Chapter 5

MAYOR'S OFFICE

8:17 A.M.

The upheaval from the attack on the Star City PD unfolded pretty quickly even by the standards of this city. None of what happened was anyone at the department's fault – you couldn't exactly blame the bureaucracy for not being equipped to deal with a super-charged drug dealer. But as Oliver Queen was beginning to find out as Mayor, the buck had to stop somewhere. And considering that he had yet to replace the commissioner of police – and given the fact the brass of Star City had never much cared for him anyway – it was inevitable that he would face the wrath of the police.

Naturally the media, who was inclined to sensationalism from the beginning – though what could you expect in a town filled with vigilantes – was more than willing to turn on the politicians. And it was inevitable that the council, feeling the heat, would turn on a Mayor that none of them would've voted for in a free and fair election. It was days like this that Oliver really wondered why, in all his years of going after the high and mighty, had never even considered going after the local politicos who had been fine with all the crime and corruption – as long as they could rail against as an election issue in November.

Thea admitted that a press conference was the only way that he'd have been able to keep the vultures from going after him. The fact that Mulder and Scully had recommended one not twenty four hours earlier only seemed to confirm it. The difference was, he now had a secret weapon that he could wait to let loose.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," he said as the media grudgingly came to a dull roar. "Ever since the attack on Star City PD, everyone has been asking: who is to blame for the murders of two of our city's finest? Some want to blame the cops. Some want to blame the vigilantes. And some people want to blame me. But rather than dealing with blame, let's focus on what none of us are willing to say out loud."

"As much as people want to blame the Hood or the Arrow or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days, the problems in our city – the dry rot that has infested its foundation – has been there long before the vigilantes began appearing on our streets. There is violence, there is corruption, and most horribly, there is apathy. The feeling that this is how things have always been, so why should we bother to change anything as long as we have what we need. "Oliver paused to let that sink in. "I was guilty of those sins before I got on the Queen's Gambit. And I believed in that line of thinking for quite awhile even after I returned. "

"Our problems aren't unique to Star City. To pretend they are is the ultimate vanity. And while we blame the kind of troubles on those who wear costumes, the fact is they're not common only to here or even Gotham or Metropolis. They just have visible scapegoats. There were problems in our city already. Problems that allowed a man like Tobias Church to rise in the first place. Problems that allowed him to escape custody without anybody noticing. I am guilty in the sense that I am in charge of this city. And as the face, for better or for worse of our city, I believe there are certain actions that must be taken in order to protect it."

Now there was a certain level of murmuring going on. Whatever the media had expected, it wasn't this.

"There are aspects to the murders of the two officers that don't even come close to passing even what we here in Star City consider normal. And though I have complete confidence in our police, I reluctantly have come to the conclusion that they are utterly unequipped to deal with this threat." Oliver cleared his throat. "I have therefore called upon the FBI to lend their unique expertise in how to deal with this problem. I would like to introduce Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully."

Now the crowd erupted. Everybody in Star City had been watching Catco for the last couple of months, but even given everything that had happened here, very few of them were willing to accept what they had to say as gospel or even reliable. Aliens working in concert with government to control the planet for colonization? It sounded like something out of a Roger Corman movie, rather than anything real. And Cat Grant was another one of those liberals who didn't believe in Superman being trustworthy until a real superhero came to her doorstep. Then she couldn't get on the band wagon fast enough. Mulder and Scully were either some mouthpieces for her agenda, or members of the deep state. It really didn't matter which side you were on: Mulder and Scully were not trustworthy.

This kind of hostility would've withered the skins of even the most veteran agents. Mulder and Scully had spent their entire careers looking for even their peers to occasionally agree with them, and were actually grateful to have the opportunity to be openly ridiculed. Besides, once you've been tortured and left for dead by a flying saucer's occupants, everything else is candy.

Mulder was actually smiling when he faced the media, as if he'd been handling these for years. In fact, this was the first press conference of any magnitude that he'd been allowed to handle in both of his stints of the Bureau. Ever since the interview with Cat Grant, neither of them had talked to a single journalist.

"We're ready for your questions," Mulder said confidently.

"Does your presence here mean that the Star City police are ill-equipped to handle this situation?"

Scully raised an eyebrow at this. "The criminal in question is capable of ripping off men's arm without breaking a sweat," she said quietly. "What makes you think we're any better equipped to handle the situation?"

No one was quite sure how to deal with that response.

"Then what are you doing here?" another one asked.

"Our division deals with the paranormal and the supernatural," Mulder reminded them. "I think we'd all have to agree that this qualifies as such."

"Does that mean that you think Tobias Church is somehow an alien?"

"As far as I know, aliens have no interest in the drug trade in Star City," Mulder countered. "Beyond that, we are not prepared to speculate."

"Then what are you here to do?" one journalist asked.

"If you've seen our track record in our first stint with the Bureau, you already have the answer to that question," Mulder said. "We're here to make it look like the government has this completely under control, and then when there are more deaths that in no way we could've stopped, our division will take the blame."

"Hopefully, we'll be able to stop the creature before the body count gets too high," Scully added. "But as always, we'll never be thanked for the murders we stop because of our efforts, only the ones that happened on our watch."

Now the murmur grew uneasy. It was unclear what the media had been expecting Mulder and Scully to say, but this level of brutal honesty – which NEVER happened at any press conference for anything period – was unsettling.

"Hey, since we've got you here, I understand you guys have been starting a pool as to how many people will end up dead before this is over," Mulder asked cheerfully.

The reporters were now stone cold silent. There had been some discussion of this in the press room before – it was almost becoming common among journalists whenever a new threat faced this city – but no one had dared to say it out loud.

"Can we get in on that action? What's the over-under on five more people killed?" Mulder said calmly. "Come on, don't be shy. You know how hard it is to get by on a G-man's salary."

"Okay, I think that's enough," Oliver said hastily.

"Don't be so hasty, Mr. Mayor," Scully said just as bluntly. "I've read the press. You could use the money yourself."

And that was the end of the press conference. Though strangely enough, most of the stories that came out that day simply said that the FBI had been asked to lend their expertise on the murders.

That day.

"You know, you didn't have to lean in to it that hard," Thea said when they were back in the Mayor's office.

"Don't worry about it. " All the playfulness was gone from Mulder's face. "With our luck, there'll be another murder today, and they can focus on how close they are to winning."

This was a level of cynicism that not even Oliver was entirely comfortable with. "You may have blown a lot of your goodwill on that conference."

"You think I give a shit was the press thinks about any of our work?" Mulder said angrily. "The media used to be interested in solving problems. Now they're as much a part of the dry rot as all the other institutions. Oh, occasionally you get a Vicky Vale or a Lois Lane, but most of them, all they care about are Bigger, Louder, Bloodier."

It was really hard to argue with that point. No one could deny the media had ignored the slaughter of the drug dealer in favor of the cops who had been murdered the exact same way.

"That may be true, but you've probably royally pissed off Cat Grant in the process."

Mulder actually jumped. He knew that Kara, James and Winn had shown up; he hadn't expected them to be waiting in the Mayor's office. "Maybe I should send her a box of chocolates?" he said weakly to James.

"She's in the middle of a juice cleanse right now. Try landing an interview with the Green Arrow, and she might forgive you," James said.

"Isn't that why you're here?" Scully said, falling into her old task of stopping her partner from digging himself a hole too big to get out of.

"We are just part of Catco covering of the most recent supernatural story to befall Star City," Winn said. "Miss Grant was thinking of using the tagline 'A Supersoldier needs a Super Hero."

"Then she thinks were up for it?" Oliver asked.

All three of the Catco reporters exchanged glances in the same way Team Arrow often did. "You may not want to watch the network the next couple of days," Winn said slowly.

"I think right now bad press is the last thing we need to worry about," Felicity stepped forward. "Though I kind of wish there was some kind of media photo for this."

"Team Arrow meets Team Supergirl," Winn said just as quietly. "You think maybe someday they'll have commemorative coins acknowledging this meeting?"

"Let me guess," Diggle said. "You're the resident nerd."

"Sir, I am a complete and utter geek and proud of it," Winn said with mock offense.

"Well, you're clearly the 'me' of the group," Felicity said softly. "You just gave away their biggest secret without meaning to."

Winn actually blushed a little at this. "You didn't tell them?"

"Mulder told us he was inviting a group of reporters from Catco who would be of great assistance to us going forward," Thea pointed out. "The fact that Kara Danvers was the only woman in that group kind of gave the game away."

"Besides, the Flash is a close friend," Oliver pointed out gently. "He didn't give you up, but…"

"It was probably just as easy for you to connect the dots about me as it was for us to connect the dots about you?" Kara finished. "They know, by the way."

"Did you tell them?" Diggle asked.

Mulder shook his head. "He and many of the people at Star Labs are on the same list your team is on."

"Shit!" Oliver muttered. "Anyone bother telling him this?"

"First we have to find him," Mulder told them. "And right now, I think we can only deal with one superpowered crisis at a time."

"I wouldn't be too sure," James pointed out. "Considering what you guys are up against, we may need the Fastest Man Alive."

That got Team Arrow's attention. "Wait a minute; you think this supercharged Tobias Church may be too much for you?" Thea said quickly.

Kara looked at her friends again. "When I went head to head with one of their Bounty Hunters, I barely managed to escape the first time with my life. "

"But that was an alien," Felicity was clearly confused. "Aliens I can see giving the Girl of Steel trouble, but a human, even one as supercharged as Church?"

Now Team Supergirl was confused. "You guys did show them the files, didn't you?" Kara asked.

"Yeah, we read them, and honestly not even Mulder's clear what they were. Man nor beast, supersoldier or alien-human replacement." Oliver pointed out. "And based on what we saw last night, Church may be some further alteration of it."

Mulder looked at them. "Read them in," he asked.

So Team Supergirl told them that they believed one of the people behind Church's reboot was Lillian Luthor.

"You know, I'm all for shattering the glass ceiling, but this is not the way I hoped the march for equality would end up," Felicity said.

"I'm honestly starting to miss Max Lord," James admitted. "I can't get my head around the motivations of half the people in this new Syndicate."

"Join the frigging club," Scully said sadly. "We couldn't figure it out the first time."

"I'm guessing you made no progress finding anything related to Lillian Luthor between here and National City," Oliver said.

"Not that it would make much a difference." Winn told them. "Given the Luthors wealth, they could have dozens of stash houses all over the coast that we know nothing about."

"Maybe if we knew where to dig," Felicity said thoughtfully.

"You got a laptop somewhere?" Winn asked.

"Better if you use the hardware in our headquarters."

"You have a secret underground lair? What a coincidence, we have a secret underground lair too." Winn said cheerfully.

Felicity flashed a quick look at Oliver. "Hey, part of the reason you're here is so that we can pool our resources, "he said without an objection.

The two started off together, talking in the kind of computer jargon that even now, their closest friends could barely interpret. "Great," James said. "We found another one."

"The two of them get together with Cisco, we'll never hear from the three of them again," Diggle said, not entirely unhappily.

Mulder and Scully were unusually quiet. "You okay?" Kara asked.

"Just missing three very old friends of ours," Mulder said sadly.

"Byers might be able to help," Scully said. "Frohike would never get his jaw off the floor seeing all the bad-ass hot women, and Langley would probably try and use Oliver and Kara for a real life game of D&D."

Kara knew who they were talking about. "You always did have a huge support group among the techies of the world," she told them.

"If we had, we wouldn't be in this spot," Mulder told them. He shrugged it off. "All right. Now that we have the forces of two major heroes, what do we do next?"

Both Kara and Oliver were a little shaken by this. "You put this in motion, and you don't have a plan going forward," Oliver said.

"Well, I'm trying to figure out what Church's pattern is," Mulder reminded them. "He started out by killing a drug dealer that was taking over his territory, which would seem to fit the category of settling old scores. But then, he went right at a police precinct, which would indicate a direct challenge to the authorities directly and you and your team specifically. "

"You engaged in battle against Church for weeks, "Scully said. "If anyone would have any idea what his next move would be, it's you."

"That makes sense as far as that goes," Diggle said forcefully. "But back then Church was acting entirely on his own. Now he's working for Lillian Luthor."

"I heard the conversation he was having with her," Kara reminded them. "How long do you think that'll last?"

Oliver gave it some thought. "Not long. Church never took orders when he could give them. At some point, he's going to try and gain the upper hand over his new master."

"Lillian Luthor has to know that," Kara pointed out. "I've never met the woman, but if she's anything like her son, she has to have some contingency plan in place when her new toy goes rogue."

"Well, Felicity and Winn are going to try things from that angle," James said thoughtfully. "Maybe there's a way you can lay some kind of lure for Church."

Oliver put his head in his hands. "I think we all know what that bait is. He wants to take me out of the picture. And considering he knows who I really am, he could come right here."

"He already tried to have you assassinated, and that led to his downfall," Mulder reminded them. "Church doesn't strike me as stupid enough to run the same play twice."

"He's not," Diggle assured them. "Then again, he wasn't made of bricks and invulnerable to bullets before. Which brings us back to you, Girl of Steel. Do you think you can take him?"

"That's why I'm here, isn't it?" Kara reminded them.

Oliver shook his head. "Before we get started, I need to actually see what you're capable of."

Scully looked a little disgruntled at this. "Have you not been watching the news the last year?"

"We've kind of been dealing with our own shit," Thea reminded them. "And Oliver's right. If we're going to be working together, we do need to know the limits of your strength."

Now Oliver looked amused. "'We?' Speedy, last I checked you were retired."

"This is an emergency Ollie; you need all the help you can get." Oliver and Diggle just looked at her. "And if you really think I'm not going to stick around to watch you get your ass handed to you by a girl, you really don't know me at all."

"I can handle myself." No one responded to this. "I could handle Barry fine!"

"Barry is a metahuman, Oliver." A small, almost imperceptible grin was taking over Diggle's face. "Kara actually has the word 'super' in her name. I don't care what you were fighting those five years you were missing, there is no way in hell you can take a visitor from another planet."

Oliver was actually starting to look a little hurt. "Regardless of your…opinions, if we're going to work together to bring down Church, I need to see if you can handle it.

Scully snuck a look at Kara. "It's like I've been telling Mulder all these years. Those testicles always seem to override the brain."

Oliver seemed to be looking to Mulder for some reassurance. Mulder's stone face actually seemed to be cracking a smile. "Hey, I've been watching Scully pummel felons twice her size for seven years. This is going to be Ali-Liston the rematch."

Now even Diggle was barely holding it together.

"There's a hangar that Queen Industries uses for testing new equipment," Oliver said, practically with his teeth clenched. "Meet us there in an hour." He practically stalked off. "And don't fly there!"

"Mulder, not that I'm not grateful for the vote of confidence, but don't you think you were a little harsh there?" Kara asked.

"Kara, I've been hunting the paranormal for more than a quarter of a century. If you thought I wasn't going to jump at the opportunity to have ringside seats for the Green Arrow vs. The Girl of Steel, you and Miss Grant clearly don't know me all." Mulder held a fist in the air. "Let's get ready to rum-ble!"

INDUSTRIAL HANGAR

12:58 P.M.

"Just out of curiosity, what's the PR department of the Mayor going to say about the injuries he's gotten?" Mulder asked Thea.

Thea shook her head. "Maybe he slammed his ribs getting out of his car." She looked at her brother. "Three or four times."

In actuality, there had been very few obvious injuries that Kara had inflicted on Oliver over the past two hours. How much of this was due to the Arrow's acrobatics or – and this was just Scully's opinion – the fact that Supergirl probably didn't want to break the Green Arrow in two while she was visiting was up for debate.

It did seem that Oliver was far more focused on his approach to handling Kara, while Kara didn't appear to have broken a sweat. Everybody on Team Supergirl knew this was an illusion - if Supergirl was as invincible as Catco made her seem to be, crime in National City would've dropped to zero over the past year.

And Oliver had the good sense not to go straight at her – he knew he couldn't beat her in a full on brawl, so he just concentrated on accuracy when it came to hitting her. After he'd spent his first twenty minutes just plain missing her, he decided to concentrate on where she might go when she dodged and aimed for there. It was more of a battle of intellect and experience after awhile, and Oliver Queen did have three more years of that than Kara Danvers did.

He'd actually hit her several times in the last hour with shots that would've taken out quite a few metahumans. Kara had to admit this was a harder workout than she usually got at the DEO.

It would've been easier if Mulder hadn't decided to let down his professional vibe down completely and had spent the last hour as if he were at Wrestlemania. Oliver was having a hard time contrasting the professional who'd begged him for helped just two days ago and the bleacher bum who kept yelling out: "Kick his ass!" and "Yell out your mother's name!", something that made the entire group look at him strangely..

Scully, however, looked happier than she had since they'd arrived in Star City. She'd been worried about her partner ever since Cat Grant had hauled them out of retirement. Seeing Mulder shout like a self-obsessed fanboy was closest to the Mulder she had loved for more twenty years.

"Can we take a break?" Diggle finally yelled out. He could tell that even Oliver's reserves were starting to get drained in a way that not even the battles with Damian Dahrk had done.

'Oliver looked at his friend gratefully. Kara seemed to admit that she was running out of steam herself and flew down to the ground.

"Well, I have to say you're a lot harder to deal with than Barry was at this point in his career," Oliver admitted.

"You should consider yourself glad to hear that," Thea said. "That's Ollie's equivalent of saying: 'That was pretty good for Rambo!'"

Oliver actually smiled at that. "I have dealt with some tough villains in the last several years," he admitted. "Slade Wilson wasn't as strong as you are, and Ras Al Ghul wasn't as fast as you are. And they both gave me a lot of trouble."

"I'm sensing there's a 'but' in their somewhere," Kara said slowly.

"There are villains out there who aren't as strong or as fast you, but they do have more intelligence. This has nothing to do with IQ."

"I know," Kara admitted. "I've actually had to deal with a couple that were smarter than me and just as strong. The only reason I managed to survive was because of the help of my friends." She paused. "That's a lesson you'd do well to learn yourself."

Oliver actually smiled. "Have you been talking with Felicity?"

"I speak from personal experience, Oliver," Kara admitted. "There were more than a couple of times last year that I felt I was being hampered by the DEO, and I just decided to go out on my own. James and Winn can tell you how well that ended up working for me."

Oliver actually looked a little abashed at this. "Earlier this year, when I was trying to rebuild a team out of the ashes of the one that fell apart, I had a conversation with someone who had a mission just like mine. Who'd been trying to follow his father's quest. After everything that's happened over the past few years, I was beginning to think I'd done more to disgrace my father than to honor him. Even now, I'm still not sure I'm not on the right path."

"You've been doing a great job, Ollie," Thea said.

"You saw the report Mulder compiled. There's statistical proof of just how good a job I'm doing."

Mulder actually winced at this. Over the past few months, he had been working on compiling crime statistics for six major cities were vigilantes or superheroes had surfaced over the past few years. The results would give rise to everybody who was opposed to their actions. All of the cities had seen a spike in crime averaging five percent. And most of the reason it was that high was because of Star City. Ever since the Hood had shown up, crime – particularly homicide – had gone up nearly nine percent.

"I could defend myself by saying I drew up those reports before I met any of you, but that's the coward's defense," he admitted.

"Then why did you write them?" Thea asked.

"Because people in law enforcement have been looking for evidence that people like you are dangerous," Lance said bluntly. "Hell, I could've told you guys that much, even if I didn't know the exact math. "

"Simple physics," Mulder pointed out. "Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. Villains emerge, heroes stop them, new villains come out of the woodwork. Hell, you guys have been on the front lines. Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

It was really hard for Kara, Oliver, or anybody on either team to argue with that. Kara could give testimony from what Clark had told her; Oliver could say the same from what he'd heard from Barry.

"You do know that in a lot of those cases there are outside factors that dry statistics can't account for," Felicity argued.

"We're well aware of that," Scully told them. "But essentially it doesn't change anything."

"You do know if you release that report to your higher ups at the Bureau, they'll have all the ammunition they need to take us down," Diggle told them.

"Which is why it'll never see the light of day," Mulder assured them. "The FBI doesn't know that I did it, and I was persona non grata at the time I did the compilation. It's not on any database at the FBI, the DEO has no record of it, and once she saw it, Cat Grant said she'd never make it public. "

"So why did you come here with it?" Oliver asked.

"Honestly, it was to help the Mayor's office," Mulder confessed. "You're under a lot of pressure to go after the vigilantes that have been 'terrorizing Star City'. This report would give you political cover to take an anti-vigilante position should the occasion ever arise. "

"I have to admit if I didn't know you were the Green Arrow, this would be the exact kind of report you could use to strike at them," Thea admitted.

"Problem is, if the people who are running that task force ever get this data, they've have all the cover they need to take us out and be heroes," Diggle reminded him.

"Do you honestly believe they don't have something like it already?" Scully asked. "There are entire departments at the Bureau whose job it is to gather statistics on crime of just about any nature. There's probably some accountant right now running the cost benefit analysis on just how cost-effective it would be for the FBI to make a charge against you and your friends."

Mulder nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, these days numbers can be read any way you want them to be depending on who does the counting."

"Mulder, I know that look. What are you thinking?" Scully asked.

"That maybe there's a way for these numbers to come out, and make our enemies at the government look bad at the same time." He shrugged it off. "But that's an issue for another day. Right now, I think everybody in this hangar can agree that stopping Church is our top priority."

"We're still not agreed as to just how we do that," James said.

"Oh, we have a way," Winn told them. "I just don't think it's one that anyone's going to be happy with."

Winn and Felicity than told them the data that they had gathered, and what the best possible stratagem would be.

"That's as crazy an idea as any that Mulder would come up with," Scully said first.

"In other words, it'll probably be a complete success, but it'll end up with the potential for a lot of people to get hurt when it does," Mulder pointed out. "Of course, the whole reason Scully would be pissed would be that I was the one who'd get injured, and if I was lucky, she have to sew up my stitches."

"I can do that myself," Oliver reminded them.

"And I don't scar." Kara added.

"Somehow, I don't think it's the two of you that we're worried about," James reminded them. "We really could get seriously hurt. Of course, that's never stopped us before, and I doubt it's ever stopped anyone on Team Arrow either."

"It never had," Oliver looked at Thea and John. "Much as I've argued otherwise."

"It's been three days since his attack on the precinct," John reminded them. "Church has probably been given a thorough oil and lube and is probably ready for Round 2."

"And this is the kind of thing that would bring him to daylight," Felicity pointed out.

"Then I guess we're agreed," Oliver said. "I guess this is where we see whether the Girl of Steel lives up to her name."

THE GLADES

9:23 P.M.

Winn and Felicity had chosen a site not far from where they'd fought Church the first time they'd made his acquaintance. They'd figured he'd want to relive past glories, and he'd kicked Oliver's ass pretty thoroughly the first time they'd met.

"I've been through my share of stakeouts," Lance told Mulder and Scully as they watched from the bunker. "I've even been through a couple with this team, and I still have this sinking feeling in my gut."

"Because it's dangerous, or because you're not there to back them up?" Mulder asked.

Lance actually chuckled a little. "I miss policework as much as you guys to; I don't miss spending the time at the hospital."

"It's a good thing the Bureau has its own insurance," Scully replied. "Any reasonable private carrier would've dropped Mulder before he was pronounced dead the first time."

"How many times were you considered dead?" Lance asked.

"Fake dead or actually buried?"

"You know, this may be one of the few cities on Earth where that question wouldn't just apply to you," Lance's smile faded. Mulder knew who he was thinking of.

"My father was a drunk," Mulder said quietly. "There was a long period when I thought he blamed me for what happened the night my sister was taken. What I didn't know – and I didn't know it until long after he was dead – was that he became a drunk years before that because of choices he made decades before it happened."

Lance noticed Mulder's choice of words. "You called him a drunk?"

"What's the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic?" Mulder said with a grim smile.

Lance knew this one. "Drunks don't have to go to those stupid meetings."

"An alcoholic has to admit that he has a problem," Mulder told them. "My father never admitted what caused his problem. He literally went to his grave without telling me. And my mother refused to acknowledge any of her part in it either. I was the only one in my family who wanted to know what happened to my sister. The truth was my addiction." He hesitated. "In a way, it still is."

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing," Lance said.

"John's a smart man," Mulder said as almost a non sequiteur. "When we were trying to keep Scully safe while she was about to give birth, I told him we had to find out what was going on. He said: 'And then what? You've devoted a decade of your life to this. When does it end?'" Mulder shook his head. "Fifteen years later, I still don't have a good answer."

Lance, whose quest to find out who the Hood was had cost him nearly as much, didn't have a good answer. He wasn't sure what cliché he was going to utter when Felicity spoke up. "Guys, I think we have something."

There was a shadowy figure about twenty feet down the horizon. "That's our guy?" Scully asked.

"Well, it sure as hell isn't Will Smith." Felicity whispered into her earpiece. "Everybody get into position. This is where we see if Winn and I are supergeniuses or just smart."

There was a deal going down in the middle of the street. Out of the shadows came Church. "Territory doesn't shift because I left down," he snarled.

"Actually, it does," The Black Canary came out. "That's what happens when you get arrested."

"They never learn. They never fucking learn," Church waited.

The Canary gave one of her cries, this time modulated based on the last fight. And it definitely did more – this time Church was thrown back nearly thirty feet.

Right in to the path of the Arrow. "I thought I warned you not to come back," he snarled.

"I thought I killed the last time we fought," Church was slowly getting back to his feet. "But I learned from my mistake. This time, I'm gonna rip your face off to make sure its not -"

He didn't finish the sentence. Oliver fired an arrow at him. One with an exploding tip. He ran back before it blew.

"I'm not entirely sure that falls under Bureau policy," Mulder said quietly.

"Welcome to Star City, bitch," Felicity said quietly. "Though I'm going to be really concerned to see if he starts rebuilding himself."

A few moments later the smoke was starting to clear. And now, everybody was starting to worry. The kinds of explosive in Oliver's arrow had enough strength to blow a hole in a brick wall. He'd only started using them after the return of Slade Wilson, and still he barely used them on civilians. Given that, they were not entirely sure what they were dealing with now, Team Arrow figured this was the time to break them out.

And what they were seeing was even more impossible than what had happened three days ago. The blast had taken out a part of Church's chest and some of his jaw. But where one would expect to see muscle or bone, they were seeing what could only appear to be metal and there was blood everywhere.

And then Church got up. He didn't seem to be feeling any pain at all. "Now look what you did," he said in a raspy voice. "All the work that nice lady did fixing me up. She's going to be royally pissed when she's gets the bill to rebuild me this time."

He was now on his feet. "But I think I'm going to return the favor on you, Mr. Green Arrow."

Even Oliver seemed genuinely flummoxed by what he was seeing.

Mulder recovered first. "Will our mystery guest please sign in?"

"You should know better, Hood," Church was started to walk towards Oliver. "You really got stick to picking on people your own size."

"Do I qualify?"

It took a little longer than it should have for Church to turn around and see that Supergirl had just arrived on the scene.

"I think I made it clear that people should stay out of my territory." What appeared to be a grin was looking particularly ghastly.

"And felons who beat up on innocent people is definitely mine." Supergirl said.

Any interest Church had in Oliver was completely gone. "I'm going to have fun messing you up."