a voice masker on, "You can call me the Red Arrow. I want you to know I know that you were directly involved with Alan Trevit. I want you to know that I know you were the brains of the operations, regardless of what he thought. I hope that you take the current events in Paragon as a sign to lay off whatever it is you are planning. In the probable event you don't, I want you to know that I'll be sticking around Paragon to keep an eye on you...and I'll be ready to take you down."

"Take me down?" Derek whirled around in rage at the audacity of his masked visitor, "You couldn't possibly come close to..."

Before he could fully turn around, the lights flashed back on and Derek was alone in the room again. He shook his head in anger, still annoyed at the archer who had single handed thwarted his plans. Derek knew for things to progress, he'd need to take out this "Red Arrow." The CEO pulled out his phone and dialed a particular number.

"Yes, this is Derek." He spoke into to the phone, "It's time to accelerate our time table. Yes the Siliconian V100 Engines were a tremendous success as an energy source. It's time we work on how to weaponize them...and of course, you know what else I want us to be doing. Don't you worry about what happened on the NEWS. He won't be a problem for much longer, I have another resource looking into it."

Roy Harper was on the subway heading home. For the first time since he had left Star City, he felt like he could honestly say that statement, "head home". Like he always did, Roy took a moment to watch the random strangers in the subway. The people on their phones, the folks reading the paper, homeless individuals napping. The subway was full of tons of people paying him no mind, and he loved that about it.

Suddenly, Roy's eyes fell upon a particular person on the other side of the Subway who didn't even notice him. Roy thought to himself, "Why does that guy look familiar?"

His brain flashed back to back when he first traveled with Oliver in Arrow business. This was when he had been injected with the mirakuru and was told to stay with Arrow and do nothing but watch. They had broke into the Merlin mansion and were looking for something, Roy couldn't remember what. He ran across a picture and remember saying to Oliver. "Hey wasn't this that kid who died? Did you know him?" And Oliver's response was, "He was a friend."

Then in the present Roy knew exactly who this person was, as unbelievable as it sounded.

"That's Tommy Merlin!"

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I hope you had as much fun with this story as I did. Please review it and let me know what you think, or if you'd like me to do another Red Arrow piece. I have a second story in mind, but I am waiting to see how this one does before I put in the work in creating another. A gentle reminder...I still don't own Arrow.