Welcome all to what is my first Arrow story.

I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for quite some time now, but I've never been confident enough in my ability to write it until now. (Plus the fact that the actual show is so unbearable to watch now, I need some sort of catharsis to get back to the glory days of season 1 and 2).

The premise goes as: 'What if Oliver made a different choice on the Amazo? What if he chose to cure Slade rather than kill him? How would things have been different?'

Throw in a healthy dash of everyone's favourite Assassins and… well… this was the result.

Disclaimer: I do not own Arrow, or any of its characters or plot points. If I did, things would be very, very different.

Enjoy.

I SAW THEM RIDING, REPENTANT NOT AT ALL...

FOUR HORSES AND FOUR HORSEMEN PROVED THAT EVEN THE MIGHTY FALL...

Prologue

He ran.

Laboured breaths echoed off empty alleyways, his feet splashed in the puddles left by lashing rain, and all the while lightning crackled grimly overhead.

The dark and grimy underbelly of Starling City flashed by in a tunnelled veil.

He had no idea where he was running to, he just had one thought on his mind.

Escape.

There was no one around to help him, no allies to give him cover, no witnesses to his terror. All his comrades had long ago abandoned him. Well… the lucky ones had…

A night that had started with the promise of millions, and a ditzy star studded life surrounded by cocaine and strippers, now had him running for his life. Where had it all gone wrong?

It was only meant to be a simple goddamn drug deal!

Times had been good in recent years for the gangs of Starling. An underfunded police force stretched too thin coupled with a corrupt courts system – The result of a severely fractured stock market in the wake of Robert Queen's death – had meant rich pickings for anyone in the 'feel good' industry, and while by day the city appeared normal, night time was a whole other story.

Gangs ran rampant in the city limit suburb of the Glades, creating a lawless world ruled by violence and terror, a world where even the most grizzled uniform was afraid to enter. Kidnap, rape and murder were all frequent occurrences. It was a disease, a bubonic plague that was now spreading to the rest of the city, and it seemed as though no one would be able to do anything to stop it.

Until tonight.

Until this deal.

This deal was different.

He flinched at another flash of lightning, accompanied by the boom of thunder in his ears, bringing with it the most gruesome of flashbacks.

The meet had gone down just as it had dozens of times before. An abandoned warehouse. The clock had struck midnight. The supply had been exchanged for cash. All was good.

And then, suddenly, it wasn't.

Suddenly, all was very, very not good.

It started with an arrow. Would you believe it? Of all the things…

Green flecked and deadly, it came seemingly from nowhere, slamming into the ringleader's hand, knocking the final bag from his grip and pinning it to the ground.

He looked up to the rafters in shock. There was no one there.

Incensed, the leader raised his pistol – an enormous Magnum .44 – and fired several booming rounds up at the ceiling. They waited, tensed, as silence fell again. Nothing.

Then it came…

A deep, deep guttural chuckle, echoing through the building, permeating their very flesh with its sinister foreboding. "You missed…" the voice said in a distinctly Australian accent.

The gang leader fired off the rest of his ammunition. Still nothing.

"Who THE FUCK are you?" he yelled into the night air.

It was a long time before he got a reply. "Who am I?" It echoed. "I am no one. The question you should be asking is: Who are we?"

The gang leader never got the chance to reply. For it was then that the lightning flashed again, lighting up the windows, and he suddenly felt a searing pain in his chest. When the light died, and he got his vision back, he looked down and saw another green and black arrow had been fired. This time into his chest…

The arrow quivered. The man dropped. The gunfire started.

And what followed was a massacre.

The hapless gangster shot into another alley. He sprinted down its narrow length before vaulting the low wall at its end. Anything, anything he could do to get away.

He'd never even seen them. Once his friends started falling and his gun ran dry of ammunition, he'd cut his losses and legged it, the screams of those he had left behind echoing in his ears.

The lightning flashed once more, and he skidded to a halt.

There, illuminated by the raw electricity in the sky, stood a silhouetted figure on the building in front of him. He couldn't tell if they were male or female, for they had a hood on, but he wouldn't have noticed anyway. His eyes were drawn to the wicked looking bow in their hands, and they widened in fear.

Turning on his heels, he sprinted down the street to his right.

Arms and legs heaving, and through his own laboured breaths, he suddenly heard something whizzing behind him. He instinctively dropped to the ground, just in time as another arrow shot overhead. He caught a glimpse of the green fletching, before scrambling back to his feet and turning left down the next alleyway.

He immediately screeched to a halt.

There, in front of him, was a second figure.

This one was definitely a woman, illustrated by her platinum blonde hair and the tight black corset wrapped around her body. Her ample cleavage would have been very distracting if it weren't for the two fucking swords in her hands!

He whipped his head back and forth frantically, assessing his options.

Death by sword, or death by arrow. Neither was particularly inviting.

His eyes lit up with hope when he saw the ladder running up the side of the building next to him, and he raced towards it, hauling his now-sodden frame up like his life depended on it. Which… it really sort of did…

The blonde didn't move. He never saw the smirk cross her face.

Pulling himself up onto the roof, he resumed his desperate getaway. The next building across, he saw an open door on the maintenance access on the roof, and he felt a glimmer of salvation.

If he could just get to that, and hide inside the building…

He reached the edge and made the leap of his life.

He sailed through the air, towards the far balcony, fingers outstretched reaching for its concrete lip…

He never got there.

It was at that moment a length of black silk wrapped around his legs, tangling them and halting his momentum in an instant, and his stomach lurched in horror as he stopped in mid-air and began plummeting downwards.

He screamed as the ground rushed up, faster and faster, but he never hit it.

Suddenly, spectacularly, another arrow flew like a bullet, piercing the other end of the black fabric and then driving itself into the wall. Whatever the fabric was made of, it definitely wasn't silk, because it didn't tear one bit when his entire bodyweight stretched it taught, leaving him hanging in the air barely two metres above the ground.

Panicked, he looked up to try and loosen the fabric around his feet, but froze when he saw the arrow. This one was different. While the other one had been black and green, this one was black and red.

Then he heard the footsteps. He looked around rapidly, and finally he saw who it was that had been chasing him, and his terror became extreme.

They emerged out of the shadows like wraiths. Hyenas, stalking their prey. There was nothing even remotely friendly about their posture. Everything about them was predatory to its core.

There were four of them in total.

Two with bows, two with swords.

The first archer had a male physique, and was dressed head to toe in dark green leather, barely a shade above black. Across his chest was some seriously high tech inter-woven body armour, and in his hands was a deadly looking recurve bow. The hilt of a sword poked out from behind his back, next to his quiver, while smaller flechette arrows were attached to both wrists. His face was completely hidden by a hood.

Standing next to him was the blonde he had seen earlier. Up close, her thin-bladed swords looked even more dangerous, if that were at all possible, but while earlier she had held one in each hand, now they were joined together at the hilt, creating a double bladed bo-staff. A simple domino mask disguised her face.

The other archer was shorter, more feminine looking. Similarly hooded, she wore red and black armour. The veil across her mouth and nose revealed only her long hair, black as the night, and a pair of distinctly Eurasian eyes. Her bow was short and sturdy. A compound, beautiful and deadly in equal measure. A broad-bladed short-sword was strapped in a holster at her hip.

It was the final figure that turned his blood to ice though. Scary as the other three were, they had nothing on this man.

And he was clearly a man. He was thickly built, tall, and the samurai sword in his grip was still splattered red with the blood of the other unfortunate gangsters. While he wore similar armour to the others - Jet black, with metallic forearm guards on both arms, the same interwoven chest armour, and a utility belt positively gleaming with every kind of dagger – his mask was different. It covered his entire face, revealing nothing but his cold, dark eyes. Split in its centre, one half was black, the other a dark, flame orange.

The gangster swung helplessly, upside down in the air.

"Please…" he begged, "I'm just trying to survive."

The blonde smiled cruelly. "Aren't we all?" her voice was soft, smooth.

"I- I've got information!" he tried, "You let me go I'll tell you everything! There's dozens of guys out there, much worse than me, I swear!"

The green archer laughed mirthfully. "What makes you think we don't already have it?"

His eyes widened, and he felt water building in his eyes.

The man with the sword turned to the green archer. "Can I have this one?" he rumbled, out of earshot.

"No, you had the last one." The archer replied.

"So?"

"So leave some for us will you?"

The sword man shrugged. "Not my fault you're too slow kid…"

"Gentlemen." The red archer interrupted. Her accent was foreign, silky smooth. "If you would kindly cease comparing your swords, we do have a job to finish."

The man with the sword still grumbling to himself, the four turned as one back to the tied up man. He was now sobbing violently. "Please…" he cried, "I didn't do anything to deserve this."

"Sure you did…" the green archer growled, raising his bow and aiming right between the man's eyes.

"Here it comes…" the sword man muttered, rolling his eyes.

The last thing the gangster heard before the arrow pierced his skull and sent him into oblivion, was the archer's chilling words.

"You have failed this city."