Issue 1: "From All Sides"

They sat in the small kitchenette of Ollie’s efficiency apartment. Eddie Fyers was drinking a beer, Ollie was drinking coffee.

“What the hell is this place, anyway?” Eddie asked, looking around in disgust at the rundown living conditions. “What happened to your deluxe apartment in the sky?”

Ollie sipped his coffee. “I traded it for some good times. Let’s get back on subject here, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, but man, you’ve either really let yourself go, or you’ve taken this Robin Hood thing to a whole new level.”

“Focus, pal; you’ve got a daughter?”

Eddie sat the empty beer bottle down and helped himself to another one, leaning against the sink. “Hard to believe, ain’t it? I honestly didn’t know myself until a few months ago. Got a letter from her mother, a letter she had sent me over a year ago. She filled me in on the whole thing. Seems she really didn’t want me to know, but after Mia went missing and the police couldn’t find her, she turned to me. Took her a while too; I’m not the most stationary guy.”

“How old?”

“Fifteen,” Eddie said. “There’s more, too. She’s been on the street for at least the last seven months. That’s how long it took the letter to get to me. She was living in Opal City, with her mother, but I guess they had a huge fight and she just up and left. I’ve been tracking her, and finally got some kids to open up. She headed west, Coast City, first, and now here in Star.”

“Any idea where, in the city, she might be?”

“One of the kids that I talked to in Coast City said that she hooked up with some other loners, three other young girls who were heading here because they had heard of an organization that helped young women on their own. He said it was called The Sanctuary for the Young.”

“Fair enough. Well, there are a few places we can start looking. A couple of years ago, Roy asked for my help searching for a lost girl; some of the kids in Vegas told us the areas that these kids hang out in, here in Star City. We can start there, but I have to warn you, it’s not for the squeamish.”

“When have I ever been squeamish about anything,” Eddie snorted as he downed his second beer.

“So now you want to tell me why an international terrorist organization is after you?”

“You mean Kobra? No idea. They started chasing me in Coast City as well. I had a run in with them several years ago, in Madrid, but that was ancient history.”

“Alright, and the CIA, you want to tell me why they want you?”

“Nope.”

“Dammit Eddie, you know I’ll help you, but you gotta let me in, tell me what’s going on. We’re talking about the CIA!”

“I can’t, Ollie… I just can’t. You’re gonna have to trust me on this one.”

“Like you told me to trust you with those two call girls in Tijuana?”

“Hey, we had a great time!” Eddie said in his own defense.

“Yeah, and then I spent the next six weeks getting shots and scratching places I didn’t want to be scratching.”

“So is this palace of yours a one bedroom or a two bedroom?”

Ollie rolled his eyes, used to Eddie’s sudden changes of direction in conversation. “One bedroom… mine. You can have the guest couch. Might as well get a little shut eye, it’ll be dark in a few hours, and then we can head out; try and find this place of yours.

Twenty minutes later, Ollie lay in his bed, listening to his old friend already snoring. Eddie Fyers had a kid! A fifteen year old kid! Just the idea of that made him shudder. He fell asleep with that thought on his mind.

“You going to sleep all night, too,” Eddie Fyers asked as he kicked the side of the bed. “Sun’s down. Time for us to go to work, if you think you can swing it.”

Ollie had jumped up startled at the sudden voice in his room, but then collapsed down on the bed again when he remembered his house guest.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Just give me a second to get changed.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ollie was ready to go and walked out of the bedroom, bow slung over his shoulder, arrows in his quiver, and into the kitchen just in time to see Eddie loading a new clip into his automatic.

“You know my rule, no guns!” Ollie barked, his anger rising quickly.

Eddie glared at him, “Fine, got a rule of my own, no arrows.”

“Arrows don’t necessarily kill,” Ollie snapped back.

“Neither do guns,” Eddie replied quickly.

They stood there staring at each other. Finally, Ollie broke the stare down. “Fine, but no killing.”

“Can’t promise you that a hundred percent, pal, but I’ll see what I can do,” Eddie said as he walked out onto the fire escape.

“Same old Eddie, still pissing me off,” Ollie mumbled as he followed out the window.

Green Arrow and Eddie walked the streets that Ollie hadn’t seen in nearly two years. The memory of that case came flooding back into his mind, and his stomach rolled as he thought of the outcome of it. Kids were being taken off the streets of cities like Vegas, Gotham, and his city, for child pornography. They had found the culprit, a very wealthy man, but before they could bring him in, he had been killed by his own personal bodyguard, a villain known as Skorpio.

They began to question some of the kids, the ones who were willing to talk, but the description and picture that they had shown of Mia was getting them nowhere; that was, until they heard a shout from behind them.

“Green Arrow! Hey, Green Arrow, is that you?”

They both turned to see a young man of about eighteen running towards them. As he drew closer, Ollie couldn’t help but think that he had seen this kid somewhere before.

“I thought that was you. You don’t recognize me, do you,” the kid said with a grin.

“Kind of. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, in Vegas. I was living on the streets and you and your friends were searching for that girl. I was being forced into a car and you stopped the guys, saved my life. I asked you for money in return for information on the girl.”

Ollie snapped his fingers. “Yeah, I remember you now! What are you doing here in Star City?”

The young man smiled. “Working, actually. Helping kids like me to try and get off the streets. I took the card you gave me and went to the address. They were really helpful there; it turned my life around. I even finished high school and I’ve started college here in town while working for Queen Enterprises. Well, it used to be Queen Enterprises, before LexCorp bought them out. I never thought I’d ever see you again, but I’m glad I did. I’ve always wanted to thank you… for saving my life.”

Green Arrow couldn’t help but beam. These were moments that were very rare and way too far between the tragedies and the losses. He nodded to the young man, afraid to speak at the moment. They had lost the girl they had been looking for on that case; they had found her dead of a drug overdose. Now, though, knowing that the dirty teenage kid with the torn jeans and filthy t-shirt, was now standing before him in a dress down shirt and khaki pants, it seemed to make the loss of that case just a little easier to handle. Ollie made a mental note to make sure he told Roy this story.

“Well,” the young man said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “that’s all I really wanted to say. I’ll never forget what you did for me… thanks.”

He turned to walk away, but Eddie called him back. He handed the young man a picture of his daughter. “You seen her around here, by any chance?”

He examined the picture for a minute and then shook his head. “Sorry, she’s not one of my kids, and I haven’t seen her on the streets, but I’ll be happy to keep a look out for her.”

“What about a place called ‘The Sanctuary of the Young’?” Green Arrow asked, finally able to speak again.

The young man turned up his nose. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that place. If she’s there, she’s not in a good place at all.”

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked impatiently.

“Well, nothing has ever been proven, but I’ve heard that the place is a front. It’s a scam to lure young kids in so they can use them for child labor, child porn, or selling on the black market. The Feds have raided the place several times on anonymous tips, but they haven’t been able to find any proof. The guy who runs it now is a pretty shifty character, but then again, so was his brother, the one who started it.”

“You know his name?” Arrow asked.

“Yeah, everybody knows his name around here: Tai Lee.”

Green Arrow’s face turned red and his eyes blazed. “His brother was Jong Lee?”

The young man nodded. “Yep, the guy you and your friends busted. He inherited all of his brother’s legal businesses and probably the illegal ones as well.”

“Thanks,” Ollie said, extending his hand.

The guy grabbed it and squeezed it as he shook it vigorously, “No, thank you, sir! I will always be in your debt. I hope you find this girl, and that she’s alright,” he said soberly and then turned and headed back down the street.

“You want to fill me in?” Eddie asked, or demanded by the tone of his voice.

“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it,” Ollie sighed and told his friend the entire story that led up to the death of the girl that Jong Lee had first gotten addicted to drugs, and then forced to make porn movies.

“So his brother has picked up where he left off,” Eddie growled as he began to pace. “Damn!”

“Calm down, Eddie, we don’t know anything, yet. First thing we need to do is go check this place…”

Before he had time to finish the sentence, they both heard the explosion. It had come from several blocks to the east of them.

“What the hell was that?” Eddie said, drawing his gun, instinctively.

Green Arrow grabbed a shaft and nocked it against his bow, firing up and over the side of the building, watching the rope follow along its path. A grapple hook came out as it went over the edge and secured itself into the brick. Green Arrow tugged on it a couple of times.

“Let’s find out,” he said as he began to climb quickly up the side of the building.

Eddie followed close behind, and soon they were on the roof. They ran to the other side to see black smoke billowing from several blocks away.

“What’s over there that’s important?”

Ollie thought about it for a moment and then his eyes widened. “The hospital, come on!” he shouted as he leapt on to the next rooftop, Eddie leaping right after him.

Green Arrow considered himself and Eddie lucky that they were in the part of town where all the buildings seemed to run together. It made getting to the hospital much quicker. The last building he had to jump was the longest stretch, and the drop was seven stories. He did it without even thinking, flying through the air and landing on his feet. He turned to look and watched as his buddy did the same thing, but came up a tad short.

Eddie grabbed the side of the last building with the tips of his fingers. “Son of a bitch! A little help here!”

Ollie ran up to him and pulled him up and over. They both sat there panting for a second.

“You’re getting old,” Ollie finally said when he caught his breath.

“Hello, pot, my name is kettle,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, but hanging around with you always makes me feel younger.”

“Up yours,” Eddie shot back and stood up. “Now what the hell is going on?”

They ran to the other side of the building and looked down to see that the bottom three floors of the hospital were on fire, the windows had all been shattered, and bodies were already strewn through the street. They could hear sirens in the distance.

“You stay here,” Ollie said. “You’re wanted, and this would not be a good time for you to play hero.”

“The hell with that,” Eddie scoffed. “Wanted or not, those people need my help.”

“Neither one of you are going anywhere,” a voice from behind them said.
They both whirled around, Eddie drawing his gun and Green Arrow his bow and arrow. They found themselves facing over a dozen Kobra agents.

“Holy crap! You did this, didn’t you?” Ollie said, the anger rising up in him. “You set those bombs in hope that it would draw us out.”

“Not you so much as Mr. Fyers here,” the Naga in charge said. “Now lower your weapon, we don’t want you hurt.”

“I ain’t lowering nothing,” Arrow snapped. “Guess you’re going to have to try and hurt me.”

“I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to Mr. Fyers. We need him alive, you see. You, on the other hand, we plan on killing.”

Green Arrow smirked. “Hate to break this to you, but the odds are still in our favor from where I’m standing.”

The Naga snapped his fingers and suddenly another dozen men seemed to appear from nowhere. They were all dressed in black, a small symbol of a black adder on each of their skintight costumes. Many of them were carrying nunchucks and throwing stars. They stood poised.

“I don’t think we’re standing in the same spot anymore,” Eddie mumbled.