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The earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth.

John Shimkus

Chapter Twenty

Man Will (Not) Destroy This Earth

She was woken up abruptly by ice water being poured over her, and quickly took stock of her current situation.

She was hanging upside down by her ankles in what seemed to be an empty warehouse, its sole light source that of a thin stream of sunlight coming from the window. She was naked save for her bra and panties, and the sole injury she could feel was her head wound, which was also still bloody, knotting her hair as it dried.

It said a lot of things that this actually wasn't the worst situation she'd ever woken up in.

A man carrying a bucket walked away, but Felicity didn't bother calling out to him. He was just the muscle, and would be either too loyal to or else too intimidated by Merlyn to interact with her. Instead, she looked around, sizing up her options.

"I hope I didn't hurt you," Merlyn said with false concern as he strolled him, hands tucked into his pockets. Felicity supressed an eyeroll. It seemed that Merlyn was one of those psychos, the ones that liked to monologue and talk about why their crimes were for the good of the world. Felicity actually preferred the ones like Fyers, who at least owned up to his crimes and acknowledged that he was a selfish, psychotic bastard willing to slaughter God knew how many innocents for the sake of his bank account.

"I've had worse," Felicity answered coldly, glaring at Tommy's father. How the fuck was it possible that Tommy Merlyn, one of the kindest guys she'd ever met, had come from this lunatic? Rebecca Merlyn must've been one hell of a woman. Or maybe he was adopted. Switched at birth or something. It made a heck of a lot more sense than the two men sharing genetics.

"Yes, I can see that," Merlyn mused, eyes ghosting over her form. "At least now I can thank you properly for saving my life," he went on.

She felt her lips twist bitterly, glowering at him. "Don't worry about it," she shot back. "I'll make sure to fix my mistake ASAP."

He smirked and shook his head. "You're quite the spitfire, Felicity," he told her. "I see why Oliver fell in love with you." His expression fell. "My Rebecca was a spitfire too."

"Is this what she'd want?" Felicity questioned him. "She tried to help the people of the Glades, and now you're trying to kill them all in her name!"

"Rebecca wanted to live!" He yelled, eyes going wild. "She wanted to watch our son grow up! She was worth more than every one of those useless wastes combined, and they killed her!"

"Like you killed Robert and Sara and the half-dozen crewmembers on the Gambit," Felicity spat back bitterly. "I wanted to watch my son grow up as well, and you took that chance from me! I missed five years because you wanted to shut Robert up and decided to kill six innocents with him instead of hiring a fucking hitman like everybody else!"

Malcolm sighed. His mood swings were concerning, but a sign of his mental state. "I am truly sorry for what you went through," he said. To his credit, he did seem sincere, but Felicity sneered. He might feel sorry, but he sure as hell didn't regret it. "Not a day goes by that I don't miss Robert."

"Well don't worry," Felicity responded flatly. "You'll be dead soon enough and I doubt you'll be missing anybody then. I'd say you'll see him and Rebecca soon enough, but that's a lie, 'cause if anyone's going to rot in hell, it'll be you."

His gaze hardened, his eyes turning colder than the ice of Russia's winter. "You can't beat me, Felicity," he told her. "Yes, you're younger, and you're faster, frankly you're just plain better, with a broader range of skills, yet you always come up short against me. Do you want to know why?"

She stared back at him with pure loathing. Surely he believed it was because of some frivolous reason, like the fact that she's a woman, or something like that. That was always the reason they gave.

His eyes narrowed. "Because you don't know, in your heart, what you're fighting for; what you're willing to sacrifice," he said. "You're battling some other man's demons, pretending they are your own. I have no demons, Mrs. Queen. I know what I'm fighting for."

She lifted her chin defiantly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction even if his words touched a nerve. After all, Felicity had never shied away from acknowledging to herself that she used the List and her quest to clean up Starling City as a way to avoid dealing with everything that happened during her five years of exile.

If she was chasing down drug dealers, she wasn't thinking of Conklin's abuse or Taiana's tearful pleas for Felicity to kill her and put an end to her pain. If she was hacking the account of some rich sleaze, she wasn't dreaming of Sara's scream as she was sucked out of the Amazo, or remembering Slade's eyes glinting with madness and rage as he advanced on her and she grabbed the arrow to drive it into his eye before he could kill her.

But she'd never considered the possibility that her repression made her weak. She had promised herself, after Fyers, not to be weak again. She had thrown herself into learning everything she could from Shado and Slade, and later from Maseo and Tatsu as well. She hadn't always won, but she'd never been weak. Not until she had come up against Malcolm for the first time and had been forced to crawl away.

She had been genuinely considering hanging up her bow last night. She had never wanted to be a warrior, life had made her into one. Was Malcolm right? Was she really unaware of what she was fighting for? It had always been survival, back on the island, so she could return to her baby boy. But now she was back, and she was reunited with her family, so why was she fighting?

Merlyn smirked, and she had the uneasy suspicion that, despite her blank expression, he knew her doubts. "Nobody can stop what's about to happen," he told her, throwing the broken remnants of the bow Talia had given her and her (thankfully undamaged) katana from Tatsu at the ground in front of her. "Not even the vigilante." Then he turned and left.

Felicity watched him go, jaw locked. Then she inverted her body with a grunt, climbing the chain all the way to the top. When she reached her goal, she paused for a second before letting go. The pressure sent her hurtling to the ground, the pipes breaking and unleashing a torrent of water with her.

By the time the guards came in, Felicity was armed with her chains (they were still wrapped around her wrists, and too bulky for her to use her katana), and she used them to take the two men out. A third took her by her surprise, but she was saved by a gunshot.

Dig and Oliver rounded the corner, Dig in the lead and both holding their guns.

"Thank God!" Oliver exclaimed when he saw her. He rushed over to hug her, ignoring that she was soaked and trying to both embrace her and wrap his jacket around her at once.

"I take back every joke I ever made about you sticking a tracking device in your shoes and earrings," Dig added.

She gave a grim, tight smile, as she searched the dead guard for a key to her chains. "We need to hurry," she urged once she was released. "Merlyn will move soon. We don't have much time."

"I'm fine, Oliver," she huffed at her husband irritably as they arrived at the basement. "How far has the scanner gotten?"

"Thirty-seven percent," Oliver replied, reluctantly leaving the matter of her injuries be to focus on what really mattered. "But there are a few things that have been flagged, including —" he clicked a few windows and opened up a blueprint "the schematics for the earthquake machine."

"So we can shut it down," she murmured, dropping into her chair to study the blueprints through narrow eyes.

"That's assuming we find it in time," Diggle pointed out pessimistically, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.

"We have to," she replied curtly. "In the meantime," she plucked up the phone she used to call Lance. "I'm going to call Lance and update him. SCPD needs to evacuate the Glades." Just in case. She remembered Hong Kong, the chaos and riots and death as Shrieve unleashed a special sort of hell in the form of the Alpha-Omega virus.

"I'm gonna call Tommy," Oliver declared. "Tell him to get Aly, her mom and the kids and go stay at a hotel or something. They're only ten minutes away from the Glades, and he and Aly both work there. They need to get away, just in case."

"Are you going to tell him about Malcolm?" Diggle asked seriously. Oliver's jaw tightened.

"Tommy's always had problems with his father," he said after a pause. "But I don't know if he'd believe this. I'll just convince him to go."

They nodded solemnly, and Felicity glanced at Dig. "You should tell Carly to take AJ and get out as well," she warned him. His expression darkened and he nodded curtly, and they all dispersed to make their separate calls.

"What do you want?" Quentin barked at her after answering her. She ignored the sounds of the guys in the background, trying (and seemingly failing) to convince their respective conversation partners that they needed to get as far from the Glades as they could, ASAP.

"Detective, we have a major problem," Felicity replied gravely. "Malcolm Merlyn is the Dark Archer. He plans to level the Glades in order to get revenge for his wife's death."

"Level the Glades?" Lance repeated in disbelief. "You're kidding me."

"Detective, you don't like me, you don't like my methods, fine," Felicity retorted. "But you know that I'm trying to protect the people of this city, same as you. If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't still have this phone. You wouldn't have given me the arrow last Christmas, or believed me when I warned you about the assassination attempt on Merlyn two months ago. Believe that I'm entirely serious about this. The Unidac Massacre was Merlyn. The scientists created the device he plans to use to destroy the Glades, and he killed them to tie up his loose ends. Malcolm Merlyn is mad, and dangerous, and if we don't act quickly, thousands of people will die. I know you don't want that. You're a good cop, and you actually want to help. It's why you're the only cop that I trust to any degree."

Lance was quiet for a moment. "You're sure about this?"

"Positive," Felicity answered without hesitation.

"What do you need from me?"

She bit back a relieved sigh, and ignored the stab of pleasure at knowing her surrogate father was starting to not utterly hate her alter ego. "I'm currently searching for the device, and I've located the schematics. Once I find it, it can be shut down. But the Glades need to be evacuated just in case, and Merlyn needs to be dealt with."

"Alright," Lance agreed. "I'll do what I can."

He hung up first this time, and Felicity turned to see the others were also finished with their conversations.

"How'd it go?" She asked.

"Carly's agreed to take AJ to visit her parents in Ivy Town," Dig said, his relief clear. "But I had to tell her that Lyla called me warning that ARGUS had been given a tip about a terrorist attack in Starling to convince her to go. She wants me to come with her, I said I'd come as soon as I could but I had to secure your family first."

Felicity nodded and glanced at Oliver, who looked stressed.

"Tommy wouldn't go," he admitted, his worry obvious. "He wouldn't even listen to me. He's with his dad. Malcolm apparently asked him to come for support after being attacked." He scowled bitterly, clenching his fists. "God, what are we gonna do?"

She stood and went over to cup his jaw in her calloused hands. "We're gonna stop Merlyn," she said simply.

Oliver was quiet for a moment, staring into her eyes, before clearing his throat and pulling away. "I need to go and talk to Mom again," he announced.

"Oliver-" Felicity began to protest.

"I have to, Lissy," he cut her off, looking at her pleadingly. "You heard her. She was doing this to protect our family, not because she believes in it. I have to talk to her."

"Alright," Felicity sighed. She hesitated then leaned up to kiss him chastely. "Hurry up," she urged him, pulling away before he could respond. "We don't know when he's activating the device, but it'll be soon. We don't have much time. Dig and I will work on narrowing down where he might have placed the machine."

He nodded and hurried off. Felicity watched him go before turning to Dig and heading over to her computers. "C'mon, Dig," she urged her partner briskly. "I bet that it's right in front of our eyes."

"We'll be kicking ourselves at how obvious it is," he agreed as he joined her in studying the information covering the screens, including a map of both the Starling City as a whole, the Glades, and the Underground, seeing as it was the symbol on the front of the notebook.

They spent some time shifting through the information before it suddenly struck her. "Dig," she breathed. "I got it!"

"Well?" He pressed eagerly.

She swung to face him, waving at the map of the subway line. "It's so obvious," she groaned. "If you wanted to destabilize a large area, where would you attack?"

His eyes widened as he realized what she was getting at. "Underground," he stated immediately. "It's somewhere on the subway line!"

His mother was in her bedroom when he arrived, and he paused for a moment to stare at her. How could she be so composed, knowing that thousands of innocent people were about to die, and she had played a part in murdering them? Who was this woman? He had always thought of his parents as good people, distant due to work maybe but good at heart. These past few months had ripped that belief away from him and crushed it, and he didn't know what to do.

Oliver took a deep breath and entered the room, Moira turning her attention to him when she heard his footsteps. "No more lies, Mom," he said. "The Undertaking. We need to stop it."

She raised her chin defiantly. "Everything I have ever said or done has been to protect our family," she insisted firmly.

"What about all those people in the Glades?" He argued.

She turned away. "I'm not their mother," she shrugged, but her body language was too tense for him to think that she was as indifferent as she was trying to act.

"Felicity told me the truth about the wreck," Oliver revealed. Moira turned to frown at him in confusion. "How Dad really died."

"Malcolm had a bomb placed on the yacht," Moira said, voice strained. "That's what happened. He killed your father for trying to defy him, and he will have no qualms killing the rest of us as well if we provoke him."

"That's not what happened," Oliver corrected her quietly, the memory of Felicity's admission paining him. "Felicity lied, to protect us from the truth. After the Gambit went down, Dad and she both made it to the life raft. And then they drifted, for days. In the end, there wasn't enough food and water for both of them, and Felicity was hurt." Oliver sighed and looked down at the ground, forcing the rest of the tale out. "So he shot himself in the head."

His mother whimpered and stepped away, hugging herself. "I don't want to hear this," she whispered hoarsely.

"Dad sacrificed himself so that my wife could live," Oliver forced himself to press onward despite the guilt and pain he felt. "Do you really think that he would have wanted this? Mom. Please. You have to help me stop Malcolm. We need to know where the device is."

She stared at him, pale and pained, but before she could answer her phone rang. Her hands shook as she answered. "Malcolm," she stated, their eyes meeting briefly as she spoke. "How can I help you? I see. Yes, thank you for calling." She set down the phone, seeming drained and leaning slightly on the dresser for support.

"What is it?" Oliver demanded anxiously. "What did he want?"

"Malcolm's accelerated his timetable," she said softly. "The Undertaking is... It's happening tonight." Oliver hurried for the door. "Where you going?" She called after him.

"Somebody in this family needs to put an end to this," he responded. "Whatever the cost."

"We gotta go scour that line," Dig insisted.

"There's no time," Oliver interrupted, a harried look about him as he entered the base. "I just spoke to Mom. Merlyn's moving up his timetable. The Undertaking is tonight."

"Fuck," Felicity bit out. She gestured at the subway map, showing it to him. "We figured out that Merlyn placed the device somewhere along the subway line," she explained hurriedly. "This is a US geological survey showing a fault that runs right under the Glades. Somewhere along the 10th Street line we think. That's the place where it can make the most impact."

Oliver stared at him gravely. "I know where it is," he declared, but his phone rang before he could expand on his statement. "Thea, now's not a good time," he greeted his younger sister tensely. He jerked at her response. "Which channel?" He turned to them. "Turn on the news," he requested hastily, looking strained. Felicity complied immediately, switching on Channel 10.

It showed her mother-in-law, dressed to the nines and composed as ever. "My name is Moira Dearden Queen," she announced, as if there was anybody in Starling who wouldn't be able to recognize her. "I am the Acting CEO of Queen Consolidated. And God forgive me… I have failed this city."

Oliver sighed and bowed his head as Felicity's words from so many months of her crusade floated across the room. The blonde woman stood and went over to him, gripping his arm in support. He held onto her like a lifeline.

"For the past five years, under the threat for the lives of my family and myself, I have been complicit in an undertaking with one horrible purpose: to destroy the Glades and everyone in it," Moira confessed, her announcement causing the crowd at the press conference starts to buzz with interest and alarm as Oliver turned his head away from the TV screen. Felicity and Diggle continued to watch, transfixed with horror.

"I realize now that my family's safety will mean nothing if I allow this dreadful act occur. But you all must know that the architect of this nightmare is Malcolm Merlyn. I have proof that he has killed dozens in pursuit of this madness — Adam Hunt, Frank Chen, and my first husband, Robert Queen." Felicity glanced up at Oliver, who was still shaking his head, refusing to watch.

"Please," Moira pled. "If you reside in the Glades, you need to get out now. Your lives and the lives of your children depend on it. Please."

The conference changed to the local in-studio anchor, and Felicity muted the TV, turning to Oliver.

"She'll be arrested any second now," Oliver said despairingly.

"But she's given people a chance," Felicity pointed out, not saying that Moira's announcement, however well-intentioned, could cause more trouble than it was worth. People would riot, rushing to flee the Glades as fast as they could, attacking anybody who got in their way and preventing the SCPD from organizing a proper evacuation.

"Yeah," Oliver muttered. He shook his head. "We need to act fast," he declared. "Merlyn could activate the device at any moment now that he's been revealed."

Felicity nodded, heading over to her truck and rooting around in it to find Shado's old bow.

"I thought Merlyn broke your bow," Diggle commented.

She shrugged. "I have a spare," she said vaguely. This one she rarely used, wanting to avoid it suffering the same fate as the one Talia had gifted her with. "Now," she said briskly. "According to the schematics, the device can be detonated on a timer, or remote detonated, meaning Merlyn would have some sort of switch on him."

"If we can get our hands on that detonator, maybe we won't have to find the device," Dig suggested hopefully, but Felicity shook her head in disagreement.

"That's too big of an if," she said. "I need you in the subway," she told her partner, the man she trusted with her life in a way she didn't even trust Oliver. "Find the device and disarm it, just in case."

"So you can take on Merlyn yourself?" Diggle asked her incredulously. "No way in hell." Oliver nodded in agreement with him, jaw locked tightly.

"I have to," she insisted. "There's no other option."

"He'll kill you, Felicity," Dig pointed out grimly. Oliver flinched at that.

She inhaled deeply, shoulders slumping. "I know," she confessed. "He's beaten me twice, and I don't know how to stop him."

"Okay, well how about this time you bring along something you didn't have the last time you fought?" Dig suggested.

She stared at him in confusion, glancing over at her rack of weapons to try and figure out what he meant. Did he think she should bring a bomb, maybe?

He gave a wry smile at her blatant confusion. "Me."

"I can't let you do that," she stated without hesitation. "It's too dangerous." They all knew that Felicity's skills far outstripped Dig's, and if Malcolm was able to defeat her so easily, then he could definitely take out Diggle.

"And I can't let you do this by yourself," he responded flatly, stepping toward her. "Felicity, you are not alone, not since you brought me into this." He glanced back at Oliver, who gave a nod of agreement, still strained by the press conference. "Us into this," Dig corrected himself. "Besides, Army regulations," Diggle went on. "A soldier never lets a brother go into battle alone. Or a sister."

She stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before reaching out to clasp it firmly, giving him a soft smile.

"Best decision I made with this whole mission was agreeing for you to join me," she remarked softly, earning a smile, before Oliver spoke up.

"I guess that leaves me to deactivate the device. I suppose that I'll need to audit a quick course in…dismantling seismic devices…" he said tensely, gesturing at the computers.

"It's all in the schematics, but I don't want you down there," Felicity stated firmly, thoughts going to her baby boy. If worst came to worst, she didn't want him to be orphaned. He had lost her once and grown up well despite it. She didn't want to take the risk of what would happen if he were to lose her a second time and his father on top of that.

"If I don't do it, who will?" Oliver pointed out, frowning at her, though his eyes flicked to the photograph of William on the computer desk, and she knew he understood her worries. The base was on the edge of the Glades, and the walls were heavily reinforced. Truth be told, he'd probably be safer here than anywhere else in the city.

She went over and grabbed her burner phone, dialling Lance's number quickly. His answer was as gruff as usual.

"I need one more thing from you," she informed him.

"Yeah, what do I have left to give?" he scoffed back at her.

"I know where Merlyn is keeping the device," she stated, glancing at Oliver for the location, and he was quick to supply the location. "It's at the abandoned subway station in Pap Street," she repeated to the detective.

"How can you be sure?" he asked, though the urgency in his voice said that he was willing to believe and help her, which was the important thing.

She had never known before where exactly Rebecca Merlyn died, but it made sense in that moment, especially when she took in the sight of Oliver's pained expression. "It's where his wife was murdered," she said softly. "I need someone I can trust to deactivate the device, and thanks to a… mutual friend… I know how to do it."

"Somebody I know," Lance stated. "They told me that this city needs you."

"Right now, Detective, this city needs you," she replied bluntly, finishing up the conversation and giving her husband the cell phone. "He'll call back when he's found the device. You can do this, Oliver, it's all on the schematics," she assured him. He nodded in reply before sitting in her chair to begin studying the disarming instructions.

While he did so, Felicity hastened to change into her vigilante gear as Diggle holstered his gun and grabbed a couple of extra magazines. Once she was dressed, she emerged from behind the metal partition, pulling on her gloves as Oliver swivelled to face her.

He reached out to grasp her hand, rubbing his thumb over it. "Come back alive, okay?" He urged her. "Will and I-we can't lose you again."

She couldn't make such a promise, so she kissed him instead. "I love you," she breathed. "I will always, always fight to come back to you both."

He nodded, eyes pained, and repeated the sentiment back to her. "I love you too, Babe."

Dig returned to their side then, shrugging on his jacket. "You ready?" He asked her briskly, 'soldier mode' fully switched on for him. She cast Oliver one last look then turned back to him, giving a brisk nod.

"Yeah, I'm ready," she confirmed, shoving away all her emotions to focus on the mission. "Let's move."

Lian Yu: 2007

Slade laughed loudly when the two of them reunited after Felicity managed to hack the missile and use it to destroy the mercenaries' camp instead of the plane. Adrenaline and the rush of it all made Felicity feel wild as she hugged him tightly, relieved to see he was alright save for the bullet wound Fyers had given him earlier in the tent.

"I should'a known you'd make a mess of saving the day!" He chortled.

She slapped his shoulder, sparkling with relief. The implications of what she'd done would no doubt hit her later, but she'd deal with the fact that she'd just blown up a camp of over a hundred men, terrorists or not, then. Right now she wanted to simply revel in the knowledge that she'd saved the 310 people abroad the plane, not to mention all the other planes Fyers would've attacked, and the fact that she and her friends were still alive.

But that thought made her freeze as she realized suddenly who was missing. She looked urgently at Slade, who tensed at the look on her face.

"Where's Shado?" She demanded frantically. He paled, scanning their surroundings in search of the Chinese woman, as if she'd randomly pop up.

"I thought she was with you!" He exclaimed.

"We were separated while hacking the missile," she explained, recalling what had happened. 'Get me to the launchpad and I can stop it!' She had cried to them. Slade had provided cover fire for her and Shado to reach their target, and Shado had taken on the guards there. The other woman had toppled off the pad while wrestling with a guard, and that was the last Felicity had seen of her.

She felt sick, all happiness and relief at their success disappearing in a flash.

"Here she is!" Fyers suddenly piped up. They spun, Felicity's heart stopping in fear as she saw the ruthless terrorist leader pressing a gun to Shado's head, the older woman's hands tightly bound and her hair gripped in Fyer's fist. To her credit, Shado just seemed angry, not frightened or worried. They both aimed their weapons at him, Slade wielding a machine gun and Felicity pulling an arrow back to her cheek in the stance the Gulongs had taught her.

"Let her go!" Slade snarled, eyes flashing in rage.

"It's over Fyers," Felicity added. "You lost! Accept it!"

He glowered at her. "A two-year operation," he said bitterly. "Ruined by one teen mom washing up on the island! And now here you are, a killer," he smirked and chuckled darkly as Felicity stiffened, his words hitting their mark. She'd never wanted to be a killer, yet here she was.

"You have wanted nothing more than to return home, to your precious husband and son," Fyers went on, speaking to Felicity and ignoring Slade and Shado. "Now is your chance! I can get a helicopter here within days, get both of us back to the mainland. Think about it! You can go home! Are you really willing to sacrifice that chance for her?"

Felicity met Shado's eyes. They were steady and calm, bereft of any doubt in Felicity's choice as she lifted her chin in a fraction of a nod. She thought of Oliver and William, how desperately she longed to get back home to them.

Then she made her choice.

"Yes," Felicity replied simply. And she fired the arrow right through his neck. Edward Fyers was the first person she ever killed with her favoured weapon of choice, and it felt as natural as breathing.

That scared her more than any enemy ever managed to.

When they arrived at Merlyn Global, they found an entire SWAT team dead on the floor of Merlyn's office. They pointed their weapons every which way, but couldn't see any sign of life.

Until Felicity's sensitive hearing picked up on a soft cough in the corner of the room. Felicity darted over, heart pounding when she recognized the figure.

"Tommy!" She exclaimed, not even realizing that she wasn't using her voice modulator.

He twisted his head to peer at her, eyes widening in surprise. "Felicity?" He mumbled. "But-actually, so much makes sense now. Does Ollie know?"

She nodded. His expression was unreadable.

"My dad-" he muttered. "Are you going to kill him?"

"I have no choice," she said gently.

He gave an uncharacteristically bitter smile, more a twist of the lips than anything else. "There's always another choice," he corrected her. "But letting him survive would be the wrong one. He took out those SWAT guys like they were nothing. I tried to stop him, but I couldn't. Stop him, Lissy. He needs to be stopped."

She nodded, tears pricking her eyes at the pained look in his eyes.

"Go," she urged him. "Get to Aly and the kids."

"Yeah," he muttered, accepting her help in staggering to the feet and heading for the exit. "He went that way," he warned them, waving towards the stairs that had been hidden behind a fake panel.

She nodded and re-joined Dig, pushing away thoughts of Tommy to focus on the other, psychotic Merlyn.

They arrived at what seemed to be a lair. It was similar to the setup Felicity had in her own base, except smaller and with a sinister fan sending shadows across the room. Just in front of the fan was Malcolm Merlyn, dressed in his Dark Archer garb, sans mask, and staring at them coldly.

"Welcome," he greeted them coldly. "I've been waiting for you. I wanted to see you watch your city die."

"Where's the transmitter?" Felicity demanded as Diggle flanked her, gun still drawn and aimed steadily at Merlyn's head. They'd have to go for the head when shooting, his armour covered everywhere else and was too thick for either Dig's bullets or her arrows to pierce.

"Somewhere I can easily get to it," Merlyn sneered back.

"I doubt it," Dig answered dangerously. "You'll be too busy being dead to press any buttons."

Merlyn took Dig's words as the threat that they were and sprung into action. Felicity fired an arrow at him as Diggle shot seven bullets in quick succession, but Malcolm ducked into an adjoining room unscathed. Dig was first to get into the room but was quickly disarmed as Merlyn employed lightning-fast martial arts to take him down and break his leg, sending him crashing to the ground, swearing. Felicity fought Merlyn as hard as she had ever fought anybody else while Diggle hobbled back to his feet, and she sent her opponent running around the table just as he tossed a small blade into Dig's chest.

"Digg!" she cried, momentarily distracted as he fell to the ground again, groaning and grasping at the knife in his chest. She crouched beside him, but he gestured after Merlyn, who had disappeared through yet another panel. How in God's name did he have so many fucking secret rooms? Why had nobody picked up on them? Or maybe they had, and he'd simply dealt with it the way he dealt with most of his problems.

"Stairs, Felicity, go!" Dig barked at her. Despite her worry for him, he seemed as good as could be hoped for, and she knew how to prioritize. She rushed after Merlyn and emerged on the roof, deftly avoiding an arrow sent by Merlyn as soon as she opened the door.

"Tell me," he asked in a menacing voice, having put on his own mask. "Are you ready to die?"

They fired arrows at each other, but they were both too good at avoiding them, so they ended up rushing at each other and collided in a brutal hand-to-hand fight that included their respective swords and bows both. She managed to kick Merlyn's face, sending him spinning around and allowing her to fire an arrow right at his face, but he caught it in mid-air again. She had to imagine his gleam of triumph, since his face was covered, but the arrow exploded a second later, sending him flying five feet into the air.

He recovers from it quickly enough, engaging her again, and this time the fight lasted longer, each of them getting winded with each kick and punch that landed. This time, Felicity didn't feel quite so outmatched. She'd always been at her best when desperate. But in spite of that, eventually she still ended up with Merlyn's arm around her neck.

She fumbled to reach whatever she can get her hands onto, and she ended up pulling off his mask as she lost air. Through her darkening vision, she spied Diggle dragging himself onto the roof on his elbows, apparently unable to use his leg. Her heart panged at the sight.

"Don't struggle," Merlyn advised her. "It's over." She sunk to her knees as the black spots began to overtake her vision entirely. "There was never any doubt of the outcome," Merlyn growled, tightening his hold, but Felicity didn't pay him any mind, her eyes fixed on Diggle.

You can stare down death with something to live for or not. Something to live for is better.

"Don't worry," Merlyn continued with his typical psychopathic victory monologue, his voice fading as she continued to lose air. "Your dear husband and son will join you in death soon enough."

Come back to us, Will and I can't lose you again.

Mommy, I love you.

Her eyes fell to the ground as she thought of her husband and son, the family she had failed when Merlyn beat her. But that was when she saw one of Merlyn's arrows on the ground just in front of her, well within her reach.

Shengcun. Survive.

She groped for the arrow, barely able to see now, but she felt triumph begin to spark in her breast when her gloved hand wrapped around the shaft. Using every last bit of strength and determination in her body, she aimed just under her first rib and stabbed as deep as she could. She heard Merlyn grunt and jerk violently behind her, and suddenly she had the ability to breathe again as his arm fell away from her neck.

She broke off the fletching and let Merlyn collapse behind her, his collapse pulling the arrow out of her body as he fell backwards.

"Thank you," she croaked out, still struggling to regain her breath, "For teaching me what I'm fighting for."

Merlyn was coughing and choking on his own blood — she must have punctured one of his lungs — as he stared up at her. "I did it… for this city," he gasps, and then the light left his eyes. But just in case, because Kovar and Deadshot had taught her to always be thorough, she grasped her sword and raised it above her head, swinging it downwards and decapitating him in a swift motion.

She knelt over him, still gasping for breath as she realized that her face was streaked with tears. Dimly, she heard Diggle dragging himself over, and she turned to smile weakly at him, crawling over the rest of the way to join him.

"Oliver just called, said Lance disarmed it," he informed her. He wasn't even bothering to try to use his right leg, using only his right arm and his left leg to move across the gravel as his left hand clutched his knife wound.

"It's over," she breathed, feeling giddy with relief and exhaustion as her adrenaline began to crash.

"He's definitely dead," Diggle reported, glancing at Merlyn's stabbed and decapitated corpse. "You killed him. You won."

"We won," Felicity corrected him. "I'd never have managed it without you and Oliver."

Diggle had only just begun to smile broadly at her when they felt the building rock beneath them. She tumbled over and landed hard on her injured side, as Diggle splayed out his fingers on the gravel to try and stay upright. "No!" he yelled, peering westward to the Glades.

The building shook again, and Felicity rushed to Diggle's side, moving under his arm to help him up as they walked to the ledge and watch as explosions erupt all around the Glades, buildings collapsing all over again and fires erupts. Even from the roof of Merlyn Global, you could hear the screams of fear and desperation.

It was Hong Kong all over again, but worse because Starling City was her home.

"There was a second device," she stated faintly, feeling dizzy with horror as she stared the scene. It was something out of a horror movie.

"Oh God," Dig breathed, staring in horror.

Felicity swallowed a sob as she groped for her communication device. "Oliver," she said in a choked voice. "Oliver, it's me. It's over. We're okay."

"Lis?" He replied. There was a sound in his voice that she didn't recognize and it terrified her even more than the sight of the Glades collapsing in on themselves. His voice was slurred.

"Are you hurt?" She asked him desperately.

"Under the desk," he mumbled vaguely. "There's-my leg's stuck. Your computer's are ruined."

"As long as you're okay, I don't care," she replied fiercely. Oliver mumbled incomprehensibly, and then she couldn't get another reply out of him, despite her pleas. "Oliver, answer me! Oliver, please!"

Dig looked at her, expression grim. "Felicity," he said softly. She heard his tone, and she knew what he was thinking. They stood atop Merlyn Global and watched the Glades burn, helpless to do anything and wondering how many of their friends and loved ones had been caught in the crossfire.

She would never forgive herself for her failure.