A Pointed Journey (Book 1 Arrow/SPN Crossover)

Island Remembrances

Chapter 3 Island Remembrances

Oliver stayed slumped against the tree trying to process what he had just seen and he found the more he replayed it in his mind the less it made sense. He did know one thing though, he was too preoccupied to do any more good here. He had gotten the license plate of the car in front of the house, out of habit he memorized plates. He'd have Felicity run it through the traffic cameras and see if they could figure out where the car went.

He headed back to where he had parked the bike and by some small miracle it was still there. Maybe all the thieves were too spooked to steal tonight. He hopped back on the bike and headed back to the club hoping the drive back would help him focus and clear his head. Traffic was light this time of night in The Glades and his mind drifted, as it often did, back to Shado and the island.

He remembered one day, they were training together. She was helping him with his archery and she started telling him a story about a Chinese god, Houyi, the god of archery. The story went that there were ten Sun birds and each day a bird would be pulled on a carriage and travel around the world bringing light to the people and the crops. One day the birds tired of this and decided to fly all at the same time, this caused great devastation as the crops burned and withered and the people were scared and dying because the days lasted so long. The God of the Eastern Heaven called to Houyi to come and scare the birds into behaving again by threatening them with his bow and arrow. When Houyi saw what had become of earth and the animals and people he grew angry and instead of scaring the birds, he started shooting them out of the sky. The Emperor saw what was happening and beseeched Houyi to stop before he killed the last one. Houyi came to his senses and that last bird never again diverted from his appointed rounds. The God of the Eastern Heaven was devastated at the loss of the birds as they were his children and so stripped Houyi of his immortality saying that if he cared that much about humans that he was willing to kill all the Sun Birds he could live among them.

At the time Oliver didn't understand the meaning of the story. He thought the God of the Eastern Heaven was overreacting. Since returning home though the story seemed to hold more meaning for him. After all, he was attacking people that were acting irresponsibly and destroying his city and it seemed that although in doing so he was saving many lives, it was costing him dearly. His father's list and dying wish that he punish those who his father had been working with to destroy the city was very similar to the God requesting Houyi's aid. Oliver remembered how much anger he had felt toward those people on the list when he first arrived and had seen how bad things had gotten in Starling City.

Shado had carved Oliver a little figure of an archer on horse. She said it symbolized Houyi and it may help guide him in his aim and maybe even protect him she had even carved a little prayer onto the figure. Eventually he figured out how to make a necklace out of it and during his time on the island had worn it often. Shado had then told him about demons and dark things in Chinese lore as a way to pass the time, once again he had dismissed the stories back then, now however he wasn't so sure. What he had seen that night wasn't normal and he had no reference point where to start to figure out what was going on, other than Shado's stories.

He arrived at the back entrance to the club, pulled the bike next to the back door, typed in the keycode and entered into the club. It was still early for a Saturday night and the club was pretty packed. He could see on the monitors that Thea was serving drinks and mingling with guests. He felt a flash of pride at his sister and how she had grown in the last few months. He walked further into his base of operations and almost tripped over Felicity. She was laying on the ground, flat on her back in obvious pain.

"Felicity! What happened? Are you ok?" He immediately started looking for blood or some other injury.

"Don't touch me! Ow...umm. I'm ok really. Just don't move me." An embarrassed look crossed her face for a brief moment, then the pain returned to her features. He was relieved she was talking and not bleeding but he was concerned as to why she was telling him not to move her.