Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow.
A/N: I previously conceived this one-shot as a reaction to just how seriously Guggenheim and Mericle fucked over Oliver's character by making him into some kind of 'monster' in the Season 5 flashbacks. Anyone who actually watches Season 1 sees how restrained Oliver was in how he fought against the corruption in Starling City, nothing like what the flashbacks from 5x09 or 5x17 showed.
So, this story explores what would happen if the Oliver we saw in the Season 5 flashbacks were to return to Starling City and how things might play out once the Red Death wore off (assuming it ever did in canon considering Oliver's flashbacks and his suicidal nature).
Monster
By
ArlyssTolero
Adam Hunt had just finished talking with Eric Gitter, his paid-for lackey that was in charge of C.N.R.I., when an odd twang filled the air. A moment later, Gitter's throat was impaled by an arrow. Another twang, and one of Hunt's guards went down with an arrow through the heart. A green-clad figure erupted from the shadows, delivering a crushing blow to Hunt's second bodyguard's throat before pulling him backwards and breaking his neck with an audible crack. Hunt backed away from the menace, terrified of what would happen to him. "Adam Hunt," the green-clad archer growled, and in his terror Adam Hunt thought the man's voice had an ethereal quality to it. "You've failed this city."
The archer armed his bow and fired before Hunt could blink, and pain erupted in his leg a moment later as he sank to his knees. Hunt glared blearily up at the archer, who merely put another two arrows in his chest, each one piercing one of Hunt's lungs. Taking care to crush Hunt's hands beneath his boot, the man who would become known as The Hood left Hunt to drown in his own blood. He still had one other stop to make tonight; one did not leave the heirs of one's adversaries to come after you later down the road. Hunt had a daughter, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
*DC*
His guards dead (one of them having been beaten to death by the Hood), Marcus Redman screamed as the Hood ripped open a grate covering a spinning fan. "Please, no!" he cried futilely, but the Hood's ears were entirely unsympathetic. He delivered a right hook to Redman's jaw to stun him, then threw him head-first into the spinning fan, gore splattering his uniform before he got out of splatter distance.
The next day, after being 'officially resurrected', Oliver learned that Laurel was stupidly taking on another of the men from his father's List, Martin Somers, who was connected to the Triad. The Hood paid a visit to Laurel that night to scare her off, putting an arrow in her arm to make it clear that she was to stay away from the Somers/Nocenti case, if only for her father's sake if not for her own. That had subsequently cowed the obstinate attorney and the Hood had then moved against Somers, killing him and every man working for him during the nightshift, when the Triad operations were running.
This resulted in the Triad placing a bounty on the Hood, until he later worked with Helena Bertinelli to wipe them and her father's organization out. As a result, the Bratva became the primary source of organized crime in Starling City.
*DC*
When a sniper took out his target, James Holder, the Hood looked between the man bleeding out in the pool and where the shot came from before shrugging and leaving. Across the way, the sniper known as Deadshot smirked. He had heard of the Hood, and it was nice to see there was still some professional courtesy in their profession. He had to admit, he admired the Hood for his methods. The up close, visceral feel of killing your enemies definitely put a rush through your veins, but Deadshot's strengths laid outside of those areas.
When the sniper who killed Holder continued, Oliver quickly discovered the thing linking the victims was the bidding for Unidac Industries. Seeing as he didn't care one way or another about the family business or his mother's current husband (Walter had just been an employee of his father's to his knowledge, certainly not the 'best friend' as the man tried to claim because that spot belonged to Malcolm Merlyn), Oliver decided to wait and see who would profit from this. In the end, his bodyguard John Diggle died keeping Walter alive, and Oliver put his foot down when his mother tried to get a replacement.
With the knowledge that Warren Patel had acquired Unidac Industries, despite evidence pointing to another party, The Hood paid Patel a visit in his Starling City hotel room to discover he wasn't the only one seeking the man out. Another, black-clad archer was there as well, and upon discovering The Hood's presence, had informed The Hood that Patel was a rogue agent of Tempest, the organization the Dark Archer represented who had tried to use the need for Unidac Industries against their superior. The Hood had allowed the Dark Archer to get the company holdings transferred before executing Patel. Afterward, the two archers met and revealed their identities to one another.
Oliver had seen just how far the city had fallen since his return, and after his father's old friend had explained just what Tempest was and what their Undertaking was intended to do, he signed on to work with Malcolm, becoming his right hand. Malcolm had told him he could not act as openly as Oliver could due to his past, so the Hood persona came in quite useful in his pursuits.
*DC*
With Oliver as his right-hand, Malcolm quickly ensured any remaining doubters were silenced and rid himself of dead weight like Frank Chen, Jason Brodeur, Justin Claybourne, and others. When Walter Steele had to be dealt with, it was Oliver who handled it and later took control of Queen Consolidated as its C.E.O. Once the Undertaking was complete, under the leadership of Merlyn Global and Queen Consolidated, Starling City rebuilt and rebranded itself as Star City. When Slade Wilson came calling, he faced a more ruthless adversary than he expected in the boy who had once been his brother.
Sara Lance, embittered over the deaths of her father and sister who had been in the Glades during the earthquake, sought answers for what happened and discovered the trail leading back to Queen Consolidated and Merlyn Global. Joining forces with Tommy Merlyn, who was grieving over the loss of Laurel, she worked to find out who had been involved. Both she and Tommy were horrified to discover that Malcolm and Oliver were the ones behind the attack and, overwhelmed with emotion, they confronted the two. Malcolm dealt with Sara as a more experienced assassin, breaking her neck in the end. Oliver put Tommy into a coma, and with the help of some of Malcolm's agents, they staged Tommy to make it appear he had been in a car accident. Sara's body was thrown into a vat of hydrochloric acid where it dissolved.
With Sara having abandoned her place in the League of Assassins by leaving Nanda Parbat without permission, there was no reprisals from the League at the order of Ra's al Ghul. When H.I.V.E. began poking around Star City as a potential haven for their Genesis operation, the League of Assassins allied with Oliver and Malcolm to take down Ra's al Ghul's old foe, Damien Darhk.
Malcolm Merlyn went on to become Mayor of Star City, while Oliver, now married to Helena Bertinelli, became the city's premier employer. As Malcolm had once told Oliver, "Sometimes for the village to be saved, it must first be destroyed." Starling City had been destroyed, but Star City had risen to become the crown jewel of the West Coast that Malcolm had dreamed of and at its center was a wide-open space to rival New York City's Central Park. This place, where families could come to have fun and hold reunions, was the Rebecca Merlyn Memorial Park.
A/N: For those surprised at the ending, this project was intended to show you what an Oliver who would let nothing stand in his way, morals included, would do, because that's what we had at the end of the S5 flashbacks, because only someone with no morals and no compunctions could skin a man alive to 'practice'. The only reason Merlyn was exposed was because Oliver's morals forced him to confront the true architect of the misery choking his city, a fact that Marc Guggenheim, Wendy Mericle, and later, Beth Schwartz all seem to have forgotten.
While I support the removal of Andrew Kreisberg due to his actions on the set of Supergirl, there's no doubt in my mind he and Berlanti were the superior showrunners. Sadly, Kreisberg's proclivities saw his career come to an end (and by this I mean I wish he didn't have such proclivities) and Berlanti has stretched himself thin as a super-producer developing multiple projects across multiple channels, leaving the Arrowverse in the hands of hacks, has-beens, and wanna-bes.