The Night

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's surely not superman...?

Thirty minutes after he had left Thea's side, he appeared in the sky on board the Pilgrimage, the massive skulking vessel shrunk down to the size of a model star destroyer and swooped in through the window of the Queen's lair.

There was movement detected, Thea Queen was very much awake. Or at least that is what it seemed. There was a shadow standing over her bed, a rather sinister looking one at that.

Like a leaf on the wind, the timeship plopped down loudly upon the desk, startling the individual who had been standing over the bed of Thea Queen. The person was wearing mask, a body suit, whoever they were they were making sure they left no evidence behind of their visit.

The masculine form scanned the room with the dotted eyes of the mask he wore, it was a silver mask which contrasted with his dark attire. Just as his sights passed over the ship, he paused and then looked at it again as he watched it powerdown.

"A remote control toy...?" He asked to himself, just loud enough for the Dragon in the room to hear. The man smelled the air and shook his head, "it smells not." He could smell the engine emissions from the ship on the airflow within the room, it was clearly not a toy.

He took a step towards it, brushing his hand behind his back to grab what looked like a pair of blades with a hoop at either end of them. They were made for easy use, and lethal accuracy for slashing or let alone throwing.

"Mmmm..." Thea let out a low moan which attracted the man's attention for a brief moment, raising a weapon ready to attack her should she sit up. Yet she didn't move.

In reality she was awake, she was pretending to be asleep beneath the covers.

Caden was slithering along the ceiling, in his dragon form, watching the man. He could smell the dried blood on the blades. They weren't cleaned, they didn't look like they had ever been clean. Yet, the first thing he noticed about the scent, it was his and about a month's old.

Had the man who killed him in his previous life, have followed him to this one?

Caden flicked his tongue as he took in the man's aura, scent and very being. He was an enemy, and he could sense his killing intent. Yet he couldn't tell who the target was or why he was here. Was he waiting for her to wake up? Or was he waiting for her to roll over?

From what Caden knew from police reports was that his modus operandi was killing people while they were face down. He was likely waiting for Thea Queen to do so.

The question was, how did the man get in here unnoticed? He licked his lips slightly and inhaled a beastly breath which sent shivers down the man's spine.

"The man who killed me in January..." His voice was overlapping demonically, Caden began to laugh. Unlike the people he had killed before, none of them had a personal connection. This, this was making him unnaturally happy to come across the person who killed him. "Oooo..." His voice shook as he dropped down from the ceiling, onto four of his leg-like limbs as he grew to the size of an average Croc.

The man stood there quietly, not facing the person who had called him his killer. The demonic voice was enough to have his hands stiffening around the blade's hilts. He slowly turned his head to the creature. "January... Ah you're that boy," The man turned to fully face the boy, but paused when he saw nothing until he looked down at the creature that was glaring up at him. "What.. Are you?"

The moment he asked that, he noticed he was standing in a pile of ash and blood. He was standing in a spot someone had been killed and recently.

"No, human, who are you?" The dragon spat as he launched himself upward, his eyes giving a gastly glow. As the length of a croc, he wrapped his body around the perpetrator who helplessly thrashed the blades at his skin, which only created sparks and dulled the weapons down.

At closer inspection as he brought his face close up to the murderer's, Caden quickly noticed the miniature emblem of the Quadrant. It was clear he was a lacky of the organized crime group operating across the United States.

"If you kill me here, there will be thousands to rain down up on you!" The man howled desperately as he struggled within the grasp of the serpentine dragon.

The dragoned huffed and scoffed at this plea, "And how would the Quadrant know about your operations? Huh? You killed a fifteen year old.. I'm sure they weren't even involved with whatever your people were doing. You're killing for sport."

The man whined in his throat as he was found out, he had no backing for what he had done, "Don't kill me. I swear, I won't do it again."

"Don't kill you? I mean, you didn't even give me a chance to plea for my own life. And here you are, looming over my girlfriend like a deviant predator..." He coiled tighter around the human man, not bothering to lift his mask. "Even if you promise not to kill again, you already killed one too many times."

Suddenly they vanished, appearing once again twenty kilometers above sea level, they were directly above the core of Starling City. They were mere meters, below, from the ozone layer.

Each gust was like piercing knives on their own to the man's skin, even though he was wearing the skintight suit. The air was so thin that it was unbreathable. His body was going into shock as he was beginning to suffocate.

"Please..." The man pleaded, yet the dragon didn't humor him with a verbal response.

Instead, it uncoiled from his body and let him fall without a chute or any hope of surviving. If he didn't die from the shock, he would die from impact, though there was a ninety nine percent change he'd die before even hitting the ground.

A few minutes later, there was a pop sound and he was standing in the center of Thea's room at the end of her bed in his human form.

Caden stared at Thea with vacant eyes. "You're safe now..." He'd utter as she sat up and looked at him. Her eyes were puffy, she had been crying since he had left. He could read her emotions, the brisk of her thoughts.

She felt betrayed by him, but she also felt haunted by the killings she had done. Even though they had been overwritten in this reality by the time Masters' lacky, it was clear it stilled bothered her.

The reason, was because the ring wasn't there to manipulate her mindset, to give her clarity. She was never meant to kill, he knew this. Even though she would ask her biological father, Malcolm, to teach her how.

Caden could feel how Thea was being torn up inside.

"Erase it..."

These words made Caden close his eyes when she had said this. The ring even though she wasn't wearing it, was still protecting her from the timeline. Should he remove the ring, the contract, she would forget him.

However, she had already introduced him to her mother as her boyfriend. They'd be playing the amnesia route, where she had completely forgotten him and they'd have to rebuild.

"You want me to destroy your memories?" He asked for clarification, he wanted to know what she wanted so that he could tell her later that it was her choice. However, he didn't sound happy about this. His tone was bitter sweet, he didn't want to start over.

How was he going to explain to Oliver that she had forgotten he was still alive? How was he going to explain to John Constantine that she didn't remember he existed the next time they probably meet?

Thea took in a shaky breath, and released it as such. "Please... I can't get the screaming to stop. I... I can't the fire to go out." She reached up her hands and balled them into her jaw length bob. "The gunshots won't stop."

The burning of the CEO and his son, the gunshots from the Triad, being shot by the sniper. The exploding warehouse, Caden could see it all replaying her head as the ring had amplified her memory. He had made her willing to commit murder, something she would have never done without having given into suggestion.

"The ring will calm you..." He said before pausing briefly, "but that's not what you want. And I can't watch you suffer," Caden walked over to her and placed his hands on hers, leaning in to peck her on the lips.

Thea looked up at him as his hands caressed hers. "If I destroy the ring, you will forget everything about me and everything you had done, will you give me permission to stay by your side?"

The gift of these words made ripples through her mind. She would lose the memory of her first time kissing him. She would lose the information that changed her life forever, that Malcolm Merlyn was her biological father.

"Will you keep killing?" Thea asked as she looked up at him, her mouth agape.

"Not as long as you're by my side." Caden responded as he closed his eyes partially, taking in her eyes with his gaze. "Now grab hold of a memory that you wish to cherish. Ending the contract requires this as its key."

Thea closed her eyes as she shifted through her memories, she kept pushing the fire back, the murder. A memory she wanted to cherish, the time when she pinned him in the alley way. Only for him to turn the tides and pin her in return. She took it upon herself to tag the memory of their first kiss, she opened her eyes and her irses began to glow a murky green.

Caden took a step back as he raised to fingers, closely together, and closed his eyes the rest of the way. The ring dissipated into energy, and the glow from her eyes was pulled out into a single ball of energy from the two components.

Then he would open both hands, and clasp them around the ball of energy, absorbing into himself. It outlined his veins, and after a few seconds, it was gone.

"Caden..." Thea murmured inaudibly before finding herself swooning onto the bed surface, her head plopping onto the pillow like a sack of potatoes and lulling to the side.

Seeing her in this state, he believed he still needed to protect her. Looming a hand over her chest, his hand began to glow a faint blue rather than an aquatic green. A bright light then soon followed, illuminating her chest cavity as draconic runes would be engraved painlessly into her ribs and sternum.

The Dragon Lord's Mark of Protection, an irrevocable and nigh-impenetrable ward against harm towards the wearer. Poison, life threatening wounds, dark magic and mortality, they would do nothing to her. In essence, as long as he was alive, she would be too.

No one would be able to use drugs to make her suggestable like Malcolm Merlyn who would've used her to kill Sara Lance in the future.

Caden smiled down to her, caressing her cheek as she slept there unconscious.

"Sweet Dreams my Queen..."