Night settled over Starling City with heavy clouds and a restless wind. The city felt different tonight—colder, sharper, uneasy. Kharon sensed it immediately. Something whispered through the rooftops, not the familiar hum of criminals or the shifting of alley shadows. This was precise. Methodical. Wrong.
He crouched on the edge of a high-rise above the Glades, unmoving, eyes narrowed. Below, flashing blue lights painted the street as police swarmed around a warehouse. Paramedics wheeled out bodies—three men, all with deep, clean cuts that severed arteries with surgical precision.
League precision.
Kharon knew that signature.
He had carved it into traitors himself.
But none of his blows had been dealt tonight.
Someone else was here.
Someone trained.
Someone dangerous.
And someone who never should have been.
Kharon descended the side of the building silently, scaling metal fire escapes and landing in shadowed alleys without sound. When he reached the perimeter of the police cordon, he slipped behind a stack of crates, unseen.
He listened.
Captain Lance's voice carried through the commotion. "These cuts—this isn't normal street violence. These men were executed."
A rookie officer shuddered. "By who?"
Kharon already knew.
A rogue.
A traitor.
And worse—a thief.
He moved deeper into the alley, reaching a broken window. He stepped inside the warehouse and instantly sensed it: a faint hum of energy in the air, ancient and cold. He approached the center of the room.
There, painted in blood, was a symbol.
A curved line.
A downward slash.
A circle encasing both.
Kharon froze.
He knew that symbol.
It belonged to the Order of the Crescent Oath, a splinter sect of the League that had been purged decades ago. They had once guarded relics from Nanda Parbat's earliest centuries.
Relics like the one that was stolen long ago…
Relics like the one he once recovered in his first mission outside the League.
Kharon closed his eyes briefly.
His past was returning to Starling City.
FLASHBACK — YEARS AGO
The desert winds howled across the ruins of the old monastery. Sand drifted against broken stone pillars etched with ancient markings. A teenage Kharon—thirteen, fierce, silent, deadly—walked barefoot across the hot sand.
Ra's stood behind him, cloak billowing in the wind.
"This is your first mission beyond our walls," Ra's said. "Do not disappoint me."
Kharon bowed his head slightly. "I will not."
"The archivist betrayed us," Ra's said. "He stole a relic of great importance. A blade forged from the first metal taken from our mountains. Find him."
Kharon nodded.
Ra's placed a hand on his shoulder, grip firm. "The outside world is chaotic. Loud. Weak. Do not let it shape you. You shape it."
"Yes, Demon's Head."
Ra's released him. "Go."
Kharon vanished into the desert.
Hours later, he arrived at an abandoned outpost. Inside, he found torn documents, scattered scrolls, and empty crates. The traitor had been here.
A sound—soft, almost nothing—made Kharon spin.
The archivist lunged.
The duel was fast and violent. The archivist was older, stronger, more experienced. But Kharon adapted quickly. His movements were sharp, calculating. He forced the archivist back with strikes aimed at joints, tendons, arteries.
The archivist drew the stolen relic—a small curved blade with ancient inscriptions glowing faintly with power.
"You're too late, boy," he spat. "The Order of the Crescent Oath rises again."
"No," Kharon said coldly.
He killed the man with one clean strike.
As the archivist fell, something tumbled from his coat pocket—a folded piece of paper.
Kharon picked it up, eyes narrowing.
It was a photograph.
A man and a woman—Robert and Moira Queen.
Behind them, a young Oliver Queen, smiling.
Kharon stared at the image without understanding why it stirred something deep inside him.
He pocketed it.
He returned the relic to Ra's without telling anyone what else he had found.
Kharon said only, "The traitor is dead."
Ra's nodded. "And the relic?"
"Recovered."
Ra's smiled faintly. "Good. You have proven yourself."
The name Kharon became legend that day.
PRESENT DAY
Kharon opened his eyes inside the warehouse. The symbols on the floor matched the ones he had seen in the desert. Someone was resurrecting the Crescent Oath.
He heard footsteps.
He vanished just as Nyssa entered the warehouse through a shattered window, cloak brushing the ground.
Her posture was sharp, predatory, angry.
Not for Oliver.
Not for the city.
But for the League.
Nyssa surveyed the bodies with disgust. "These cuts… someone mimics the League."
A second assassin—her subordinate—dropped down behind her. "Lady Nyssa, the police believe a gang massacre occurred. They suspect nothing."
"They are blind," she said. "These marks are deliberate. Whoever did this defies the League's law."
Kharon watched from the rafters, unseen.
The subordinate pointed at the bloody symbol. "Could the Crescent Oath return?"
"No," Nyssa snapped. "They are dead."
Kharon remained perfectly still.
They were not.
The subordinate hesitated. "Should we report this to the Demon's Head?"
Nyssa glared at the symbol. "Yes. But I want the body of whoever did this. No imitator survives."
Kharon's eyes narrowed.
He would need to find the rogue first.
Because whoever used that relic could threaten Oliver's fate.
Nyssa moved deeper into the warehouse. Kharon sensed she would soon detect something she could not unsee. He leaped silently from the rafters, landing without sound.
He touched the blood symbol with his glove and then crushed the evidence under his boot. The symbol smeared into a meaningless stain.
Nyssa spun, alerted by the faint shift of air.
"Who's there?" she demanded, drawing her blade.
Silence.
Kharon stepped back behind a metal pillar and vanished into shadow.
Nyssa's eyes scanned the warehouse. Her muscles tensed. She wasn't easily fooled. Her instincts screamed that someone powerful had been here.
"Show yourself," she growled.
Kharon remained still. Silent. Invisible.
After a long moment, Nyssa lowered her blade slightly but did not relax.
"Someone watches Starling City," she muttered. "And it is not us."
She left the warehouse with her subordinate, not satisfied, not at ease.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Kharon stepped back into the faint light.
He stared at the smeared symbol.
The Crescent Oath had returned.
And with it, his first mission's ghosts.
Kharon tightened his fists.
"No one threatens this city," he said quietly. "Not while he is here."
He meant Oliver.
He meant his brother.
Kharon slipped into the night, ready to hunt.
Destiny had begun to move.