Floor 52 was as deserted as the rest of the building but that didn't matter. If it was JJ under the mask, this was where he would come. Both the headquarters of his erased empire and the murder site of his last victim. "Any sign of him yet?" Dinah murmured into her comms as she stalked the halls.

"Not yet." Laurel whispered back from her hiding spot.

"All clear down here." Mia reported as she gently stroked her bowstring for comfort.

Their plan was simple: presuming JJ was still suffering the aftereffects of his pre-Crisis memories being restored, he was instinctively trying to reenact the closing moments of the old universe. Laurel and Mia were able to lay in wait where he was most likely to show up and Dinah was free to roam the floor to corral him into the trap.

"I still can't believe the big, bad, Black Canaries are scared of needles," Mia smirked in the tense situation.

JJ had ambushed them on a different floor and managed to slice Laurel's upper arm severely enough to require medical attention. They had patched it up for now by crudely sewing the wound but it was still going to require a doctor later on. Amusingly (for Mia) Dinah had been nearly as uncomfortable to watch the proceedings as Laurel had been to be used as a human pincushion.

"Yeah, well," The blonde scowled. "This is why I usually carry glue." Superglue could usually patch a wound closed in seconds but the tube Laurel usually kept tucked away was currently back in the Fish Net bar where it had been used to mend a pair of her boots. "What's Dinah's excuse?"

"Had a bad reaction to a mandatory vaccination when I was with the SCPD," She murmured defensively as she scanned around a set of conference rooms for any sign of Deathstroke. "Took three days to recover. Haven't liked needles since." A distorted scream sounded in the distance. "Shit, how is there anyone still not evacuated?" Dinah often wondered if some hostages were simply the natural evolution of natural selection at work as she ran to save them. Of course, she only did the wondering after she'd started the running.

Deathstroke was right where Mia had said he'd be: a small walkway between two offices overlooking a veranda. Struggling in his grip as a human shield was a middle-aged Latina woman in a business suit. "Hey!" Dinah drew his attention before instantly raising both hands in surrender. "Let her go, she has nothing to do with this."

"Fine." He spat behind the mask. "I'll trade her for Zoe, I know she's here somewhere!"

"Hey, look at me." Dinah spoke to the hostage. "Are you okay? Why didn't you leave with everyone else?"

"I was in the bafhroom." A slight lisp explained the rest of the story even before she nervously turned to show her ear. The lady had turned off her hearing aids and hadn't known there was an alarm. As it was a security alarm and not a fire, the emergency lighting hadn't kicked in to warn her.

"Shut up!" Deathstroke snarled, tightening his arm around her neck.

"Let her go!" A new voice broke in.

"Guys, hold on!" Mia whispered into her comms. "Something's not right here." She knew that voice. It had called her on the phone, begging for help.

"Stop getting in my way!" Deathstroke shook his hostage in rage.

"She doesn't have anything to do with this!" This time, Dinah recognised the voice. Or nearly.

"Is that who I think it is?" She'd heard the voice before, years ago, when she had first joined Team Arrow but from another man.

"Who?" Of course, Laurel hadn't been around that long nor had she had the deepest relationship with the group.

"It's JJ." He sounded a lot like his father at the same age. Enough that Dinah could tell Mia was telling the truth. "He's in there somewhere."

"Not good." Dinah whispered back. If JJ wasn't in control of Deathstroke, that meant he was either undergoing a psychological break of some sort or there was brainwashing involved. She missed the days before vigilantes and meta-humans when people in two minds were simply experimenting with crazy narcotics and nothing more.

"Nothing's changed," Laurel voted from the far end of the walkway. "Either we take him down or the girl dies."

"I haven't got a shot," Mia warned, shifting her vantage point.

"Follow my lead," Dinah whispered into her comms. "Hey, listen to me," Dinah spoke soothingly to the mask. "I know you don't want to do this: someone did something to you and it's messing with your mind."

"She showed me the lies of this world!" Deathstroke bellowed. "I was never meant to be this pathetic coward."

"Please," JJ sobbed brokenly. "Please help me." Those sobs tugged at Mia's heartstrings enough that she lessened up on the bowstring slightly.

"How big a window do you need?" Laurel came on over the comms and her resolve returned.

"A second where that girl isn't near him." Maybe even half that.

"I'll get it done." She went silent again as Dinah resumed negotiations.

"I know what you're going through," Carefully reaching out with her staff, she leaned it against a desk to raise both hands in surrender. "I know what it's like to wake up in a strange place with new thoughts in your head and not know which was is up."

"Shut up!" Deathstroke spat. "You're nothing like me! Nothing!"

"You're right," Dinah snapped back. "Because I'm not some weak coward who would take an innocent girl hostage - I'd have the guts to fight you myself."

"And that's why I'm gonna win." He laughed callously.

"No, don't!" JJ screamed as his hand was forcibly dragged back.

"Now!" Laurel shouted as she burst from the office at the other end of the walkway, tackling the pair apart and dragging JJ over the edge. Mia's fingers released and the arrow flew true, stabbing him in the narrow gap between helmet and chestplate as the pair hung suspended in the air.

Sparks cascaded off the small device at the end of the arrow and electrified him into unconsciousness as Laurel jerked free before the voltage could do the same to her. "Are you okay?" Dinah grabbed the recent hostage and pulled her away from the commotion.

"I-I-I think so?" She shivered uncontrollably.

"What's your name?" Dinah asked kindly.

"Andrea." She managed not to stutter this time.

"Andrea," The Canary smiled. "We've got this but I need you to go and report this, okay?

"O-okay." She shivered, running for the door.

"What was that about?" Mia had seen the interaction as she ran over but didn't know what to make of it. "Now the cops are going to be on us!"

"Like they aren't already," Dinah retorted as she dropped down from the walkway. "Andrea needed something to focus on."

"Don't worry about me," With a pained groan, Laurel heaved herself upright. While Felicity might have been a scatterbrain in conversation, her technical aptitude meant the equivalent of three stun guns had been tucked into that tiny arrow and she was feeling it. "Haven't had a headache this bad since the last universe."

And that flippant comment about the new world brought them all to focus on the unconscious figure. Kneeling beside him, Mia reached for the edge of his mask. "Wait!" Dinah placed a hand on her shoulder. "Let's not do this where there are cameras."

"I don't care about that!" Mia smacked the hand away.

"Hey!" Dinah was more forceful this time. "Whatever else he's done, he isn't in his right mind. You heard him earlier: Deathstroke wanted to kill that girl but JJ was scared."

"And he said 'she' told him this world isn't real," Laurel reminded them both. "Trevor mentioned a woman as well - it can't be a coincidence."

"If you take off his mask, there's no chance of saving him." Dinah continued. "Either way, we need to know what happened to him and we can't do that if the police take him into custody."

Mia looked down at the still armour as she struggled with her own conflicting emotions. "Fine." She came to a decision. "I know where we need to go."