Stephen at the FanExpo panel, oh c'mon, what is life? Forever thanking the person for screaming Felicity's name at him when he asked himself what he wanted to see Oliver do someday.

Here's chapter 26. Hope you like it. I had a hard time writing it as Felicity is so OOC because she's a freak now.. lol

CW OWNS IT ALL.

Oliver and Diggle were both geared up. Diggle had his guns ready and Oliver his bow and arrows. They both had their earpieces in, in case they had to split up. They had parked the van in the middle of the muddy road so if anyone in any car wanted to flee the scene, it couldn't pass. The road was too small and only accessible for one vehicle at a time.

As they walked to the old ruined building, they observed their surroundings. It didn't seem like anyone was present though. It was utterly quiet and there were no other vehicles to be seen than the van they had driven. However, they were convinced someone was going to be inside the building. Perhaps not Felicity herself, but at least someone who was willing to kill both men.

The door to the building was fully opened, but it was dark inside. Nevertheless, they didn't use any flashlight to guide them. It was better if they made their way in, unnoticed. They slowly made their way through the long hall, stepping over bricks and glass to avoid unnecessary sounds. Even though Lieutenant Lance had cleared the grand hall from the drug plants, the smell of it was still evident. Oliver and Diggle tried to avoid breathing through their noses, so the smell of the drugs wouldn't give them headaches.

Quietly they arrived at the doors to the grand hall were the plants used to be. Oliver crouched down and peered through a hole to look around the hall. It was completely empty. Diggle opened the doors slowly and stepped inside.

"Clear.." He whispered to reassure Oliver there was no one to be seen.

Oliver followed Diggle inside and both men looked around the hall. It was really empty and as far as they could see, there were no other doors in this space.

Oliver started walking across the hall and looked up and down to see if he could find a hidden entrance. Diggle noticed Oliver searching and he started walking too. Diggle started knocking on the walls to hear if it sounded hollow anywhere.

Suddenly Oliver stopped his steps. He kneeled down and grabbed something from the ground. Diggle stopped too and waited for Oliver to reveal what he'd found. Oliver looked closely to the object and then showed it to Diggle.

"It's an earring. Laurel's earring." Oliver spoke softly.

"Are you sure?" Diggle asked.

"Yes. I remember her wearing these." Oliver replied.

Oliver wrapped his fingers around the earring to feel the object and then shoved it in one of his pockets. Diggle made his way to Oliver and looked down at the ground.

"They must be underground. There's no other way." Diggle stated as he kneeled down beside a pile of bricks. As he tried removing one, he noticed all of the bricks moved. It appeared all the bricks were attached to each other. Oliver kneeled down also and helped Diggle to remove the pile. Both men groaned as they pushed the pile aside. A black hole into the ground showed. Diggle grabbed for his phone and turned on his flashlight. As he shone into the black hole, a staircase appeared.

"And I thought our lair was well hidden." Diggle said with an amused look on his face.

Oliver placed both hands on either side of the hole and lowered himself into it, his feet slowly finding the stairs. When his feet touched the stairs he let go and quietly walked down. Diggle followed him. After a long while the stairs finally ended and Diggle turned off the flashlight as there were already lights on revealing where they were. They were standing in something that seemed like an industrial place. Huge machines were filling the place and the smell of burnt wood was present.

"Oliver Queen and his sidekick. What a privilege." The voice came out of nowhere, but they could recognize it anywhere now. It was Grayson speaking.

Oliver immediately grabbed a bow and aimed around. Diggle had his gun ready to shoot. Grayon's voice was echoing through the place and they couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"I'd like you to lower your weapons. Only that way I'll talk to you."

Oliver clenched his teeth but lowered his bow. Nonetheless, he made sure he was able to shoot if necessary. Diggle lowered his gun as well but also kept it tightly wrapped in his hands.

Sounds of footsteps on metal was heard now and Grayson appeared on top of a machine. He was smiling widely and had his arms open as to welcome Oliver and Diggle into his house. However, this was not Grayson's house and there was actually no need to smile. Grayson noticed the tensed faces of the men standing on the ground beneath him and his smile faded as quickly as it had appeared.

"I'm not happy to see you either to be honest." He began, directing his sentence to Oliver as if Diggle wasn't actually there. "You were supposed to be dead by now. But I believe you have more than nine lives because you're still here. I can't say that about your father or your friend Tommy or your mother." Grayson mentioned Oliver's mother with a little chuckle.

Rage welled up inside Oliver as soon as he heard Grayson saying that. In a sudden reaction he pulled up his bow and shot an arrow at Grayson's leg. However, Grayson managed to stop the arrow from going into his skin by simply making it look like he'd caught the arrow. Oliver and Diggle frowned. They couldn't believe Grayson had just stopped an arrow like it was nothing.

"I didn't know that was still a touchy subject, Oliver." Grayson said as he let the arrow fall onto the ground. Diggle watched the arrow hit the ground. Oliver shifted a little as he lowered his bow again.

"Your mother must have been proud of you and your hard work. Not only as Oliver the CEO of Queen Consolidated but also as the Arrow. She knew, didn't see?" Grayson asked, but without any expectation of being provided with an answer. "You see. I knew you were the Arrow all along too. I think it's funny nobody else but your mother found out by themselves. It's quite obvious if you look at the puzzle closely. Oliver Queen returns from being stuck on an island for five years and suddenly the green hood appears. And the green hood mostly appears when you, Oliver Queen, are in the neighborhood."

"How did you find out?" Oliver asked as he became annoyed with the second.

"I was friends with.. how may I call him.. your acquaintance. I believe you don't consider him your friend anymore. Which I absolutely understand as he killed your own mother in front of your eyes."

"Slade.." Oliver whispered a little too loud to himself.

"Exactly him." Grayson said with a grin as soon as he heard Slade's name. "Well, you may not be friends with him anymore but I still am, even though he's locked up somewhere far away where nobody can come close to him, I still am loyal to him, because I'm his friend."

Grayson rubbed his hands as he let himself lean against something of the machine.

"You betrayed Slade, my friend-"

"I never betrayed Slade." Oliver immediately said back, not liking where this conversation was going.

"You betrayed Slade and I will never." Grayson snapped back. He swallowed and continued on talking. "Before you managed to get the Mirakuru out of him and defeat him, Slade and I had a little talk about what I could do to help him if anything was going to happen to him. It was a great and strong talk and he made it all clear for me."

Grayson crossed his arm and got an amused look on his face as he looked down at Oliver and Diggle who still hadn't moved an inch. His amused look disappeared again when he continued on talking.

"Shadow is dead because of you. Slade wanted you to pay for it. However, Slade never got the chance to make you really pay for it. Yes. He killed your mother. Yes. He made sure your life was a living hell for a while.. but his ultimate plan was to kill the woman you loved. Am I right?"

This time Grayson paused for a moment to wait for an answer, but he didn't get any. He sighed and started talking again.

"But he never got the chance to, so he asked me to finish it for him. You know, I never thought of just killing your girl. I actually wanted to take it up another notch."

"You can hurt me and kill me, but leave my family and friends out of this. They don't deserve this, I do." Oliver suddenly said. He could feel Diggle's eyes burning in his back, but at this moment he didn't care. He didn't want his partner to get hurt or to be killed and he didn't want anything to happen to either Felicity or Laurel.

"Oh, I won't kill you, my friend." Grayson answered. "But I have someone else who's willing to kill you. Slade left me one little present before he went off to be defeated. He left me one shot of the Mirakuru. Of course I could have injected myself with it, but my fellow partner and I discovered my body couldn't handle it. It was then I thought of injecting someone else with it and after a couple of tests with her blood it turned out she could handle the Mirakuru quite well."

"If you didn't inject yourself with the Mirakuru, how can you be so fast and strong?" Diggle asked.

"My Mirakuru patient produced some pretty decent blood. I used that to fill my body with it. It made me stronger but it didn't kill me." Grayson answered before returning his focus back to Oliver.

"Remember the message you got through the radio, Oliver? It turns out my Mirakuru patient is quite the actress." Grayson said with a little laugh.

Another pair of footsteps were heard. Someone else was climbing up the machine. Oliver's eyes widened as soon as he saw who was climbing up the machine to stand next to Grayson.

"Felicity.." He whispered.

She was wearing a black suit of leather. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail and she wasn't wearing her glasses. She was geared up as well and even though she was still small, she looked stronger than ever.

"What did you do to her?" Diggle let out in shock.

"Simple. We injected her with the Mirakuru." Grayson answered.

"Felicity. Can you hear me?" Oliver yelled directly to Felicity, but she didn't flinch when hearing his voice.

"She can hear you , son. She just doesn't know who you really are to her." Grayson said in reaction to Oliver's attempt on getting Felicity's attention.

Despite Grayson's explanation, it was Diggle who called out her name now.

"Felicity. It's me. Diggle." He yelled.

Felicity turned her head and looked down at Diggle. Diggle simply smiled at her but she didn't seem to find the effort to smile back. She started moving and jumped off the machine. She slowly walked over to Diggle and stopped just inches away from her. Diggle tried whispering her name, but as soon as he wanted to, Felicity grabbed him by the throat and squeezed it shut. She then slammed him to the ground. Quickly, Diggle started gasping for air as he held onto his throat.

In the meanwhile, Oliver had been aiming an arrow at Felicity, but hadn't had the nerve to shoot her. She simply turned around to face him. She looked him in the eyes and the only thing he could do was look back into the beautiful eyes he'd missed. Because even though she didn't look quite the same and she acted different, he could still see the girl he had fallen in love with.

She took a couple of steps closer to him and placed a hand against his chest. His hand started trembling, thereupon his bow started shaking and he lowered it. He looked down at her hand and all he wanted to do was touch her back, but he was nailed to the ground and he felt paralyzed. Suddenly Felicity's other hand moved and something stung him in the arm. Oliver looked down at his arm and saw a needle.

"Felicity.." He let out in surprise and shock.

Then the room started spinning and before he could say anything else to her, everything became dark.

Damn it Felicity. You ruined Oliver's perfect moment with you.

Please be kind enough to review! Thank you all for your support :)