Disclaimer: Not mine.

I don't have a great excuse about how long it's been. Just... shit happened. But I am starting to move at a steadier clip, so :fingers crossed:

I'm aiming to return to the every two months routine, we'll see if I can pull it off.

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 14:

"...it's the great question, isn't it? Possibly the most fought over one in the entire field of Superhero Studies. Did Vigilantes, and Superheroes actually make things better? Would the kinds of criminals who started to emerge at the same time the earliest vigilantes and superheroes were acting still have emerged? Science was on a cusp of all sorts of new technologies. What people were then calling 'Late Stage Capitalism' was creating all sorts of social ills, treatment for mental illness was at standards practically medieval by today's view, and so, some will argue that many of the same villains would have emerged."

"But that's not the thesis you suggest in your book, Doctor."

"No. Unfortunately, I think the truth is a lot more complicated. Many criminals, many early Supervillains likely would have emerged anyway, but not all, and not in the same way. I think that the early vigilantes and superheroes served as an inspiration - what one person could achieve, if they became something greater. For many, that inspiration started their own vigilante and superhero careers, or even things as mundane as community watch programs, more people going into the social work or medical fields, even going into law enforcement. But... some people were inspired in a different way. A lot of people asked themselves: If one person can change my city, change the world, why can't I do the same? And not all the people asking were asking for the right reasons, or with the kinds of goals you or I would consider socially acceptable."

"Seems like a bit of an understatement, really."

"True."

-Excerpt from a 2099 interview with William Urquist, PhD, during his book tour for his book "Dark Inspirations - When Superheroes Create Their Own Supervillains."

January 15th, 2014

ICTB Building, Starling City

The International Commodities Trade Bank Building was burning.

"Diggle, talk to us, what's the status?" Laurel didn't usually have to raise her voice to be picked up by the comms, but in this case, with so many fire engines outside the building and the fire blazing, the sound of internal fire alarms - the ones that still had power - going off, it was necessary.

"There's still a few people on the fifth floor. Fire fighters think everything else is clear, but they can't get past the third floor." Diggle said in their ears. Laurel and Oliver had gotten into the building from the less on fire back end of the building, but once you actually got inside, the fires were still pretty intense, and spread out. Whatever had happened here had fires all over the building, almost perfectly placed to impede progress from firefighters.

Had to be foul play. Arson, or maybe bombs. It wasn't guaranteed, but -

"That's less of a problem for us," Oliver noted. "Closest stairs to the back lobby?" A long pause. "Dig?"

"I'm working - Felicity makes getting this kind of info on demand look way too easy," Diggle said quickly. "Okay, her program's pulled up the schematics on file with the city. Head north about - sixty feet, then down the hall on your left, and it's on the right from there."

The hallway to the north was full of small fires, fallen bits of ceiling tile, blazing away, the whole thing feeling like a furnace, but nothing was so hot that they couldn't bet by - Laurel got ahead of Oliver, leaping over some of the smaller flames that Oliver had to be more careful to get by, reaching the hallway in question, looking down.

Shit. There was a much larger fire - getting by it would be doable, but it would edge far too -

Part of Laurel wondered if her new superpower, her sonic scream could do something to the fire, but she wasn't quite willing to take the chance it might make things worse - if nothing else, damage the building. She'd gotten better at controlling it, so much better, but there was only so much you do to prevent destroying or damaging walls...

The flames still nearly came up to her waist, but there was plenty of room - she pulled back, braced, and ran, vaulting over the flames, feeling the heat almost hit her legs and torso as she went over, but barely, just barely escaping hitting them. She looked back to Oliver, coming into the hallway on her heels.

Shit. Oliver should be able to do it still, but he'd be cutting it even finer...

If I was going to get superpowers, creating water would have been a bit more all-purpose, no?

It was only a few moments but it felt much longer as Laurel watched Oliver run back, brace and he too leapt over the flames. Fire practically grabbed at his boot, but he didn't actually burn so that was more than enough enough. She moved over as Oliver tucked into a roll as he landed, getting back to his feet after landing.

The stairs were just ahead and Oliver kicked the door open, revealing stairs that were - like the first hallway - littered with bits of flaming debris, but not entirely aflame - but she could see, a few landings up, fire, blocking further access up, blazing, spreading -

Oliver fired a cable-arrow, aiming for the stairs past the blaze - it locked in, and Laurel grabbed onto him, arms around him as his free arm went around her, and they went up, quickly bypassing the blaze.

"On the fifth floor," Laurel said, as Oliver detached the arrow and extended it back down, then kicked down another door, moving into the building. "Any idea where the people here are?"

The fifth floor looked to be less on fire, but it still wasn't in great condition, and less was a relative statement if there ever was one.

Diggle gave directions - the trail of damage across the the fifth floor was significant, light fixture and other pieces of the ceiling having rained down. Several people were trapped in a room, debris having fallen in front of the door. Laurel cleared the door as Oliver pushed ahead.

"Black Canary?!" One of the people - a janitor - said, recognizing her, or at least her custom.

"Stairwell in the back, use the cable to get past the blaze down to the ground level!" Laurel ordered, the voice scrambler covering her words as she shouted that, gesturing. She ran down the hallway, speaking into the comms, "Do you have any way to get the firefighters around to the back? We're getting the survivors down through the stairs!"

"No need to do that for more, the firefighters are almost through to the fifth floor," Diggle said.

"There's a few more people left in this room, and if the fire gets to them before the firefighters do, they're dead," Oliver called back over the comms, and Laurel raced towards the Oliver, reaching him. He was, lifting a piece of ceiling off a man's legs, helping him up - Laurel came, taking the man from him as Oliver moved to lift a filing cabinet that had tilted over, pinning someone else -

Just get them out of this room... there was a blaze creeping closer to this room, but one hallway was clear, so Laurel just had to get this man there, get him out of the path, if the firefighters were close -

It wasn't that hard - the man was heavy, and with one leg either broken or nearly so, he couldn't do much in his dazed condition, but good enough. She got him into the safer hallway.

"Wait here," she urged, "firefighters are nearly here, and the fire won't get here before they get to you." She returned to the room, helping Oliver get the people out of the room - each person they got to more injured, and more out of it than the last, the last one entirely unconscious, and she looked to be barely breathing, but before Laurel could try to do anything about that, she heard the sound of a door being broken down, firefighters shouting nearby. She set the unconscious girl down, gestured to Oliver, and they moved, retreating back down the cable and out of the building.

Once they were safely a street away, down an alley, Laurel turned to Oliver.

"Explosions like that aren't accidents. And that wasn't targeted enough to be a hit on any specific person there." Especially with the way fires had practically been set up to block access to the higher levels of the building.

Oliver nodded, understanding her argument, and going to the next logical solution. "You think someone was trying to send a message?"

"Most likely. It could have been someone disguising a hit with something big, but... I don't think so. We'll know for sure if a manifesto goes live." Laurel chuckled without humor. "There's always a manifesto."

On Top of SCPD, Starling City

January 16th, 2014

As was almost always the case, Laurel was right: There was a manifesto.

"You know, I've been a cop for most of my life, and I've only been up here twice." Quentin Lance's voice came from the door leading into the building, as he closed the door behind him. "Haven't heard from you for a while. Figured you were content risking my daughter's career." Quentin let out a breath. "Not even sure why I still had that phone, or why I agreed to help you when you called."

"Because you know that we can help find the man behind the bombing yesterday." Oliver explained, not looking directly at the man, the voice scrambler of course running. "Faster than the SCPD can. Hopefully before anyone else gets hurt."

Felicity had gotten back in the morning, coming back from visiting a comatose Barry earlier than planned, but she only had so much to work with until they could get information on the bomb residue.

'SCPD keeps more of it's information entirely on paper these days, thanks to how often they've been hacked,' Felicity had said, after trying to get the information her way. Asking Sara to get it was the obvious choice, but Laurel was hesitant to ask her sister, with IA apparently taking a closer look at her.

Oliver felt like that should have been Sara's choice, but...

Quentin scoffed, bitterly. "And the fact that that's true is just another sign of the times." Quentin let out a long sigh. "You and your girlfriend mean well, in your own way - though I can't say part of me doesn't hope you pay for the murders you committed back before you stopped with that - but you're still part of the problem. And the solution, but... this bomber? I read over some of his manifesto. He talks about the power of one man to challenge the system, change the word. Doesn't mention either of you by name, but -"

"You think we're responsible for him." Oliver cut off. He and Laurel had inspired the so-called 'Savior', and then the 'Hoods' - so far, there hadn't been many more people 'inspired' in the same way, and none were killing people, but the prospect was one that worried him.

Neither he nor Laurel had bothered to read the manifesto, and Diggle hadn't said much beyond it being 'normal fare', but the Arrow and the Black Canary had shown people what they could achieve. Had this man taken that message-

"No. He's a nut. He's responsible for himself. But sooner or later, you're going to get more people like the Savior, or the 'Hoods'. Or people who decide to do what you do, but as criminals. I've been hearing some crazy shit down the grapevine from Central City, you know." Quentin shook his head. "Didn't agree to meet with you to debate you." He pulled a manilla folder out from under his arm.

"Captain Pike called in a favor from the FBI, got them to analyze the bomb residue faster than we could, had them run it against their database. Somehow, they got a hit just an hour ago."

When Quentin had called back, saying he had something for them.

"Bomb residue traces to an anti-government militia site calling itself "The Movement". The usual bullshit from what the tech guys say, but apparently their site is based in a different country, one that doesn't like the US demanding stuff from them. So getting permission to get anything to connect this bombing to any specific user there is going to take time. Time Starling City doesn't have." Quentin held out the folder. "But that shouldn't be a problem for you guys."

"No, it shouldn't." Oliver agreed. He reached for the folder, and Quentin tugged it back before Oliver could grab it.

"First, tell me why you asked me, and not my daughter."

Oliver grimaced. Did Sara want her dad to know that IA was sniffing around her? She definitely didn't want her dad to know about Vanch.

"We can't ask any one source for information too often." Oliver said, after a moment. "Draws attention."

"You think IA is looking at Sara?" Quentin asked, stiffening a bit, growling the words out. "Bad enough you two got her into this, somehow, but - you nearly cost her her career once, if you do it again-"

"This might be something to ask her about," Oliver said after a moment, diplomatically. "We've never asked her to do anything she wasn't willing to do." Which was true.

Quentin scoffed, "That doesn't say much. My daughters have always been more idealistic than their old man. And Sara's respect for the rules has always been... perfunctory." He sighed. "Like I said, you two have your hearts in the right place, and you are helping, even if I also think you make it worse sometimes as well. But if my daughter gets hurt because of you two..." He trailed off, presumably intending to let Oliver's imagination do the work.

He held out the folder again, and Oliver took it without a problem this time.

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Officer Lance." Oliver answered before leaving.

Or rather, he started to, before the sound of an explosion from further in downtown drew both their eyes. The Starling City Municipal Building was exploding, an expanding ball of flame pluming out from somewhere halfway up the skyscraper.

Reports were already coming in over Quentin's radio. He cursed up a storm, "Get this guy, before he hits again." He ran for the door back inside, and Oliver fired a cable arrow, changing roofs and heading to his motorcycle.

"Tell me you have something. Anything." Oliver demanded over the comms, dropping down, sticking the folder in a secure place on the bike.

"You're in luck, Arrow, because I do." Felicity said as Oliver started his bike up. "I've been trying to monitor the cell towers, in case this guy's using phone was a GSM spike of 3800 Megahertz two seconds before the blast." Oliver didn't know what that meant exactly, but Felicity wouldn't be drawing attention to it if it wasn't important, especially in the context of cell towers. "That's way outside the approved frequencies for US carriers."

"Can you track that signal back to him?"

"Already done. Signal's moving." Oliver drove out of the alley onto the main street.

"Give me an intersection. Black Canary, are you hearing this?"

"Already heading out," Laurel answered.

"He's pulling into a main thoroughfare 400 meters ahead of you, Arrow," Felicity said quickly. "He's got to be trying to blend in with the traffic merging."

"He won't make it," Oliver said confidently.

"What's the parallel street to the one he's on?" Laurel asked. "If he pulls anything, I can switchover before he gets a chance to put in distance. If he doesn't see me, he can't plan for me."

Felicity gave Laurel a street name, and they were off, Felicity giving more instructions as she tracked the signal.

"His signal is starting to scramble," she warned, speaking quickly. "if you don't get eyes on him soon-"

There were a lot of cars ahead, and Oliver weaved through them, ignoring the honking horns, people screaming through open windows at him. Fifty meters ahead... around that car -

And there. Right where the signal was coming from. A van. Unmarked, and driving just a little erratically, as if the driver was distracted by trying to scramble a signal. Not enough to draw too much attention from a cop looking for drunk drivers, but...

"I have eyes on him. A van. Light grey." He rattled off the make and model. "I can't get a good look at the plate." If Oliver didn't miss his guess, the man had probably deliberately damaged them, but he wasn't close enough to see.

"He's turning left on 67th." Felicity told him, and Oliver pulled the motorcycle around as sharply as he could, foot hitting the ground for a moment and then he was off again, closing the distance.

The two of them weaved around the cars, but the bomber didn't have the same regard for other drivers, recklessly getting close, forcing them out of the way. Offensive driving, in other words. Which only forced Oliver to have to duck around, drive around, avoid cars, the honks and screeching of tires all around.

An arm reached out from the driver's side window, dropping something. It bounced and rolled towards him - a small, round -

Grenade.

Oliver jumped off the bike seat, still holding on to the handles, holding his legs up, hanging off the edge as it moved, tilting more than was remotely safe as the grenade rolled, he moved closer - it exploded on the other side, a shower of flame and shrapnel, most hitting the bike itself, and nothing critical damaged, at least.

"He's got grenades." Oliver noted. "If it goes to you, watch for them," he cautioned Laurel, getting back onto the cycle. He still had eyes, but the van had put some distance between them - Oliver gritted his teeth and gunned the engine, picking up speed.

"Black Canary is still running parallel." Felicity said in his ear. "But I'm going to lose his signal in a minute,"

"Can you buy us more time?!" Oliver heard his tires screech in protest as he leaned to the side, moving around another car, pulling in closer - closer...

"I'm trying, but - it's not like he's setting off more cell-phone bombs for me to use to triangulate his signal!" Felicity countered, nearly shouting.

Oliver bit back a response - he knew Felicity was doing the best she could, she always did. He leaned forward - he was almost there, if he could just get a little closer, he could leap onto the van -

The arm stuck out again, dropping another grenade. Oliver braced, slowing just a little, hanging off to the side again, using the cycle as cover - but instead of shrapnel and fire, smoke filled his vision, blocking the view of anything -

"I've lost sight of him. Smoke grenade. Black Canary-" Oliver said between coughs, pulling the cycle to a complete stop for just a moment, the inertia nearly carrying him off the thing entirely.

"I'm on him." Laurel confirmed.

"Fifteen seconds until I lose the signal!" Felicity warned.

Streets of Starling

January 16th, 2014

Laurel ignored the protest of cars and drivers as she broke pretty much every traffic law in the books, spinning a hard turn, taking the wrong lane to weave around cars and merging into the main street.

Grey van. The make and model ran through her head and she looked in the direction it should be going.

"I see it," Laurel said quickly, turning hard again, moving as fast as she dared - there was a clear stretch of road now between her and the van, she just needed to get closer -

An arm stuck out of the driver's side, dropping something again - Laurel didn't wait to see if it was a smoke grenade or a regular grenade - she used the advantage of the clear road to just go wide around it, losing some ground as it blew up, but the blast missed here entirely, and she could make up the ground quickly.

"Signal's gone. I'm going to try to get it again, but-"

"Don't worry, I've still got eyes on him." She said which direction he was heading, on what street. "I think he's trying to get to the Glades, thinks he'll be able to lose us there." It was just a guess, there were other possibilities, but Laurel wasn't going to let him get that far anyway, even if it was.

Laurel hadn't used her powers in the field yet. Not out of fear of not being able to control them - her training with Lady Shiva, some practice after had settled her concerns there. But so far, she hadn't faced an opponent that merited it. The usual spread of thugs, Triad dealers and other small-time problems. But this - getting close enough to the van to do what she might have done, leap onto it, force her way in, take control of the vehicle that way -

Possible, but with his arsenal of grenades, riskier than she'd like.

The van sped up, the driver clearing trying to floor it, but the van was hardly top of the line, there was only so much speed the bomber could get out of it. Laurel, on the other hand, was riding a much, much more sophisticated bike than most people had access to. She didn't need to get up to the side of it. Just a little closer-

Laurel opened her mouth and screamed - the device on her neck that Felicity had made glowed blue for a moment, enough to make someone think she had an upgraded sonic device, as an expanding cone of sonic waves crashed into the van - glass broke, metal bent and the whole vehicle came to a halt, spinning out to the side, now perpendicular to the road, sparks coming out of the good - just a few, she was pretty sure the thing wasn't about to explode, but to be safe, she pulled up short, keeping the bike between herself and the car. She saw the driver's side door open after a moment, and a brown-haired man stumbled out.

He didn't really look the part of a mad bomber. He had a black sweater jacket on over a flannel-patterned shirt, jeans, and his hair was well kempt, rather than wild, or sticking up all over the place. He was bleeding from the nose, though, and Laurel could only assume either her scream ruptured a blood vessel in his nose, or more likely the force of the car stopping and her scream had been enough to slam his face into the steering wheel. His blip was blood too, and he reached into his jacket, pulling out a gun.

"You should be on MY SIDE!" The man screamed. "I'm standing up to the politicians! The corporate greed! The elites poisoning this city, poisoning this country!" He fired the gun, his aim terrible, erratic. Where his looks didn't convey mad bomber before, his tone did, and his eyes, wide and frenzied. He was shouting, firing again - Laurel didn't even really have to dodge as the bullet flew by her, but she wasn't going to just stand there.

She ran around her motorcycle, zig-zagging towards him as he kept ranting, screaming, asserting that he was the one who would fix the city of all it's ills, that his bombs would purge the 'filth' - such a fun word for a white man who hung out on militia forums to be saying - from the city.

Laurel let it wash over her and then she got close, crossing the remaining distance with a leap, tackling him to the ground, knocking the gun from his hand.

"Your bombs aren't about anything but your own ego," she growled, grabbing the front of his shirt and delivering a swift uppercut to his jaw, sending his head reeling back. For good measure she delivered another punch, letting him drop limply to the ground. There were cars pulling up short, tires screeching as they did so, she could hear doors opening, people coming out. Probably camera phones were being deployed too.

Police would be on their way soon.

Laurel stood, standing over the unconscious body of the bomber.

"This man is a criminal, a murderer, who set the bombs that hit the ITCB Building, killing two people, and the bomb that hit the Starling City Municipal Building just minutes ago." Laurel shouted. "He did it for his own ego, for his own mad desire to tear down anything he hated." She hadn't read the whole manifesto, but she'd read enough. "He claimed to be fighting those in power, but instead, he killed two janitors, just trying to make a living. He cared only about creating fear and panic, and then put the lives of innocent people in jeopardy to try and escape justice."

"No one can outrun justice forever. Not in this city, not as long as I still draw breath."

Laurel knew some people would call this grandstanding, or glory-seeking, but being the Black Canary had always been about sending a message, to the people of Starling City.

"Not as long as good people still seek to live out their lives in peace, and stand up for what's right." She could hear police sirens in the distance.

There were murmurs, shouts, questions coming from the onlookers, but Laurel couldn't stay for any of them. Sooner or later, we should probably give an interview. Laurel considered, as she mounted her motorcycle and sped off.

January 17th, 2014

The Foundry, Starling City

Roy was not the best student she could have wished for - he was too impatient, too eager to get out there and mix it up - but he was still pretty good. He took getting knocked on his ass in good humor, and that was pretty important, since it happened multiple times a day, when she trained him.

Roy picked himself up off the mat again, rubbing at his thigh. "Is this all we're going to do? It's been ten days, and that's all you've done."

"True, but your average time before I beat you has gone up from twelve seconds to thirty," Laurel pointed out, handing him a bottle of water. He took a slow, careful sip. "But no, that's not all. If you're going to go out into the field, you're going to need a weapon." Laurel stepped off the mat and retrieved an item from a box. It was a long chain, a heavy leather weight on one hand.

"This is a Meteor Hammer." She explained, holding it out to Roy.

"A leather ball on a chain?" Roy couldn't hide his dismay and confusion, though he was trying. "That's - I don't-"

Laurel stepped back, swinging the weapon around, getting Roy on the leg, then pulled the chain back as Roy hissed, stumbling back. Laurel swung it out again, wrapping it around Roy's torso quickly, pulling and forcing him back down to the ground as she pulled the chain back once more.

"It's definitely an unusual weapon, I'll give you that," Laurel agreed, bending over to give Roy a hand and help him back up. "But it's far from ineffective."

"...I suppose I can't argue with that. But why this, and not your - tonfa?" He stumbled over the word a little - he'd called them 'nightsticks' at first, which made sense, but Laurel had been rather insistent on using the proper terminology, and Roy had mostly caught on.

"One, I think this will be better suited to your style of fighting, two, because there's almost no one out there on the streets of Starling that has encountered someone using one of these." China White being a possible exception, "and three, because you'll have a better chance of standing out on your own as a vigilante if you're using your own weapon."

If you were going to send a message, you couldn't ignore the optics.

"That - okay," Roy blinked, taking a breath. "So how do I use it?"

"Well, it's not easy, but I think you can get the hang of it." She handed him the chain and showed him how to loop part of the chain around his fingers, so he could control how much length he had at any given time. "You can use the weight, or the chain as the weapon. It's easy to hide, easy to deploy, and about as nonlethal as any weapon can be."

Roy stared at her, blinking: " 'About as nonlethal as any weapon can be'? That - I don't - I don't want to kill people."

"I know. But any weapon can kill someone if you try hard enough, or under the right - or wrong - circumstances. And you can kill someone with your bare hands, for that matter." Laurel pointed out, and Roy opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, nodding. "My trainer could kill anyone with just about anything." Laurel added. "Including a soup spoon." Well, Laurel wasn't sure if Nyssa was messing with her when she'd told her the story about killing a man with just a soup spoon and a rolled up magazine, but she could certainly believe it.

"Once you get the hang of this, we can swap out for a metal weight - as long as you don't go cracking people in the skull with full force, the most you're likely to do is broken limbs and a lot of bruises." Laurel added.

"Okay." Roy stepped away from Laurel, holding it like she told him to, giving a few experimental swings. "And - how long do I have to train with this before I can go out?"

"Roy, going out there unprepared is a one-way trip to the morgue." Laurel countered. "The truth is, yes, you could handle yourself against your average street thug, but at this point, your average street thug isn't our biggest concern."

"...well, yeah, if I run into one of those super-soldier guys, I'll run and get you two," Roy said, chuckling. "I do get that I have limits."

Laurel wasn't so sure he would, if his blood was up. And of course, would he realize in time? Would he get away.

"Mirakuru soldiers are just the top of the list. China White? Her top enforces? Anyone heavily armed? Your suit will have ballistic fiber woven into it, but mobility is going to be your best defense. Which is one of the reasons why I went with the meteor hammer for you. It will give you your best chance to control the battlefield." Laurel gestured at him. "Let's see if you can use that to last a minute."

Roy grimaced, but turned towards her. "Well... at least I know you're not going to break any of my bones any time you take me down?"

"Probably not," Laurel agreed, grinning. "Let's get started."

Another hour of grueling training later, and Roy finally did make that minute, though he managed it mostly by trying to avoid her, rather than fighting back.

He's getting it.