Chapter 104 - Ch: 13-15

Chapter Thirteen: Best Laid Plans.

Sara Lance took a couple of breaths when preparing herself. She held a bow in one hand and reached behind her back to unload the quiver. Sara loaded the bow and shot and connected with the target in the middle of the room. It was not a bad shot, but Sara thought it could have been better.

She fired a series of rapid fire arrow shots towards the targets. It calmed her greatly to do something constructive. She just hoped Harry would be able to appease Rose. At least, she hoped Rose would be in a lot better state now she got laid, Sara knew her mind was calm and clear. She and Rose might have clashed, but to be honest, Sara felt a little bit of sorrow for the younger girl. She spun around and aimed the arrow at the edge of the target. She reared back and fired, planting the arrow in the center of the target one more time.

'Not bad,' Sara thought.

Sara turned around and fired an arrow towards an even harder target. It connected to the wall. A sound of someone clapping made Sara turn around and fire the arrow at the person who snuck up on her. She narrowly avoided nailing the person head on.

Oliver was standing right behind her, hands up. The arrow came close to piercing his ear in the most literal sense of the world. The young man rubbed the side of his ear, but Sara still held the bow up.

"I take it you haven't cooled off at me just yet," Oliver said.

"You don't sneak up on someone like that," Sara said. "I could have killed you."

Oliver looked as if he wasn't completely sure it would have been an unintentional kill either. He looked at Sara, who slowly lowered the bow. She never once took her eyes off of Oliver and never once took her hands off of the bow.

"I didn't know you were into archery," Oliver said.

"Well, it's a recent thing," Sara said. "You see, you need hobbies on this island to keep you from going insane. And I've picked it up. I've had to learn to defend myself as well, so people don't sneak up on me unaware. It was a very sloppy shot, though because if you actually would have been a threat, you would have killed me."

"Well, I'm sure you'd get better," Oliver said.

Sara stared at Oliver, that was the intention.

"Thea was excited about finishing first at her latest Archery competition before we left," Oliver said. "She's….well, I don't know what she's doing now, but hopefully she's keeping up with that and not doing some of the things I did when I was her age."

Sara wondered how their respective disappearances affected their families, to be honest. Time passed, exactly how much, Sara wasn't sure about. Shado had a theory about how time may have passed on this island differently than on the outside, and Harry backed her up on it. Sara would defer to them, they knew better about things like this.

"Thea's pretty stubborn, but she has a good head on her shoulders," Sara said. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

Oliver narrowly stepped around the real reason why he was worried about Thea. The Bookworm, Ivo, and the rest of the crew of the AMAZO knew about Thea, Laurel, and there might have been other things they knew about Oliver's life, which they were not telling.

"Right," Oliver said. "Look, maybe I shouldn't have lied to you about where Laurel and I was….."

"Yes, because if you did, I might not have gotten on that ship," Sara said. "But, I can't blame you one hundred percent."

Oliver raised his eyebrow in surprise. "You can't?"

"No," Sara said. "You didn't force me onto the ship. I went because I was getting back at Laurel, thinking I could snag the man who she, for some reason, though the world of. It's petty stuff, stuff which really doesn't matter now."

"So wait, you were using me to get back at your sister?" Oliver asked. "I know, I shouldn't be taking the moral high ground considering technically I was cheating on her…."

"You just didn't have the guts to break it off," Sara said.

Her statement was very blunt and cut Oliver straight to the bone. He knew, though, it was very true, and he looked towards the ceiling. It was amazing they allowed him so much freedom to roam around, as long as he didn't leave the prison complex. He came onto this island with the intention to steal a super-soldier formula.

"Well, everything worked out for me," Sara said. "I wouldn't have met Harry if you hadn't lied to me."

"He does seem like a great guy," Oliver said.

"You're not his type," Sara said.

Oliver smiled at the joke, but to be perfectly honest, he was kind of glad Harry came across Sara. From what he gathered, she would have likely been killed or worse.

Sara wrestled in her mind about what exactly to tell Oliver. His father was dead, Oliver was going to have to know about that soon. The list, Sara went back and forth regarding it. Hell, Sara really didn't know what the intentions were on the list. She saw some familiar names, bankers, businessmen, and city council officials, and also some who were rumored to be organized in crime. At least, a couple of names she heard her father talk about.

The fact she was in a collective relationship with Harry and several other females, well that really wasn't Oliver's business to be perfectly honest.

"So, you're not mad at me?" Oliver asked.

"About lying to me, no," Sara said. "You couldn't help yourself, and I should have seen the warning signs. I'm glad I didn't though because it kind of worked out in the end."

"So, are we friends?" Oliver asked.

"Not going that far, but I no longer want to kill you every time I see you," Sara said.

Oliver shrugged in response. "Hey, that's a step up. We can work with that."

Sara nodded, they could work with that. She knew what they had to do when getting on the AMAZO.

"So, what are you going to do with the Bookworm?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know," Sara said. "She might be our ticket home….you still want to go home, don't you?"

"Of course, I do!" Oliver yelled. "I don't even know how long I've gone, things must have changed since I left, though."

Sara thought that was only inevitable. She changed a fair bit more on this island as well, hell whatever happened, Oliver didn't look like the same billionaire heir without a care in the world.

"Sara, do you think I can ask you something?" Oliver asked.

"It depends on what it is," Sara said.

"If…anything happens to me," Oliver said. "Do you think you can look out for Thea for me if you get off of this island? I'd appreciate it if you could…and tell her, I'm sorry for not being there for you."

"You're not going to die," Sara said.

Oliver looked uncertain about that. He had a feeling, a feeling which he couldn't place. Perhaps, something about his ordeal on the AMAZO changed him, but it wasn't completely that. Perhaps, he was just being paranoid because of the situation, or perhaps it was something more sinister, deeper involved.

"Sara, promise me, please," Oliver said to her.

"Okay, fine, I promise, I'll take care of her, if something happens," Sara said. "But, you know, we're getting off of this island, soon."

Sara hoped she was right, but Harry had a plan, or at least the beginnings of one. They just had to follow it through and see where the plan leads them, for better or for worse.

Nyssa looked up from her perch point and came face to face with the Dragon himself. The medallion shined in the light and amplified his already immense aura. The Daughter of the Demon stood up and smiled.

"So, she's been satisfied," Nyssa said. "Not, that I had any doubt in my mind she was."

"Yes, Rose is currently sleeping it off," Harry said.

Nyssa pulled out a sword and Harry withdrew one of his own. The two of them locked eyes with each other and rushed to the center of the room. Their swords clung with Harry pushing back Nyssa a couple of inches. He swiped the sword at the Daughter of the Demon and tried to take her down. Nyssa evaded the attack from the sword and came back with one of her own.

"Remember, your left side is always the one most open to attack," Nyssa said.

"And never keep your head stationary for more than a few seconds," Harry said.

Nyssa smiled and moved in for a jab. The Dragon blocked the jab with the sword and pushed it up to look Nyssa directly in the eyes. Both of them moved sword to sword with each other, with Harry pushing Nyssa back a couple of feet. Nyssa slid a couple of feet back but rebounded quickly. She threw a dagger which flew through the flames of the candles, taking them out one at a time.

Harry switched to utilizing his sense of hearing and smell, in the dark to find his adversary. Nyssa had a very distinct scene which was appealing. He turned around before she could properly fire off an attack and caught Nyssa with a huge attack which knocked her down to the ground. The Daughter of the Demon flipped over onto her back and sprung back to a standing position.

'He's learning my attacks,' Nyssa thought. 'Good, it's a proper chance to offer some kind of variance to the attacks.'

The Daughter of the Demon moved forward into the darkness. Only, she felt Harry behind her. He hooked her arm in a chicken-wing crossface and pushed her down to the ground. The Daughter of the Demon struggled against the grip and broke free.

Harry blocked both of her hands. Nyssa rolled over and flipped him onto the ground. She tried to rear her hand back for a death blow, only so Harry blocked her hand. He turned the attack around, hooking her, putting the knee into her back, and holding her arm out.

"I could easily break your arm from here," Harry told her.

Nyssa nodded in response, and Harry let up on the attack, allowing Nyssa back to her feet. The Daughter of the Demon swung a sword around, but Harry blocked it. She tried to nail him with a dagger from the other side. He blocked the attack, only for Nyssa to go underneath his legs and trip him up by the ankle.

Harry got a dagger clipped against the side of his face. The slash opened up in his face closed a minute later. Nyssa came out from underneath him and held him by the shoulder. She tried to apply pressure to the artery of the young man, to put him down for the count.

The Dragon was not ready to concede just yet. He pushed Nyssa back and flipped her down to the ground. The Daughter of Ra's al Ghul did a forward roll style motion and landed on her knees. One sword withdrew and pointed at the edge of her throat.

Harry pulled it back from her and motioned for her to get back to her feet. Nyssa fainted on a punch, and the propelled herself up onto the air. Only the perch point disappeared before she could land onto it. Nyssa clung onto the wall, hanging down to the ground, and fell down.

"Clever use of deception," Nyssa said.

She spun around and attacked Harry. Some of the candles flickered on, and Nyssa tried to slip back into the darkness. She saw Harry behind her and turned around. Her sword sliced through Harry and caused him to crumble into dust.

The real Harry came back around and caught Nyssa from behind. The sword flew from her hand and slid all the way down onto the ground. Harry mounted Nyssa's back from behind. Nyssa struggled onto her hands and knees, while Harry put his arm underneath her chin, and hooked her arm. One Kati-Hajime style judo choke later, and Nyssa felt the air fading from her body.

Harry could have easily squeezed the neck and killed her. Nyssa knew that and appreciated the opportunity to step her game.

"The more you study my moves," Nyssa gasped. "The more you learn. It's true, you learn from visual cues, rather than theoretical instruction."

It always was the case with Harry, he never did well with theory. He was more good at the practical end of things. He pulled away from Nyssa and finally allowed her to her feet. There was bruising on the side of her neck where he held her.

"You're not hurt, are you?" Harry asked.

"Don't apologize, please," Nyssa said. "Any injuries I sustain in our sparring sessions is my concern. They just serve as a reminder about how I need to step up my game whenever I fight you."

A light knock on the door could be heard.

"Yes, Sara, come in," Harry said.

Sara took a step in and saw both Harry and Nyssa were in a process of a sparring session. Hopefully, she didn't break up a session of another kind.

"Hey," Sara said.

Sara stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Harry's neck and kissed him on the lips. The kiss had fire and passion all wrapped in one. Harry wrapped his arms around the blonde and lifted her off of the ground. Their kiss deepened with each other.

Both turned towards Nyssa, and Sara started to pull away. Nyssa waved her hand.

"No, take your time," Nyssa said. "I wouldn't want to interrupt anything."

"We're just hoping you weren't feeling left out," Sara said.

Without another word, Sara crossed the room and very boldly attacked Nyssa with a kiss. The older woman grabbed Sara's hair and deepened the kiss. Harry watched the very erotic sight next to them. The two indulged into each other, and they stopped, only so things did not get too heated.

There was a time and place, but now was not the time or the place for that.

"Oliver's acting a bit, well off," Sara said.

"I'm thinking his time on the AMAZO affected him," Harry said. "And I think he regrets giving up information about Laurel and Thea, even if it's reluctant."

"We're going to have to kill them all," Nyssa said bluntly.

"I know," Harry said. "But, first we're going to take the ship, and we're going to need her help."

"The Bookworm, right?" Sara asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

Harry reconciled the fact things had changed a while back. She didn't have a Harry Potter in her life to act as a way to hold her back, somewhat, in her reckless pursuit of knowledge. Had she not had friends, well, Harry pretty much figured out how his native universe's Hermione would have turned out. And Hermione had her quirks, which made her challenging to deal with.

"She's not going to be a problem, is she?" Nyssa asked. "Or do you think there might be a use for her yet?"

"Maybe," Harry said. "She'll agree to help us if she wants to see the light of day again that is. And we're going to need Oliver to come with us…that meaning, me and you, Sara."

"Why me?" Sara asked. "Why not Nyssa or Shado?"

"We'll set off too much suspicion with who we are," Nyssa said. "It would be convincing if the Bookworm took a girl Oliver was involved with as a hostage to get him to comply, and also the man who stole you from Oliver."

"I love it how I'm a trinket to be swapped around now," Sara said.

"I'm just trying to tell you what they expect Oliver's mindset to be," Nyssa said. "Ivo won't think too much, though when you deliver the Mirikuru to him."

Sara nodded in response, but if she wasn't lying, she had her fair share of misgivings about this plan. One of them was trusting the Bookworm, but desperate times called for desperate actions. They needed to get off of this island one way or another.

"You know I won't let anything happen to you," Harry said.

"I know, and I'll die before I'll let anything happen to you," Sara said.

"Hopefully, we won't have to go that extreme," Nyssa said. "But, if you're uncomfortable with the plan, we can work….."

"No, I'm in," Sara said.

"The only thing left to do is talk to Hermione, and get her to agree," Harry said.

Here came the tricky part, at least in Harry's mind. Hermione was very stubborn in his world in what she wanted and her system of beliefs, even if evidence to the contrary smacked her in the face.

The door opened up and Shado stepped inside, carrying a tray of food for the prisoner. The Bookworm looked up towards the woman who stepped into the room. Shado looked back, almost in pity. It only angered the Bookworm when the food had been put in front of her.

"Is it poisoned?" the Bookworm asked.

"No," Shado said.

"Then, I'm not hungry," The Bookworm responded. "Look, you have me here, for what reason I don't know. Ivo's going to come for the Mirikuru if I'm not back by sunrise tomorrow."

"You'll be back by sunrise," Shado said.

"Oh?" the Bookworm asked. "If you had any empathy for your fellow humans, you would have killed me. He would have allowed that Rose girl to snap my neck. It would have been doing me a service."

"You should eat," Shado said.

"I'm not going to," Bookworm said. "You should have your last meal. Ivo is coming for you all, and he's coming for the serum."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

The Bookworm turned her attention towards the young man who stood across from her. She tried not to react to him. Never look into those green eyes because they were blinding.

"Good luck," Shado responded. "She says Ivo is going to come if she's not back by sunrise."

"I'll work quickly."

Shado nodded and walked to the other side. The Bookworm looked up towards her charge and the frown deepened when she looked towards him.

"It's Harry Potter," she told him.

"So you figured it out," Harry said. "Well played, Hermione."

Now, the Bookworm knew he was blatantly agitating her by saying that wretched name. She tried to be polite, even though, she never bothered to be so in a while.

"You want something," the Bookworm said. "What do you want? We're all going to be dead soon, so you might as well spit it out."

"You're going to help us get on the AMAZO," Harry told her.

The long silence which followed showed Harry that this universe's version of Hermione thought he was completely out of his mind by demanding such a thing. Her eyes locked onto him.

"You need my help," she said. "And what makes you think I'm going to be willing to give it?"

"Because you want to escape as much as we do," Harry said. "And you're sick of Ivo using you as a pawn for his games. You think you deserve better. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you made some terrible mistakes you're going to need to atone for."

"Maybe, I'll help you, maybe I won't," she responded. "How are you going to propose I'm going to help you on the AMAZO. The moment Ivo's crew sees you're with me, I'm as good as dead."

"Not, if you take Sara and me onto the ship as prisoners," Harry said. "And not if you bring Ivo the Mirikuru. I'm not wrong in thinking he's obsessed with it, isn't he?"

"You're willing to hand off a powerful super soldier serum, to Ivo," she said.

The Bookworm locked eyes with him, trying to figure out his logic behind this. There was no logic in hs plan, at least conventionally speaking.

"Ivo's going to bring an entire army to the island if what you're saying is true," Harry said. "We're going to prevent that from happening."

"Oh, I see," the Bookworm responded. "so, you and Sara…she's the same Sara, that Oliver Queen was on the Queen's Gambit with, wasn't she? The one who he thought drowned."

"You know too much for your own good," Harry said.

She cracked a smile. "Thanks…..and I'm not helping you by the way. You can find your own way on the AMAZO. I don't owe you anything. I don't know what there was between you, and that….other me, and I don't really care. I'm not her though and…."

Harry clapped his hand roughly over the Bookworm's mouth. She looked into his eyes and experienced an emotion she did not feel in a while, fear. Fear he was going to smother her to death, and also excitement that he was finally going to put the Bookworm out of her misery.

"You're dying, that brain tumor is getting worse," Harry said. "I'll make you another deal. You help me, and I'll heal the brain tumor."

The Bookworm squirmed underneath his hand when it pressed underneath her mouth. The look in his eyes showed there was going to be a catch about him healing her.

"You're right, though, you're not her, and I'm not going to let my past friendship with her get in my way of doing what's necessary for me and my friends," Harry said. "Our new deal is very simple. You help me and I'll heal your brain tumor. Or, you don't, and I'll make sure you survive long enough where that magical tumor slowly eats away at your intelligence."

Her screams were silent at the thought of this horrific thing. This was not an idle death, this was a fate worse than death in her mind.

"The knowledge you've worked so hard to obtain, it will slowly erase from your mind. Each day, you will feel a little less brilliant, until you are illiterate, unable to string together a coherent thought, and unable to ever retain anything ever again. And yet, deep down, a small part of your subconscious will know, your mind no longer works as you rot for the rest of your days here on Lian Yu."

Power swelled through the young man and the Bookworm would rather have had him crush her skull into a fine paste then slowly erode her intelligence away to nothing.

"You help me, and I'll heal you," Harry said. "You don't, and you will suffer a fate worse than death. Everything you learned will be gone in a matter of weeks, maybe a month or two if you're lucky. Everything, you worked so hard for, gone in a blink of an eye."

He removed the hand from her mouth and shivered. She looked into those eyes and knew fear.

"Tell me, Hermione, what will it be?" Harry asked. "Will you swallow your pride? Or will you lose your intelligence? What will it be, Hermione?"

"I'll help you, don't take away my mind, please," she begged him. "I'll help you, I'll get you and Sara on the ship, just please, my intelligence the only thing that I have left."

"Do you swear on your life, your soul, and your very being that you will help me?" Harry asked her.

"Yes, I swear on my life, my magic, my soul, anything you want, just please, don't do that," she begged him.

The glow appeared around her body, the magic inside of the medallion enforcing the terms of the contract.

The Harry Potter before Lian Yu would never have gone to this particular extreme, but desperate times called for desperate measures. There was something about this island which changed people and made sure they were never the same again.

Turning over in her bed, Rose stood up, and her head was ringing a little bit after what happened, but she was mostly in a good state. She was no longer seeing hallucinations of her father, spurring on to attack. It took her a couple of minutes to figure out what happened.

'So, that happened. Do I regret it, though?'

Rose paused for a long moment, considering the problem from every single angle. She shook her head.

'No.'

The door had been left unlocked, a pretty bold move to be honest. Rose thought it would be a problem if she went full blow insane because of the serum, which she suspected was still in her veins. It was just Harry not only found a way to stabilize it, but he gave her something she needed for a while.

'And to think, if you had just taken Sara and Harry off on their offer, you might have avoided the drama. But, you just had to be a drama queen.'

Rose had no idea why the voice inside of her head sounded like her brother Wade, and to be honest it disturbed her. She took a couple of anxious steps outside. Nyssa and Shado were speaking to each other in low voices.

"We don't have much time to move then, it will be ready for one trip to the AMAZO."

The younger girl felt like she had been looped out of the conversation somehow. She approached Shado and Nyssa, both of the women looked towards her.

"So, how are you feeling?" Shado asked.

"Better now," Rose said. "I'm no longer seeing the images of my father."

Shado put her hand on Rose's shoulder. Rose stood up a bit straighter and looked both Shado and Nyssa directly in the eye. She would be lying if she didn't think there was something worthy of concern with both of them.

"I know what you're going to say, and maybe I should have taken that step sooner," Rose said. "But, I didn't want to….well, I just felt like you were doing it because you didn't want me to feel left out."

"No, we did it, because it was something you needed," Shado said. "And I'm not going to tell you what you should have done. That was your journey to take, and your decision to make."

Rose shook her head. Shado made a lot of sense, no matter how much it frustrated her. She looked around and noticed Harry and Sara had not been with the rest of the room. She had many questions.

"If all goes according to plan, we will be off of this island by this time tomorrow," Shado said. "Exactly where we go from here, well it's up to you."

Nyssa had a mission to finish, tracking down Damien Darhk, Sara had a family to return to, Shado had her sister, and Oliver had his family, she supposed. Rose and Harry were the only two odd people out. Rose had no idea if her mother was still out on a mission or not, like when she left.

Rose spent several long summer vacations home alone, so she was used to it. It was the price to pay for her mother's work.

"So, what's the plan?" Rose asked.

"Sara and Harry will be taken by Oliver and Hermione as prisoners aboard the AMAZO," Nyssa responded.

Rose's eye twitched when she heard Hermione's name. She still wanted to strangle the brunette bint on sheer principle. Rose took a deep breath, reminding herself that it was not wise to allow her emotions get the better of her. Shado put a calming hand on her.

"It's not the greatest plan," Shado said.

"We're desperate to trust her to follow through with a plan?" Rose asked. "Yeah, that's not the greatest plan….."

"Harry convinced her to comply," Shado said. "You know how he has his ways."

Rose could only imagine what Harry did. Shado shook her head.

"No, not like that," Shado said. "Still, you remember the submarine which contained the Mirikuru formula?"

Rose nodded in confirmation, her memory was intact as always. How could she forget that particular place? She received a nice little prick to the back of her neck which caused her to flare up in anger. Only, Harry's pheromones were able to calm her down, and she still had to be extra careful not to step into a state of relapse.

"Yeah, I remember it," Rose said. "That's not going to get us too far away from the island."

"It will get us far enough where we can board the AMAZO after Harry and Sara are inside," Nyssa said.

Rose responded with a nod. She was in two minds about this entire scheme. It sounded like sheer lunacy to put their trust in the hands of someone who would use an untested super soldier serum on the first innocent bystander they came across. Both Shado and Nyssa claimed Harry managed to convince, but what did he give her? What offer?

"She's dying, that's why she wants the Mirikuru for herself," Rose said. "She didn't have the guts to use it, though, without testing it on someone else."

A second passed and Rose looked up. The plan was genius if it got them off of the island. It was utter insanity if it didn't. That was the problem with plans like this.

"So, are ready to go?" Shado asked.

Rose just nodded, she didn't want to get too excited. Her hopes of a sudden dash off of the island had been broken in the past. Rose thought for a fleeting moment they were leaving before.

Anthony Ivo enjoyed watching the sunrise, and once the sun was up, he would be leading his men to Lian Yu to collect the Mirikuru. Ivo sensed betrayal was very possible, especially from the Bookworm. He looked up at the sun from afar. A new day was dawning, and this would be a new day where he would finally have what he desired for his entire life.

"Professor Ivo?"

The radio crackling to life nearly caused Ivo to knock over the cup of coffee he had been drinking. He held his hand on the other end of the cup of coffee, taking a deep breath. Dare he even think, was it possible?

"Bookworm?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, sorry about the delay," she said. "Most of your men have fallen….but myself and Oliver, we have the Mirikuru, and we've captured two hostages. I think they will be perfect test subjects."

She spoke without taking a breath, which she did when she was either very excited or extremely scared. The very strained radio signal made it hard for Ivo to figure out which was which.

"Stand by, I'll have the Butcher meet you," Ivo said.

He was intrigued but had his doubts.

Chapter Fourteen: Hijacked.

"Tie that as tight as possible," Sara told Oliver.

"Don't you think if would be a good idea to leave it loose enough, so you can find a way out of it?" Oliver asked. "Maybe it's just me, but…"

Sara shook her head, they needed to make this convincing. A very weak job would be exposed right away and the plan to infiltrate the Amazo would be lost. Oliver would have flunked out of the Boy Scouts with his knot tying ability, unfortunately. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Oh, honestly!" the Bookworm snapped. She waved her hand and caused the ropes to tighten around Sara's wrists. She winced a little bit from how tight. "You said you wanted it convincing."

"I have to admit, almost losing the circulation in my wrists is pretty convincing," Sara said. "Oliver, maybe you should be holding that gun on Harry, instead of me, it would look more convincing that way."

Oliver didn't really need to know why it would look more convincing. He put the gun on the back of Harry Potter's head, thinking about how this situation would look from an outside observing the situations. The guy currently sleeping with the girl he went away on the Queen's Gambit Yacht on, and Oliver currently held a gun on him. The soap operaness of the situation reached another level when you realized, Oliver was cheating on Sara's sister, Laurel, with Sara.

Or he intended to, technically there hadn't been any actual cheating. Divine intervention, or faulty yacht maintenance, something caused that little thing to cease before it got started. Perhaps it was for the best, though.

"You're ready to go," the Bookworm said. "I'm not even sure if this plan is going to work, but….."

"It's our only shot," Harry said. "Everything is going to work out right. We're all going to get out in one piece."

"You just went to Murphy and slapped him across the face," Bookworm said, more irritable than before.

The Bookworm staggered forward one step. The stress of everything was beginning to get to her. Her temples throbbed from increased headaches which even got worse as time went on. She held herself again, pressing her hand against the shoulder of the man she was supposed to hold captive and make their way on the ship.

"The sooner we get this over, the better," Bookworm said. "I wish you would have killed me back there, and for a second, I thought you were going to."

"We have a deal," Harry said. "I won't let you die if you attempt to betray us. But, I will make you wish you had."

Bookworm swallowed the lump in her throat. Oliver looked at her curiously, but that sharp look told him now as not the time to answer questions. He returned by pressing the gun on the side of Harry's neck.

"What if I accidentally shoot you in the back of your head?" Oliver asked.

Sara didn't know whether or not Oliver was trying to add levity to the situation, or just voicing a genuine concern. Her eyes looked towards her, kind of friend she guessed and gave him one of those looks which plainly stated if he "accidentally" shot Harry, she would make the rest of his days tormented.

"First of all, it won't be an accident," Harry said. "Second of all, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. I've had worse."

"Than getting shot in the back of the head?" Oliver asked. "How is anything….actually, do I really want to know?"

"No, trust me, you don't," Harry said. "Just keep the gun steady, and make it convincing. If you need any help, think about if you caught me in bed with your sister."

"That's…she's only thirteen, maybe fourteen by now…"

"Which would give you the righteous anger you need to make this convincing," Harry said. "I want to have some feeling, Mr. Queen…..look like you want to kill me if I sneeze…..I've noticed The Bookworm has no problems holding a knife at Sara's throat."

"That's because I'd kill her if you weren't blackmailing me," the Bookworm said.

"Thanks, love you too," Sara said.

Everything would have to go perfectly, although there was no such thing as a perfect plan. Harry was confident, though, his plan would work. He closed his eyes and a few of the corpses of the mercenaries brought onto the island rose up to join them. Oliver had been startled.

"Necromancy?' Bookworm asked, in awe despite herself. "That's very advanced magic."

"Yeah, don't stain your panties," Sara muttered underneath her breath.

"So, you've…you know, my life was a lot simpler just a while back," Oliver said. "Now, you can perform magic, and you can raise the dead."

"They've not risen, they're just given the illusion of movement," Harry said. "Think of them as very realistic-looking puppets which can move at my whim."

Oliver shook his head. How were realistic puppets much better? They were once living human beings, and now he was manipulating the bodies of the mercenaries who came on this island. Oliver could only just barely smell the stench of rotting bodies being left out in the baking sun for much too long.

"I don't think, you're…" Oliver said.

"They're needed to fool Ivo," Harry said. "Trust me, I don't like reanimating the bodies of the deceased anymore than I had to."

"Not a trick you perform at Birthday parties?" Sara asked.

"No, I don't like scaring any more children for life than I have to either."

Somehow, the enchantments held, despite his restrictions. He never actually managed to control Inferi either, and it was a strain to control them for very long. Still, they only needed to keep up appearances for a little while, and now they were on the vessel heading back to the Amazo. The sub would follow in approximately fifteen minutes, per Harry's plan. Everything was in place, but there was one final vital component to making this plan work.

"Make the call," Harry said.

There was no hesitation in the Bookworm's actions this time. She was dealing with a figure of authority, so why wouldn't she make the call? She put the ear piece of the communication device up to her ear.

"Professor Ivo?" Bookworm asked.

"Bookworm?"

"I have the Mirikuru, most of your men have been killed, but some remain," the Bookworm said. "Myself and Oliver Queen is bringing up the super soldier serum along with two hostages, hostages which will be the perfect test subjects for when you have it, sir!"

Harry noticed some things never changed, and the one thing that never changed was Hermione talked a mile a minute without taking a breath when she was excited or terrified. And she was one hundred percent terrified here; there were no questions about it. He knew the decibel level of her voice when she was scared shitless.

"The Butcher will be meeting you to bring them aboard."

Harry waited for the call to end. Sara decided to be the one who would speak up after the call wrapped up, though.

"The Butcher? Why do I have a feeling he earned that name?"

"Oh, he did; trust me," the Bookworm said in a distracted voice. "Well, we're on our way now, good luck. None of us might be walking off of that ship alive."

The Butcher heard the news from Ivo that finally, they were going to make some headway. He would have never thought Oliver Queen would have made it back onto the ship. He thought he would have perished on the island. Once they had the Mirikuru, then the Butcher could finally show the rest of the ship why he earned that title.

For now, he needed to keep the young man alive, for just long enough. The Butcher waited for the Bookworm and whatever was left of the crew to arrive. He stepped forward and noticed one of the scouter ships coming up. Several of the mercenaries rose up from the ships, looking like their usual selves. They had lost all sense of purpose to the world. Their tour of duty aboard the AMAZO has completely broken them, and the Butcher could not help, but smile when spotting them head aboard the ship.

The Bookworm stepped on the ship, holding a knife to the neck of a young man. Oliver Queen held a gun to the back of another man, a man with dark hair and green eyes. The Butcher curled his lips into a smile.

"Well, don't wonders ever cease," the Butcher responded. "You're alive."

"Yes," Oliver responded. "Don't sound too excited about it."

The Butcher took a deep breath and reminded himself he just had to tolerate this overinflated rich twerp a little bit longer. Then he could beat him within an inch of his life. Maybe if he was lucky, he would see the inside of the basement.

Not even the Butcher saw the inside of it, all he knew was whoever left there were never the same. The man inside the cell down the hallway with the bandages was proof of that.

"Well, what do we have here?"

The Butcher's eyes locked onto the medallion wrapped around the neck of the male prisoner. It looked very expensive, with the image of a dragon.

"Well, you won't be needing this where you're going," the Butcher said. "Why don't I take it off your hands?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the Bookworm said.

The Butcher shook his head. He grabbed ahold of the medallion. Something shocked him and caused him to fly halfway across the hallway of the ship. He smashed down onto the ground with a thud. The wind had been knocked out of him from this very shocking encounter.

"Don't say, I didn't warn you," the Bookworm said. "Now, if you're done making a spectacle out of yourself, we have what Ivo has been looking for this entire time."

The Bookworm held out one of the vials of the Mirikuru in the hand she didn't have the knife in. She could look at the Butcher's greedy eyes following her hand.

"That's the super serum that makes….."

"I'll explain it so someone with a limited education like yourself can understand," the Bookworm said. "It can make men invincible."

The Butcher thought about how strong that stuff could make him. He was a bad ass right now, but it would be nothing compared to one he had the Mirikuru. The Bookworm pulled the vial completely out of the reach and pushed it back into the box. One of the mercenaries held the box in his tight grip.

"It's unfortunately, it hasn't been tested yet," the Bookworm said. "I have a couple of test subjects primed and ready to go. Ivo would be upset if you kept him waiting."

"Well, let's not disappoint the Professor, then," the Butcher said. "You think, for my years of loyal service, I should get a reward."

"I thought being able to butcher those who were out of line was your reward?"

The Butcher smiled, no that wasn't a reward, that was a hobby more or less. Regardless he turned around the corner and led them down the hallway. Sooner or later, they would reach their destination and they could really get to work.

"Are you sure this is the right stuff?" the Butcher asked.

"You know, why don't to leave the thinking to myself and Professor Ivo," the Bookworm responded. "We don't tell you what to do when you rip into people, do we?"

The Butcher shook his head in the negative. Something about this entire situation reeked, and he didn't really know how to explain it. He kept his eyes on all of them, especially that kid with the dragon medallion. There was just something about him which unsettled him.

"Ivo is waiting for you," the Butcher said.

"Excellent, then you can leave us, and we won't keep him waiting," The Bookworm said.

"I'll just stay right outside until you're done, in case any of these prisoners need to be escorted around the ship," the Butcher responded.

The Bookworm responded with a roll of her eyes. There was a whole lot of whatever in her eyes, and she just barely kept herself calm. A headache which gripped around the top of her head increased and things just got even tougher. She would sooner have ripped into the butcher.

"Mr. Queen, help me lead our prisoners in," the Bookworm responded.

Nyssa was pretty sure this submarine had seen better days. It started as state of the art, beyond its time. She suspected, and it was hard to argue against it, time had not been kind to this particular sub. Nyssa positioned herself on the seat, with Rose and Shado making their way behind her.

"There's enough power to get us to the AMAZO," Nyssa said.

"The sooner we get off of this sub, the better," Rose said.

Rose recalled the horrific glimpses she saw at the test subjects. Would that be her fate if Harry could not stabilize her properly? She still found herself on a trigger. One wrong push and she would have lost it. Shado grabbed her by the shoulder and caused her to jump.

"We've been close to getting off of this island so many times, you think something is going to happen," Shado said.

"It's not just that," Rose said. "I don't trust her."

Shado looked towards Rose for further clarification. Rose took a second to draw in her breath.

"Maybe, I'm wrong, but I'm not going to trust someone who injected me with a drug which nearly made me insane," Rose said. "And now, you're telling me, my father drugged me as well."

"You didn't know about that?" Shado asked.

"My father has done so much caused me so many problems, I wouldn't put it past him," Rose said. "That's not the point, though, I don't trust her. I know Harry was friends with her….doppleganger I guess, for lack of a better term. But, everything about her just makes me want to rip her throat out just for existing."

Rose thought it might have had something to do with the Mirikuru, but she was not one hundred percent sure it was. She knew Harry made a deal with her. Rose would have felt a lot more at ease if he had made a deal with a pack of poisonous snakes. Maybe it was just her, though.

"Desperate times make for strange bedfellows," Nyssa said. "She's just as desperate to escape her position just as we are ours."

Nyssa hoped they could wrap this up. She still had unfinished business. Darhk was still out there, she didn't know how much time had passed. She feared he may have been closer to getting the virus working for himself. Nerves started to hit Nyssa full on.

'Just keep a steady head,' she thought to herself. 'We're going to get there, slowly.'

The sub worked and Nyssa found it to pilot through the water. The onboard weapons systems didn't really work as well, and Nyssa really hoped they did not need them when heading there.

"So, how close are we getting?" Rose asked.

"We're getting about as close as we can," Nyssa said. "Just be ready for anything….remember what he said, fifteen minutes before we entered the ship. We don't want to go too soon."

They noticed the scouter ship already having been arrived outside the Amazo. They knew they were already on board and the clock was ticking. Rose, in particular, grabbed onto the arm rest of the chair so tight, she was tugging at it. Her heart accelerated with a couple of more beats per second. She could hardly wait it out.

'Of course, his plan is going to work,' Rose thought. 'Because, if it doesn't work, then all of us are boned, and not in a good way either.'

Anthony Ivo's work he spent the last several years of his life steadily moving towards was about ready to pay off. The doors to his lab opened up, and he saw the Bookworm and Oliver Queen walk in. Several of the mercenaries guarded the outside of the door.

Ivo noticed two new people entering the room. The hostages, his smile turned when he looked at the blonde, sizing her up.

"Well, could this be the lovely Sara Lance?" Ivo asked. "You were the one who went away on the Gambit….Oliver thought you drowned, didn't you, Mr. Queen?"

Sara couldn't turn on the account of the Bookworm pinning her head into place. She would have shot Oliver a disgusted look.

"Another thing the Deacon told you," Oliver said.

Sara wondered who the Deacon was, but she wasn't exactly in a position to ask questions. The Bookworm's knife came precious inches away from the side of Sara's neck. Sara closed her eyes and tried not to enter a state of contempt, despite it being the most obvious thing in the world.

"I have it, for you, sir," the Bookworm said. "The Mirikuru…..it was right where I said it would be."

"Excellent," Ivo said. "But, you only tell me you have the Mirikuru, and you don't show me. Why don't you bring it over to me?"

The Bookworm did as she was asked. She took a couple of steps in front of Anthony Ivo, leaving Sara to drop down to the ground. Her arms and legs were still tied up completely.

"Behold," The Bookworm said. "It's what you wanted this entire time."

Ivo snatched the box away from the Bookworm and opened it up. He saw it, it was just as beautiful as the legends stated. The Mirikuru glistened in his eyes. He turned briefly to address the two captive prisoners.

"This can cure what ails the people in the world," Ivo said. "Namely, my wife….her mind is damaged by the ravages of dementia. She doesn't know who I am. I'm a stranger in my own house, these days, as her mind grows more decayed."

Ivo looked at the Mirikuru and smiled. He was so close to having what he wanted. The scientist picked up a vial of the Mirikuru and withdrew some of it with a syringe. He took a sample of blood on a slide and injected the Mirikuru into the blood sample.

The Professor's excitement increased when he peered at the blood cells. They were changing, they were mutating, they developed new immunities.

"Is it everything you've expected?" the Bookworm asked.

A brief rustling out of view showed Ivo was putting something away in the desk, or maybe taking something

"Yes," Ivo said. "And now, that I have what I want, I'd like to thank you for your service."

Ivo turned around and shot the Bookworm in the head point blank. The parties watched when the Bookworm had been dropped down to the ground, a bullet impacted into the side of her head. She dropped like a sack of bricks.

"I'm not a fool," Ivo said. "Did you really think I wouldn't have caught onto that scheme? You didn't allow her to take the Mirikuru without putting some kind of failsafe in it? You've corrupted her, and now she's going to die. And I'm sure all three of you are in this together."

"You have it all figured out, don't you?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Ivo said. "It appears to work for now, but maybe I should test it on an abled-body person, let's say, Ms. Lance. Let's see what the Mirikuru would do to her."

Ivo prepared to inject more of the serum into a syringe and took a couple of steps in Sara's general direction. Oliver pointed the gun towards Ivo.

"Take on step closer, and you're going to wish you hadn't," Oliver said.

He clicked the gun and realized something. There were no bullets in it. He looked towards Harry for a second and realized there was a reason why Harry wasn't concerned about accidentally getting shot in the back of the head.

Sara took advantage of Ivo's momentary distraction, slipping the concealed dagger up from her sleeve, and stabbing him directly in the chest point back. She sent Ivo flying back onto the ground.

Ivo screamed in agony from the stabbing. Sara pulled herself up, standing over Ivo. She pulled the syringe out of his hand before he could use it on himself or anyone else.

"No, you don't understand," Ivo said. "They'll come and help me….you won't get off this ship alive."

"It's over," Harry told him.

The doors opened up and Ivo looked up for his men, but suddenly, he saw three women step inside. They both greeted the three in the room with satisfied nods.

"Those guards were not even much of a challenge," the youngest of the women said.

Ivo closed his eyes and tried to pull himself to his feet. He reached for the same gun he shot the Bookworm with. The first of the women grabbed him by the hand.

"Anthony Ivo," she said. "You know who I am, don't you?"

Ivo knew exactly who the woman was. She was the daughter of the fabled leader of the League of Assassins, who was the rivals of his business partner, Damien Darhk. It was Darhk's resources and funding which allowed him to search the Mirikuru in the first place.

"HIVE will destroy the League," Ivo responded.

"Those parasites, don't make me laugh," Nyssa said. "You're going to tell us everything you know."

Rose and Shado moved over to Sara and Harry. Oliver was standing there a few inches behind Harry and looked at him for a couple of seconds. Time passed by before Oliver managed to find the words.

"You gave me an empty gun?" Oliver asked.

"Of course, I did," Harry responded. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

Oliver thought he wasn't, maybe insane, but stupid, never. He almost felt sorry for Ivo being on Nyssa's bad side. But not really, because that meant Oliver was currently the subject of her rage. Which was a good thing for him.

"Oh, Morgana, this is the worst pain I've ever felt in my life!"

Every single one of them turned around, mostly in shock. They saw the Bookworm down on the ground, her eyes almost glazed open. Harry took a step closer towards her.

"There's no way, she can be alive," Oliver said. "We saw her get shot in the head."

"I wish I wasn't," Bookworm said.

Harry noticed the bullet, it impacted her head in a way which it should have killed her. He noticed the magical growth coming out of her head. It was causing her great agony, but at the same time, the growth caused her life to be saved. Harry figured that was quite the interesting paradox, to be honest.

"Okay, take a deep breath," Harry told her.

Bookworm closed her eyes. She tried to ignore the headaches which were getting worse. She opened her eyes, the pain was there. She closed her eyes, the pain was there.

"I'm going to be dead soon," Bookworm said. "Leave me be, leave me die."

Harry leaned down and shook his head. He put his fingertips on the bullet and lightly dug it out of the top of her head. The Bookworm felt agony beyond all belief the second the bullet slipped out of the top of her head. She drew in a deep breath and then let out another breath collapsing down onto the ground.

He levitated her up onto the operating table.

"We had a deal," Harry said. "I told you I'd heal the magical tumor in your head if you helped me on the ship. And you did."

"Yeah, I guess we did have a deal," the Bookworm said. "But, why do I have a feeling I was….oh God!"

Agony was a pretty good description to describe what she felt after having the bullet removed from her. Harry could sense the agony coming across her.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sara asked. "I mean to heal her?"

"No, it isn't, but he's going to do it anyway," the Bookworm said. "And this is the second time, you've saved my life...I would have rather gone when I injected her with the Mirikuru, and she tried to kill me."

"I didn't want your blood to taint Rose's hands," Harry said. "Just take a deep breath and calm down, this is all going to be over soon enough."

Harry just needed to remove the tumor from her brain. Studying the magic around it, it was not too much unlike the Horcrux he had in his scar all those years ago. Only there was no dark aura around it, and there wasn't the splintered soul of a depraved dark lord in her head.

"I'm breathing, but I'm not calm," the Bookworm said. "Either hurry up and get it out or put me out of my misery! It hurts like hell."

"This is going to be like your wisdom teeth being pulled out," Harry said.

"Yes, only it's in my brain, and that's far worse!" The Bookworm responded.

The two made a deal with each other. Harry was going to withhold his end of the deal. He slowly removed the magical growth from her head. Blood spurted from her mouth and nose.

"Shado, grab that gauze and stop the blood flow," Harry said.

There wasn't much they could do if there was bleeding on her brain, perhaps the tumor had been in her head for too long. Harry held the orb of magical energy in his hand, squeezing it between his fingers. The energy started to glow even more. He had no idea how she received a tumor like this.

Right now, it wasn't the time to ask questions. The Bookworm laid out on the table, her breathing increasing. Harry took a second to hold the tumor compressing the energy into space the size of the pin and causing it to just burn out, without any magic to feed off of.

It was simple, but the Bookworm's nose, mouth, and ears would not stop bleeding. Harry looked towards the vial of the Mirikuru and frowned.

"You can't be serious," Rose muttered. "He is, he is serious, isn't he? You did what you could, now's not the time to play god."

"She's still alive, barely," Shado said. "Her heart rate is slowing down, her pulse is weaker, but she's still alive."

"And she will be," Harry said. "I know what I have to stabilize the Mirikuru."

Harry took out a knife and swiped his finger, dropping a single drop of his blood. The Mirikuru bubbled for a second before settling down. It glowed deep in the light, and Harry slowly positioned the vial into the syringe.

"Hold her," Harry said. "In case, I'm wrong."

Rose and Sara watched, and even Oliver had his case of apprehension. Nyssa remained steady on the other end of the room, with her putting her blade on the back of Ivo's neck, as he bled out on the ground.

He closed his eyes and injected the Mirikuru in the side of the neck of the Bookworm. She screamed in agony.

"It's burning me!" she yelled out loud.

Her entire body spasmed on the table, as the super soldier serum worked through her body, with one drop of Harry's blood. Her screams escalated but then they slowed down.

She stopped bleeding, all of her vital signs were mostly normal. Harry stepped towards her and lightly touched her forehead. She was not completely out of the woods yet, but she was not going to bleed to death internally either.

"I really hope you didn't make a mistake," Rose said.

"No, she's stable," Harry said. "She might not remember anything from before she had the tumor, though."

Harry put her in an enchanted sleep. It would remain to be seen whether or not his theory was correct. Regardless, the Bookworm was out like a light. She would be kept in the medical wing on the AMAZO until Harry figured out what he wanted to do with her.

She had been gone for a long time, did her parents know she was still alive or though she did a long time ago?

"So, you didn't have any trouble with Ivo's men?" Harry asked.

"No, it wasn't a problem at all," Nyssa said. "Especially when I had this."

She held a small pen like device between her fingers and Oliver's eyes widened.

"I was wondering where that went," Oliver said.

"One shot failsafe, guess Ivo's paranoia worked against him," Nyssa said.

"Darhk will…"

"Oh, we're going to have a nice little chat about Damien Darhk," Nyssa said. "I know you know where he is, and you're going to tell me, one way or another."

Oliver Queen sat in the same office where he spent several long nights with the Bookworm. Well, he sat there, wondering whether or not he would ever see the light of day again where she researched the Mirikuru. Speaking of which, the Mirikuru rested on the table in front of him. Oliver considered what would happen if he took some of it.

However, he saw what the serum did. He turned around and took a half of a step out. He noticed Shado and Sara in deep conversation with each other. Sara noticed Oliver hovering around and broke over to see him.

"So, this is going to be over, isn't it?" Oliver asked. "How is she doing….the Bookworm, I mean?"

"She's asleep," Sara said. "Harry seems to think she doesn't remember anything before she got the tumor. But, we'll see if it comes back to her later."

"What about Ivo, the Butcher, anyone else?" Oliver asked.

Oliver wondered for a moment if he wanted to hear the answers to these questions.

"They're locked up, well the Butcher and his crew are," Sara said. "We're going to find a way back home."

"Good, we can finally go back to Starling City," Oliver said.

Sara sighed, she had been thinking about it. She thought, the moment she had a chance, she wanted to go back to Starling City. However, there were a lot of changes which made her think twice about whether she wanted to return home, at least right away.

Did she want to go back to her normal life right away?

"I guess you're ready to head home," Sara said.

"Things must have changed," Oliver said. "Guess, we survived, and that's the main thing. Nothing else is going to go wrong."

The lights on the cabin went pitch black. Sara stepped back in surprise, and a second later, she saw Oliver, who she had just been talking about fifteen seconds ago, vanished without a trace.

Chapter Fifteen: Fire of Sins.

Agony spread through the body of Anthony Ivo. He could barely keep his head up and it was obvious, he had been restrained. The scientist didn't really need to guess too much about how he had gotten in so much trouble. The agony of having a blade plunged into his chest filled his body. The only solace, he felt, was the Bookworm having been shot at point blank range. Ivo looked forward to doing that for a very long time.

Now, though, he was still alive, still breathing, if they could call the situation he was in, alive. His heart beat a couple more times. Someone stood over the top of him. The lights flashed on and Ivo found himself submerged on a spotlight. He looked up and saw the young man who Oliver and the Bookworm brought here as a hostage. Those green eyes were haunting enough as is.

Speaking of haunting, the woman standing next to him was about as haunting as well. The daughter of the fabled Ra's al Ghul herself was standing a few feet away from Ivo. He noticed something clutched in her hand. It was a tool of some sort, and he figured it wasn't going to help him, but rather hurt him.

Darhk warned him about running afoul of the League of Assassins. So far, Ivo was able to stay one step ahead of the League, at least until tonight. His luck ran out when one of the most prominent members of the League found herself on the boat.

"Please, let me die," Ivo said. "Tell my wife, I'm sorry I failed her."

"You're not going to get death's release yet," Harry said. "I'm not going to let you leave. Not until you tell Nyssa everything you know."

Ivo found himself worried. He was going to die anyway, eventually. Darhk hunting him down and making his life miserable for that particular betrayal. Ivo turned to rise up, but those belts cut into his ribcage. The wind pressed out of him and Ivo wheezed like a madman. The belts continued to press against his chest.

"Please, have some pity on me," Ivo begged him. "I don't…..I only was trying to make the world a better place."

"You have to come to one realization," Nyssa said. "Do the ends justify the means? Give the situation you're now in, I think we can agree the ends do not justify those means at all, do they?"

Nyssa peered at Ivo. She had a sense of what was going on this ship. Some of this equipment would be used to torture and torment. Did the men on this ship deserve the pain? Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't.

"You're going to tell me everything you know about Damien Darhk."

Ivo shifted and whimpered. Everything he worked for ended tonight. The League of Assassins wouldn't just kill him. They would rip everything away from him up until his life for the crime of working alongside a man who betrayed him. All Ivo did was accept funding and also Darhk sent several men aboard his ship. He wasn't a part of HIVE, although he knew Darhk had his sights set on the Mirikuru as well.

"My patience is thin," Nyssa said. "I'm not going to kill you, not yet. But there are ways, where I can make you wish I've shown you this small mercy."

Suddenly, something white hot pushed against Ivo's spine. Pain beyond all measure exploded through his being. Ivo didn't know what they were doing. Neither of them laid a single hand on Ivo. They just pushed this white hot poker into his lower back.

"That's just a small dose of what my companion is capable of," Nyssa said. "He is capable of torments beyond your dreams."

A simple matter of tricking the nervous system to believe it suffered the absolute worst pain possible, really. Harry pushed into Ivo's spine and caused his screams to increase in volume. Ivo felt like he was in the middle of a heart attack. His chest throbbed before the pain faded.

"You don't want that pain ever again, do you?" Harry asked.

"Please, you don't understand…"

"Did all of the people you experimented on beg you to understand what you were doing for them?" Nyssa asked. "Did they beg you for mercy?"

Ivo's mental defenses had been pierced by this particular questions. All of those horrific things had come back to roost. Ivo closed his eyes and started to breathe heavily.

"Darhk didn't tell me much of anything, I've only met him once, and I'm not sure if it was him, or one of his body doubles."

The pain racked through Ivo's body. Ivo screamed out in agony. He received this pain without either party putting a scratch on him. That was the most frustrating, the most agonizing thing about being tortured like this. Ivo was throwing his head back and screaming in agony.

"I swear, I don't know much more!" Ivo howled at the top of his lungs.

"Maybe, you don't," Harry informed him. "Maybe, I just need to dig a little bit deeper to make you talk a little bit more!"

Ivo's agonizing scream followed by the worst pain possible. Harry pulled back from the pain.

"You're going easy on him," Nyssa said.

"We don't want to break him before he tells us anything," Harry said. "Providing he does know anything. He's not saying anything now, is he?"

"No, he's not," Nyssa said. "If he doesn't know anything, it would be a good idea to kill him. He's useless anyway, and he knows too much. Far too dangerous to be kept alive if you ask me?"

Nyssa watched Ivo's reaction. So he felt relief. Well, Nyssa thought he was not going to be relieved by her next suggestion. Anything they could use to get the man to talk, they most certainly would.

"But, we don't want to kill him too quickly," Nyssa said. "There's a technique which you could use, which could draw out his death over a number of days. The agony is beyond anything most people could stand, and the closer he gets to death, the worse he gets."

"He has a facility in Hong Kong!" Ivo yelled.

The threat of more bodily harm and a potential pain worse than the one he received made Ivo feel more inclined to give information.

"I don't know where, but I know he does a facility there," Ivo said. "He might have others in Eastern Asian."

Nyssa's first priority was to check some of the former League outposts that they didn't use any more. Darhk might have been using them and any resources he could scramble together for his plans, whatever those plans might have been.

"Well, Professor, is there anything else?" Nyssa asked.

"He mentioned something, saying that he needs an army for when the world changes," Ivo said. "Something about building a new world, I don't know, I just took his money and his resources. I was more concerned with the Mirikuru."

Harry and Nyssa looked at each other, both thinking along the same lines. Building a new world could mean any number of things. Darhk sounded very demented. For a second, the lights on the ship began to flicker. Nyssa ignored it and kept her eyes on Ivo. Sheer hatred burned through them.

"You do realize he would have wanted to take the formula for himself," Nyssa said. "You were to report to HIVE, wouldn't you?"

"I report to HIVE every ninety days, to give a report on my progress," Ivo said.

"When is the next ninety-day period over," Nyssa said. "Is it soon?"

"Within the next couple of weeks, about thirteen days from today," Ivo said.

This piece of news was very interesting to Nyssa. She pulled away from Ivo and gave a motion for Harry to put Ivo under, at least for now. She would decide whether or not he had more information to give to her.

"So, are you making that meeting?" Harry asked.

"Yes, I have a mission to complete," Nyssa said. "Even if there's only the slightest chance to get my hands on Darhk and complete my mission, I will."

"We will," Harry responded.

"I thank you for your help," Nyssa said. "But, I feel like I should do this on my own."

Nyssa realized her taking this as a solo mission was what got her on Lian Yu in the first place. Time had passed since then, although she was not certain how much time passed in the real world. He feared Damien Darhk had gotten an unfortunate head start.

The radio on Harry cackled to life, and he took it.

"Oliver's gone," Sara said.

Oliver Queen didn't really know what happened. One minute, he stood there talking to Sara, excited about the fact he would return home. It felt like a very long time since he was back in Starling City. It was almost foreign at least in his mind. He could hardly wait to be back.

Now, though, Oliver didn't know what happened. The lights went out and then someone grabbed him. His lights went out. He tried to get to his feet, only to realize someone secured his hands and legs together. Oliver thumped down onto the ground.

He was in a hallway, far away from the lighted office area he was talking to Sara. How did he get grabbed, with Sara, Shado, and Rose knowing it? He had a feeling something weird happened, and weird happenings just kept happening to Oliver after he got on the ship to Lian Yu.

"Good evening, Brother Oliver."

A flicker of a lantern light caused Oliver to look into the face of the Deacon. The Deacon, who the last time Oliver saw him, he had been behind the doors of a cell.

Oliver was about ready to scream out, but his mouth had been taped shut. The Deacon leaned in and placed the top of his hand on Oliver's head.

"I'm certain you're wondering how I could have escaped," the Deacon said. "Well, I knew the opportunity would come, and when it did, I just had to seize it."

Oliver wished he could have broken the ropes from where he was. Unfortunately, the Deacon tied them tight.

"At first, I thought it was an act of God!" the Deacon said, getting animated and excited. His animation and his excitement tapered down when his voice lowered. He leaned closer to Oliver. "But, then I realized, it must have been something else entirely, where two perfectly healthy guards dropped down to the ground."

The Deacon held the lantern and put it down on the ground. He placed it next to Oliver and himself.

"They won't hear your screams," The Deacon said.

No one could hear even a whimper from Oliver. He had been gagged pretty good. The machinery of the ship masked any sounds Oliver tried to make as well. The Deacon grabbed him by the head in a claw hold.

"You see, we haven't been formally introduced, my young friend," he said. "You see, I'm called the Deacon…but my name is Joseph Blackfire, I was at one time the savior Gotham City needed, but they could not accept. Instead, they put all of their hopes behind a sinner who takes on the mantle of a diseased winged rodent!"

Blackfire's grip was strong and Oliver thought he could crush his skull if necessary.

"I told you I didn't fear death, Brother Oliver," Blackfire said. "That's because I'm already dead!"

The laughter of a very sick and depraved individual filled the ship. Oliver didn't know what to make of it, other than this particular gentleman was completely and utterly out of his mind.

"The flames of the sinners almost consumed me," Blackfire said. "The world thinks I'm gone, but I have not passed from this world. The entire world is in the palm of my hand. I can make the world into anything I want."

Oliver gave him a plain look which stated the young man thought Blackfire was completely and utterly insane. Blackfire just gave him a grin, showing him those rotting teeth.

"Genius is insanity to the unenlightened," the Deacon thought. "You saw me as nothing, but another victim, another poor piglet being sent to the slaughterhouse. But, I'm much more than that, my Brother. I'm much more than that…..I'm the wolf who walks amongst the sheep. I've stayed aboard this ship, as a prisoner, hoping for the right moment."

The Deacon leaned forward and for one sickening moment, Oliver thought he was going to be kissed on the forehead. The stench of the man's breath was bad enough to make him keel for. It smelled of a rotting corpse, which made his claims of already being dead more credible.

"There are truths a mortal mind should not process," the Deacon said. "And one of the truths is, what is done in the basement? You see, I do not know what horrors Anthony Ivo has spawned, but there's something of great value about the AMAZO. And you're going to help me get it, my brother."

Blackfire turned away from Oliver and picked up the lantern. They would need to move soon, for it would only be a matter of time before Oliver had been discovered missing.

"You do belong on this ship, with what you've done," Blackfire said. "A life of debauchery, and depravity is what you've left behind when you pass. But, oblivion comes next, and with oblivion comes forgiveness. You will be made obsolete….it will be time to delete Oliver Queen from this world."

Oliver knew this madman was going to kill him. And he couldn't even stand up and take it.

"No, not while I still have a use for you, my Brother," Blackfire said. "You will come forward and accept the punishment of your crimes. You will follow the bright light, my brother."

'Am I going to be some creepy sacrifice?' Oliver thought. 'To appease some demented master of his? Because he does seem like the creepy cult leader type.'

Oliver's skin crawled very slightly at the thought of what Blackfire might do to him. Oliver tried to turn his attention towards the man.

"I know your thoughts, they are the same as all of the non-believers," Blackfire said. "You think I'm crazy. Well, they said the same thing about a young carpenter…..and what did he do for you?"

Blackfire held Oliver up and dragged him to the basement. Oliver tried to make noise, to try and alert the others on the ship, but there was nothing happening. After he was so close to returning home, he was going to die.

Oliver knew he made some mistakes, but really, did anyone deserve this? To be sacrificed by some demented cult leader by some demonic entity? At least, he thought that was happening to him. The fear of the unknown increased and made Oliver extremely nervous.

"So, there has to be a logical explanation for this, right?" Rose asked. "Other than ninjas or magic or magical ninjas, because that's about the only thing I can think about."

Sara tried not to get too frustrated. She and Oliver mended fences, about as much as they were going to, and she was ready to send Oliver home safely. Whether or not she was going to return to Starling City, was another matter entirely. She hadn't had a chance to ask Harry what he wanted to do. Now, wasn't the time or the place to ask these questions. They needed to figure out how one young man simply vanished.

"There has to be a logical explanation," Nyssa said. "But, there likely isn't one. I've found records of all of the prisoners. They are accurate up to a day ago."

"Let's check if anyone was in the cell with Oliver," Harry said.

Harry had one of those feelings, and it was a pretty bad feeling as well. Something happened, and Oliver was this close to being put in danger. Nyssa spread out the piece of paper on the table and looked at the cell arrangements.

"The Deacon is his cellmate," Nyssa said. "We should investigate."

Harry, Shado, Nyssa, Rose, and Sara all stepped outside. The noticed the cell which Oliver had been assigned to. There was no Deacon in the cell, no nothing. Both of the beds were empty and there was no sign of anyone being here.

"Well, he got out, good for him! Guy gives me the creeps."

Harry slowly turned his attention to the Butcher, who had been secured in one of the cells. He stepped closer towards the man, who leaned back and looked at him. Both men locked eye to eye with each other.

"May I help you?" the Butcher asked.

"Who is this Deacon?" Harry asked. "Does he have a real name?"

"Don't know, never bothered to learn," the Butcher said. "Weird thing is, he just showed up in one of the cells one day, and no one knows how he got here. Well, Ivo claimed he had been brought her with the trash from Gotham City, but I don't know about that."

For the Captain of the ship, the Butcher seemed to have not had a good handle on what was going on his own ship. Harry leaned closer towards the man on the other end. Those green eyes burned pure fire, but the Butcher stared back.

"Where do you think he went?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," the Butcher said. "And you know something, I don't care."

"You better care," Sara said. "He took Oliver Queen."

"Oh, did he now?" the Butcher asked. "Nah, I still don't care….good riddance to both of them. The only thing I don't like is I didn't have a chance to beat that little shit Queen half to death. I would have wanted to crush him."

Sara was about to stab through the bars of the cell. Harry held her arms back and prevented her from doing so.

"I know you feel bad, about letting him slip through your fingers like that," Harry said. "But, not really the time or place to kill him, no matter how much he deserves it."

Harry hit the nail firmly on the head. Sara felt really bad. She swore Oliver was going to get home, and now, he had been snatched up from underneath her nose. Just one second, he was there, and she was gone. She failed Oliver's friends, family, and

"I don't want to make you feel any worse," Harry said.

"Please, you're not going to make me feel any worse," Sara said.

"Yeah, you're going to tell us something bad," Rose said. "Why don't you just jump out and do it? It would save us a lot of grief later if you tell us now."

Harry shook his head and nodded in response. He figured it would be best to tell them, one way or another.

"I sense something demonic on the boat," Harry said.

Everyone reacted in about the way Harry predicted.

"Do you think something….came out from the other side when you escaped?" Shado asked.

"It's possible," Harry said. "I don't remember anything from between the time I disappeared and the time I was out on Lian Yu when I ran into Fyers and his men."

Harry took a moment to try and channel any residual magical energy in the air. He walked down the hallway, went up the stairs and turned around the corner. He noticed there was some kind of presence on the ship. Either someone was a demon or someone who was a servant to some kind of demon.

He returned down the steps.

"Do any of you know where the Deacon could have taken Oliver?" Sara asked.

Every single person on the ship claimed up instantly. Some of these men looked like they had been through some really horrific experiences in their life. But, whatever was being done on this ship, it terrified some of them completely beyond their wits. Harry saw people going up against Dementors, who had been more composed.

"Please," Sara said. "He has a sister, a mother, friends, they would all be concerned if something happened to him."

"No one has family, no one has friends, no one has any hope."

"I….heard something," a man piped up. "I heard the Deacon praying in his cell the other night. He was saying a bunch of nonsense, speaking in tongues. He did mention how the time was almost here for the sacrifice."

"Thanks," Sara said. "Where could he be going?"

"The basement!" one of the prisoners yelled out.

Now, the fear in the ship increased when the basement had been mentioned. Harry and the others did not know what it was about the basement which inspired such gripping fear in these gentlemen. All he knew was they were very horrified when hearing about the basement.

"What's in the basement?" Harry asked.

That was a question that none of them want to answer.

"Those who know, have never come up to see the light of day again," one of the prisoners said, speaking as clearly as possible in a distinct Russian accent. "Well, almost no one has seen the light of day again."

The prisoner pointed towards the cell directly across from the one Oliver and the Deacon was sharing. Harry and the others turned around and noticed a man with his face covered in bandages.

"He's been down there, and he returned."

Harry stepped towards the cell and peered inside. "Tell us what's in the basement."

The man's hideous screams started up and grew more in prominence. He wasn't capable of any coherent speech, and now he was shaking madly. Harry tried to get any projected thoughts from him, but he heard the same thing reflected I the bandaged man's mind.

"This is getting nowhere," Sara said. "Where is the basement anyway?"

"Down that first corridor, to the right, and down the stairs," The Butcher said. "Have fun, kids."

The doors opened, and Oliver knew right away he was somewhere where no one with any insanity should be. The moment both men entered the basement, someone, or something perhaps, started to crawl. Oliver caught a glimpse of several looking human looking bones on the ground, and a large splatter of blood.

The lantern shined in the middle of a huge cage, and a hideous deformed looking man, with sharp teeth, rattled the cage. He looked Oliver in the eye and tried to bust through the cage.

"Poor, Jeffery," the Deacon said. "He was once a man, but…..Ivo made an attempt to duplicate the Mirikuru from an imperfect formula….and you can see the results there. His mind is gone, man!"

Oliver took one look at the monster and his hideous snarls. He didn't want to look at him too close, but was it Oliver's imagination, or was there a decapitated head with a severed spinal cord dangling out of the cage.

"You want to know what the interesting thing is, Brother Oliver?" the Deacon asked. "He was one of the lucky ones. But, those who run across him is not fortunate."

The Deacon picked up a stick and poked it through the cage which caused the monster to snarl and snap, trying to break out of the cage.

"Be calm, beast!" The Deacon yelled, slamming the stick repeatedly across the cage.

"This is what you're going to do," Oliver said. "You're going to throw me in a cage with that thing, aren't you?"

He was going to be mauled so bad no one could recognize his face. The Deacon leaned down and guided Oliver as far away from the cage as possible.

"Oh, no, we require something a bit more sophisticated than you being shoved in the cage with our monstrous friend," the Deacon said. "I need you intact when it happens, so I can be free of this Limbo."

Oliver tried to pull the ropes free and noticed one of them slightly loosened. He hoped this was a good sign, although he was fully aware he might not be able to get out of the basement. The ship was a labyrinth of tunnels which twisted and turned, and never appeared to end anywhere. The young man tried to figure out a way out of here.

'They'll never find me down here. It's how it ends.'

He almost laughed, out of sheer madness, at the cruelest part of this entire mess. He was so utterly close to escaping this situation before he would have been yanked back underneath. Oliver closed his eyes and thought about the madness gripping his mind.

Voices now echoed throughout the basement.

'What the hell now?' Oliver asked. 'Are there more people down here? There can't be more people down in the basement, can there? If there are, what's going on? What am I…this is completely insane, isn't it?'

Oliver kept asking himself a multitude of questions, questions which he may not want to have known the answers to. Blackfire knew what he was searching for.

"Death meets us all at the end," the Deacon responded. "But oblivion is worse. You can never go on, and on one could ever remember your name. For one, who is famous, it's the worst fate of all. And you are well known, aren't you Brother Oliver?"

The Deacon put one hand on Oliver's head and forced him to look up. Something paralyzed Oliver with fear.

"Love by some, hated by many," the Deacon said. "But, we must hurry. The winged demon and his concubines approach nearer. Soon, they will have learned we are in the basement."

Oliver wished he had the slightest idea what the Deacon talked about. He noticed the rope around his wrist was weakening. Oliver spotted knife on the ground. He discreetly slid towards it, breaking it out.

"And we have it, Ivo doesn't know the power this little box holds, but I do!"

The Deacon picked up an old, dusty, wooden box with mirrors on the side. An ancient writing had been inscribed on the side of the box. Oliver quickly hid the knife he was using to cut him out.

"Gaze upon this, Brother Oliver!"

Oliver looked up and came face to face, with not his reflection, but rather an attractive woman with dirty-blonde hair on the other side. Oliver was a bit confused. Was this some kind of trick? The Bookworm spoke of magic, and this was some kind of trick to mess with his brain, it had to be.

"It's a very inspiring message on this box," Blackfire said. "From Hell's Heart, I Stab At Thee, For Hate's Sake, I Spit My Final Breath at Thee."

The transfixed glare Oliver was giving the blonde woman on the other end of the box continued, but he shook his head. Maybe, if it was some kind of magical mirror than it reflected the absolute opposite of a person. And the absolute opposite of a man was a woman.

'Yeah, guess you did pay attention in Kindergarten science after all,' Oliver thought to himself.

Oliver could see the Deacon drop to his knees and start muttering a prayer. This allowed Oliver to cut his hands free from the ropes. He worked the knife between the ropes binding his legs together and started to slowly work on those as well. The ropes started to come apart from this particular position. Oliver almost had freed himself, with the ropes pulling apart from each other.

The Deacon turned around and grabbed Oliver by the throat.

"Did you really think I would let you leave?"

One more moment of hope handed to Oliver before the Deacon snatched it away. Oliver tried to find out, this was his last ditch effort to get out of it. He grabbed onto something, the mirror box, and pulled it away from the Deacon.

The mirror box flew into the air and smashed down onto the ground in front of Oliver. The box cracked and several pieces of glass from the mirror flew out.

Oliver made an attempt to avoid the glass impaling into him. Some invisible force held him back, and one of the large pieces of glass stabbed him in the chest. He screamed in agony, the worst pain ever filled the billionaire's body.

Then, a bright light filled the area of the basement they were in.

"He could be anywhere, down here," Shado said.

Harry stopped, put his hand on his forehead, and slowly looked around. His head performed an entire three hundred and sixty-degree turn before going back to its standard position.

"No, he couldn't just be anywhere," Harry said. "He's right in there, past…"

"Past the room with whatever that thing is," Rose said.

Harry led the way, with Sara following behind him, Shado taking a couple of steps behind him, Nyssa and Rose bringing up the rear in the back. There were many different paths to take. Something about the basement of this ship was very supernatural, at least it felt that way.

A bright light bathed the room next to them. Sara stepped back, lifting a hand to her eyes to shield it. She held the same dagger she stabbed Ivo with, in her hand.

"Through here!" Nyssa called.

They stepped through the basement door and found, the Deacon on his knees. His arms spread out, kneeling in ash, in the crucifix position. His insidious laughter filled the basement. The moment they arrived, Sara knew something was very wrong.

"The sacrifice has been complete!" the Deacon yelled. "The circle has been closed, and Oliver Queen has ceased to be in this world!"

The Deacon turned his attention towards them.

"You can't even stop it from happening, Dragon!" the Deacon yelled. "None of you can stop it!"

Sara realized what happened and her eyes narrowed. She butchered the Deacon by stabbing him with a dagger straight through his chest. The sinister man made no efforts to stop it from happening. His body sized up and exploded into black mist. The mist formed into buzzard briefly before completely disappearing.

"Harry," Sara said.

Harry levitated several broken pieces of a mirror. Mystic energy made this a very curious situation. He would most certainly have to take a closer look at the mirror.

"I just have one question," Rose said. "Who is this Oliver Queen he was talking about?"

Sara and Harry looked at Rose like she was insane.

"Nyssa, Shado, do either of you know who Oliver Queen is?" Harry asked.

"No," Nyssa said.

"I can't say I've heard of him either or even met him," Shado said.

Harry realized right now there was some particularly nasty voodoo at foot, quite literally if he was honest. He would have to take a closer look at these fragments.