Chapter 2 – Thea Strikes Back

An: I do not own Arrow. I was persuaded to write a second chapter to this story.


Thea stepped up to the podium in the Mayor's press room. Several flashes went off blinding her. Her staff had informed her that all of the seats were taken and there were a significant amount of persons standing. The sharks only came out when they smelt blood. This time last week, when Oliver announced they had found funding to support the battered women's shelter in the city, a total of three reporters came, inclusive of the snake Susan, who was probably only there to get more info for her article on Oliver.

There were a ton of questions thrown at her about where Mayor Queen was? If he had resigned? If Deputy Mayor Lance was in charge? If she could confirm the accuracy of the article? Thea had to keep her features schooled. It would be a cold day in hell before she ever rat Oliver out. There were two reasons Oliver wasn't the one giving the press release. One, they did not know how much Susan really had on him. That picture was true and Oliver did not want to put on record denying it and become the typical lying politician. Secondly, this was Thea's and Felicity's first step in the destruction of Susan Williams.

Usually after a minute the flashes would stop but they were not dying down. Thea chose to focus on the entrance to the room off to the side instead of looking directly into the flashes. She spotted Felicity squeezing herself into the room. Not a single reporter next to her paid her any attention. She was there to live tweet the event. Thea had already picked out lines from her speech that Felicity was to tweet. The IT genius had created several bots to retweet her tweets and kick start the trending of their rebuttal.

Thea cleared her throat, signalling she was ready to speak. The room fell completely silent and thankfully the photographers stopped. "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," Thea greeted. "I'm here to directly address a scandalous news article written by a person that calls herself a professional journalist." At lunch time they watched a live interview with Susan where she referred to herself as a professional. Thea strongly disagreed with that statement. Several reporters tried to ask questions again and she told them she would answer questions at the end of her statement.

"Let me make this abundantly clear, the Mayor is not resigning based on a speculative article that only contains the reporter's opinions on supposed evidence she collected," Thea said waving her copy of the article in front of them. She pointed to the picture of Oliver in Russia. "So Oliver Queen has a doppelganger in Russia?" Thea mocked. "I have one living in Beverly Hills, look it up. How often do we see the doppelganger of stars on TV? This picture does not prove anything," Thea stressed before moving on to the other pictures in the article.

"These pictures of Mayor's body," Thea said before pausing to consider another thought, "Who takes pictures of their boyfriend's tattoos and scars and posts if to for the world to see?" she asked rhetorically. "These scars are the physical reminder of the pain and suffering Mayor Queen endured on the island to survive. The picture of what that reporter called an arrow head, is actually the head of a spear that Mayor Queen had to hand craft from what little materials he could find on the island to hunt. It was a deserted island, he had to hunt for food to sustain himself. While hunting for sustenance on the island, he was hurt and he had to heat the head of his spare and cauterise the wound. That is what you see there. Each of these scars comes with a painful story."

Thea stopped to take a sip of water from the glass that her staff had placed on the podium. It allowed her to survey the room. Some of the reporters were swaying to their side but most still seemed skeptical. Felicity was frantically tweeting away. The small smile on the blonde's face told her they were winning the war on the social media front. She picked up the news article again and pointed to the picture of the Bratva tattoo.

"This controversial tattoo is from a celebratory night out on the town with Tommy Merlyn. Admittedly, the adjustment back was difficult for Mayor Queen and he relied sometimes on using alcohol as a coping mechanism. The media would remember that when Mr. Queen launched the Applied Sciences Division of Queen Consolidated he was a little bit tipsy. In one such state, he and Mr. Merlyn decided to get a tattoo to celebrate his return to Star City. They went to a tattoo parlour, I believe it was called Tattoo Palace, located on the corner of Elk and Maple avenues in the Glades. It was just down the road from Verdant. The resident artist was proud of his work and had many pictures of the tattoos he had done on display. Oliver chose the picture of that tattoo. Residents of the Glades who frequented this place would remember it," Thea insisted.

She paused to sip some water again. There were several hashtags from that paragraph that Felicity had to post and she needed to let her catch up. Thea was particularly proud of the one that called out residents of the Glades to remember The Tattoo Palace. She had been in it once with Roy shortly before the Undertaking. The Palace had two walls that were covered in pictures of work the artist had done from the top to the bottom. There must have been over 200 pictures posted. Thea was hoping that once she suggested it was on the wall, people would come out in agreement that it was on the wall. Both the Palace and the resident artist had not survived the earthquake so there was no one that could really dispute this argument.

"For further proof that the tattoo did not occur during his time away, we are releasing Mayor Queen's medical records when he returned from the island. It should be noted that the Doctor made no notes of any tattoos during the physical examination," Thea stated. The Doctor who examined Oliver when he returned was killed during Slade's attack. No one else had seen him shirtless the day he returned so there was no way they could dispute this fact.

"The last accusation that I want to address is that Mayor Queen is the Green arrow. Though in light of the twitter #Hero that has been trending since the article was published, some citizens consider it a compliment. The Mayor has a 24/7 security detail. The reporter cited instances where he ditched security to be with her but I can assure you his security team knew where he was. He most certainly was not running across rooftops at night. I think our chief of security would had heart failure if his charge was doing that. More importantly, Mayor Queen would have been outed as the Green Arrow long ago," she said confidently.

"Everything that report stated could have been explained if she asked for a comment from the Mayor's Office. Instead she sought glory and published this ridiculous article. It is a fact that she was laughed out of Coast City after writing an article about a man wearing a green ring. It seems to me like she has an obsession with the colour green. As a result of the reporter's actions, the Mayor's Office has stripped her of her press pass for this office. Those passes are given to media professionals, not persons that prostitute themselves for stories. The Mayor's office will also be investigating the possibility of bringing charges against the reporter for this libelous article that not only damages the Major's reputation but also brings this esteemed office into disrepute."

"I would like to take this opportunity to remind the citizens of Star City all that has been accomplished in the short time that Mayor Queen has been in office," she said. Her staff dulled the lights in the press room, and a presentation that she had them prepared on the Mayor's achievements was shown.

At the end of the presentation the lights came back on and Thea stepped back up the podium, "Thank you for attending. I will be taking questions now," Thea said. Several hands popped up to ask the first question.

Thea knew if they didn't take questions it would look bad. She sat down with Rene for two hours and he asked her every conceivable question that someone might ask. What he didn't think of Felicity did. The first question was the most obvious one.

"Where is Mayor Queen?" the first reporter that she chose asked.

Thea had to hold back a smile. "The Mayor is deeply hurt that someone he cared about, someone he was in a steady relationship with, could publish those vicious lies about him. It's taking him sometime to wrap his head around it," Thea said glancing at her watch, "It's only been six hours since he read the article at seven o'clock this morning. The end of a relationship is hard but a very public end can increase the pain, especially considering he's constantly reminded that she was dating him for a story. I suppose now he knows how all those girls he never called back felt," Thea quipped lightly at the end. She had to make it seem like they weren't afraid of the article. Injecting the humour into her answers would show that they had nothing to fear.

"What about the men in the picture that were confirmed as members of the Bratva?" the second reporter she chose asked.

Thea shrugged, "You will have to ask them or Mayor Queen's doppelganger," Thea responded. They knew no Bratva member in that picture, who was still alive, was going to admit it was Oliver Queen.

The third reporter asked about the Mayor's most recent trip to Russia. Thea was more than ready for that one. After the Russia question, she was asked about possible contracts being given to the Bratva. She had her staff compile a list of all the contracts that had been awarded under Mayor Queen's administration and she challenged the reporters to find a Bratva connection. Felicity gave her a signal when the DA released his press release and Thea pulled it up on her phone and spoke about it with the reporters.

She stood there taking questions until they had no more concerning the press release. She even fielded a few questions that asked about what the Mayor's next projects were. She was more than happy to talk about the good work they were doing. When there were no more relevant questions, Thea ended the question and answer session. She watched Felicity slip out of the room before the media could turn their attention to her.

She held a brief meeting with her staff before heading back to Oliver's office. She knew the entire team would be assembled there. Oliver should have been watching the press conference from his office. She hoped he was paying attention instead of pinning over Susan.

"Speedy you were amazing!" Oliver said as soon as Thea stepped back into his office. He was seated behind his desk. Felicity and Curtis were seated in front of the desk and Rory and Rene were off to the side with Diggle and Lyla.

"Ah, so you were paying attention," Thea commented snidely. She may love her brother very much and be very devoted to kicking Susan's ass but regardless of what Felicity told him, some of this was Oliver's fault.

Oliver frowned at the passive aggressive comment from his sister but before he could say anything Rene piped up.

"It really was incredible how you subtly laid into the reporter," Rene said in awe. "You were mean without being too mean."

"Thanks for the practice questions, it really did help," Thea admitted taking up a position leaning against the edge of Oliver's desk.

Rene practically gloated at the attention, "If you need anything else…"

"Stop right there!" Thea warned. She was not going on a date with him, ever.

"Your tweets are doing very well!" Felicity proudly said showing her the stats on her phone. "There are quite a few people showing off their tattoos from the Tattoo Palace and many people are confirming that the tattoo was on the wall."

"Great," Thea said beaming with pride because of how well her plan was working but she knew she couldn't bask in the moment for long. There was still a lot to do. "How did the fact finding mission go?" she asked Curtis and Rory.

"It went well," Curtis stated.

Felicity had been the one to point out that since Susan was not in her apartment and busy making the interview rounds for her article, it would be a great time to break in and find out what she had on Oliver. Her brother had of course been against that plan of action but the team basically steamrolled over his objection. It wasn't the first time that the team had chosen to follow Felicity instead of him and it wouldn't be the last if Oliver insisted on keeping his head stuck up his rear end. Diggle eventually got Oliver to cave and he gave them a detailed layout of the apartment and highlighted areas that could have what they were looking for.

Thea learned that Curtis hacked her laptop and left a Trojan virus on it to report back to them everything Susan did on the laptop and Rory found a key to a safety deposit box. Curtis did a quick check of her finances and found the key opened a box at Star City National Bank. The bank was going to have a visit from a group of vigilantes that night but it would not include Oliver. Thea had scheduled very public appearances for Oliver during the rest of the month. Felicity was too ensure that the Green Arrow was captured in action at the same time that Oliver was at his public functions. The first function up was a very public brother/sister dinner.