Chapter 21: Battle Of The Glades Finale.

On The Roof Of The McMillan Projects….

Genshin, the head of the Black Spider Clan, had died in battle. No matter what any of the League of Assassins, or their partner Ryu Hayabusa, thought about the monstrous path that had led him here they all agreed on one thing: He had died with honor. He had fought with a zeal worthy of his station in life.

So to see Talia Al Ghul kicking his dead body as though he was nothing more than garbage filled all of them with resentment and hate, no one more than Nyssa Al-Ghul. She had known, always, how little her older sister had respected the concepts of honor that governed everything the League of Assassins did. But to know it, dispassionately, was tremendously different than to actually see her disgraceful actions in the flesh.

Although, Talia counted on this. She assumed that Nyssa would be driven to unrefined rage by the notion that she could dishonor a fallen comrade, and it would be that rage which would pry open gaps in her technique.

But what Talia didn't count on was that Malcolm Merlyn, who had been wavering in his devotion, HATED seeing this. Genshin had always been a teacher to him, impossibly brutal but also fair. He made it a point of telling Malcolm that he would not ask him to do anything Genshin couldn't do himself. The fact that Genshin could do just about anything was never the point.

So, in this moment, Malcolm realized his mistake. He thought the Undertaking was something honorable, something to be done when all manner of justice could not properly prosecute the crime that had been done to him. He had gone to the Black Spider Clan because he believed they understood, understood that there were things that couldn't be explained by the binary worldview of good and evil. In this moment, he realized how wrong he had been.

Genshin had been a man of honor. A dark honor, and one that spoke more to him than what the League defined it as, but an honor nonetheless. This? This was beyond dishonorable. This was needlessly cruel.

So, without even knowing what he was really doing, Malcolm Merlyn took arms up against a fellow member of the Clan.

"Mr. Merlyn. Do you realize what you have done, the hell we will unleash on you and your son?" said a shocked Talia Al-Ghul, managing to keep her head despite the fact that she had two Olympic-level archers, and two world-class ninja, having their full attention on her.

"You are a woman of no honor. You, honestly, are an animal that needs to be put down."

At that, the rest of them turned to see who said it. It wasn't Oliver, or Laurel, or even Nyssa. It was an infuriated Ryu Hayabusa.

While, to Malcolm, Genshin was a teacher, he was something completely different to Ryu. Ever since Ryu was old enough to hold a wooden sword and practice with one, he had defined himself by the day when he would hold the Dragon Sword and battle against the forces of the Black Spider Clan. And in all of those dreams, all of those thoughts of what it would feel like, he had always knew who would be waiting for him. So to see the man he had spent his entire life training to beat treated as though he was nothing more than trash, it hurt.

So, with a fire in his heart that is melting his exhaustion to nothingness, Ryu Hayabusa stepped forward and drew the two blades he would now treasure with everything. And as the archers on the roof nocked their bows, and the swordsmen prepared to strike, Talia Al Ghul knew that her time was up. Short of an absolute miracle, she could not survive this.

So, she ran. After all, there were plans she had. Things that needed to be done. And right now, she thought with a dark glee, one of those things was to ensure that no one on that rooftop would ever trust Malcolm Merlyn ever again. So, as she threw a handful of smoke bombs to make sure no one would see her leave, she also grabbed the detonator for the earthquake devices and set them off as she left. If she was going to live to fight another day, it would be good to bleed as many allies of the League of Assassins dry as she possibly could. Malcolm Merlyn was a good place to start.

Meanwhile, at the Safehouse…..

Slade Wilson felt a rumbling and KNEW. They had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but it did. And just as fast, he knew what he had to do. He told everyone to leave, to run to safety and not look back for him.

The heroes, the defenders of this city and all the people who lived in it, did not deserve to have their last breaths be in a falling structure. They needed to continue fighting the good fight, to defend those who could not take up arms and do so for themselves. They needed to be heroes, as he had always wanted to be.

But now, as rock fell around him and the lights slowly flickered off, he felt at peace. He knew his wife and kids had passed, probably assassinated by Billy Wintergreen in a fit of rage. And he had lived his life ever since finding that out in hopes that he would become a good enough man that he would be reunited with them. And now, in what was guaranteed to be his last moments, he would be.

At a STAR Labs facility in Starling City, a kind-eyed man in a red suit spirited as many people as he could find out of danger. His name was Barry Allen, and he vowed to help as many people as he could with the speed he had been given via a freak lightning storm in the middle of a particle accelerator. It would be the right thing to do, and besides, he liked helping.

In Gotham City, a man did katas in a darkened cave while he watched the news coverage of the Battle of the Glades. People in that city were scared. Someone needed to take their fear from them, and give it to people who DESERVED to feel it.

Meanwhile, two people in red and blue leotards helped keep crumbling buildings from falling. They couldn't let people feel hopeless. It was their responsibility to help when people couldn't help themselves. Not to rule over them.

All of these people, and more to come, would soon be united by a common cause, a common goal. And when they did, when that happened, the world would be changed for the better.

But that's a story for another book.

Written in 2100 by Connor Lance-Queen and Mia Lance-Queen, the Green Arrow 2 and the Black Canary 2.