Isabelle's Point of View

This is going to take awhile. We'll pick up in July of 2013, around two months after the end of chapter 40 and we'll end around December and pick up again in March because nothing important happened over the winter months.

April 2013

Oliver and I were training in the lair when Oliver's phone rang. "Yeah," he said answering the phone.

"Okay, I'll be there," he said and rolled his eyes.

"I'm at Verdant," Oliver said, clearly growing more and more exasperated. He hung up a few minutes later.

"Let me guess, your mother again?" I asked.

"Yep, she still doesn't believe me when I say I have a nightclub," Oliver complained.

"You do realize that that's no one's fault but your own. You only occasionally sleep and eat at Queen Manor. You stay here most nights and eat takeout," I said.

"Did you just take my mother's side?" he asked jokingly.

"No, I'm taking my own side," I replied.

"So what does she want this time?" I asked.

"She wants me to come for dinner because she's invited people over and wants me to be there," Oliver answered sharpening a knife.

"I'm guessing I'm not invited," I said.

"Nope," he answered.

"Which means I'm coming anyway right?" I asked.

"Yep," Oliver answered smugly.

"Why didn't she invite me?" I asked sarcastically.

"Because she dislikes you and she's probably trying to set me up with someone she does approve of," Oliver answered, now polishing the knife.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes, really, she even pulled the 'your sister would come'," Oliver replied.

"No, she wouldn't. She'd complain until she got out of it," I said.

"Exactly," Oliver answered.

"I guess you're going to have to find your suit, and I don't mean the green one," I told him and laughed at my own terrible joke. Oliver just shook his head.

"You should probably get a dress then," he shot back.

"Yuck," I replied.

"If I'm wearing a suit then you need to wear a dress," Oliver reasoned.

"Fine," I said walking over to the stairs.

"Where are you going?" he called.

"Look at the time, we have an hour till the time that Moira has designated as dinner time," I replied climbing up the stair and disapparating away to Jade and I's apartment. I arrived and immediately tripped on the ironing board that one of us had left in the middle of the floor.

"Ow," I said, then used some choice words that I'm not going to put here. I walked into my room and started to look through my closet. To find that I only had one dress that would be even close to fancy enough for one of Moira's dinner parties, also known as my dress from Kara and Barry's wedding. I ironed it, threw it on along with a pair of shoes, and disapparated back to the lair. Oliver was now sharpening a sword.

"Are you just going to sharpen things your whole life?" I asked, alerting him to my presence.

"No," he answered briskly.

"Go get dressed, we're going to be late," I told him.

"That's my goal," Oliver replied and I laughed.

"What's the point of making her even more upset about your life and actions?" I asked him. Oliver sighed.

"I'm hoping I won't have to flat out tell her that it's my life and she can't control it by guilt tripping me into events," he explained.

"Right. And this method just seems to be getting you into more and more events, which is a problem since we both need to spend more time here figuring out Malcolm Merlyn's plan without storming the castle so to speak," I told him, trying to act on logic instead of my personal opinions on Moira.

About half an hour later we arrived at Queen Mansion. Ten minutes late. Oliver rang the doorbell and Moira opened it a few seconds later, scowling.

"You're late," she said coldly.

"Traffic was terrible," I said alerting her to my presence.

"I thought I told you to come alone," Moira said quietly as to not let anyone know what was happening.

"Did you? I must've forgotten," Oliver replied stiffly. Moira just sighed and led us inside. Helena was standing in the living room, dressed in a black dress, and smirking widely.

"What are you doing here?" I asked moving over to her as Oliver went to greet other people.

"Well, Moira somehow convinced my father that Oliver and I should meet and here I am because apparently, I can't get away from my father's controlling ways," she explained.

"I also know for a fact that you and Oliver are together and am wondering what is going on?" Helena asked skeptically.

"Moira doesn't approve of me so she's trying to set Ollie up with someone else that she does approve of," I explained. Helena's face contorted to an expression of pure annoyance.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Yep," I responded.

"I need cake. Any idea if there's cake?" was what she responded with. I laughed.

"I dunno, there might be," I told her. That's when a flash of red caught my eye. I turned and there was Cheryl, sipping a glass of red wine and looking rather bored.

"Cheryl?" I said aloud and she turned towards me.

"Isabelle, Helena, thank goodness, civilization has arrived," she said hugging Helena and not even bothering to try to hug me.

"Aren't you and Oliver together? I get the feeling this is some sort of 'I don't approve of my son's girlfriend so I'm going to find him a new one' scheme. Right?" she said and I nodded. Cheryl just looked even more annoyed now.

"How did you end up here?" I asked her.

"I think Moira is just picking up people that she thinks Oliver will be interested in. I don't know why that would include me but that's the only normal-ish explanation I could come up within the twenty minutes I've been here," Cheryl answered. And that's when my phone rang. It was John.

"What's up?" I asked, answering.

"You're going to need to get Oliver for this one," he said, sounding slightly angry. I pushed my way through the crowd of mostly women, trying to get to Oliver, who was pretty much surrounded.

"Hey, wait for your turn," one of them told me.

"You act like he's some sort of prize to be won. I'll have you know I'm his girlfriend and have been since a few weeks after he got back, so you might want to let me through," I snarked back. She just sneered.

"Prove it," she told me. I felt anger surge and then stop. I just rolled my eyes.

"I mean it, prove it," she said again. I sighed.

"Hey, Oliver," I shouted over the noise.

"Phone call for you," I shouted as he turned towards me. Oliver made his way towards me.

"I thought we agreed not to make a scene," he said quietly.

"Too late," the woman said from my left.

"She claims to be your girlfriend," she continued. I shot her a death glare. Oliver just looked at her.

"Yeah, and?" he asked.

"Prove it," she dared me. I made eye contact with Oliver quickly and then kissed him. I'm going to be honest, we stayed like that longer than I care to admit.

"How's that for proof," Helena asked the woman as we pulled apart. I handed Oliver the phone as everyone gaped. Cheryl was laughing her head off.

"Now that's the entertainment I needed," she giggled. I smirked. Oliver, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to bottle a lot of anger.

"What's going on?" I asked him as noise began to build in the room.

"John says that my mother is a part of Tempest," he said filling me in. I clenched my jaw.

"Do you believe him?" I asked.

"Honestly, I don't know. I want to believe that my mother is good, but it does make sense," Oliver said slowly. I tried to figure out how to comfort him. I mean it can't be easy, finding out that your mother might be on the wrong side of things. I just slipped my hand into his, hoping that the simple gesture would at least bring a tiny bit of comfort.

"Do you have any proof?" he said, speaking to Dig now. Oliver listened for a few minutes.

"Okay, thank you for letting me know," he said stiffly and hung up.

"The proof is undeniable," he told me.

"Do you remember how Walter had Megan look into the 2.6 million dollars that went missing, they went to Tempest, from my mother. Dig also has a recording from ARGUS that's a conversation between my mother and Merlyn about something called the Undertaking," Oliver explained quickly and quietly, then proceeded to address the room.

"Party is over, sorry about the inconvenience, something has come up," he shouted above the noise. We made our way towards the front doors, along with Helena and Cheryl, and left before Moira could even catch up.

"What's going on?" Cheryl asked.

"Putting it simply, my mother might be evil," Oliver said bluntly.

"Uh, I'm sorry about that. On the bright side, we have multiple people with that sort of 'my mother is evil' experience myself included. We could form a club," Cheryl tried awkwardly.

"Thanks, but I'd rather handle this myself," Oliver replied, climbing onto his motorcycle. I followed his lead climbing onto my own and waved at the two of them, revving the engine and tearing down the road.

That night we basically broke into QC in full vigilante gear.

"Moira Queen, you have failed this city," Oliver said, voice distorted by the modulator.

"Please, don't kill me, I have two children," she pleaded immediately.

"We aren't here to hurt you, we just have some questions," I tried and that's when the gunshot rang out. The bullet hit Oliver and I quickly threw down a smoke bomb to cover our escape, leaping out the window while trying to best to not fall and die. I got us back to the lair as quickly as I could.

"Dig, help," I shouted down the stairs, knowing I couldn't possibly get Oliver down on my own. He rushed up, accompanied by Sara and Megan.

We managed to get Oliver down the stairs, get the bullet out, and stitch up the wound without any issues.

"What happened?" Dig asked after we finished.

"Moira happened," I answered grimly, trying to not get angry. How was she supposed to know that she had just shot her son? Well, she shouldn't shoot people in the first place. Oh well. There goes the not being mad.

Megan moved to her station. "It is possible that I could hack her personal computer, see if there is any information on Tempest," she said already typing. I moved and sat in the other chair, watching her work.

"Anything?" I asked after about fifteen minutes, noticing Megan's typing growing more frustrated. She shook her head.

"Absolutely nothing," she said running her hands through her hair.

"I would say hack Merlyn, but he has so much security that you'd get in and immediately be tracked, which would do nothing but get you locked up at this point," I said resigned.

"Exactly," Megan replied.

"I'm going to go home for the night, have a glass of wine, dye my hair a random color just for fun, and all that," she said, stood up, grabbed her coat from the back of her chair, and picked up her bag off the ground.

"Night," she called over her shoulder and left.

"Well, if we do anything else tonight, Dig, you're the new Oracle," I joked and Dig just rolled his eyes. About a half an hour later Oliver woke up, we filled him in, and then retired for the night as we had nothing else to do.

The next major development happened in December of 2013, thanks to ARGUS.

It was a cold, bleak, and grey morning and we were all sitting in the lair, sort of huddled together for body heat because the heating isn't working which causes some issues to say the least. "I'm cold," Megan said breaking the silence for no reason.

"No duh," I said. She poked me.

"So, today would be a good day to break into Merlyn Global Group, they have heating which is an added bonus," I tried.

"We don't have a full plan yet," Oliver replied.

"Actually, I do," Megan piped up. She moved to her computer and pulled up blueprints of the building.

"So what is this plan of yours?" Oliver asked.

"Dig will use this," she held up an official looking security badge, "to infiltrate the security part of things. I will pose as a delivery girl and dose the meal with a mild sedative, which will be used to knock out whoever else is in the camera room," she started.

"Oliver, you and Isabelle, will make an appointment to see Tommy, as he works there now, try to make up while you're at it, you two are mostly back up," she said growing more confident as she went.

"Meanwhile, Dig, while in the camera room you use this flash drive," she held one up, "to copy all of the files off of any computer associated with Malcolm. They won't think anything of it if it comes from their servers," Megan finished. Oliver looked slightly impressed and said nothing.

"You've shocked him into silence," I joked and Megan laughed.

"That might actually work," Oliver said aloud. So, I'm lazy and don't feel like writing everything out, but the plan went well, so I'm just going to skip to our return to the lair. Which was about an hour later.

"That went well," I said collapsing into a chair, Megan nodded absentmindedly, distracted by pulling up her bright turquoise tipped hair. She did say she was going to dye it.

"You mean to say it could have been worse," Oliver said, pulling off his suit jacket. I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, that's definitely what I meant," I said sarcastically.

"I'll start going through the files, see what I can dig up," Megan said and cracked her knuckles.

"Ow," she said aloud and then got to work.

About an hour later, the three of us were sparring while Megan worked. "Ah ha," she shouted triumphantly. Followed by:

"That's not good."

"What did you find?" I asked running over and almost fell in the process.

"Malcolm and Tempest are trying to level the Glades," Megan answered. Well, needless to say, we all panicked a bit, and when I say a bit, well that's an understatement.

"How are they planning to do that? Blow it up?" I asked and Megan shook her head frantically.

"Merlyn Global Group has been working on an earthquake machine," she said. Oliver swore under his breath.

"Why couldn't they do something that doesn't involve destroying everything?" I asked.

Okay, I know I cut off kind of randomly, but we have a lot to get through and I've rambled on enough. It is now March of 2014. Happy New Year and all that. The date is the 13th and this is when things go downhill.

Oliver, Dig, Megan, Roy, and I were all at the base when it started. Megan was watching Merlyn's files, having hacked in again, and making sure nothing happened relating to the Undertaking as Tempest called it.

She screamed out of nowhere. I jumped and almost fell off my chair. "What the heck?" I said aloud.

"Sorry, but Merlyn sent out an email to the members of Tempest, don't know why he chose to send an email, that's pretty incriminating," she mused.

"Forget that it's incriminating, what does it say?" I asked.

"He's planning to start the Undertaking in a couple hours, he's telling everyone that their plan is about to come to fruition, and to get out," Megan said.

"He must be an idiot or something else is going on because that doesn't sound like him at all," Dig started.

"Maybe it's a fluke," I guessed.

"Maybe someone deleted it," Megan said softly. My eyes widened slightly.

"Maybe it was just a warning," I said.

"I don't think it's that simple," Oliver said heavily. I exchanged a look with Megan, both of us not sure what we could do, even as a team.

"Any idea when it'll happen?" Roy asked.

"It seemed like it was going to be really soon, so I'd guess that it'll be in the next few hours," Megan answered.

"Can we call in the Justice League?" Roy asked. Oliver shook his head.

"We don't know for sure what is happening, plus there's a lot going on everywhere, they wouldn't be able to get here in time," he explained.

"So you're saying we're on our own," I supplied and Oliver nodded.

"Well, there's us. Nyssa and Sara are both currently in town. Depending on if Nyssa thinks their ready Betty, Veronica, Cheryl, and Toni are all potential allies," Megan spoke up slightly louder than usual.

"You okay?" I asked her.

"Not really, it's just the typical pre-crisis anxiety. Don't worry, I can handle it," she reassured us all and started to take slow deep breaths.

"You sure?" Roy asked moving to her side. I should mention that the two of them are pretty good friends. Megan just nodded in reply and began to type, which is one of her methods of calming herself down.

About a half an hour later we had recruited everyone and were all dressed in full vigilante gear, ready to handle the mess that was about to unfold. Or so we thought.

The first sign of things getting worse was when we disabled the first machine. Keyword in that sentence first. Nyssa was the one that found and disabled the first machine and the moment we thought things were getting better it got worse.

Sara's Point of View

The ground shook beneath our feet and a crack split the earth dividing the ground.

"I thought you disabled the machine," I shouted into the comns, trying to be heard over the noise of people screaming and building creaking or falling.

"I did," Nyssa's voice answered, the connection cracked.

"There must've been a second machine," she said.

"Start evacuating the Glades," Oliver said. We all got to work helping people off the streets and out of buildings.

Oliver's Point of View

My first thought after telling everyone what to do was 'where's Thea?' Answer: she's was at Queen Manor. I made my way through the rubble headed for CNRI, which is where Laurel used to work and is near the center of the destruction. When I got there I found a group of people standing outside. I activated the voice modulator.

"Is anyone still inside?" I asked.

"Yes, two people, the young Mr. Merlyn and Stephanie," one of the employees answered. I steeled my face, slightly worried as the building looked like it was about to collapse. I ran inside. I found both of them rather quickly. Tommy was trapped under a piece of the ceiling and Stephanie was trying and failing to pull it off of him.

"Get out of here," I shouted at her and she ran. I took her place and pulled it off, only to find Tommy had been impaled by a post. I shoved the hood off of my head, knowing that there was nothing I could do.

"Oliver?" he asked.

"Yeah," was all I could bring myself to say.

"You're the vigilante," he said. I nodded.

"I'm dying, aren't I?" Tommy asked as tears began to spill from his eyes. I felt my eyes water and nodded not wanting to speak. I left the building when he was dead and it collapsed a moment later. I couldn't let my emotions bubble to the surface yet. I had to find Malcolm Merlyn.

I found him on a rooftop about twenty minutes later. Anger coursed through my veins, can you blame me? "Malcolm Merlyn, you have failed this city," I growled.

"Ah, Oliver, how are you tonight?" Merlyn said turning. I wasn't surprised that he knew who I was, he's not a total idiot.

"Your earthquake killed Tommy," I told him.

"That was an unfortunate consequence of him not listening when I told him to stay out of the Glades tonight," Malcolm said coldly. I drew an arrow from my quiver, notched it onto the bowstring, aimed it at Malcolm's heart (if he has one), and fired. In a split second, Malcolm drew a sword and hit the arrow out of the air. I quickly engaged him and honestly, I took a few blows but landed a few as well. After about a minute, I managed to pick up the fallen arrow and knock Malcolm to the ground.

"This is for Tommy and all the others you've killed tonight," I said as I stood over him.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked. I said nothing, waiting for a signal, and a second later a purple blast of magic flew into the sky.

"That's my signal," I said coldly then stabbed the arrow through his heart and waited until the body stopped moving to remove the arrow.