Chapter 2 is up.

For those who don't know what the hell Cardinal even means, it's the name of a red bird known as the Northern Cardinal. If any of you saw Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, you probably already know what it looks like. For those who don't, look it up on Google. Why am I telling you this? It's just in case you might be confused with why I named the story Cardinal, plus that's Earth-52 Felicity's codename.

This new Felicity is dangerous but at the same time an enigma. No one will know why she hates Oliver so much (maybe through the middle of the story) and wants to kill him, which is the opposite to the original one who loved him very much despite breaking off the engagement. This one might even pose as a threat to Prometheus, depending on how the story goes.

The third thing I need to say is that Earth-52 was originally going to be Earth-3 where heroes and villains have their roles swapped like in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths but instead stuck with Earth-52 and combined it with Earth-3. So, is there a chance you might meet an evil Green Arrow? Possibly.

Fourth and last thing to say here is that the song I picked for the end of the chapter is Ruelle's Game of Survival. If you haven't heard of it, feel free to look it up on YouTube.

Enjoy!


"How did this happen?" Joe West asks while looking down at the two dead college boys that were found by a vagabond the next morning. CCPD got notified and immediately arrived to check on the crime. Two college boys, one slashed in the neck and the other stabbed on the back of the head just a few feet away.

"We're not sure," David Singh says. He's the captain of the Central City Police Department. "They were found dead here. No one saw anything or heard anything."

"I smell alcohol," Joe points out, "They were drunk."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," David says.

Barry arrives at the crime scene running. Once he finally arrives, he stops and pants for air. "I hope I'm not too late this time."

"By some miracle of God, you're right on time, Allen," David says, knowing Barry to be always late for work.

Barry immediately starts unpacking his forensic kit, slipping on his latex gloves and taking out a few cotton swabs, a ruler and a few small plastic bags. He takes a look at the first body, the one with the slashed throat. He uses the ruler to measure the length and depth of the cut before reporting to Joe and David that the cut on this body's throat is three inches deep and six inches in length. "And judging by how straight the line is, I say the attack was quick. That's why there wasn't much screaming."

"Yeah, but the second guy over there had time to scream or run away when his buddy got killed," Joe says while pointing at the second victim, "The killer wouldn't have enough time to chase him down.

"There are two theories, either it's a metahuman with speed like The Flash or simply threw the knife to his head," Barry says, "I think I'll go with my second theory, the killer threw the knife, the same one that killed Victim number one. And it was a perfectly good aim."

"How do you know that?" David asks.

"It was a direct trajectory," Barry explains, "Our killer probably wanted him to die quickly as well as our first victim."

"We checked their wallets," Joe says, "Their names are Barney Benson and Adam Wright. They were both college students studying at Hudson University. Apparently they were star athletes. All their money is in their wallets. Credit cards. Driver's licenses. Expensive Chuck Taylor shoes from Nike. The killer didn't even rob them. He simply killed them and went on his way? That's odd."

"Her," Barry says.

"Excuse me?"

"The killer was a her," Barry explains while taking a picture of a boot print printed on the ground. Thank God for rain, he thinks as continues taking pictures and measures the boot-size with the ruler. "Foot size is 7. The heel of the boot is much smaller than the male's and less heavy. The boot is made for female feet. Unless the killer is transgender or gay and likes to wear women's shoes, the killer was a woman. No offense, Captain, not saying that you and your fiancé wear women's shoes. I know you're not like that."

"None taken," David says.

"So the killer is a female?" Joe asks and Barry nods in confirmation.

While Joe and David talk in private, Barry proceeds to check on the first victim Barney Benson. On the victim's jacket, Barry finds something that might lead to the killer. A strand of blonde hair. The killer was a female blonde. What's even stranger are the footprints. They start in the exact middle of the alley and further out yet not further in where the two college kids were emerging from. It's like she just appeared in that very exact spot. Barry looks up the buildings at either side of the alley. If the killer had jumped from any of those buildings, she could have easily been killed splattered on the floor or could have broken both of her legs. There aren't any ladders either so the killer couldn't have climbed down either.

Barry remembers Cisco telling him about another breach to another multiverse opening up the last night. This must be the place, he guesses. There's no telling who just came out of there or from where and what she's doing right now.


Central City National Bank...

A woman walks into the biggest bank of Central City, her red hair tied back in a bun with a black baseball cap covering her head and an oversize camouflage parka coat, and a beige satchel slung over her shoulder.

She approaches the banker's counter after waiting at least five minutes in the line.

"Ice cream?" a girl offers her as the child looks over her shoulder to smile warmly at her. The child looks no older than five with curly brown hair and blue eyes and wearing a pink floral dress. She's holding a half-eaten chocolate fudge bar in her small with small stains around her mouth.

The woman smiles down at the little girl, finding the small gesture of kindness amusing. "You keep it. It's yours."

"Let's go, Raven," the mother tugs the little girl away after being attended.

Now it's her turn.

"Next!" the banker calls out, an African American middle-aged woman with hair tied back in a ponytail and a blue blaze. The woman with red hair looks at the clock before approaching the counter. "Welcome to Central City National Bank, what can I help you with?"

"Hi, I need to extract some cash from my savings. I'm also depositing 50 bucks into my account,"the woman says politely, almost in a bumbling fashion.

The banker nods. "Very well. Just tell me the number of your account and I'll be happy to help."

"Well, you see, I have it written down since I always forget the number to my bank account so I have it written down. Give me a sec," she says as she digs through the pocket of her yoga pants and takes out a piece of folded paper. She hands it over to the banker. "There you go."

Once unfolding the paper, the banker frowns at the words (instead of numbers) written in them.

THIS IS A ROBBERY

HAND OVER THE MONEY AND NO ONE GETS HURT

The banker looks up at the woman in surprise. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Yes, and a very bad one, it seems. I'm being serious though," the woman says, her voice now sounding cold and serious. "5 minutes for me to leave with money in my pocket and yes, I have a gun with me. You call security and I won't kill you, I will kill the guards and judging by the looks of it, there isn't much security. No wonder you guys get robbed, a guards in each corner. They'll bolt at me and in ten seconds they'll be dead. And judging by the directions and angles I'm measuring right now, if I shoot the guard from the far right corner, there's a good chance the bullet will go clean through and accidentally hit the five-year-old girl eating ice cream. And you and I both know we don't want that to happen... The money or I start shooting in here like Scarface. And trust me, shooting would be an act of kindness compared to what I can do to you."

The banker gulps. "... Take all the money and leave."

The woman chuckles while shaking her head at the banker's reaction to her threats. "No, darling. Thirty thousand dollars will do just fine."

After robbing Central City National Bank thirty thousand dollars, she heads outside the bank where already five police cars are at wait, with CCPD officers aiming their guns at her.

"CCPD! You're under arrest! You are surrounded!" one of them shouts through a megaphone. "Put the bag down. Hat off and hands behind your back!"

"You really don't want to do that," the woman says as she puts the bag down.

"Hands behind your head!"

She lets out a loud piercing scream, sending the police flying back and causing the car windows to explode as well as the window from the bank, bursting like balloons.

Afterwards, she grabs the bag and makes a run for it, disappearing into an alleyway and already gone by the time the police try to catch up with her. She just disappeared.


Star City...

Everything has been quiet in the Arrowcave since Felicity passed away two weeks ago. Oliver has become more distant and hasn't spoken to anyone since the day of her funeral. Curtis has taken over Felicity's position as Overwatch for the time-being but he isn't as good as her. She was the best hacker they've ever known. Getting a replacement would be difficult and even if they did, it wouldn't be the same. The Arrowcave will still feel empty.

Team Arrow has spent at least two weeks hunting down Prometheus while the Green Arrow is being hunted down by SCPD. Quentin Lance would give Oliver and the others a head's up before they get caught. Things have become more complicated than ever. Prometheus hasn't shown his face again. Hasn't made an appearance again. It's like he's flaunting Oliver's failure in his face without even being there.

But whether he's there or not, Oliver doesn't need to be reminded how much he failed. He knows. Out of all the people he failed, Felicity was the one that punched him the gut hard. He lost his mother Moira. He lost Laurel. And now he lost Felicity. Three women that he loved are gone. Prometheus did this, to hurt him, just like what Deathstroke and Damien Darhk did. Deathstroke killed Moira to hurt him. Darhk killed Laurel to hurt him. And now this. Oliver doesn't know how many losses he can take now. Thea. What if Prometheus decides to go after Thea? He would never forgive himself if he lost Thea too.

"You okay?" Dinah asks while approaching Oliver who's sitting at the bottom of the stairs alone, looking at photos of him and Felicity together. One of the pictures are of them together, with Oliver kissing Felicity's head and her smiling. "You two dated before?"

"...We were engaged," he says.

"But she was your ex-fiancé, as in not engaged anymore. How did that happen?" she asks as she sits down next to him.

"We've been together for over a few months. We've known each other for over two years. We both had a past we never liked talking about. We both had our secrets. But one of those secrets is what broke us up," Oliver explains, "I have a son. His name is William. I didn't tell her at first because his mother begged me. She found out anyways."

"So she was mad because you had a son -?"

Oliver shakes his head. "No. She was mad at the fact that I lied to her about something like this. Out of all the secrets I could have kept, this is not the kind of secret I should have kept from her. She knew I had my reasons to keep secrets from her but not this. And yet, after we broke off the engagement, she still continued working with me and we still maintained are friendship. Most wouldn't want to even look at me. But Felicity, she..."

"She still loved you, Oliver," Dinah says while looking at the pictures, "It's obvious. She may have broken up the engagement and moved on, but she still had her heart set on you. If she didn't love you anymore, she wouldn't have stayed."

"If she hadn't stayed, she would still be alive," he says sorrowfully.

Dinah bites her lower lip, not knowing what else to say. "If she stayed this long with the team, I'm guessing she already knew the risks."

"I didn't want her die, not like this," Oliver tells her. He thought is he could keep Felicity safe, she would life to her older years, years where she was already married and had a couple of kids, even if those kids weren't his. But it didn't turn up well.

"That wasn't your choice to make, Oliver," Dinah says as she stand up, "It was hers. She knew she would die one day and accepted her fate a long time ago. I didn't know her well but if she were here, she wouldn't want you to blame yourself for her death. She would have wanted you to keep going and continue hunting down Prometheus."

Oliver gives Dinah a sad smile. "That's exactly what she would have wanted."

Dinah smiles back before walking away.

Oliver simply continues staring at the pictures. Felicity's warm smile. He misses it so much. I'll keeping going. I will catch Prometheus. For you.


CCPD...

Barry stares at the strand of hair he has in his hands right now, wondering what kind of woman would kill those two boys so quick, smooth and clean, and for what reason she did it. A strand of blonde hair. This will be enough to know who it is. Of course, if it can't be identified, he'll send it over to Cisco and Caitlin since it will confirm him that the subject is not from their earth and is one of the Multiverse people. Perhaps it might be a doppelgänger, of who though. He would have to analyze it to find out.

"Hey, Barry," Joe enters the labs. Not S.T.A.R. Labs. The CCPD labs. "I'm heading out to buy Taco Bell, do you want some?"

"That would be great, Joe," Barry sighs as he puts the sample down, "I'm starving."

"We're going to need plenty of burritos tonight. We just got another case," Joe informs him, "There was a robbery at Central City National Bank. Some red-headed woman with a black baseball cap stole thirty thousand from the bank. CCPD tried to stop her but she screamed."

"A tantrum?" Barry asks.

"A scream as in she broke every window near her and cops unconscious with blood coming out of their ears," he says. Barry frowns at Joe in surprise, "I think we might have another screaming metahuman."

"Like Black Canary and Black Siren?"

"Exactly," Joe says, "Security footage has her on tape but her face isn't seen. Maybe you can get Cisco and Caitlin to check it out. Got a name for this one."

Barry shrugs his shoulders. "Umm...Can't think of one right now. Maybe when Cisco sees the tape, he might come up with a better name."

Joe can tell Barry isn't in a good just by the sad look in his eyes, how droopy they look. "Hey, I heard about what happened. I'm sorry about Felicity."

"I know," Barry sighs, "But there's nothing I can do about it now. I can't go back in time and change things. If I do, things can get worse or she might die in a different way. The only thing we can do is move forward, and catch the guy who did this to her instead of sitting around moping to no end. I think she would have wanted that."

"You know what? I think she would have wanted that too," Joe says. He pats Barry on the back in comfort and leaves the lab.

Barry sighs as he holds back his tears, knowing that crying isn't going to help catch this Prometheus guy. First he needs to analyze the hair sample and then the robbery at Central City National Bank. If he does those two things, it will give him free time to help Oliver with the whole Prometheus shit. Let's get to work.


(Ruelle - Game of Survival)

The woman returns to an abandoned apartment building where the doors and windows are boarded up with wood. The only way she can enter the building is via a small window at the bottom that leads to the building's basement. She slips through it like a slinking cat and shuts the window.

Who's in your shadows?
Who's ready to play?

Once inside the building, she removes the baseball cap and the red wig, letting her blonde curls fall. She tosses both the cap and the wig (which she stole from a costume store) into a nearby sink covered in grime, takes out a lighter and sets them both on fire in order to avoid leaving any traces of her. There are a lot of things she stole the moment she arrived to Central City: a laptop, a firewall set, a portable Wi-Fi a few clothes, shoes, make-up, wigs (one black, one brown and the red one she burned in the sink), a gun, five boxes of bullets, five boxes of Kraft macaroni, a box of cigarettes, a lighter and a pair of black-framed glasses. I'm so going to jail.

Are we the hunters?
Or are we the prey?

She removes the jacket and the over-sized sweater, now standing in just her yoga pants and bra. She sets the sweater on fire as well since there's a good chance it has fibers of her skin on it. Then she gets to work. She already has the money. Now all she needs is the info.

There's no surrender
And there's no escape

The laptop was now on and open. She had to charge the new laptop at a library in the middle of the night since there's no power in this building. She slips on the glasses and searches through Google for what she needs to see. She types in the name. She types on the words BLACK ARROW. Nothing seems to pop. Only words GREEN ARROW. "Green Arrow," she mutters. She clicks on one of them, showing an articles of a man in a green hood using a bow and arrow to clean up the streets from criminals. The woman sets her jaw tightly as she glares at one of the black-and-white pictures from the newspapers. All of the pictures never show his face. Of course, she doesn't need to see his face to know who the Green Arrow is.

Are we the hunters?
Or are we the prey?

She backspaces from the articles and returns to Google to type in the name OLIVER QUEEN. Articles upon articles pop up on the computer screen. She clicks IMAGES where pictures of the handsome millionaire come up. Some are of him with his mother Moira, his father Robert and his sister Thea -. Wait, the woman frowns at the picture, her name is Mia, not Thea. Why is her hair brown? She's blonde. There are also pictures of Oliver being accompanied by his bodyguard John Diggle. John? Her green-blue eyes grow wide as she continues staring at African-American man in the picture behind the millionaire playboy. This picture was taken recently, two months. That's impossible. You're dead. For five years. And so is Mia. How are you still alive?

This is a wild game of survival

She continues looking through different articles. OLIVER QUEEN BECOMES MAYOR...DEATHSTROKE ARMY RIOTS STARLING CITY. MOIRA QUEEN MURDERED BY SLADE WILSON... MILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY ALIVE!... THEA QUEEN MURDERED...THEA QUEEN'S MIRACLE RETURN FROM THE DEAD...DESTRUCTION OF THE GLADES...ATTORNEY DINAH LAUREL LANCE REVEALED AS BLACK CANARY AND MURDERED BY DAMIEN DARHK...MALCOLM MERLYN CAUSES EARTHQUAKE...MOIRA QUEEN ARRESTED FOR THE DEATH OF THOUSANDS...STARLING CITY RENAMED STAR CITY...GREEN ARROW KILLS DAMIEN DARHK... NEW BLACK CANARY IN STAR CITY...THROWING STAR KILLER TARGETS GREEN ARROW...THROWING-STAR KILLER GOES ON A KILLING SPREE...EX-CEO OF PALMER TECH FELICITY SMOAK DIES...

This is a wild game of survival

The woman clicks on the article where a picture of woman wearing glasses and blonde hair tied back in a ponytail pops up. She frowns at the date of her death. That's not my death date. Felicity Smoak died two weeks ago after being murdered by the throwing star killer known as Prometheus. I died way before that. She didn't seem to change much, except for the date which was completely wrong. John is alive and so is Mia but goes by the name Thea now. Laurel is dead here. Despite not knowing the Laurel from this place, she sticks her middle finger at the picture of the attorney. "Sorry Laurel from this place but this is for the Laurel back at home. Fuck you, bitch."

This is a wild game!

She contemplates on what to do next as she continues staring at her ponytailed twin in the picture. Not a good look for me. But it will have to do. She sees pictures of Oliver Queen mourning for her. That's just sad, she thinks sarcastically. Then she sees a picture of Felicity Smoak's mother Donna and instantly smiles at it, her eyes filling with tears.

This is a wild game!

"...Mom," she whispers. She glares at Oliver's picture once more before abruptly shutting the laptop off. She takes out a cigarette and lights it up. She sucks at it from one end and blows out white smoke through her lips. "You destroyed my life, Oliver Queen. Now I'll have to rebuild it by destroying yours."

Game of survival!

She checks Central City Train Station for departing schedules. 9:30 p.m. It's 1:59 p.m. Enough time to get her prepared. She gets the 30,000 dollars out of the satchel. She tears apart the fabric on the back of the luggage and stuffs the money in it. Not having any threads and needles, she covered the inside of the luggage with folded towels, hoping the security guards don't try looking through the luggage. She rips off the tags from the clothing she stole from the department store. She slips on a black pencil dress and dark brown fishnet stockings.

This is a wild game!

She steps in front of a spotted and cracked mirror as she ties her blonde hair back in a bun, the reflection showing the face of the woman in the picture who was murdered by the so called Prometheus. She puts on a wig of brown curls before putting on a black sunhat, paints her lips a dark red hue and slips on a pair of sunglasses instead of the other glasses.

This is a wild game!

Hours later, she leaves the abandoned building with the luggage full of the items she stole, stripped from their price tags, packaging and labels. She burned those three things as well just in case the police follow the trail back to the building. They'll find nothing in there. She made sure of it.

Game of survival!

At the Central City Train Station, she purchases a train ticket to Star City and boards the train at exactly 9:30 p.m.

As the train departs, she looks out the window at the people walking in and out of the train station. She has never seen so many people outside of their homes in her entire life. Most of the people back in her world are always shut in and hidden out of fear. It made the world look deserted, dark and dead. But here, it's alive, crowded and bright. The nightlight is bright as well. Of course, she's not here for site-seeing. She's here to finish what she started, to keep the promise she made to a friend a long time ago.

"Time play a game of cat and mouse," she smirks.

This is a wild game of survival.


End of Chapter 2.

Well, isn't she on a mean pill right now? Sorry for those who are Laurel fans for Earth-52 doppelgänger for insulting her but I did say this is the evil version of Felicity. And for the Felicity fans, sorry.

I hope you guys liked it.

Let me know in the comments before.