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The world was a funny place sometimes. One minute you’re chasing after serial killer who was stealing your motif and the next you are stumbling downhill through a thicket of tropical brush. However for The Emerald Archer, Green Arrow, this wasn’t a joke he had been clued in on. Apparently the punchline was him— a punchline he wasn’t quite the fan of.

It didn’t take a genius intellect to realize that he had been transported outside of Star City, but as far as the four w’s went he had no idea outside of the fact that he felt sore. The last thing he remembered was closing in on what the Star City press had called “The Rainbow Archer” and to say he was unhappy about having a proven psychopath slip out of his fingers was an understatement. The Rainbow Archer had eighteen confirmed kills. Honestly during the course of his investigation he nearly sent out a message to The Caped Crusader himself asking how he dealt with all of the copycats in Gotham. Having someone make a mockery of what you did by using an inspiration of what you do to facilitate senseless murder was like seeing a mirror image of yourself— albeit one twisted, cracked, and tipped topsy-turvy. And now somebody was responsible for The Rainbow Archer endangering more people.

The Emerald Archer’s teeth clenched as his fall came to a sharp halt.

Whoever is responsible for transporting me to wherever I am is going to be really sorry.

On that point, the blonde-haired vigilante didn’t remember someone sneaking up and hitting him upside the head— there was none of the “morning after” pains of blunt force trauma. He wasn’t drugged, he’d know if he was. So it all came to an answer that nearly made him groan audibly: magic. He had rarely dealt with enemies of that… type; so to deduce it had to be magic was rather annoying.

Who did he piss off that could just blink him out of Star City? Or for that matter…

…where the hell was he?

He got up to his feet, cracking his sore neck from the abrasive fall. The island wasn’t inherently recognizable but it felt… familiar. The look of it reminded him of his days on Lian Yu... but something was off. It wasn’t like he had put to memory the entirety of Lian Yu, but the trees were wrong – that much was apparent by the color of the bark. Trees on Lian Yu were not birch white nor did the species of the Mecynorhina Ugandensis exist in the Southeastern Pacific.

That’s not right.

A rustling right behind the vigilante made him turn sharply, on instinct, with arrow nocked. His brows narrowed he saw something that threw him off.

Now, he had just been dealing with a poor imitation of himself… but this was ridiculous. Green Arrow found himself surprised by the enemy that looked back at him. He had no idea what a mirror image was before today, really— because who he was staring down at was another blonde-haired, green cloaked, bow-at-the-ready, handsome individual. Another Green Arrow… another Oliver Queen. What the hell was going on?

“I’m sorry, pal, this isn’t a good time for a Green Arrow convention. Your costume is terrible by-the-way.” He remarked at the intruder with a nervous grin.

Oliver Queen had never been particularly fond of the supernatural. He was no stranger to the occult – hell, a day in Star City isn’t complete without some rich guy making a deal with some devils – but over the course of his time as Green Arrow, there hasn’t been a day where he wasn’t tempted to just call onto Zatanna or John Constantine. And something was telling him that today… was one of those days.

He’d been patrolling Adams Heights with Mia and Connor when it happened. The change was instant, like a scene changing in a movie. The urban jungle of Star City’s CBD was replaced by a literal jungle, thick underbrush crowding around Oliver’s feet. Panicked, He looked around frantically for his ward and his son, his panic soon replaced by familiarity as he realised where he was. There were differences, that’s for sure, but there was no denying it: he was on Lian Yu.

His mind raced for an explanation as to how he’d gotten here, but despite his best efforts, nothing came to him – nothing but a single word. Magic. The archer swore at his misfortune. Of course it had to be magic. It couldn’t be Lex Luthor’s newest death machine, or the Toyman’s new and improved interdimensional, technological teleportation device. No. Magic. Honest to god, Doctor Fate-style magic. If Oliver didn’t know any better, he’d have punched a tree by now.

Instead, he decided to do some recon. Whoever brought him here – to this cheap mockery of his island – must have brought him here for a reason. As far as he knew, this was one gigantic trap waiting to snap its jaws at him. With an arrow nocked on his bow, he began to creep through the tangle of green, looking out for anything that might clue him towards a threat.

It wasn’t long before he found one. The years he spent surviving on the real Lian Yu honed his eyes to the point that some mistook his vision to be at metahuman levels – so where someone else may have dismissed the camouflaged hooded figure as part of the vegetation, Oliver knew better. As he crept closer towards the man, a quiver and bow came into sight. A guy wearing green, carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows? This person was a fan.

Gaze transfixed on the man’s back, Oliver didn’t notice the small bush until it was too late. It rustled loudly as his foot waded through it, and the man turned with speed that rivalled his own, arrow pulled back tight on the bowstring. Oliver’s brows furrowed. This guy looked near-identical to him, bar the severe lack of goatee. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, magic never does, he thought.

“I’m sorry, pal, this isn’t a good time for a Green Arrow convention. Your costume is terrible by-the-way,” said his impostor, wearing a grin that Oliver knew all too well. The grin he’d flash whenever Dinah was mad at him, or when Connor made him talk about his feelings. He was nervous.

“My costume’s terrible? Hey, now, listen, guy – ” he cut himself off before he said anything brash. The last thing he needed was to fight the person that could very well be his only means for some answers. “What the hell is going on here?”

"I honestly can't tell how you thought that abomination was a good idea." The voice of one Dinah Laurel Lance brought a mischievous grin to the face of one Oliver Jonas Queen while he ran his fingers over his freshly shaven facial hair. It'd taken him nearly a month to accumulate the amount of fuzz necessary to properly bring his new creation into existence, and all the while his companions had made disparaging remarks at his expense. He swore George probably would've laughed at him too, if dogs could laugh rather than pant rapidly.

"So you're saying a Van Dyke is out of the question?" Ollie turned from his bathroom mirror to shoot one of his trademark "looks" at his better half. It was a particularly important night for the two of them and the billionaire by day, battling bowman by night thought it might be fun to surprise those around him with a bit of a makeover. Sure, he could've just grown your average, everyday beard, but where was the fun in that? How many people do you know that have goatees anyway?

"Absolutely not." Dinah responded in a cold tone, but the smile she was trying desperately to hide betrayed her words. Ollie had already determined that she'd come around to the new look within a couple weeks. "Don't tell me you invited me over just to show me your new face warmer." Ollie responded with a chuckle before closing the distance between them and embrace her with a quick kiss.

"Of course not. I've got something better waiting for you in the Arrowcave." Though she no doubt had a million and one remarks to respond with, Ollie was grateful that Dinah had decided to keep her silence and instead give him a skeptical raised eyebrow and crossed arms. "No, it isn't what you think." was all he could retort with before readjusting his left arm around Dinah's shoulder and leading her towards the much less extravagant area of the Queen Mansion where Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the rest of their merry band operated their "night-time dalliances" as Ollie liked to phrase it.

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The look on Dinah's face when she saw the motorcycle waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs was priceless. The Emerald Archer made a mental note to himself to see that exact expression as many times as he possibly could. The sheer wonder and flustered awe was enough to increase his heart rate drastically. The bike had taken him nearly three months to build from scratch. Nothing else was worthy of her. Sure, finding the time to sneak off to his private garage in Lamb Valley in-between the already hectic life of a billionaire vigilante was difficult, but for Dinah, nothing was impossible.

"Happy anniversary, Prettybird." Ollie proceeded to nearly be crushed by the ensuing embrace, and all his work, all the juggling and running around like a headless chicken, was validated, when that beautiful voice said the three words every man wants to hear when they present a gift to their significant other.

"I love it."

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The next morning, Ollie had his head blissfully buried in Dinah's back when he first began to abandon the warm embrace of sleep. If it were up to him, he'd likely have stayed there in a state of euphoria forever, but life was rarely that kind, and Ollie allowed himself a deep groan before running his hands across a strand of hair that he wasn't currently drowned in.

"I didn't think you'd love it that much." The archer grinned to himself when thinking about the cost of the vase he'd have to remember to replace sometime this week. Still very much in the process of waking himself up, Ollie lifted the lids of his eyes and was rather bewildered to discover pitch blackness greeting him. Had he waken up in the middle of the night and probably woken Dinah on one of the few nights that they permitted themselves the privilege of sleep? An abundance of questions flooded into Oliver's mind before he rose his head only a foot or so further to then be met with the sight of what he could only assume to be a stone wall. The bowman could only sit there with his mouth agape before a warm voice spoke to him from below.

"What is it, Ollie?"

The man in question's eyes immediately went wide when the sound registered in his ears. That wasn't Dinah's voice. Forebodingly, Ollie slowly moved his gaze south, only to confirm his fear with the cold glint of onyx eyes staring back at him. Those eyes could only belong to one woman. A woman he'd since desperately tried to forget. Sandra Hawke.

Oliver subsequently leapt out of the bed at the sight, simultaneously letting out a scream he didn't hear but knew escaped his lungs. He fell particularly hard onto his back and was met with the cold embrace of the ground. Just as quickly ordering himself to his feet, Ollie discovered that Sandra and the bed he assumed he was sleeping in had vanished, only to be replaced by a stone bed that appeared to be carved out of the wall of the cave he found himself in. Not only that, but Oliver quickly found out that not only had Sandra disappeared, but he was fully clothed. Not in a three piece suit or tuxedo, but in the guise of the Green Arrow. Sufficiently panicked, Ollie's head darted from one side of the cave to the other before he saw light behind him.

He never sprinted as fast as he did then, and the sight of a bow and quiver of arrows at the entrance of the cave did little to settle his mind.

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Disoriented and frankly freaking the hell out, Oliver had been wandering aimlessly through the thick brush and trees of the area for what he guessed was about ten minutes. That was, until he'd heard the sound of multiple sets of feet rustling for about five seconds before they suddenly stopped. He knew them to be human feet. You learned the difference between the sounds of mankind and those of the animal kingdom when you spent years marooned on an island. Though he could hear the voices in the distance, he couldn't quite make out what the two were saying, and in a rather bold move, he decided it probably be better to approach them now and find out just where the hell he was rather than going through all the hoops of proper reconnaissance.

What he was not expecting, however, were two near identical figured to himself. Immediately, the Archer's mind set out a sigh of both relief and panic. While he surely hadn't slept with Sandra Hawke on the night of his two year anniversary, someone, somewhere had decided it'd be a good idea to fuck with him, and Ollie could only hope to find them in order to show the wacko what happens when you mess with a man who knew how to make human pin cushions.

"Should I assume it was one of you two who brought me to this goddamned hellhole?"

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The expression “three’s a crowd” could not have ever in the universe been more on point.

Oliver Queen took a step back as the appearance of the third variation of himself appeared with a bit of a frustrated bite to him, as if he had just rolled out of bed— onto a floor of shattered glass... though it probably was grass in this case. With a brow raised he was unsure what to do in this situation. Outside of being transported to a random island this was the second strangest thing to happen him in his life. If this was the standard for issues he was going to have for the rest of the day he was wondering when the dinosaurs with jetpacks and pew pew guns would show up.

“Well, it wasn’t me.” He snarked.

A hysterical laughter cut from the trees.

“No, it was me!”

The sound made all three of the Green Arrow’s cock their head toward the northwestern side of the island— above them was an impish man floating in front of a large tree branch. The description reminded him of something he had read in some dossiers Batman had sent his way and it made him feel a whirlwind of dread. This was the worst type of magic. This was the worst type of day.



Mxyzptlk. There was nothing good about this answer— that much he knew for a fact. This was a foe of Superman and others way outside his paygrade. If he fired an arrow at him the damned imp, from all reports that he could gather, would just make the arrow cease to exist or some other interdimensional bullshit. He knew Mxyzptlk was a trickster and someone who broke the rules of time and space like his chili broke digestive tracks. But why did Mxyzptlk pick a vigilante archer of all heroes to play with? And why couldn’t he have done it on a Sunday?

“Well, shit.”

“No! No no no, not shit, quite the opposite actually! Welcome, welcome, welcome one two three, welcome.” The inter-dimensional trickster laughed as he pointed to each of the men below. Pointing to the one who instantly recognized him when he said ‘three’, the one who assumed the other arrows as the reason for his being on the island as ‘one’, and the other one as ‘two’.

“ I think the game is almost ready to begin! This is wonderful! Three Earths, one winner! or maybe no winners? It should be fun fun fun to find out! Who can survive Mister Mxyzptlk's Most Dangerous Game?”

Oh, great. Another one, thought Ollie Queen as another doppelganger (with decidedly better facial hair than the first) appeared through the trees. He was already working at cataloguing nicknames for his two look-alikes; for the first, he couldn’t quite find one yet – but for the newest arrival, the name came in a flash of light, like a revelation from an otherworldly power: Grumpy.

It just fit the guy so well.

Before Oliver could chuckle at his own genius, an interdimensional magician arrived and ruined his fun – filled him with insurmountable terror. The eccentric fiend flashed a smile from above their heads, waving as he announced that it was, in fact, him that brought them here, to this strange imitation of Lian Yu. Him.

Mr. Mxyzptlk.

“Well, shit,” said the first doppelganger.

“You took the words right out of my mouth…” muttered Oliver as Mxyzptlk, the being even Superman was hesitant to go up against, “welcomed” them.

“No! No no no, not shit, quite the opposite actually! Welcome, welcome, welcome one two three, welcome. I think the game is almost ready to begin! This is wonderful! Three Earths, one winner! or maybe no winners? It should be fun fun fun to find out! Who can survive Mister Mxyzpltk's Most Dangerous Game?”

Oliver groaned. This was just what he needed. A gladiator match against two alternate versions of himself. He turned to Grumpy, who Mxy had designated as “One”. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Ollie One?”

When you spend a fair amount of your time stopping intergalactic invasions with your friends every other month, it becomes quite hard to hide your disappointment when confronted with another addition to the "wild and wacky" file of villain. Sure, just a moment ago Oliver had been quite fervently freaking himself out, but you try taking anything around you seriously when an imp in a top-hat appears in front of your eyes claiming responsibility. If they were there purely as playthings for the machinations of what he could only assume was probably some poor sod who'd been kicked around by Barry enough times that he'd decided to pick on easier targets, Ollie couldn't decide whether he should've just kept on walking or chuckled out loud. Well, he had an explanation for everything now. Magic. Why was it always magic? At least it was something new.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Ollie One?”

Ollie didn't have much time to ponder his scenario before one of his fellows addressed him. He silently made a note to himself to ensure that he'd come up with a different way to refer to them rater than using Myxl-Pixel or whatever's numerical order.

"What, that this guy's name sounds like a pill for erectile dysfunction?"

The Arrow designated as one scratched the bottom of his goatee with his free hand at the thought, staring into the eyes of his arcane captor. So, the little guy wanted the trio of bowmen to duel each other on the spot for his own amusement? Chase each other around the island for a few days before someone slipped up and got themselves killed? Surely putting them all in the same spot at the very start didn't exactly fit that theory very well. The Battling Bowman took a risk and looked back and forth between his two other selves a couple of times with a slight hum before he rested his eyes back on the forestry in front of him.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but-"

Thwick

Oliver didn't waste any time aiming his bow, nocking an arrow, and firing a perfect shot careening towards Mister Mxyzptlk's beady eyes. When your calling card as a vigilante and the entire reason you were allowed to chat at the Justice League water cooler was your skill with a bow and arrow, you had to be one hell of a good shot, and there was no wasted movement in the sequence. Too bad only fractions of an inch away from its target, the arrow seemed to twist and shift and essentially get swallowed by some invisible force.

"Now why would you go and do that? The game's only just begun!" A wicked grin is all that met Ollie's gaze after his test shot. Well, you win some, you lose some.

All the Emerald Archer could do was shrug.

"Figured I might as well try. What, was Mumbo busy?"

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The imp’s wide smirk dropped into a scowl.

“Mumbo?! You beckon that wand-toting nothing as my superior?! To the all-powerful Mxyzpltk? How dare you! You miserable second rate Batman clone!”

A loud gravely sigh left the orange suit-bearing being. “Okay, I get it. Funny funny funny! The game is yet to make sense, so we’ll see how speedy you lot come to a conclusion with no hints to the objective! Enjoy the game, my fellows!”

There was a flash of inter-dimensional energy and Mxyzpltk had disappeared faster than he had debuted to the trinity of archers. This was particularly frustrating to the Oliver Queen that was designated as “number three” by the magical imp only minutes prior. His “other self” had gone and robbed him of a chance to understand what exactly was going on, Mxyzpltk was an insane and eccentric being but he would’ve at least given him half-answers to his questions— though they would probably be accompanied by clownish giggles and keks instead of the full understanding he wanted. But as far as he was concerned answers muddied with giggles and keks were better than no answers at all.

“Great. You went and spooked him. Good job, clown town.” He sighed, a little irritably but not aggressively.

As he shot out the comment he thought back to the comment. He made a pun about his sister? Was Emiko in danger or was the egotistical imp just playing mind games with him? A chill ran down his spine as he looked over the other two versions of who he was— trying to gather a clue about them from their mannerisms, dialogue, and cues.

That… was not what he was thinking.

For whatever reason, Ollie One – Grumpy – thought that shooting an arrow at Mister Mx-frickin’-yzptlk was a good idea. Never in a million years would Oliver have thought that he’d see himself do something so stupid… and yet, the universe always seemed to astound.

He did have to hold back his humorous side, the side that appreciated a good joke. Mxyzptlk did sound like an erectile dysfunction pill.

But still.

Idiot.

As much as Oliver wanted to stand with his mouth agape and yell, “WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!”, he allowed himself no such luxury. Before a second could pass his hand was in his quiver, grabbing an arrow and nocking it on his bow. He wasn’t going to take any chances. If Grumpy angered Mxyzptlk at all, there was no telling what the imp would do. Granted, an arrow wasn’t likely to do anything – not even the explosive arrow currently pulled back on his bowstring – but as he said before.

No chances.

“Okay, I get it. Funny funny funny! The game is yet to make sense, so we’ll see how speedy you lot come to a conclusion with no hints to the objective! Enjoy the game, my fellows!” said the extradimensional sprite, disappearing in flash before you could say, “Magic sucks!”

Oliver slowly released the tension from his bow, carefully placing the arrow back in his quiver. Did Mxy just allude to Mia? Just what exactly did he mean by speedy? If he hurt Mia, if he did anything to her…

“Great. You went and spooked him. Good job, clown town,” said the Oliver Myx had designated as “Three”, sending an irritated look at Grumpy.

Great, thought Oliver, This is just what we need. Arguments. Mia could be in danger, and Three was more inclined to focus on a silly mistake?

“Hey, Grumpy Bros.,” he began, loudly, cutting short any comeback Ollie Two might have had, “In case you haven’t noticed, Mxy-prick might have put our partners in danger. You two have Speedies on your Earths, right? So how about we forget the name-and-blame and figure out what we’re going to do. I don’t know about you, but I am not about to fail my partner.”

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“Hey, Grumpy Bros— in case you haven’t noticed, Mxy-prick might have put our partners in danger. You two have Speedies on your Earths, right? So how about we forget the name-and-blame and figure out what we’re going to do. I don’t know about you, but I am not about to fail my partner.”

It was bad enough that he had to take the occasional lecture from Batman or Superman, but hearing from himself was just a big downer. Oliver nodded as he looked to the one who had probably stopped him from having the headache that was arguing with his other self.

But the one designated as “Number Two” was right. There was no reason for him to sit down and start an argument that probably would lead to an existential breakdown for the trinity of archers when his sister was in danger. Because why else would the inter-dimensional asshat give them reason to be nervous? There was the possibility that he was just messing with their heads, but given their current situation they probably could not have been any more confused. But then again, Mxyzpltk was a damned enigma who was very fond of making his victim’s riddled in confusion; a tactic that brought much amusement to Mxyzpltk.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Sorry, it’s kind of been a shitty night.”

But without any clues where were they going to begin? Perhaps it’d be a good question to bring up to the group.

“Without any idea of where to start, what’s our plan?”

His question was interrupted to the sound of bodies hitting brush— inbound on their position. As if on reflex, he made behind the nearest tree to gain some cover.

“Huh, do you think our new friends are more ruggedly handsome vigilante archers?”

He shot the comment back at his fellow newfound “longbow hunters” as he grabbed an arrow out of his quiver, preparing for a fight; because it was really unlikely that Mxyzpltk summoned them here for a good friendly game of tennis. Nobody ever broke the universe on a childish whim for something that did not involve nearly killing you; even if this was in a "fun" manner to do it in, it really did not change his feelings about it.

Loud rustling reached Oliver’s ears as he bent into a crouch, pulling back an arrow as he tuned his hearing, blocking everything out to focus on the only sound that mattered; that of feet wading through the magic-formed forest. His rebuke seemed to have done its job, stopping his other selves from starting an argument, and he was glad. Hostility between each other wasn’t going to get them anywhere but killed, and with potential trouble on the way, they needed to quench it before it began.

With silent efficiency he moved through the forest, creeping towards the sound of disturbed underbrush. Hearing Ollie Three speak, he signalled him to keep quiet. Under different circumstances, he might have joined in on the snark, but the fact of the matter was that this was not a time to be joking around – they were in an unfamiliar plane of existence created by a maniacal dwarf with too much time on his hands, and they need to stay sharp if they wanted to get themselves – and their Speedies – out of here alive.

Concealed by the wide trunk of a birch-white sequoia, Oliver listened intently for the newcomers – and the familiar click of safeties being flicked off told him all he needed to know. He signalled his two alternates to find a spot behind some cover on either side of him, forming a triangle within which to trap the gunmen – their nods let him know that he was understood, and he shifted his attention back towards the imminent threat.

And he waited.

And waited.

And waited.