Arrow to the Heart {4}

Chapter 22

Donna protectively steps in front of Lydia and angrily says, "Get the hell out of here." Lydia gets in front of her mom and says, "Mom, stop." Curtis gets in front of them and Darhk flings Curtis away and Curtis goes flying across the room. Lydia says, "Oh, my God, Curtis! Mom, stand behind me." Darhk says, "This is your mother? Oh, goodie." Darhk forces Donna into his hand and he chokes her. Darhk says, "Persuading you to help me is going to be easier than I thought." Lydia has tears in her eyes and says, "Helping you do what? Your underground city's already been destroyed." Darhk says, "I'm still going forward." Lydia says, "So, what, you kill my mother if I don't help you destroy the world? Newsflash-- my mother lives in the world." Darhk says, "Dying instantaneously in nuclear fire, rather painless, and then there's having your life force slowly sucked out like this." A tear rolls down Lydia's cheek and she says, "Mom!" As Darhk sucks the life out of her mom, Darhk says, "What's it going to be, Ms. Lance?" Then Green Arrow crashes into the room and along with Spartan. Darhk lets go of Donna and Lydia rushes over to her mom. Darhk looks at Green Arrow and says, "Look. I know you don't live here anymore, but those were nice windows." Green Arrow fires a bow and Darhk stops it, and he says, "So unoriginal." The arrow explodes and it does nothing to Darhk. Darhk says, "I am now powered by the deaths of tens of thousands of souls. There is nothing you can do to stop me... Or should I say, 'us.'" The explosion disappears and Ghost come charging in and firing. Lydia grabs her mom and takes her into the kitchen, and she says, "Stay here." Lydia leaves before her mom can protest and Lydia grabs her guns underneath the table and starts firing at the Ghosts. Once Lydia's out of bullets she starts doing hand-to-hand combat to the Ghosts and her mom watches in awe. Once the Ghosts are defeated, Darhk looks at Lydia and as he walks towards her, Green Arrow jumps down from the balcony about to attack Darhk, when Darhk stops him and almost sucks the life out of Green Arrow, when Speedy appears with Darhk's daughter and she says, "Stop!" Speedy as an arrow up to Darhk's daughter's neck and she continues to say, "You let them go, or I kill your daughter. Do you think I'm bluffing?" Darhk then let's go of Green Arrow and Darhk says, "Let my daughter go." Speedy let's go of Darhk's daughter and she runs into her dad's arms. Darhk says, "It's okay, sweetheart. Everything's going to be all right." One of the Ghosts tosses a smoke bomb it goes off and Darhk disappears. Lydia rushes back over to her mom and says, "Are you okay?" Donna looks at Lydia with a proud smile and she says, "Yeah, baby, you kicked ass." Lydia chuckles and says, "Thanks." Green Arrow looks at a knocked-out Curtis and says, "Oh, my God!" Green Arrow rushes over to Curtis and checks for his pulse. Lydia rushes over to the computer set up and she says, "Oh, God. He took it. It's gone." Speedy says, "What's gone?" Lydia says, "The laptop with the anti-Rubicon program." Spartan says, "If Darhk has that..." Lydia says, "He can launch all of the world's nuclear missiles." Later, the team rushes into the bunker with Oliver and Diggle carrying a wounded Curtis. The guys put Curtis onto a table and Diggle says, "Looks like internal bleeding. Possibly broken ribs. Hemothorax. We have to relieve the pressure. Thea." Oliver looks at a worried Lydia and he says, "Lydia, we need you at your station. We have to stop Rubicon." Lydia nods and rushes over to the computer while Diggle handles Curtis. Oliver walks over to Lydia and Lydia says, "How is he?" Oliver says, "Well, he's stable. John said the next 30 minutes should tell us..." Lydia says, "Whether or not he'll make it?" Oliver says, "Yeah." Lydia says, "Hey, can I ask you something? I know it might not be the best time. Back at my place Darhk's magic, it worked on you. I thought--" Oliver cuts Lydia off and says, "You thought I found a way to stop it. That was before he grew so powerful. It was the-- the hope you had in me was able to counteract his magic." Lydia softly says, "And now my hope's not enough." Oliver says, "So, where are we?" Lydia says, "Uh, good news, bad news time. Good news is, is that Darhk hasn't launches the nukes yet. I think his hacker's still trying to break out failsafe's." Oliver says, "Okay, and the bad news?" Lydia says, "Well, the bad news is that with Rubicon offline, there is nothing for me to hack into." Oliver says, "Right, but your laptop has to have a GPS--" Lydia cuts Oliver off and says, "Yeah." Oliver says, "I'm sure that you've already started to try and do that." Lydia says, "Yeah." The elevator doors open and Lyla walks in and says, "I thought you'd shut Rubicon down." Oliver says, "Lydia is working on locating the laptop." Diggle looks at Lyla and says, "Where's Sara?" Lyla says, "She's fine. She's in an ARGUS bunker in Coast City. With Darhk's anti-nuke bunker destroyed, why is he moving forward with Genesis?" Oliver says, "Machin killed his wife." Lydia says, "Well, his daughter still lives in this world. He must know that." Oliver says, "He knows, he just doesn't care. He's lost all hope." Diggle says, "Yeah, just like all of us." Thea says, "Wait. I thought he was the cynic." Oliver says, "It's not like John doesn't have a point, Thea." Thea says, "We are not finished yet." Lydia says, "The key word being 'yet.' I got a 20 on the laptop. Downtown, abandoned office building." Oliver says, "Let's move." Later, the team's at the location and Green Arrow says, "Overwatch, there's no one here." Overwatch says, "That's impossible. You're right on top of the GPS signal." Lydia then sees a bunch of missiles launching and Green Arrow says, "Overwatch." Overwatch says, "I see it. Just over 15,000 ballistic missiles, and they all just launched." Green Arrow says, "How much time do we have?" Overwatch says, "Two hours. Maybe less." Later, Lyla's on the phone with the DOD and she says, "Confirmed. 15,434 birds in the air. We need to set defense condition one and get the president down to the PEOC." The team walks in, and Oliver says, "Lydia." Lydia says, "He's got me completely locked out." Thea says, "Okay, how many missiles are there?" Lyla says, "DOD's working on it, but the targets are worldwide." Oliver says, "You said that we have two hours. " Lydia says, "The world has two hours, but I'm tracking a minute ICBM heading straight for Star City. It just launched out of warren air force base in Colorado." Thea says, "Okay, well, that's close." Lydia says, "Which means we only have 45 minutes." Later, Lance walks in and he says, "All right, where's the fire?" Lydia walks up to her dad and hands him an address. Her dad says, "What's this?" Lydia says, "The safest place within 100 miles to survive a nuclear attack. Based on wind patterns--" Her dad cuts her off and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. What are you talking about?" Lydia says, "The world is going to end in two hours. I need you and my mom there. Can you do that?" Her dad softly says, "Yeah, I will." As Lydia let's go of her dad's hand, her dad pulls her in for a hug and says, "I love you, baby. I love you so much." Lydia hugs her dad back and she says, "I love you, too." Her dad kisses the top of her head savoring this moment. Later, Lyla sent ARGUS agents where Darhk is and an ARGUS agent says, "Asault team sledgehammer has engaged target. Switching you to their feed now." They hear gunfire and painful screams, and Lydia winces. They then just hear static knowing the whole team's dead and Lyla says, "Turn it off." Lydia turns it off. Lyla walks away and Diggle walks after her. Thea says, "Those missiles hit, and he's going to become even stronger, isn't he?" Oliver says, "He already is with the souls of all of those ARGUS agents that he just killed." Lydia says, "Wait. I'm in. I'm through Cooper's firewalls." Oliver says, "Well, shut it down." Lydia says, "That's what I'm trying to--" Lydia gets cut offed by Ghosts coming in and shooting up the place. Lydia, Oliver, and Thea duck under the table. Oliver then goes to get his bow, while Thea goes to attack the Ghosts head on. Lydia crawls from under the table and goes over to where her suit is and grabs her swords. Ghosts start coming at her and she fights them off with her swords, slashing at them until their down. The bunker's trashed and the tv's on with the news. Bethany Snow says, "With Mayor Adams missing and presumed dead, deputy mayor Remz called for calm in the wake of unconfirmed reports that a nuclear attack on our city is imminent. Newly assigned police Captain Frank Pike asks..." Diggle ays, "Just when things could get any worse." Oliver says, "Is everyone all right?" Lydia looks over to see Laurel's suit knocked down and she walks over to it and picks it up and says, "No." Oliver says, "How much time do we have?" Lydia says, "I think 27 minutes. It's kind of hard to tell now." Thea, Diggle, and Lyla walk away. Oliver says, "I wonder what Laurel would have thought of all this." Lydia says, "Well, she probably would have said something about finding a solution no matter what." Oliver says, "Yeah. She is always stubborn like that. Too bad she would have been wrong this time." Lydia softly says, "Hey, come on. We can't just lose all hope here." Oliver says, "I just can't believe that I thought that I'd be the one to unite this city while Damien Darhk was trying to kill it. That was arrogant. It was the same arrogance that made me feel like I could be the Green Arrow without descending into darkness. Bottom line, it was foolish." Lydia says, "You don't believe that." Oliver says, "I didn't believe that... until Laurel died." Lydia softly says, "I thought you weren't blaming yourself for her death anymore." Oliver says, "We made a decision to come back here. I tried to do things differently, and for a time, I did. And now I am left here to wonder if I hadn't, would Laurel still be alive?" Oliver looks over to see Curtis up and he says, "Curtis. You shouldn't be up." Oliver walks over to Curtis and Lydia thinks about Oliver's words thoughtfully. Later, Lydia, Diggle, Lyla, Thea, Curtis, and Malcom are watching Oliver on tv stand on top of car giving a speech to the city. Oliver says, "I know what you're feeling right now. I'm feeling it, too, the sense of-- of helplessness, of hopelessness. I don't even know how we even begin to process what might happen to us right now, but there are a few things that I do know. I know that this city has been through tough times before, and we have pulled through. We survived the undertaking. We survived the siege. We survived the outbreak, and somehow, someway, we will survive this. A friend of mine told me that living in Star City takes a special kind of tenacity, but we do live here, because this is our home. This is our home! It is our friend, our family, our lives, and we will not-- we will not throw those precious gifts away by descending into chaos. We will look to each other for hope. We will cling to each other for strength, and if we do that, no matter what happens, then we call stand here united." The team sees the missile in Star City and Thea says, "Oh, my God. It's here." Curtis says, "That's terrifying... And also, kind of great." Malcom says, "I think you got hit on the head harder than you realize." Lydia says, "No, no, he's right. I can't hack this system." Curtis says, "But if the nuke gets close enough, which it is..." Lydia says, "We could use the line-of-sight attack on the missile itself and disarm it." Later, Lydia and Curtis are on the roof and Lydia looks down at her tablet and says, "Still not getting a signal. Are you sure you're pointing that thing at the nuke?" Curtis says, "It's pretty hard to miss, Lydia." Lydia says, "Okay, okay, okay. I'm just going--oh! Whatever you changed, don't change it again. It's working. I got a signal." Curtis says, "I didn't change anything!" Lydia says, "Nukes are designed to detonate 100 feet above their actual target. I'm uploading a GPS spoof, so it thinks it's already detonated." Curtis says, "Great... But, um, it's still heading straight for us." Lydia says, "Just keep pointing the IR receiver at the thingy." Curtis says, "You know, I have perfect confidence in your abilities." Lydia says, "Thank you." Curtis says, "But just in case, working with you and the rest of the team has been the highlight of my professional career and my entire life, and--and I can't think of any better way for it to end than--" Lydia cuts Curtis off and says, "Curtis, as sweet as this is, the talking's really not helping." Lydia diverts the missile from hitting them and Lydia says, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, it worked!" Later, Lydia and Curtis are back in the bunker and Thea says, "Whatever you guys just did was incredible." Lydia says, "We only took down one nuke. We still have 15,433 to go, give or take. The code to the line-of-sight hack, can you distro it to everybody?" Lydia hands a drive to Lyla and Lyla says, "I'm on it." Lyla walks away. Diggle says, "All right, that's one. 1 nuke in 15,000. The chances of us getting them all is--" Curtis cuts Diggle off and says, "1 in 375 million." Malcom says, "Well, we need to find Darhk's hacker and shut down Rubicon at the source." Lydia says, "When we disarmed the nuke, we gained access to its onboard computer and cloned its hard drive remotely." Curtis says, "Then we ran a back trace to determine the source of the initial launch signal." Lydia says, "He's holed up in a warehouse on the corner of Cheswold and Crombie." Oliver walks in and says, "All right. Let's go after him." Malcom looks at Oliver and says, "That was quite a speech, Oliver. It made me long for a voting booth." Oliver looks at Malcom and says, "You and Thea need to back up Lydia and Curtis while they deal with Seldon." Thea looks at Oliver and says, "Hey, what are you going to do?" Oliver says, "I'm going to City Hall." Diggle says, "Oliver, you yourself said going after Darhk is a suicide mission." Oliver says, "Well, John, I'm not going to die tonight." Diggle says, "Well, let me go with you, back you up." Oliver says, "If things go bad, I need you to back the city up." Diggle says, "Oliver, things aren't going to go bad. Your speech... inspired all of us, too." Oliver says, "Let's move." Later, half the team's at Cooper's location and a Ghost spots them and starts shooting at them. Curtis says, "Yeah, it looks like the hacker's here." Malcom fights them off along with Speedy. Lydia and Curtis rush into the room with Speedy and Malcom behind them and they find Cooper typing on the computer with a gunshot wound and bloody fingers from typing too long. Curtis says, "Oh, my God." Lydia says, "Cooper." Cooper looks at Lydia and weakly says, "Hey, Lydia. How are you doing?" Lydia says, "Did Darhk shoot you?" Cooper says, "Yep. He's moving the bullet closer and closer to my spine. I said it hurt so bad; I'd do anything to make him stop." Curtis says, "Like blow up the planet?" Cooper says, "Sorry, I'm a selfish bastard, but she knew that already." Lydia says, "I need a moment alone with him." Curtis says, "Lydia, I don't think right--" Lydia cuts Curtis off and says, "Now." Everyone walks away. Cooper says, "I'm sorry, Lydia. I know I should be strong enough to pull myself away from this keyboard, but I think we both know that I'm not." Lydia says, "You are." Cooper says, "He's powerful. He's so powerful, and if I stop Rubicon, he'll know. And he'll kill me in the most painful way possible." Lydia says, "You're better than this, Cooper. You're stronger than this. You can still do the right thing. You can still be the man that I loved." Cooper says, "I haven't been that guy in a long time." Lydia says, "Remember what we wanted to do 7 years ago in that cockroach-infested dorm room?" Cooper has tears in his eyes, and he smiles, "Save the world." Lydia softly says, "Now's your chance." Cooper then let's go of the keyboard. Cooper stands up and he yells and falls to the ground dead and a tear rolls down Lydia's cheek knowing Darhk killed Cooper. Lydia says, "I'm sorry, Cooper." Lydia sits down at the computer and gets to work shutting down Rubicon. Everyone rushes back into the room, and they look at Cooper on the ground. Thea says, "What the hell happened?" Lydia says, "Darhk. We have 3 minutes to take down 15,000 nukes." Malcom says, "Why isn't this a simple matter of flicking off a switch?" Lydia says, "Rubicon has safeguards for their safeguards. I can't disarm a warhead." Curtis says, "Then don't." Thea says, "I don't think you understand how this works." Curtis says, "It's not the warheads. It's just the missile. If we invert their horizons..." Lydia says, "They'll explode in space." Later, after beating Darhk, the team's in the bunker and Lydia's sitting down and says, "It's going to take forever to clean this place up." Lance says, "Well, I wish you guys the best of luck with that." Lydia says, "You going home to my mama?" Lance says, "Uh, yeah, to pack. We're leaving town for a while." Thea says, "Wait, why?" Lance says, "IAB reached out. My suspension is no longer a suspension, but, uh, it's funny, you know, because, you know, being a cop's all I ever wanted, but when I got that call, I didn't feel a thing. All I could think about was Laurel, you know? But then you got her justice, Oliver, and you got me some closure, and I am never going to forget that." Lance looks at Lydia, gives her cheek a kiss, and says, "I love you, baby. You be safe." Lydia nods with a soft smile. Lance walks away and Thea says, "Well, this is going to make me feel like I'm piling on..." Lydia says, "What do you mean?" Thea says, "Well, I... I jumped straight out of the Lazarus pit right into this, into-- to Speedy, but, um, I've just been wondering if this is even who I really am, and then I threatened to kill a little girl, and I-- I realized I'm my father's daughter, so I-- I thought about Laurel and-- and what she'd say to me if she were here. I think she'd tell me to get out... before I lost too much of myself. I'm sorry, Ollie." Oliver softly says, "Hey. Come here." Oliver brings Thea in for a hug and continues to say, "You don't have to apologize to me, ever." Thea pulls away from the hug and softly smiles at Lydia and Diggle and she walks away. Lydia says, "Well, it looks like it's just the 3 of us. Team Arrow, the original team. Up top." Lydia has her hand up and Diggle high-fives Lydia and Lydia softly smiles and walks away.

Later, Lydia's at Laurel's grave with Oliver and Oliver says, "I mean, I know that it's not what... you would have wanted, me killing Darhk, but you were always better than me, Laurel." Lydia softly says, "You, okay?" Oliver says, "No. It's Thea and John." Lydia says, "Them leaving has to be a blow." Oliver says, "And they're leaving because of their own personal darkness. I just can't help but think that maybe they were infected by mine." Lydia says, "Maybe. Like you said, maybe you can't become a hero without succumbing to the darkness even a little bit, but you were able to defeat Darhk by giving the city its hope back." Oliver says, "You're saying it's not black and white?" Lydia says, "I'm saying that there is a man who killed Darhk in cold blood, and that same man stood on top of a car and gave the city its hope back. What you're feeling isn't darkness. It's a schism. You're at war with two sides of yourself." Oliver's phone rings and he says, "I have take this. Are you going to be okay here?" Lydia softly smiles and says, "Yeah. Go." Oliver walks away. Lydia sighs and looks at Laurel's grave and she softly says, "Hey, sis, I'm going to be strong for you and I just want you to know that I love you and that Oliver finally got the justice that you deserve." Later, Lydia walks into the bunker to find Oliver standing over where the cases of suits are and he looks at her surprised she's here and he says, "I didn't know you'd be here." Lydia says, "You thought I was leaving, too? Not a chance."

Note: Well, that's a wrap on season 4. I hopeyou enjoyed reading and I can't wait for you guys to read season 5.