Green Arrow

Issue #2: The Monster Within

Written by: u/The_Word_Wizard

Edited by: u/adamantace u/dwright5252

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Arc: The Ties that Bind

“Oliver! What an...unusual surprise!” Malcolm Merlyn said as Oliver entered his office. He stood up to shake hands. “You never had any interest in the business when your father was in charge.”

“And I feel that was a bit of a mistake,” Ollie said, staring into Merlyn’s eyes as they shook hands. “It has my family name on it after all, and I should have taken that more seriously before. Like, what’s this thing do?” He walked around the desk and pointed at something across the computer, subtly sliding a flash drive behind the screen.

“That,” Merlyn said as he looked at the gunmetal cube Ollie pointed at. “Is a paperweight. What’s the real reason you’re here?”

Ollie walked over to the window and gazed out over the city. Merlyn joined him, as he had hoped. “This building looks all over Star City, and just as we can see everything from up here, everyone down there can see this building, and my family’s name, my father’s legacy, emblazoned on it. I just want to make sure you’re taking good care of it.”

“I’ve got it,” a voice came through a comm piece in Ollie’s ear. Without acknowledging it he turned and sat down behind the desk, removing the drive as he mocked getting comfortable. “Yeah, it definitely fit Dad, and you, better than me.” He got up and shook Merlyn’s hand again. “I think Dad’s company is in good hands, thank you. It really means a lot to me.” He looked sincerely at Merlyn now, before leaving, sure he wouldn’t expect a thing.

“He definitely knows,” Dinah, the Black Canary, said. They had decided to meet in a small sandwich shop the next morning.

“What are you talking about? I pulled that off flawlessly!” Ollie said.

“No, you didn’t. You’re about as subtle as a brick through a window. I doubt he knows exactly what you’re up to, but he’s definitely suspicious. And if he’s not,” she paused to stare at Ollie inhaling his lunch, a tomato hanging from his mouth. “Then he’s an idiot.”

“So we’ll just have to be more subtle,” he said. “We’ve got the information we need at least, so there’s one victory!” Dinah just sighed and smiled. It was hard not to admire his optimism. She got up and patted him on the shoulder. “You head home. I’ll look into this more and let you know what I find.”

“You got it, pretty bird,” he said, taking the check from the waitress.

When he got home he found his mother and sister in the family room. Thea seemed to be crying.

“What’s going on?” he asked, indelicately.

Thea shot him a glare, “Don’t you watch the news, Ollie? You can’t use the island as an excuse for that!” She got up and stormed off without another word. Oliver took her place beside his mother.

“What’s she so upset about?” he said.

“One of her friends disappeared from the bar last night,” Moira said. “And they suspect the Star City Slayer.”

“The who?”

“Honestly Ollie, your sister’s right: he’s been all over the news the past few weeks,” she said and turned on the TV. Nothing about the Slayer came on: just some broadcast about an event at the public library the weekend before. But it made her point. “At least they assume they're a he. Young boys and girls go missing, and turn up days later, dead and mutilated, with awful occult symbols carved into their bodies. Thea’s friend disappeared last night, and things don’t look promising.”

“I had no idea…” Oliver said. He had been so focused on Merlyn he had forgotten why he donned the hood and took up the bow in the first place: to protect his city from the elite who would do it harm. The Robin Hood comparison was a little on the nose, but that was just how he liked it. And while it was unlikely this Star City Slayer was a Ted Kord or a Bruce Wayne, it was the elite's lack of care for the common man that meant this creep hadn't been caught already.

Merlyn could wait. The Green Arrow had more pressing concerns.

“I’m sorry to hear about your friend,” Oliver said after knocking on the door to Thea’s room. “How did she disappear?”

She looked at him and seemed about to make a snappy retort, but decided against it. She could tell his concern was genuine. “She went out for some air about two hours into the night, and a half hour later, I got concerned and went out to look for her. All I found was her purse around the corner of the bar. That’s when I called the police.”

“Which bar was this at?”

“That one on Best Avenue, with the drunken fish on the sign,” she said. Ollie was asking a lot of questions.

“Right. Tommy used to love that place…” he paused before giving his sister a hug. “Thanks Thea. Try to sleep tonight, I have a feeling everything’s gonna turn out okay.” He left the room in a hurry.

“What! Ollie, what’s that supposed to mean?” But he didn’t come back to explain.

“Hey Dinah I need a favor,” Ollie said over the phone.

“What is it, Ollie? I’m kinda busy right now.”

“I promise it’ll only take a second!”

“Alright fine, what do you need?”

“I need some information off SCPD’s databanks.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

“Let me get this straight, you think hacking into the police department’s computers will only take a second?!”

“Well it’s you so I figured...yeah?”

“That’s sweet, but no. It would take me at least an hour, minimum. And I’d also need a direct line, which I’m sure will be much harder for you to get me than it was to get to Merlyn. Call me back if you can make that happen.” Without another word she hung up.

He paced around his room before noticing the flash drive on his desk. It was the one she had used to get into Merlyn’s computer that first night. “Oh, I’ll make that happen,” he said picking up the drive.

Green Arrow perched on a ledge across from SCPD. Someone on the second floor had gotten a bit stuffy and opened a window a crack, and as expected had just run out of coffee. Oliver drew back the bowstring and locked onto his target. He loosed the arrow and it flew across the street, across the police building’s courtyard green, through the window, and planted the flash drive into the unsuspecting officer’s computer.

“I’m in,” he said over the comm.

“Good, now just give me a few more minutes to get what you need,” Canary said. “You know you have to get that out of there, right?”

“I know,” he said, looking at the crude zipline he had attached to the arrow. It wasn’t elegant, but it would work. “Just tell me when you’re done.”

“Just waiting for the download to complete… Got it! Pull ‘er out!” the comm went quiet and Green Arrow yanked on the line, pulling the flash drive out. He wound the line around his wrist until the arrow got caught on the windowsill.

“Oh come on!” he said tugging it back and forth, like fighting with a fish on the end of the line. Finally the arrow came whirling out the window and onto the green below. After a celebratory fist pump he cut the line and climbed down from his perch to retrieve the arrow. “I have got to streamline this for next time,” he said, twirling the arrow in his hand.

His phone buzzed. A message from Dinah. It read:

“Here’s your symbols. Have fun.” He recognized the symbols: the island hadn’t been quite as abandoned as he lead people to believe. The symbols connected to lay lines. Somebody was trying to open a portal, and was using the abductees as sacrifices to do it. But where it was happening was the real question…

“I guess it’s time to phone another friend.”

It was well into the night by the time Ollie got the info he needed. “This can’t be right? Carter said an occult ritual was happening here?” He was staring at a house in the suburban outskirts of Star City. Just a simple, average home. According to the phone book it was the residence of Stanley and Marge Dover, an elderly, church-going couple. They couldn’t be responsible for the kidnappings and occult rituals. Or could they? “Maybe I’m not the only one wearing a mask…” he muttered before crossing the street and slinking around the side of the house.

“Ah! An open window,” he said approaching the basement window, open just a crack. Enough to let a small wisp of smoke leak out, and enough for Green Arrow to peek in.

It was hard to see anything inside. The smoke was thick, and there was a multicolored light pulsating dyeing the miasma, making it even harder to pierce. “Guess there’s only one thing to do,” he said and quietly opened the window enough to slip through.

He knelt to follow through with the landing and soften the sound of his boots hitting the concrete floor. He took in his surroundings. It was not a simple suburban basement. The floor was a standard concrete foundation, but the walls were covered in dark red cloth decorated with more of the strange symbols found on the Slayer’s victims. It also seemed much larger than it should have been, but Ollie chalked that up to the heavy smoke blocking his vision.

His blocked vision allowed somebody to get behind him, and press a knife into his throat. “Ah, the Dark Archer? What an...unexpected surprise,” the man said.

“The Dark-? No, does the Dark Archer wear green?” Ollie said, his priorities clearly in order. “Now you have five seconds to remove this knife, and tell me what is going on here!”

The man snorted. “Why would I do that? I have you at my mercy!”

“Five!”

“No no no, you tell me what you’re doing down here in my basement!”

“Four!”

Oliver heard muffled screams through the smoke.

“Three two one!” he elbowed the man in the gut and his captor dropped the knife with a loud grunt. In one fluid motion Ollie pulled his bow from his back, nocked an arrow, and drew back the bowstring to point at the man. It was Stanley Dover.

“You’re going to stay right there, Mr. Dover, while I go find out where that noise came from. If I even feel you breathe in the wrong direction, this arrow has your name on it!” Stanley nodded meekly and Oliver relaxed his bow and turned towards the source of the sound.

The smoke was still too thick to see anything, but the closer he got to the source of the continued muffled voice the more intense the light became. In another step the smoke cleared, and he nearly dropped his bow at the scene before him. Two young women and one young man were bound against a wall, the man and one woman already dead and carved with symbols. A portal (Ollie couldn’t believe he was thinking the word) was open on the wall above them, and a heavy breathing was coming from it.

Ollie ran to the girl, who cowered reflexively. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m gonna get you out of here!” He cut her bonds with a knife from his quiver and untied the cloth around her mouth. She opened her mouth to speak, but collapsed onto him in tears instead.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here, but first, I have to shut whatever the hell this thing is down.” Before he could look up and turn his attention to the portal a large hand slammed into his head and sent him sprawling. His vision was blurry, but he could clearly hear Stanley as he came into the smoke clearing and shouted, “Yes! You thought you interrupted my ritual, but you are too late! My monster arrives!”

A hand held Green Arrow’s shoulder, his vision still blurry. “Don’t worry Ollie, I’ve got this.” There were flashes of blue light and some shouts from Stanley. The kidnapped girl found her way to Oliver, and he moved her protectively behind him, despite his mental fog. The monster in the portal roared, and there was another flash of blue light. “No! My monster!” Stanley shouted above the din.

“Stanley stand back!” the other man shouted, but it was no use. Stanley leapt into the portal in a fruitless attempt to keep his monster in this world. Seconds later the portal snapped shut, and the next thing Oliver knew he was dropped outside onto the cold grass of a fall night.

“Rick Carter,” Oliver said, the chill air clearing his head. “I didn’t tell you to come help me! I could have handled it.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Carter said. “You and I both know the occult is...not your forte.” Ollie was about to argue, but shrugged and conceded. “Where should I take her?” Carter gestured to the girl.

“You’re Thea Queen’s friend, aren’t you?” Green Arrow said turning to her. “I’ll take care of her from here then. Thank you Carter.” They shook hands, and Carter said, “It’s been a while: I’m going by Mysto now. If you need help with another problem like this, give me a call Ollie.”

“It’s Green Arrow,” he said, glancing at the girl to make sure she hadn’t heard.

“Of course it is,” Mysto said before turning and walking away. Oliver looked away from his retreating form for just a second, and in that second the magician vanished.

“Ollie!” Thea shouted the next morning, wrapping her arms around him for a big hug. “Mia, she came home last night! She’s safe!”

“That’s amazing!” Ollie said, poorly faking surprise.

“How did you know she’d be safe?”

“I just...stayed optimistic,” he said.

She accepted that answer, though she was clearly still a bit suspicious, and left up the stairs. Ollie walked into the family room to a news broadcast of the disappearance of Stanley Dover. His phone rang and he picked it up to hear Dinah’s voice.

“You’re not gonna believe the night I had, pretty bird.”