AN: Hey everyone! First of all, many, many apologies for the unannounced hiatus. A combination of busyness, computer, problems, and travel got in the way of working on this and some other stories I have in the works. I promise I have not lost interest in this story, and now that things have calmed down a bit I will hopefully be posting more regularly. Thank you so much for your patience and I will try to be better about that in the future!

You all know the drill, I don't own this so don't sue me. I hope you enjoy the story!

Chapter One: Slade, Shado, and Yao-Fei

Oliver stared at his dad in confusion. "What are you talking about? I'm not dead, at least I don't think…but I can't be, I survived the Gambit sinking! I drifted to Lian Yu! This can't be real."

"See for yourself," Robert replied nonchalantly, motioning to Oliver's body in the water. "Why are you surprised? You wished for this to happen. As you waited for Slade to come kill you on the docks, didn't you regret everything that had happened since you survived the boat?"

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. He didn't have anything to say; his father was right. Robert turned slowly to look into his son's eyes. "You think all the suffering that happened on Lian Yu and in Starling was your fault. You think you caused the deaths of all the people you've lost." Robert's eyes were full of sorrow. "You've lost your will to fight, Oliver. I'm here to show you how things changed when you never came home."

Robert grabbed Oliver's arm and squeezed it tightly. Suddenly they were surrounded by white light so brilliant Oliver had to squeeze his eyes shut. He felt hard ground under his feet, and heard the sound of wind rustling trees overhead. He opened his eyes and blinked; they were on Lian Yu, standing right at the edge of the forest. Oliver could see the roofs of several tents in the distance, close to the shore, surrounded by tire tracks and crates of weapons. Fyers's base.

Robert started walking down the path, heading closer to the base, and Oliver followed. "What are we doing here?"

"Don't you want to see what happened to Slade?" Robert replied.

Oliver's stomach twisted. If Fyers and his men were still here, this was before Ivo, before the mirakuru, before Slade lost his mind. For a moment he was thrown back to the first year and half that he knew Slade, when they were friends. Brothers. All the hardship they'd endured together, all the good times they had. According to Robert, now none of that had happened.

Robert stopped walking and motioned for Oliver to look around. They were almost at the perimeter of Fyers's headquarters, and Oliver glanced around before his gaze landed on a large, boxy machine, one he recognized with a trickle of dread. "The missile launcher Slade and I sabotaged."

"Exactly." Not two moments after Robert spoke, Oliver heard a rustle in the woods nearer to the launcher, and Slade himself burst from the trees and sprinted toward the machine. He's trying to dismantle it, to save that plane. But he doesn't have any backup. Oliver watched as Slade ripped a panel from the base of the launcher. Broken circuits and bits of wire scattered the sand at Slade's feet as he hacked away with one of his signature double swords, trying to cause enough damage before he was caught. Oliver wanted to do something, wanted to rush forward and help, but he knew instinctively that it was useless.

Slade's head snapped up in alarm as the shouts and pounding feet of approaching soldiers reached his ears. Slade was trained well enough to know that there wasn't enough time to get away; he just sheathed his sword and started ripping out wires with his bare hands, using the last few seconds he had to try to destroy the missile launcher. Fyers's men surrounded him before he could even step away from the sparking hole he'd left. They lined up in a circle around Slade, twenty guns trained on him.

A taller, bulkier figure stepped forward to face Slade inside the circle of masked soldiers. Oliver recognized the two-toned mask that hid the man's face. It was Billy Wintergreen, Slade's traitorous former partner. He didn't say a word, just drew his swords and nodded to Slade to do the same. Face contorted with anger, Slade snatched his weapons from their sheaths and charged at his opponent.

Wintergreen side-stepped Slade's first attack and opened a cut on his bicep, but Slade quickly paid him back with a swipe to his left thigh. Blood welled up from both wounds as they faced each other and clashed again. Their swords collided with a metallic crash. Sand-colored clouds of dust rose around them, punctuated with the silver flashes of their blades. Oliver's fists clenched at his sides, tense and angry but unsure how he wanted the fight to end.

Slade's sword made contact again, swiping a long gash across his opponent's forearm. Wintergreen swung his weapon in a vertical arc toward Slade's head, but Slade ducked the blow and kicked Wintergreen hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling backward. Slade stepped forward to attack again, but Wintergreen yelled something to the soldiers, and one of the men in the black ski masks raised his gun and fired. The bullet ripped through Slade's lower calf and he fell to his knees with a cry of pain. His twin swords made twin thuds in the sand in front of him.

Wintergreen scrambled to his feet and walked toward Slade, kicking his swords away as he did. Slade knelt there panting, eyes locked on his former partner, blood soaking his pant leg and dripping onto the ground. Slade didn't make a sound as Wintergreen raised his weapon and sliced his throat. Blood spurted from the wound, scattering the sand and Wintergreen's mask with a thick red spray. Slade slumped over onto the path, the last of his life bleeding out into the sand. Wintergreen sheathed his swords and turned to head back to the base, motioning for the soldiers to follow. They slung their guns over their backs and walked away, leaving Slade lying there bleeding out.

Oliver stumbled forward a few steps and sank to his knees. After everything Slade had done to him, taking Queen Consolidated, kidnapping Thea, killing Moira, all the pain he'd caused, Oliver didn't expect the icy hand that squeezed his heart as he watched his former friend die. But seeing him like this, alone on the island trying to save people he didn't even know from Fyers's plan, made Oliver remember the old Slade, the one who was his mentor and friend. Slade was the one who first taught Oliver how to fight, the first one who looked past the selfish, lazy kid and saw potential. As much as Oliver hated him for what he'd done in the past year, he never wanted him to die like this, completely alone.

"Fyers launched the missile and took the plane down a few weeks later." Robert said resignedly.

"And Shado?" Oliver whispered.

"Fyers killed her, along with her father, right after he forced Yao-Fei to make the video taking responsibility for downing the plane."

Oliver winced at the memory of watching Yao-Fei die. And Shado, a woman he had loved, dead along with him, the last year of her life spent as Fyers's prisoner. But still, if Slade was dead, that meant he was never exposed to Mirakuru. Moira, all those people in the Glades, all the people he killed, they must still be alive. Oliver slowly got back to his feet. "If Slade died on the island, he never came to Starling. Everything that's happened over the past year, those people are all okay. They're alive."

Robert sighed. "Slade wasn't the only person whose path was different because you died, Oliver. Maybe we should go see your sister."