The day Oliver Queen and I went missing was the day we died. Five years in hell forged us into weapons, which we use to honor a vow we made to his father, who sacrificed his life for ours. In his final moments, he told us the truth that his family's wealth had been built on the suffering of others. That he failed our city, and that it was up to us to save it and right his wrongs. But to do that without endangering the people closest to us, we have to be something else. We have to be something else.
"Who's that?"
"Where'd they come from?"
"What's going on here?" the men around us questioned as they fired their guns at us. They kept shooting their weapons at us, and we dodged them quickly, either knocking the men out or killing them.
"Get the chopper back now." Our target ordered. Oliver finally pulled an arrow and shot the hand of one of the men guarding the man and knocked another one before firing it behind him. I pulled out one of my throwing knives and killed the last two guards as Oliver made his way to who we were after. "Whoa, whoa! Easy, wait, wait!" Oliver threw Marcus to another, lower, part of the roof with a covered fan and we jumped down to him. Oliver kicked in the fan covering, revealing the fan blades and I pushed Marcus' face close to the blades. "No, please!" he begged.
"Marcus Redman, you failed this city," Oliver told him.
"Please, don't! Please! Don't!" Marcus begged.
"Cell phone, inside pocket, call your partner. Tell him to give those pensioners back their money. Do it now." I ordered him.
"Okay." He agreed. We jumped down from the small platform with the fan and walked away from him, knowing he would do as we said.
"Over the past 15 years, Mr. Redman has withdrawn more than $30 million from the plan's account. Mr. Redman claims, refunding the halcyon pension plan has always been his intent. But sources say Redman was coerced by the vigilante." I heard over the TV the next day at the Queen Mansion as Oliver, and I walked into the living room. I'd stayed over last night, much to my father's dismay.
"This guy gets more air-time than the Kardashians, right?" Oliver asked his family.
"Five years on an island and you still know who they are," Thea said giving us a confused look.
"We've been catching up," I told her smiling.
"It's nice to see how much our culture has improved while I was away," Oliver said.
"But the city used to be different. People used to feel safe." Mrs. Queen said to us.
"Aw, what's the matter, mom? Afraid we're gonna be next?" Thea asked her mother.
"Do you have any questions about today, Oliver? Ashlee? It's a simple proof-of-life declaration. Just read out a brief, prepared statement to the judge, and then your death-in-absentia judgment will be voided." Walter reminded us.
"It's fine, Walter, I've been in a courtroom before." Oliver reminded him.
"Four times by my estimate. You know, there was the DUI, the assault on that paparazzi douchebag, stealing that taxi, which was just awesome, by the way, and who could forget peeing on the cop?" Tommy listed as he joined us.
"I wish everyone would." Mrs. Queen said as Walter helped her with her coat.
"I'd hang, but we're headed to court," Oliver told him patting his shoulder.
"I know, that's why I'm here. My best friend ad twin sister are getting legally resurrected; I wouldn't miss this for the world." Tommy told us as he patted Oliver's shoulder.
"Right. Okay." Oliver said.
"What about you?" Oliver asked Thea.
"Oh, I think the first four times of you in court was enough for me." She told us walking away.
"Fair enough," Oliver said.
"Mrs. Queen? Car's ready." Diggle told us. As Mrs. Queen passed us, Tommy offered her his arm, and she gave him a look as she and Walter passed.
"Walter," Tommy said as he passed.
"Why weren't you at home last night?" Tommy asked me.
"I stayed here. Why?" I asked.
"Dad called me asking where you were." He told me, and I sighed. He'd called me after Oliver, and I had gotten done with our evening plans, but I ignored him.
"Are you going to testify as to what happened when the yacht sank?"
"Are you going to talk about the boat crash?" The reporters swarmed us as we walked into the courthouse. My mind flashed back to the storm as I called for Oliver, my hand held out for his.
"There was a storm. The boat went down. Ashlee and I were the only survivors." Oliver told the judge. "My father didn't make it."
"We almost died, I thought that we had because we spent so many days on that life raft before we saw land," I said. "When we reached it, I knew, we knew that we were gonna have to live for him and us."
"And in those five years, it was that one thought that kept us going," Oliver told them.
"Your honor, we move to vitiate the death-in-absentia filed after Oliver and Ashlee's disappearance at sea aboard the Queen's gamut five years ago. Unfortunately, we will not be requesting that the declaration of death filed for the petitioner's father, Robert Queen, be rescinded. The Queen family is only entitled to one miracle, I'm afraid." The lawyer said.
After we were legally resurrected, we exited the courtroom and were headed down the stairs, Mrs. Queen started rambling.
"Now, onto the offices. Everyone is waiting to meet you there." She told Oliver.
"Uh, mom, that was a little bit heavier than I was expecting it to be. Ashlee and I wanted to leave and get some air. Can we do that tomorrow? Please?" Oliver asked her.
"Of course." She told him.
"Thank you." She and Walter left the three of us alone.
"Last week, you couldn't wait to get to the company." Tommy pointed out as we made our way down the stairs.
"Tommy, I'd just spent five years away from civilization. I wasn't exactly thinking straight." Oliver pointed out as before we ran into Laurel and two other women.
"I… hi," Oliver said to her.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.
"Oh, they were bringing us back from the dead. Legally speaking," Oliver told her. "What are you doing here?"
"My job." She told him.
"Right." He agreed.
"More like the D.A.'s." Laurel's friend said, and the young blonde by her side looked down to the floor at her words.
"Hi, Oliver Queen," Oliver said holding his hand out to her.
"Emily Nocenti." She introduced.
"Oliver just got back from five years on an uncharted island. Before that, he was cheating on me with my best friend who now never leaves his side. And last week, he told me to stay away from him. It was really good advice. Excuse me." Laurel told the young woman.
"It was nice to meet you," Emily told him.
"Yeah. Let's go." Laurel's friend told Emily.
"Come on, buddy, shake it off. Let's go." Tommy said, and we left the building only to see the press surrounding a man who's named Oliver, and I knew well.
"Mr. Somers! Mr. Somers! What do you have to say about the accusations made by Laurel Lance?" The reporters asked him.
"I don't know what I've done to earn this witch-hunt from miss Lance and her bosses at the CNRI. But I can tell you this. I am an honest businessman, and I will fight this slander to my last dime and breath. That's all I have to say, thank you." Somers said before he walked inside.
"Oh, there's Mr. Queen and Miss Merlyn. Mr. Queen, do you want to follow up? What happened in there, ma'am? Tell us what happened inside." The reporters said.
"Step back everybody, please," Diggle said trying to give us a path to the car.
"Can you give us a couple comments about the island? Before you go, sir, please. A couple of comments about the island, sir. What happened in there?" Oliver and I got into the back seat of the car as Diggle kept everyone off us.
"Everybody, step back. Hey man, I'll make you swallow that Nikon. Back!" Oliver moved to the front seat and took off with me laughing in the back as Tommy and Diggle watched us leave.
Martin Somers. Laurel's targeted the worst of starling city, so it's no surprise his name is on Mr. Queen's list. The city's police and the D.A. can't stop him Or won't. Laurel thinks she's the only one willing to bring him to justice. She's wrong.
"You, listen up. The longer this goes on, the more likely the media is gonna crucify me. You shut this trial down, do you understand me?" We heard Somers say before I shut down the lights in the room. "What the hell?" Oliver and I began our quick work of killing his men before the lights turned on. Somers looked around in panic before Oliver snuck up behind him and knocked him out. He picked him up, and we moved to the roof and tied him upside down. He started moving around just enough to get him swinging as he opened his eyes.
"Martin Somers," Oliver said.
"Who the hell are you?" Somers yelled at us.
"You've failed this city." Oliver finished saying before knocking an arrow.
"No! No, no, no, no, no!" Oliver let the arrow fly missing Somers by a hair.
"You're gonna testify in that trial. You're gonna confess to having Victor Nocenti killed. There won't be a second warning." Oliver told him as I pulled out one of my throwing knives and threw it at his face making a small scratch. As he screamed over the minor injury, we left the rooftop and went to our respective homes.
The first night on the island was hard. We'd made ourselves a small shelter before falling asleep as close to each other as we could to try and keep warm. We were drawn awake by the seagulls who were flying around Mr. Queen's body.
"Hey! Hey, get away! Hey!" Oliver shouted as he jumped up and ran to him with me close behind him. "Dad?" Ollie cried holding onto his father's hand.
"Ollie, we need to bury him," I told him, and he nodded before we noticed another seagull.
"Hey! Hey, stay away from him!" Ollie said pushing them away once more.
"Attorney for shipping magnate, Martin Somers, has confirmed his client has no intention of testifying, maintaining his innocence in the wrongful death of Victor Nocenti." I heard on the television in the parlor and shook my head.
"I didn't know you have an interest in this." I turned and watched my father walk closer to me.
"I don't, but after being unable to watch things like this for five years, I now realize what I'd missed," I told him before we went to sit at the dining table to eat the excellent breakfast in front of us.
"What are your plans today?" he asked me.
"I plan on roaming the city then meeting Oliver later this evening," I told him, and he sighed.
"Why are you always meeting Oliver?" he asked me.
"Why wouldn't I be meeting a friend of mine?" I asked him.
"You were alone with him for five years. I think it's time to expand your social circle." He told me, and I shook my head.
"You're acting as though I have a choice of people who want to spend time with me," I said.
"You do. You're a beautiful woman who can be with whoever you want to be with." He told me, and I shook my head at him.
"Not really," I said. "Most people in this city want to be around me because I'm wealthy or because they want to have their fifteen minutes of fame. Not a lot of people care."
"What about Laurel?" He asked me.
"She's probably at the bottom of my fan list right now," I said.
"Why?" He asked me.
"She thinks Oliver and I were on the yacht together," I told him.
"But you were." He said, and I sighed.
"Not what I meant dad," I told him, and he nodded finally getting what I said.
"And you weren't, right?" He asked me, and I gave him a look. "Sorry, I had to be sure."
"I have to go. I'll see you later." I told him before getting up and leaving. I went to the old steel factory and spent the day training only to be startled by Oliver storming in.
"Get ready." He said getting his outfit on.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"They attacked Laurel." He stated, and I stayed getting ready for our night time activities.
We wanted to give Martin Somers the chance to confess and face a court's justice, but he chose to go after someone we cared about instead. He's still going to face justice. It'll just be a different kind.
We made our way silently around the docks. When we found one of Somers men, I crept behind him and quickly took him out before we heard the radio he was wearing come to life.
"Wallace? Wallace, you copy? Wallace?" The man on the other end asked. I picked up the radio and offered it to Oliver, but he declined it.
"Wallace isn't here. But we are. " I told him. We immediately began our work of getting to Somers moving around the outside of the building his office was in. The few men he had posted fired their weapons at us so it was the only noise we could hear. Oliver and I quickly took them out so that the only thing they'd hear would be his bow and the sound of the metal we moved around on. Once his men were out of the way we looked down and watched as our host ran from us.
"Somers!" Oliver shouted at him. We followed him into a different building where Oliver pinned him to a crate with an arrow.
"Oh, God, no, no, no." He begged.
"He can't help you," Oliver told him before I took one of my knives and threw it next to his head. "We want the truth about Victor Nocenti."
"I can't. The triad will kill me." He told us.
"The triad's not your concern right now," I told him before throwing another knife between his legs.
"All right, all right, all right. It wasn't me that killed him. It was the triad." He told us.
"Acting on whose instructions?" Oliver asked him. When he didn't answer, I threw a knife just above his head. "Whose?!"
"All right, all right. It was mine. It was mine, all right? Nocenti said he was gonna testify against me." Somers confessed before looking behind us. Oliver and I quickly turned and saw an Asian woman with platinum blond hair.
"Yuǎnlí tā." (Move away from him.) She told us.
"Ràng wǒmen." (Make us.) He told her. She attacked us with two knives, and I quickly pulled out my sais and blocked her attacks. Oliver pulled watched from the sidelines as she and I fought. She pushed me away from Somers and around a large column structure before she kicked me in the back, forcing me to the ground. Oliver tried jumping in, but I kicked her legs out from under her. I moved around to stab her, but she was just out of reach, and we both jumped up before continuing. She tried kicking me again numerous times, but I managed to dodge them as she did mine.
"Put down your weapons, or we will open fire. I repeat, lay down your weapons." The three of us paused for a moment before running in opposite directions. As we ran, Oliver threw his bow on top of a steel container while I sheathed my sais before jumping on it to save time versus going around. We jumped down only to hear the one person we had to avoid.
"Freeze!" Detective Lance shouted. "You twitch, and you're dead. Bow and knives down, hands up." He ordered. Oliver handed me the recording he'd made, and I threw it at the detective's gun. When he was distracted, we quickly left the area and went back to the factory.
The sun was rising as we began to put everything away.
"My mom wants me to run the company." He finally told me.
"What do you want to do?" I asked him.
"I can't do board meetings then come out and clean up the city, I told me.
"I didn't ask what you could or couldn't do. I asked what you wanted to do." I told him, and he sighed.
"I can't let you do this alone." He said.
"This is pretty much a one-man mission right now, so if you wanted to take a position at the company you could and I can handle the streets," I told him. "You have to think this through Oliver. Your dad wanted this for you just like he asked you to right his wrongs." He paused in thought for a moment before he nodded to me.
"I know what I have to do."
Later in the day, I was standing next to my dad at Queen Consolidated for the opening of their new building.
"You didn't have to be here, dad," I told him.
"Am I not allowed?" He asked me.
"I didn't say that," I told him.
"I'm here to spend time with my daughter and support a friend." He told me, and I rolled my eyes.
"Where was all this parental concern when I was a kid?" I asked him harshly before I saw Walter go to the podium
"Good afternoon. And thank you all for coming. Welcome to the future site of the Robert Queen memorial applied sciences center." Everyone applauded during the pause. "Now, this is a building that will stand as a monument to the man whose company and vision are his greatest legacies."
"Whoa! Whoa!" We all turned and watched as Oliver removed his arms from around two women and grabbed an orange drink from the waitresses tray close to him. He took a small drink before putting it back and moving up to his family. "What about me? Right? I'm a legacy. Hey! Thanks for warming them up, Walt. All right. Ow! Fine, fine shovel. I got it." He took the shovel from Walter and stood at the mic before pretending to drop it. "Whoa! Ow! I got it. I got it. Some of you may not know me. My name is Oliver Queen." He paused a moment for the audience's reaction. "Watch some television, read a newspaper, one of my best friends, the beautiful Ashlee Merlyn, and I are kind of famous right now. Why don't you come up here Ashlee." He told me, and I sighed before making my way to him. He helped me on the stage between himself and Walter, and I smiled awkwardly at the press. "Mostly, though, I'm famous because I'm Robert Queen's son. Uh, but as Walter, who's my new dad Huh? Who is... sorry. As Walter was saying, I'm not much of a legacy, per se, not like Ashlee and her brother are for there father. "
"Oliver, you don't have to do this." Walter tried telling him.
"No, sit. Sit! Gosh." Oliver told him, and Walter sat next to his wife. Oliver and I had planned everything for this moment. Well, everything except me being on stage with him. "See, I was supposed to come here today, and I'm supposed to take my rightful place at the company. Prodigal son returns home and becomes the heir apparent. But I'm not my father. I'm not the man he was. I'm not half the man he was. I never will be. So, please, stop asking me to be." He put the shovel into the dirt and wrapped his arm around my waist before he got off stage, him pretending to need me to be stable.
"Martin Somers, the CEO of starling port, was arrested last night for the murder of Victor Nocenti. He is also being accused of accepting cash, including over $10 million in bribes." I turned from the television and watched Oliver cross Somers name from his list.
I walked behind Ollie as he carried his father's body up the hill and helped lower him to the ground as Ollie sat next to him. I watched as he pulled something out from a secret pocket close to his father's foot. He opened it and flipped through the blank pages before opening to the cover to see a strange symbol. He put the book away, and we spent hours building a grave for Robert Queen. Suddenly a sharp pain tore through my side, and I screamed out only seconds before Ollie. We both fell, and I looked at my side to see an arrowhead before passing out completely.