Oliver Queen knocked on Walter's door after waving off the protesting executive assistant. "Got a minute?" he asked Walter, ignoring the woman telling him he needed to make an appointment. Walter looked to be both amused and perturbed at the way Oliver was ignoring protocol and waved him in. Oliver entered the office while Walter's E.A. returned to her desk. Oliver took a seat across from Walter, who gazed over the top of his conjoined hands to stare at his stepson.

"So, what is it that brings you by with such urgency that you chose to ignore the proper procedure?" Walter asked.

"There's a matter we need to discuss regarding Applied Sciences," Oliver replied. "And at the end of the day, the name on the building is Queen Consolidated, not Queen-Steele." Walter flinched back as if struck. "I don't like playing that card, Walter," Oliver added softly, "but there are things that are happening inside this company, my family's company, that make me uneasy and I am not going to just sit idly by. More and more, I'm getting an understanding of what it was my father meant when he asked me to right his wrongs. That doing so is the right thing to do makes it all the easier to fulfill his dying wish."

Walter observed his stepson for a moment. He saw Robert Queen as his best friend, even though in Robert's mind that title had belonged solely to Malcolm Merlyn, and so he was intrigued by what Oliver meant. Miss Smoak had not turned up for work today, but Walter assumed she was taking a sick day and had forgotten to call in. If Oliver had found out something that Miss Smoak had yet to find, it would be helpful. "Exactly what are you referring to, Oliver?" Walter asked.

"A few things," Oliver replied. "For one, over half of the projects being developed under our Applied Sciences banner are vanity projects for the scientists involved and have nothing to do with making a profit for this company. The only ones that have the possibility of doing so are our military contracts, and while lucrative, those alone can't sustain the viability of Applied Sciences for long. Doug Miller alone is running no less than three projects with Queen Consolidated funds and housing, and only one of those is viable but receives only minute attention from Miller. That is just the tip of the iceberg on the Applied Sciences front." Oliver was silent for a moment. "You might have noticed Felicity Smoak hasn't come to you with anything. I intercepted her and told her to report to me for the same reason I came in here without an appointment. At the end of the day, while I may not be the C.E.O., this is my company and the Queen family will be the ones to take the hit if something untoward occurs, not you."

"Did she find something?" Walter asked.

"A withdrawal of 2.6 million dollars from one of our Vancouver subsidiaries," Oliver replied. "It went to an LLC called Tempest, which seems to have produced no viable products. Felicity managed to track down an address connected to Tempest. I thought you might want to come along when I checked it out."

"I would," Walter said agreeably as a knock came at the door. A courier entered with a package and a clipboard.

"Walter Steele?" the courier asked.

"That's me," Walter said, standing.

The courier walked over and set the package on the table. Oliver, who's senses had been sharpened over the past years, wrinkled his nose slightly. There was a faint odor coming from the box, and he felt his stomach lurch as he recognized the smell from when he had buried Robert on the island. "You have a package," the courier said, unaware that the contents of the package had the odor of death. Only someone with the heightened senses Oliver had would have noticed such a thing. Walter, likewise, noticed nothing and signed for the package. Oliver grabbed the man before he could leave.

"Who sent this package?" Oliver asked.

"Some guy. British. He paid me a hundred dollars on top of delivery fees to make this a priority delivery," the courier said, shrugging off Oliver's grip. "Can I go now?"

"Not until we open the package and find out just what's inside," Oliver replied. "Neither of you can smell it, but there's a faint odor coming from that package and I suspect we're going to need the police to come soon, and they'll want to question you about the man who gave you the package." He narrowed his eyes at the courier as he emphasized the word 'you'. The courier looked uncomfortable but nodded. Walter opened the package as Oliver circled the desk, and then reared back, stumbling over to the side of his desk and vomiting, giving Oliver a clear line-of-sight to the package. His stomach lurched and it took all of his power not to cry out in horror at the sight that greeted him.

Felicity Smoak's severed head lay in the box, glasses perched on her nose and one of a smaller breed of apple lodged firmly in her mouth. His stomach roiling, Oliver picked up the single card that was sitting atop Felicity's hair and read the words printed on it. *1*

Stop digging or the next one on the menu is your delicious little stepdaughter.

Oliver numbly dropped the card, which floated down to the ground. He pulled out his phone and dialed the police. "This is Oliver Queen calling from Queen Consolidated," he said. "We've just received a package with one of our employee's heads in it. We need the police here right now. A threat has also been issued towards my sister." Walter, who had finished vomiting, spotted the card on the ground and picked it up, reading it quickly and paling.

Within half an hour, uniformed officers were questioning the courier about the circumstances surrounding the delivery while Detectives Lance and Hilton pulled Oliver and Walter aside. "So, what do you think the message meant about stop digging?" Quentin asked roughly, eyeing Oliver more than Walter, though it was the latter who was the recipient of the package and the one who answered the detective's question.

"I tasked Miss Smoak with discovering anything that might have led to Oliver and Thomas Merlyn being kidnapped some weeks back," Walter replied. "I only just learned today from Oliver that he had redirected her to report to him on anything she discovered."

"And why did you do that?" Quentin asked, focusing the entirety of his attention on Oliver now.

"As I told Walter, at the end of the day, anything illegal connected to Queen Consolidated will fall down on my family's shoulders," Oliver replied. "I wanted to be the first to know so I could prepare my family for the fallout."

"Did Miss Smoak find anything before she was killed?" Hilton asked.

"Yes, she did," Oliver said. "She found out about a 2.6 million withdrawal from one of our Vancouver subsidiaries that went to a small LLC called Tempest. She managed to track down an address before I left for Central City on my recent trip there."

"And why exactly were you in Central City?" Hilton asked.

"I decided I wanted to see if I could recruit any scientific talent before Harrison Wells or Christina McGee could from C.C.U.," Oliver replied. "I also may have made some low-level offers to employees from S.T.A.R. Labs while offering my condolences for the recent murder of Dr. Wells. I don't know if anything will come of it, but I thought I'd make the offers."

"You didn't tell me that you did that, Oliver," Walter said, surprised.

"I was going to tell you once we finished talking about the things that I've discovered about things here at Queen Consolidated," Oliver replied. Walter nodded in reply.

"Did Miss Smoak uncover anything else?" Hilton asked, bringing the topic back to the matter at hand now that he was satisfied that Oliver's trip to Central City had nothing to do with what was happening with Queen Consolidated and the mystery surrounding the murder of a minor employee at the firm; a minor employee who had been working under orders from the C.E.O. and the heir apparent to the family empire. Who was Felicity Smoak that she had engendered such trust?

"An address connected to Tempest," Oliver replied. "Walter and I were actually planning to go investigate it when the package was delivered."

"We'll take that address," Quentin said quickly.

Oliver smiled thinly. "No offense, Detective, but this address is connected to why Tommy and I were kidnapped and whatever my father was up to that was the catalyst for that," he said. "I'm going to see the contents of this address for myself. I need to. But you are welcome to come along. In fact, I insist upon it." Oliver had asked Felicity for any information he could give to Walter upon his return from Central City and she had told him about the building connected to Tempest that she had sent Walter to find. She had never been told by Walter what was inside it so whatever they were going to find would be a complete surprise.

Hilton intervened before his partner could dig himself a hole with one of the richest families in the city. "We can do that," Hilton said, giving Quentin a firm look. Quentin scowled, but nodded in assent.

"No time like the present, gentlemen," Walter said. "After all, I won't be able to use my office while your men are examining everything, and I have no meetings for the rest of the day. One of the reasons I didn't object too strongly to you just barging in," he added dryly, giving Oliver a look. Oliver gave a shrug while Quentin rolled his eyes. That sounded like the punk, alright.

*DC*

The town car containing Oliver and Walter was trailed by the police sedan driven by Quentin and Hilton as it rolled into an empty lot outside of a warehouse on the edges of Starling City. Oliver and Walter exited the car, Walter's driver and bodyguard examining their surroundings for any sign of threat. Quentin and Hilton exited their own car and the five men made their way to the only visible door into the warehouse, which had a code-lock keypad next to it. "Great," Quentin grumbled. "We came all this way and we got no idea what the passcode is."

"Don't give up just yet, Detective," Oliver replied. Quentin gave him a quirked eyebrow. "We know that this warehouse was purchased by Tempest, presumably with the funds that were invested in the LLC by Queen Consolidated almost five years ago. At that time, my mother was still acting-C.E.O. and if there's one thing I know about my mother, it's that she buries family secrets as far as she can. If this building is connected to what happened to the Queen's Gambit, well, there are only two names that she would associate with it. Mine and my father's."

"And Sara's," Quentin snapped back.

"My mother didn't appreciate Sara's rambunctious nature," Oliver returned. "She much preferred Laurel." Quentin grumbled discontentedly but subsided as Oliver input first his name, then his father's into the keypad. The passcode turned out to be 'Robert', and the five men entered the warehouse, the detectives and bodyguard moving forward first in order to sweep the inside. Oliver and Walter followed behind, and it was Oliver who found the light switches. He flipped them upwards, and lights began to flicker on. But it was the sight of what lay on the floor of the warehouse that sent both Quentin and Oliver to their knees while Walter gripped the railing as he swayed violently.

Laid out on the floor of the warehouse was the remnants of the Queen's Gambit, and in the side of it's hull was a hole, the metal surrounding it bent and twisted by heat and jutting outward, clear signs of an explosion from within being the principle reason for the Gambit sinking to the depths.

"Oh, my God," Quentin managed to get out, and it was a testament to the impact of the situation that no one disagreed with him. Laid out before them was all the proof needed to reveal that the sinking of the Gambit had been no accident and it opened up a whole new can of worms surrounding Felicity Smoak's murder and what Robert Queen had been connected to that had earned this fate for him, a fate that his son and Sara Lance had presumably shared. Quentin had to act as if his daughter was dead still, even though he knew she was alive, but afraid to come home. Knowing that his daughter had been the unwitting victim of a plot to murder Robert Queen and make it look like an act of nature was enough to raise a father's ire. "What the hell was your old man involved in, Queen?"

"I don't know," Oliver lied softly, hating himself for it but knowing he could provide nothing for the man. But perhaps now Quentin Lance would be open to aid from the Green Arrow, assuming this case wasn't taken out of his hands by the F.B.I., which considering the impact this would have on Starling City was not all that far-fetched an idea. Oliver just hoped that it was someone other than Samandra Watson who ended up taking point should the F.B.I. be brought in.

All Oliver knew was that he had just triggered a new ripple effect in the ever-growing pond of changes that were coming about as a result of his actions, and he didn't know where these changes would lead. Facing the unknown with my grit and my bow, indeed, he thought grimly as he slowly stood, keeping a firm grip on the railing as he stared down at the Queen's Gambit.

"You realize we're going to have to question Mrs. Queen about this, right, gentlemen?" Hilton asked hoarsely, having been just as shocked as Quentin since he had been a part of Sara and Laurel's lives since they were adolescents and Quentin was promoted into the Major Case Unit.

"Yes, I-I quite understand the need, detective," Walter said. "But I think the first order of business should be securing this warehouse and it's contents."

"This is way above our paygrade," Quentin said. "We're going to need to call in the Feds." It was obvious this wasn't something Quentin wanted to do, but he knew he would have to recuse himself from this investigation anyways considering his deep, personal connection. "Just don't give Moira a chance to flee."

"We won't say anything, Detective," Oliver said. "You have our word." Walter looked uncomfortable but nodded in agreement when Quentin and Hilton looked at him questioningly.

*DC*

Oliver had wrestled with what he should do despite his promise to Detective Lance. There was no doubt his mother was the one behind the retrieval of the Queen's Gambit and it's housing in Starling City. But she was also his mother, and this was going to destroy their family in so many ways. Oliver decided the best way to avoid giving his mother a heads-up was to go to the Bunker and begin going over Felicity's files since he no longer had her to give him a report about things that she had found. He would also need to contact Waller and bring Henry Fyff back into play since Felicity was dead.

Felicity was dead. The words seemed to ring in his ears, reverberate in his skull. Felicity, a woman he had loved and been married to, a woman whom he had had a daughter with, was dead. If there was even the smallest chance his daughter with her would've still been born despite his current relationship with Laurel, it was gone now that Felicity had been murdered. He would need to use Fyff to piggyback on the investigation, which would be taken over by the F.B.I. since it was connected to the discovery of the warehouse and the Queen's Gambit. He would never hear Felicity babble on inanely about some tech thing or other, never hear her mutter the word 'frak' as she dealt with a difficult issue.

Oliver pulled his motorcycle up in front of the empty building containing the entrance to the Bunker and got off his bike, placing his helmet on the handlebars. Oliver entered the building and took the elevator down, silently thinking about Felicity and what she had once meant to him. Oliver exited the elevator, noting idly that the equipment he had ordered through A.R.G.U.S. was now set up so he could begin the serious training of Laurel and Thea.

While he knew that, one day, they would wish to join him in his crusade, he intended to make sure they were ready for anything that came their way before he allowed them to join him in the field. He even had plans to contact John Constantine and see if he could arrange for his sister and girlfriend to receive the same protection against dark magic that he carried thanks to Constantine. That would keep them safe from Damien Darhk, especially now that Oliver understood how the protection worked. It was derived from the light of hope and love, and he knew that all three of them would have an easier time focusing on that power than he had had after years of darkness.

Oliver sat behind the bank of computers, feeling a sense of melancholy as he remembered the last time he had had to take over his own computer work after Felicity left the team and knowing that this wasn't going to be like that, and opened the system with his personal override code, something Felicity, Dig, and Fyff had never known about since it was something that he arranged with Waller. Well, perhaps Fyff and Felicity had known; they were excellent programmers, after all, who familiarized themselves with their system. But they probably figured Oliver would never use the override code to find out what they had been up to. With a sigh, Oliver began to peruse what Felicity had been up to, from tracking gang activity to keeping an eye on Brickwell to- What the hell!?

Oliver leaned forward, scanning the files he was currently reading in disbelief and horror. There was a multitude of half-baked plans written out in the file, and schematics contained in them that Oliver recognized as the blueprints for Laurel's building, her car, C.N.R.I., and even the courthouse. All of the notes were about the failings in security and how best to exploit them, ways to hack into Laurel's car and make things appear to be an accident, even thoughts of draining funds from a really bad guy and hiring someone to kill Laurel. Felicity had been planning to kill Laurel, and there was no doubt as to the reason why. Jealousy. *2*

This left Oliver feeling conflicted for a moment. Felicity had been working for him, but she had also been planning to murder the woman he loved and do it in such a way that it couldn't be traced back to her. A small part of him thought maybe it was for the best her murderer got away, but only a small part, which was ruthlessly squashed after Oliver remembered the note that had come with Felicity's apple-gagged head. This killer had threatened his sister if things kept going, and they had just opened a whole new can of worms.

Oliver logged into the A.R.G.U.S. mainframe and put in the search perimeters for the modus operandi of this killer. It pulled up multiple files, all related to the same man: a serial killer and hitman that the F.B.I. was tracking known as The Huntsman. A.R.G.U.S. had their own file because he had been initially considered as a potential member for Task Force X before they came to recognize that The Huntsman was too much of an alpha wolf to be made to accept Waller's authority. Oliver downloaded everything he could find about The Huntsman and his methods from the A.R.G.U.S. servers. His sister was possibly under threat by The Huntsman, and Oliver would not leave his sister's fate in the hands of the F.B.I., no matter who was brought in to handle the investigation.

*DC*

Alexandra Danvers looked up at a knock at the door of the F.B.I. field office in Seattle, Washington, where she was currently assigned. Her immediate superior, Thomas Weller, was standing in the doorway. "Agent Weller?" she asked curiously.

"Pack a bag, Danvers, you're headed for Starling City with a team," Weller replied. "The S.C.P.D. just uncovered evidence of a huge conspiracy and that serial killer you've been tracking is right in the middle of it, killed someone who was digging and got too close to a truth someone doesn't want discovered."

"The Huntsman?" Alex clarified, and Weller nodded. "I'll be ready to go in less than an hour, depending on traffic."

"Good to hear," Weller said. "Meet the team at the airstrip." Alex nodded and Weller left as Alex got up and began collecting her files on The Huntsman and everything he was connected to. She always had a go-bag ready at home in case she got an assignment like this, so the main thing she had to pack was her files on The Huntsman. She had been tracking him since she had run across his M.O. while studying Behavioral Analysis at Quantico. Her teacher had mentioned that The Huntsman was a puzzling case, as his targets varied due to the fact that he was both a serial killer and a hitman. The only other murderer with an M.O. this unique was Victor Zsasz in Gotham.

Zsasz was a monster, but he was nothing compared to The Huntsman. Zsasz had killed people for the mob and killed for his own pleasure, but the most that he did to his victims was put a bullet in them somewhere that would take a long, painful time to kill them. The Huntsman somehow managed to get his victims' trust before abducting them; that was the only thing that made sense with the number of victims and the lack of a survivor. He earned their trust, which suggested he ingratiated himself into their lives somehow, as someone they saw socially or professionally. Then there was what he did to the women and girls that he abducted. The heads were the only things that were recovered, and that was only on the ones that he let them know about. Alex was certain that The Huntsman killed far more than he had let be known. She doubted even all of his hits were known unless those who hired him wanted the fate of their targets known to frighten others.

The apples in the mouths of severed heads and the notes left with them indicated what was done with the rest of the bodies, and that sickened Alex. She had met her share of monsters working for the F.B.I., but The Huntsman was on his own unique level. Bringing him to justice was more than just her job; it was her obsession. And now they knew where he was beginning to operate nearly from the beginning. The last they had known, he was in Gotham. What had brought him to Starling City so quickly? Normally he spent a few months in a city, and Alex doubted that he had been driven away by the rumors of a vigilante with a bat fetish in Gotham. The only thing that made sense was that someone very powerful and influential in the Starling City underworld had needed someone taken care of, someone who threatened to unravel everything, and they had spared no expense in getting the man who would send a message.

Alex would be the first to admit that a part of her had wanted to go to Starling City anyways to investigate the recent reports of a vigilante with a penchant for Robin Hood-like heroics taking the war against crime to a whole new level. She had especially wanted to do so after hearing that the Green Arrow had outright driven the Triad from Starling City. She would love to get a one-on-one with the Green Arrow, find out what made him tick… after arresting him, of course. *3*

A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter.

Chapter Notes:

*1* So, this particular scene was spawned because of the ruckus that happened on Twitter some years back when Kevin Smith, who at the time was very interested in directing a couple episodes of "Arrow", said that he wanted to do a two-parter inspired by "Se7en" and someone made a comment about Felicity's head being in a box, which Smith 'liked' or whatever the term is for the heart icon (it's been ages since I was on Twitter). This caused an uproar from Felicity/Olicity fans, who decried Smith as a misogynist and a woman-hater and all these other things, when in truth he probably just was appreciating the reference to the movie in question. Smith never did direct an episode of "Arrow", which in my opinion is a crying shame.

*2* And there we go. Oliver has found out what Felicity was up to. As for why Felicity would leave that on the computers at the Bunker? Felicity, in both canon and fanon, tends to see the computer systems as *hers* and, as evidenced by what happened in 1x15 and in later seasons, doesn't seem to think Oliver is intelligent enough to get passed her programming. She would think that even more so with the belief that her extra 20 years would make it impossible for Oliver to ever get access. But Oliver's access was imprinted on the system itself, something she didn't consider.

*3* It is canon that there is an Alex Danvers on Earth-1. I get the feeling that Alex on any Earth would be drawn towards some form of law enforcement and I wanted to bring her into this story partly because I wanted someone other than Samandra Watson to be the one investigating things.