Constantine stood up. "This next part is a bit shorter and a little different," he introduced. "It's basically just two different nights, which are a little more normal, a bit better of a representation of what Oliver's life was like during the first year he was back in Starling, but it shows an important part in Oliver's journey to becoming the man sitting here today, and becomes very important later on," he finished. "Any questions?"
He looked around. "All right then," he muttered. "Here we go."
Diggle is staring at a line of arrows set up on the desk when Oliver comes down the stairs of the lair. "Finally," he says, relieved. "What the h*** happened?"
"Jimmy Tarallo gave me a few problems," Oliver answered, striding past him and putting down his bow.
"And by a few, you mean a dozen men armed with knives?" Diggle guesses.
"No, I mean 22 with machetes," Oliver answers.
"Seriously?" the D.A. exclaimed.
Everyone looked at Oliver. He shrugged. "It's what they had, I guess."
"Um, honey, I think they're more incredulous about the fact that 22 men with machetes is just classified as 'a few problems' than they are about the fact that the 22 men were armed with machetes," Felicity explains to him.
"Oh," he said. "Well, I guess it's all a matter of perspective."
Seeing that they weren't going to get anything else out of him, Constantine continued.
Oliver bends down to cross Jimmy Tarello's name off the list. "Queen, you shouldn't be doing this alone," Diggle tells him.
"You're not ready to go into the field, Diggle," Oliver rejects his unspoken proposal.
"Yeah?" Diggle retorts. "Well, when I signed on I told you I was here to keep the body count low. That includes you."
"I'm fine," Oliver growls.
"And Tarallo?" Diggle presses.
"A little less so," Oliver answers.
Diggle shakes his head as Oliver sits down at the computers. He walks over to look over Oliver's shoulder. "What's this?" he asks.
"The next name on the list," Oliver answers.
"John Byrne?" Diggle questions. "What's the CEO of a beer company have to do to deserve an arrow between the eyes?"
"Well, the company's a front," Oliver answers. "He's using his trucks to ferry a very different kind of commodity."
"Drugs?" Diggle guesses.
Oliver sighs. "People," he answers.
"Human trafficking?" Diggle says incredulously. "Where does this end? How many names are on your list?"
"Too many to cross off," Oliver answers shortly. "Listen, Diggle. This doesn't end. The mission is never over."
Diggle stares after him as he leaves, deep in thought. Eventually, he breaks out of his trance and follows Oliver over to where he's refilling his quiver. "At least bring me for backup," he suggests.
"How many times are we gonna go over this, Diggle?" Oliver asks.
"You know," Diggle starts, "I went through Byrne's financials. Every month, he gives over $1 million to this outfit called Black Armada. You know who they are?"
"Private security firm," Oliver answers, grabbing his bow. "Former special forces."
"That's right," Diggle agrees. "And you don't think it's a good idea to bring a former soldier of your own?"
"No," he answers simply.
"You know what I think?" Diggle asks. "I don't think you really want me there."
"Well, thanks for finally getting my point," Oliver says.
"I don't think you want me there because you're afraid I will stop you from committing cold-blooded murder."
Oliver turns stands in front of Diggle, hands behind his back. "You think that your role is to keep the body count low," he states.
"There's a way you can stop him tonight without killing him," Diggle says firmly. "You could take him to prison, you could see that justice is served."
"The man traffics in human beings," Oliver says darkly. "Killing him is justice."
"But at what cost?" Diggle retorts. "You say your mission will never end. Well, trust me, it will end a lot sooner if you lose who you are."
Oliver nods, and whips his hood over his head. The screen cuts to inside Byrne's factory. Oliver makes his way through the factory, killing or injuring all of Byrne's men on his way. He slams them into metal poles, shoots them with arrows, and breaks a few of their necks.
It's the most violent thing that the room has seen so far, and everyone is taken aback by Oliver's brutality. "Ollie," Barry said in dismay.
"I know," he said shortly. "I was a different person then."
"Whatever you went through while you were missing, that doesn't pardon this!" the judge exclaimed. "Your friend is just making my case for me."
"I know," Oliver said again. "But hopefully you'll understand what was driving me a bit better by the end of this. Just, please, remember that this man was trafficking in human beings, mostly teenage girls, and all of these men were helping him."
"And this also should prove to you that we're on the up-and-up, mate," Constantine added. "We're not leaving out the ugly stuff. We're showing you what actually happened, the good, bad, and ugly. We're letting all of you come to your own conclusions."
Clay sighed. "Maybe I'm just more immune to violence, given my former line of work," he started, "but I'm less surprised by the violence and more impressed by your obvious skill as a one-man army. You're just slicing through all those men, former special forces, like it's nothing. You have a tremendous amount of skill."
"I couldn't do what I do if I didn't," Oliver answered simply.
Oliver finally makes it to the last man, and throws him down a flight of stairs. He draws back his bow. "No, please!" the man begs, but his pleas fall on deaf ears as Oliver shoots, killing him.
He marches through the open doorway and enters a hallway, finding more men waiting for him. He makes quick work of them as well. He climbs a ladder and makes it to the next level of the factory. However, seven men are waiting for him and all spring on him at once, knocking him down. More men join them and begin beating on him. Oliver drops a gas bomb through the grating underneath them. He fires a grappling arrow and zips out of their reach. He lands on the roof and shoots a couple snipers, and then zips across the factory, finding Byrne on the other side. Byrne shoots him in the shoulder, but Oliver quickly retaliates with a flechette, knocking his gun out of his hand. "You stay back!" Byrne shouts.
Oliver aims his bow. "John Byrne, you have failed this city," he growls.
The screen switches to Diggle, in the lair, practicing his fighting skills. Oliver walks in. "Diggle!" he calls.
Diggle turns around to look at him. "Don't use just your arms," Oliver advises, taking his gloves off.
He pats his hip. "Power's coming from your hips," he continues.
He leans against a metal pole, watching Diggle as he puts his eskrima sticks down. "Thanks for the tip," he says quietly.
"Just. . ." Oliver nods towards the eskrima sticks, "get real good at that, and maybe I'll eventually take you out in the field."
He gives Diggle a rare smile, and Diggle smiles back. He walks past Oliver, unwrapping his hands. "Byrne didn't really have a good night, did he?" he asks.
"He had a better night than you think," Oliver answers.
He pushes off the pole to face Diggle. "He's being arraigned in the morning," he informs him.
Diggle nods. Oliver holds up the book. "Plenty of people in this book that deserve to die," he says, looking down at it. "Plain and simple. But probably not everyone. Let's consider Mr. John Byrne to be. . .proof of concept."
"That people can be redeemed?" Diggle asks.
"That one day I'll be able to trust you," Oliver answers.
He walks away, Diggle staring after him.
The screen fades to black and Constantine stands up. "That's night one," he explained. "Oliver's first step to becoming a hero, not just a vigilante. I hope you noticed the toll that his original methods took on him, though?"
There are scattered nods around the room, but Edward frowned and was about to say something, as were the judge and D.A. Constantine cut them all off. "The first time he got back, after offing Jimmy Tarallo," he said. "He was nothing like the Oliver that you've seen interact with his family, or even Diggle or Felicity. He was dark, cold, unemotional. In short, he was locked down. He had shut the human part of himself off in order to do what he did. But the second time, when he spared John Byrne's life, he was smiling. He was giving Dig combat advice. And he was coming around to the idea of having someone to help him in the field. Please don't make the mistake of assuming that just because he was a killer, he must have been a cold-blooded one. He wasn't."
He let the room think about that for a moment, then started night two.
Diggle walks into the lair, carrying a take-out bag from Big Belly Burger. "Well, it's gonna take some adjusting, not trying to catch you giving me the slip," he comments, passing Oliver (who's sitting at the computers) on his way to the desk to unload the food. "I grabbed some Big Belly on the way in, hope you're hungry."
"I lost my appetite," Oliver answers darkly. "Come look at this."
Diggle walks over and looks over Oliver's shoulder at the screen. "TB outbreak in Lamb Valley? Since when?"
"Since this guy got greedy," Oliver growls, pulling up a photo.
"That's one smug-looking son of a b****," Diggle observes.
"Justin Claybourne owns Claybourne Pharmaceuticals, that recently acquired the rights to this drug, Dycloseral, which fights this particular strain of TB," Oliver explains, pulling up more information.
"Let me guess," Diggle says, "as soon as the outbreak started, he jacked up the prices."
"Price went from $10 a pill to $1,000 overnight," Oliver confirms. "The people in Lamb Valley, they're working class, low income. They can't afford this."
"Well, it's disgusting, but not illegal," Diggle says.
Oliver slams the spine of his father's book on the desk. "Claybourne is on the list," he growls. "I'm not worried about illegal."
He gets up and walks towards his gear. "Just because your father wrote down his name?" Diggle asks.
"My father explained this list," Oliver answers, whirling around to face him. "These are terrible people."
"How would you know that?" Diggle argues. "I thought he was dead."
"I am gonna make sure that Claybourne stops gouging people," Oliver says, ignoring Diggle's question.
"And what if he refuses to cooperate?" Diggle demands.
"You ask that like he has a choice," Oliver growls.
He walks away. At Claybourne's factory, men are working as other men patrol, guns at the ready. Claybourne is standing with what can be assumed to be members of the board. "Thanks to the influx of cash from our Dycloseral acquisition, our R&D pipeline's fully funded for the next two years," he explains. "These are exciting times, gentlemen, and it's just the beginning."
The lights go out. There is the twang of an arrow firing, and everything devolves into chaos as Oliver takes out all of Claybourne's men. There is an explosion, and Oliver is suddenly revealed to be standing not 20 feet away from Claybourne. "Justin Claybourne, you have failed this city," Oliver growls.
"I think you got the wrong guy, pal," Claybourne says, holding up his hands. "My company makes drugs that help people."
"Not the people in Lamb Valley," Oliver retorts.
"It's not my problem that some people can't afford it," Claybourne objects.
"It is now," Oliver growls, taking a step forward.
He suddenly grabs Claybourne and slams him into a table. He grabs a butane torch and holds it up threateningly. "Your days of holding this city's health hostage are over!" he threatens. "Do you understand me!"
"Okay, okay, yes!" Claybourne shouts.
Oliver slowly puts the torch down. "You have until 11 PM tomorrow to make this right," he says, more quietly.
He lets Claybourne up and starts to walk away. "And what happens if I don't?" Claybourne calls after him, regaining some of his courage.
Oliver whirls around and shoots him in the leg. Claybourne shouts in pain and collapses to the ground. "I'll aim higher," Oliver answers his question, and walks away.
The next night, Oliver enters the lair and slams a file down onto a desk. He then hits the file. Diggle walks over from where he was bending over the computers. "Take it Claybourne wasn't impressed with your Robin Hood act," he comments.
"No, he wasn't," Oliver agrees, "so I did some more digging. Claybourne didn't just price gouge with his drug. He created the epidemic. He's connected to something called the AK Desmond Group. They are black marketeers who specialize in creating bio-weapons. What do you think they've been working on?"
Diggle looks up at him in shock and disgust. "Weaponized tuberculosis," he says, almost growling himself.
Oliver strides deeper into the lair, unable to stay still "He created the marketplace, Diggle, and he didn't care who died in the process," he growls.
Diggle turns to face him, looking through the file. "And now you're gonna kill him," he guesses.
"How can you read what's in that folder and have a problem with that?" Oliver asks.
"Have you thought about the ramifications of your actions?" Diggle asks. "Of actually crossing names off a list, of being judge, jury, and executioner?"
"Men like Claybourne buy judges," Oliver retorts. "They buy juries. The law doesn't apply to them!"
Oliver looked pointedly at the judge, who glanced over, saw his expression, and quickly turned back, avoiding his gaze.
"I'm not saying that you don't do some good," Diggle argues.
"Then what are you saying, Diggle?" Oliver shouts.
"What I'm saying is that maybe one day your actions might have some unintended consequences," Diggle says quietly.
Oliver just looks at him, then walks past him towards the exit, looking at the book sitting on the desk on his way out.
The screen cuts to Felicity's office at Queen Consolidated. She's holding the same red pen she was chewing on when she and Oliver first met, talking to Oliver. "A singing telegram?" she asks. "Okay. . ."
"Mm-hm," he answers. "My friend loves them, and I thought that I would surprise her."
"Her?" Felicity repeats.
"Just a friend," Oliver clarifies. "But I don't know where her office buildings are. She works at the AK Desmond Group."
"AK Desmond Group," Felicity repeats, typing the information into her laptop.
"Man, your excuses were terrible!" Diggle laughed.
"Oh, yeah," Felicity agreed.
"Like I said before, it's not like either of you were any better," Oliver argued.
"Hmm, they're not on the internet, like, at all," Felicity says after a moment. "That's really weird."
"It's super weird," Oliver agrees.
"All right, well, lucky for you, there is the internet, and then there is the internet," Felicity emphasizes. "And these magic fingers can pull things out of it even Google can't find. Not that I believe in magic," she laughs nervously, "or that I have magic fingers. I just. . .I'm really good at. . .I'm. . .I can. . .um. . ."
"Felicity," Oliver says, a soft smile on his face. "Please."
"Right," she says quickly, turning back to her laptop. "Uh. . ."
She types furiously for a moment and comes up with an address. "1852 West Maple, 30th Floor," she says, writing it down for him.
"Great," Oliver says.
"Here you go," she says, ripping the page off the pad violently and flinging the pen across the room. "Uh, just. . .I meant to put it there," she stammers, "just leave it there."
She hands him the paper. He folds it, then kneels down and picks up the pen. "I. . .you can just. . ." she stammers.
Oliver clears his throat. He holds the pen up. "Felicity," he says with a smile.
He stands and hands her the pen. "I do believe in magic," he tells her, and leaves.
That night, Oliver arrives at the address Felicity gave him for AK Desmond, making his way through the offices (taking down their men along the way) and finding Claybourne. "Kill that Robin Hood son of a b****," Claybourne orders the man with him when Oliver arrives.
However, Oliver shoots him before he even can get close to him and strides after Claybourne. He takes out a few more men on an escalator and heads up, still chasing Claybourne, who he finds on the roof, running towards a pool. He shoots the last two guards. Claybourne turns around, his hands up and a mocking smile on his face. "You gonna tell me again I failed this city?" he taunts.
"You infected the people in Lamb Valley to turn a profit!" Oliver growls.
"You want to make this city great again?" Claybourne questions. "This is how! With business, money."
"You are sentencing innocent families, children to death," Oliver answers.
"Nobody cares about those people," Claybourne defends himself. "They're a blight. And I'm just. . .thinning the herd."
"So am I," Oliver growls.
He draws back his bow and fires, killing Claybourne and knocking him backward into the pool. As he falls, a bell tolls. It's 2 in the morning.