Athena and the League of Assassins (An Arrow: Season 3 Fanfiction)

Chapter 34: Awakening

Felicity was the first to wake, coughing and gasping for breath. Soon enough, the others roused, also gasping and coughing. 

'Not that I'm complaining,' Ray asked the group, 'but shouldn't we be dead by now?' 

'Oliver tried to kill us,' I said, rolling my neck and sitting up, placing a hand on my head. 

'Ra's tried. Oliver was forced to let him appear to be successful,' Malcolm spoke. 

'So now we're back to trust Oliver,' Diggle snapped, 'and while we're at it, trust you too?' 

'Yeah, because the last time I checked, you tried to make a deal with Ra's to save yourself,' Laurel retorted. 

'In order for our plan to work, Ra's trust in Oliver had to be complete. And after that plane fiasco, it wasn't.' 

'Yeah, no shit,' I snarked. Malcolm glared at me. 

'I should have probably let you die.' 

'If I was in your position, Malcolm, the feeling would be mutual,' I replied coldly. He sighed deeply, then continued. 

'Oliver needed to demonstrate one more time his loyalty to Ra's.'

'Which I guess brings us back to... why aren't we dead?' Ray asked again. 'Not that I'm complaining.' Malcolm began to pick at the skin of his hand and began to peel fake skin off. 

'Oliver was vaccinated against the Alpha-Omega virus five years ago. An associate was able to draw a version of the vaccine from his blood.' He peeled the lump of fake skin and tossed it away. 'A synthetic skin graft. Upon our incarceration, I was able to vaccinate each one of you cutaneously. I saved your lives. I believe the words you are searching for are "thank" and "you".' Felicity cleared her throat. 

'Okay. Assuming this is all some part of a brilliant double-double cross or triple cross... I'm losing count, your master plan has one major flaw, since we're still chained in a dungeon.' 

'Patience, Miss Smoak,' Malcolm chided. 'All we have to do is wait.' 

'Wait for what?' Laurel asked. 

'The thunder,' he replied as the sound of thunder cracked overhead, outside of Nanda Parbat. Moments later, a reddish-orange flash appeared in front of the dungeon. 

'Hi, you guys!' Barry said cheerfully. 'Wow! This is like, a real dungeon.' 

'Barry!' Felicity replied back, just as cheerfully. 

'Thank you, Felicity. You just outed my identity to a super villain. No offence.' 

'None taken,' Malcolm said, pulling himself to his feet.

'Okay, yeah, can we cut the fun greetings and get us out of here?' I asked. 

'Okay. Stand back,' he said. We moved back a few paces. Rubbing together his hands, his palms began to vibrate until the glass shattered and he had freed us from the dungeon. 

We burst into the armoury moments later, with Barry's help. We weren't sure where Tatsu was, but we thought she could probably catch up. As we all searched for weapons, Diggle spoke. 

'Excellent. How many assassins, do you figure?' 

'Uh, none,' Barry replied. 'They're all taking a little nappy time.' Felicity walked up to Barry and I overheard snatches of their conversation, although I was more preoccupied with finding weapons. Specifically, my weapons. I found my belt of knives and pulled it on and with the holsters on my suit, I slipped in my remaining ones very carefully into each, while the rest of the team was busy gathering their weapons: Diggle with his pistols, Ray with the ATOM suit, and Malcolm with his Dark Archer getup with the bow and arrows. When we had all found our weapons, Barry turned to us. 'I'm sure Oliver's got this.'