A/N: notes at the start, to make the ending more dramatic. This is a long chapter, so far warning. also, this was supposed to be the last one but it got too long, so there's this one, another one, and a short epilogue - but it should be done soon. In this chapter a lot happens. There's a scene I forgot to write in an earlier chapter I plan to fix, a lot of parallels between Oliver/Felicity and Oliver & Ted, and I try to write something sad and dramatic and I'm not sure it worked. Let me know.

'For once, then, something'

The throbbing in her head became more persistent with every passing second, growing in irritation until Felicity opened her eyes to a bright light, wincing and lifting a hand to shield herself. Aware she was lying on her back, she rolled until her arms supported her, the light behind her, eyes refocusing on her hands on concrete, dirt caked under her nails. Just as the confusion was beginning to set in, squinting as she struggled to remember what had happened – she had been with Booster, of that she was sure – things started to blur. A voice cut through.

"Oh, thank God," Michael said, as Felicity looked up to see him sitting a few feet away against the save wall. He was close enough that she realised he had been holding her, cradling her head in his lap until she had rolled from his security. "Are you okay?"

"I think so," she answered, high voiced ending to the sentence leaving it as a question. She wasn't so sure – her head certainly felt far from okay, but it was survivable. "You?"

"I've had worse."

Felicity felt relief flood through her chest at that, eyes flicking over him to mentally assess her friend and finding nothing other than a red mark on his cheek. Tucking her head to her chin, she let out a long breath and squeezed his hand – before her eyes flew open, head splitting with pain again as she looked around.

"Ted?!"

"I'm fine."

Ted's voice answered from just behind them, and Felicity turned to see him chained to the same chair, although he raised his fingers in an imitation of a wave when she looked over. It was a mixed expression which graced his features: half a grimace, half a smile.

Instantly, Felicity tried to get to her feet. Halfway up her head spiked, knee's buckling from the pain; luckily, Booster was still by her side, catching her easily before she could fall.

"Hey," he said, slinging her arm around his shoulder to steady her. "Let's try that again, but this time don't be an idiot about it. Let me help."

"You calling me an idiot," Felicity joked weakly as the world slowly stopped spinning, the painful steps closer to Ted's chair giving her head a chance to catch up to her body. "This is a day I never thought I'd see."

"She's fine," Booster responded in sarcastic answer to Ted, who laughed, but looked pained. Where the chains met his skin was white as despite knowing it was pointless, as he tried to reach out to help them. As they stopped by the chair, Booster held Felicity by one arm, noticing she was already gaining colour in her face and didn't sway quite so drastically on her feet. "Do you think you'll be okay if I let go?"

She nodded yes. When Booster let go, keeping his hands a few inches away from her and open, ready to catch her if she fell again, Felicity wobbled on the balls of her feet for a moment, but shakily stood. Once she was certain of the ground beneath her feet, she met his eye more determinedly and nodded a second time, confirming her stability.

Michael respected that and stepped away, back arced as he glanced around. "What is this place?"

"A lab, kind of." Ted answered, keeping the corner of his eyes on Felicity. "When-"

He was cut off by the clang of a metal door closing across the room, echoing throughout closed space like a gunshot. Collectively flinching at the noise, Felicity sub-consciously grabbed onto the arm on Ted's chair and Booster stepped in front of her.

"Oh my God," Felicity breathed, eyes widening to take in the spectral figure approaching them. "W-what is that?"

It was twenty foot tall, a metal man unlike any robot she had ever seen. Gleaming red with eyes a somehow brighter shade, burning like hellfire under shadowed sockets, embellished with golden joints and a wide belt. But for a machine – it was so unnatural. When it walked, it moved with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for a computer programme to reproduce; and it's voice –

It was almost human.

"That? What an insulting turn of phrase, Miss Smoak," it said, human malice somehow reproduced in it's tone. It reached them, stopping ten feet away from the trio. Even though they were nothing but slots filled with red light, the way the robot looked at her, head tilted in her direction and voice low, cruel . . . it was sinister. "I am Carapax. Conrad Carapax – and you are going to help me."

"Me?" Felicity gaped, mouth falling open in unrefined fear. There was no face to be found in such a monstrosity. She couldn't help the tremble in her tone. "Help you? What are you?"

"I was an archaeologist, a mere man – I came here to find what Dan Garret died for, but somehow I was merged with this . . . this machine. But it is better. I am stronger, faster – I will never die. And now, you have what I need to create an army of others like me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I thought the robots would be enough – and Mr. Kord could fix them alone. But then I got to think, what if they could think in the same way I could? What if they could reason and imagine – they would be more than machine, more than man. Superior. And so I needed you."

"What does any of this have to do with me?"

"You created A.I!" Carapax shouted, taking a step towards them. "Artificial intelligence! Life, Miss Smoak. Imagine what I could do with an army of living machines."

"I am," Felicity replied, forcing herself to stand straight. "Why would I help you to do that? I can't do that. It's not possible."

"Yes, you can. You already have. There is a code you created at Kord Industries which holds the key to Artificial Intelligence," it, he, sneered. Spitting out the next sentence at Ted, the robot snarled. "I had a copy, but the Blue Beetle here destroyed it when we fought. You're going to re-create it."

"That's not true! I've never done that!" Felicity shouted back, taking a few steps forward now. That rage was boiling in her again, leaving her with clenched fists and an icy expression. When the robot just looked at her, she turned to her friend. "Ted, tell him! Tell him I've never created anything like that at Kord Industries, that it's a lie!"

"Felicity . . ."

He only said a word, but the admission of guilt was wrapped in it. Although his head was turned towards her, Ted's eyes hit the floor as soon as the met hers, to a soft chuckle of the robot behind them.

Taking a few steps back, away from him, Felicity shook her head. "No, you wouldn't-"

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Ted said, looking back up. His eyes were screaming. "I thought all this got buried, that we were safe-"

"You tricked me?" Felicity asked, tears forming as soon as the words crossed her lips. It was like every pain and heartache she had ever felt in her life, hitting her all at once.

"It wasn't for this!" Ted shouted over the noise, voice scratchy with dehydration and desperation. "That's why I destroyed my tracer as soon as I found out what he wanted, because I knew he would come after you. I was trying to protect you. You weren't supposed to find me!"

The blonde woman just stared at him as if he were a stranger; behind her glasses her eyes going dark in an angry way he had only seen a few times. Felicity didn't speak for a minute, trapping him in that stare until he felt the shame choke him, wrapping like a viper around his throat and squeezing until he could no longer look at her and breathe properly.

Ted looked away first. Felicity turned to Carapax.

"Even if I could work out how to do it again, I wouldn't help you," she said coldly. Forcing her legs to work, she took confident steps towards him, drawing level with Booster, tilting her chin up to look him in his admittedly scary robot-eyes. "I won't let you hurt people. You can do what you want to me, I'll never help you."

When Carapax moved, Booster was standing in front of her before she could even blink, hovering a few feet off the floor and glowing. "Hey! Don't you touch her!"

The Robot stopped, "Ah, yes. If it isn't the most useless member of your little crime-fighting group."

"Who the hell you callin' useless, tin man?"

"Beetle and Kerberos here at least have the brains for this, giving them use outside of just punching things and making imbeciles of themselves playing costumed crusaders," Carapax mused. "What do you have, Booster? Nothing. Next to them, you're nobody."

"What do I have?" Booster shouted and flew higher. Focusing, he aimed a high-powered blast at the metal mans neck, hoping the joint might be a vulnerable point. "More than enough fire-power to kick your ass!"

It shot out, but before it could even scratch the surface of the robot, it hit an invisible wall, ricocheting backwards and blasting the rock behind him. It shattered the rock, sending sections of the wall loose and crashing down around Ted and Felicity, Booster only just turning in time to throw up his own force field around them before they hit.

Fiercely, he turned back towards the robot, aware they were trapped. He glared, slowly returning both feet to the ground beside Felicity.

"You will re-create the code for Artificial Intelligence," the red robot said, a finality in his voice, looking only at Felicity. "Or he'll be the first one to die – and don't doubt that I will kill him. Booster Gold has no use to me whatsoever. You were willing to sacrifice your life to stop me," Carapax finished. "But are you willing to give his? You have an hour."

He left, and this time the door sounded a lot like a coffin lid slamming shut.

"Felicity?"

The name tore itself out of Oliver's throat, scorching him on the way up and lingering there like smoky aftertaste. It was toxic: it scarred his lungs to the point where they struggled to breathe heaving breaths as he stood alone in the middle of the forest, surrounded by too much green to think straight.

I'm on Pago Island, not Lian Yu.

It was a mantra he had been repeating to himself for over two hours as he searched, the words burning into his brain every time it all got a bit too familiar and his heart started to race. It was everything about this place – the smell of dirt was overwhelming, nothing like the smell in the city, which was filled with petrol and garbage. The roar of the ocean.

He had found that phrase strange before Lian Yu, the concept of water roaring; but after years of hearing the waves smashing together, fighting and clamouring for more like lions in the coliseum, it finally made sense. It was deafening from any point on the island, unavoidable.

Being there was making the person he was on Lian Yu return.

Oliver had spent a lot of time running from that person, the one who would do anything to survive and damned the consequences, the one even he was afraid of – that person was desperate. And desperation made anyone infinitely more dangerous than they were before. The Oliver on Lian Yu had no limits, no lines to cross, but he did.

So whenever his hands started to shake on his bow or the noise of the ocean grew too loud to bear, Oliver closed his eyes and repeated his mantra.

I am on Pago Island, not Lian Yu.

But all bets and thoughts of stability were off when Felicity announced she was running into danger, even though he argued and tried to get her to think. But she had a steely edge to her voice, one he recognised from all the times she had put him in his place when the man he was on the island started to surface and grow restless. It meant that she wasn't giving in.

Then she was just gone with a gust of wind, the other end of his comm crackling after a few seconds, before the name had even fully left his mouth, and Oliver lost it.

"No, not now," he murmured, feet moving before his brain caught up. Oliver was running for the beach, towards the little red dot on the special watch they had given him to track everyone's locations. There was no thought behind it, no consideration of pacing himself or conserving energy, just muscles screaming as he ran full pelt.

"Oliver, come in."

He recognised the voice as Diggle's. "Did you find something?"

"Did you?" Diggle questioned. "I've got you as suddenly moving very fast towards the beach. What's going on?"

"Felicity. She and Booster found something – I told her to wait but she wouldn't listen, Diggle," he said. While they had been speaking, Oliver's running had slowed, thoughts finally catching up with him – in every one was Felicity, hurt or dying. That alone made his feet lead, each step putting more strain on his lungs. "They went ahead. We have no idea who or what was waiting for them, Digg, I – she could need us."

"Whoa, Oliver," Diggle commanded, leaving no room for argument. "Slow down."

"I can't," Oliver panted. Slowly, he was becoming aware of his own breathing, it's irregularity – it came in huffs and gasps, like a drowning man. The only time he felt like that was when waking from a nightmare. "I need to get to her, I need to-"

"You need to listen to your own advice. Go to the beach and wait for us there, we're on our way."

"No, Felicity could be-"

"Damn it, Oliver! Do you think you're the only one here who cares about her?" Diggle snapped. It was rare that he lost his temper, so the waves of frustration mingled with worry rolling off his tongue managed to pull his stricken friend back to his senses; Oliver stopped running. "You might be my brother, but Felicity is my best friend. I want to help her, too. And the way we do that is by working together, we're stronger that way and you know it. Go, but wait for us."

Oliver's legs shook underneath him as he bent over double, struggling to regain control over his own breathing. Count to ten. Repeat the mantra, but with another sentence: I am on Pago Island, not Lian Yu. Felicity is okay.

But even standing still, the ground felt unsteady beneath his feet like walking on sand, muscles twitching from the work out he had given them, tearing off like a stray bullet.

"Diggle?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. Get here quickly."

When he moved this time, Oliver's head was clear. One foot in front of the other, he ran as silently as he could, careful to stay aware of his surroundings. If there was someone out there working against them, he didn't have to signal his position like a neon sign. All the greenery helped him in a way.

Pacing himself, the Arrow sucked in small breaths every few steps, forcing them to be steady and use only what he needed, keeping the panic at bay for now. Somehow, Diggle was one of two people who could silence his demons.

It took him ten minutes to get to the section of beach where Felicity had left her tracer at his renewed pace. As he got closer, Oliver slowed even more, moving without the leaves crunching underfoot and notching an arrow, slowly walking the perimeter of the tree's to check no one was there before moving onto the rocks. He found nothing – not a trace of life, or machine, or anyone other than himself even being there.

The first thing to hit him was the heat. Under the cover of the trees the island felt cool, a breeze touching his exposed cheeks as the branches over head provided a barrier from the sun, leaving him in a slightly cooler shadow.

Out on the rocks, it was unbearable. The sun beat down on his back as he walked towards the tracer he could see blinking on the sand in the distance, the leather of his costume clinging uncomfortably to his skin as a result, a light layer of sweat gathering in minutes, reminding him that if anything happened to the Bug, they were trapped on a pretty inhospitable island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

The thought chilled him, the tracer he held in his palm a moment later even more so. Logically, Oliver knew the tracer had been left there by Felicity for him to find, not dropped in a fight or lost – but his heart still gave a fierce kick of worry when he saw it. Head craned from his crouched position, he scanned the beach for signs of her, finding nothing but a few scattered footprints that seemed to vanish to nowhere, away from both the rocks and ocean.

"The cliff . . ." Oliver murmured to himself, remembering Felicity's anxious words. Gaze turning, he stood, slowly moving his eyes around the section, staring at the chalky surface until something caught his eye – a glint of something glass or metal, faintly, but enough to capture his attention.

He had only taken a few steps towards it when the sound of thundering footsteps across the beach triggered an instantaneous reaction, Oliver pulling his bow tight and aiming it in the direction of whoever was approaching. It took a few tense moments for him to place the face in his hysteria, but it was just Diggle and Sara, the former stooping right in front of him.

It took all Oliver had not to roll his eyes. "I see we've given up on subtlety."

"Please, paranoid bastard like you, I knew there was no way you'd be standing in the open like that if you hadn't checked the place out already. I trust your judgement," Diggle said, not even hesitating. He watched Oliver steadily, seeing the strain on his friends face. "What have you got?"

"The tracer," Oliver said. Opening his palm, he passed the object to his friend, eyes flicking to check Sara was okay and finding she had wandered a few feet away, face creased in thought. Turning back to Diggle, he pointed towards the cliff. "There's something up there, looks like a cave. I think that's where they went."

From her position crouched on the rocks, Sara tried to get their attention. "Guys-"

"Is it stable?" Diggle asked, squinting in the direction Oliver was pointing. "If we're taking the fight down there, we need to know that the roof isn't about to come down on us."

"Guys?"

"There's no way to tell, at least not fast enough for what we need," Oliver replied. He hated it too, going in blind. But he felt like they had wasted enough time already, his hands itching for the tautness of a bowstring and the sight of golden hair. "But its high. We'll either need a rope or the Bug to get up there."

"Guys!" Sara shouted, clapping her hands a few times and standing to get their attention. "God, what am I? A piece of furniture?"

"What?" Oliver snapped.

Crooking an eyebrow, used to this treatment but in no way putting up with it, Sara beckoned them over. "Put your hand on the stone. Yes, you heard me right. Just do it."

Sharing a look, Oliver and Diggle walked over to the rock she was standing on, lips as curved as a dagger and twice as deadly. Any other time, Oliver suspected he would have gotten an earful for not listening to her in the first place, but there was an intensity in Sara's eyes that was usually reserved for Laurel and her parents as she kneeled beside them.

It reminded Oliver that this wasn't all about him. Sometimes, he forgot that – and it was usually Felicity who reminded him. They all cared about her too, in different ways. He knew Sara for one never stopped appreciating the friend who, the first time they met, looked at her like a friend and not a killer.

Putting one hand to the stone, Oliver rested his other on Sara's shoulder. Then his jaw dropped, a lot of things Felicity had said over the comm link suddenly making sense. "Is that humming?"

"There's something down there," Sara replied, only a little smugly. "Sounds like machinery; if something that big is running down there, it must be stable. And for the vibrations to be this strong – the floor here could only be five feet deep."

"How can you be sure?"

"I got to know a little about caves, living in Nanda Parbat," Sara shrugged. "You'd need a concentrated blast, but with enough force we could blow this piece of rock, no problem. The walls of the cave should remain intact, but-"

"It'd be a way out," Oliver nodded, catching on. He looked up, the spark in her eyes captivating. "Do you think you could do it? Blow an escape route?"

Sara grinned back, "You bet your ass."

"I am," he replied, standing again. "I'm going in, I have to. I want you to stay here, start working on blowing it – wait, there's something blocking the comm link down there."

"Take this," she replied, pulling one of her sonic devices from her belt. She handed it to him, not letting go right away when he reached out to take it, forcing him to meet her eyes, where he could not lie. "Promise me – if you need me to blow it straight away, you'll set this off. Twice if you need me to come down there and help. Promise me, Oliver."

He nodded, "I promise."

"And you're not going alone," Diggle announced. Clicking a new round of ammunition into his glocks, he straightened. "The reason we lost Felicity in the first place is because we forgot what we are at our best – a team. If you're going, I am, too."

"Never doubted it," Oliver agreed. Suddenly, nothing mattered; not the feeling of the Island that had been constricting him slowly since he set foot there, not the pain of absence in his chest, not all the bad in the world he needed to stop and fight to come. It made a little more sense, knowing somebody else had his back – and always had. "Let's go."

It took a few minutes for Felicity to turn to Ted. Her voice was thunder. "Explain."

He sighed, "When I first came here with Dan, it was to stop my Uncle Jarvis."

Felicity blinked up at him, nose pinched. "Your dead uncle?"

"My presumed dead uncle," he rolled his eyes. "Apparently, not so dead after all. I'd found a box of his things in my attic – papers, maps – leading here. We came, and we found that. A robot – not fused with a person, but an army of robots Jarvis had created. He said I'd created them."

"Well, had you?"

"Do you really think that little of me? Of course I didn't!" Ted snapped. "He'd stolen my tech, manipulated me into making them."

Felicity cut in, "I know the feeling."

"That was different, okay? With you, there was no danger in it! It was supposed to be safe."

"Yeah, because that worked out great."

Booster winced. He had seen Felicity angry, but the biting, cold attitude had never been directed at Ted before. He didn't think that she would go that far with him, no matter what a bonehead Ted had been, so he used his one selfless moment of the year to speak up. "He did it for me, K."

"What do you mean?" she asked, turning to him. He saw the betrayal reflected there, the sinking feeling that they had both let her down rising.

"He was trying to fix my robot from the future," Booster explained. The tips of his ears turned red, as he struggled to maintain eye contact while he spoke. "Skeets. He was A.I, and could speak and think and help. He was kind of my only friend, before I met you guys. But there was an accident, and he broke. Ted was trying to fix him for me."

"I could fix the machine, but not the intelligence," Ted admitted, but his voice was solemn. He was not looking for absolution, but let the guilt linger. "I knew you could, but you wouldn't. Not after what happened at MIT with Cooper and the virus; you wouldn't risk creating something dangerous again. And I didn't want to put you in that position."

"We gave you a tablet with some of Skeet's code on it while you were distracted," Booster said. "You fixed it without ever having to pay attention to what you were fixing. You're that smart."

"So you manipulated me into creating Artificial Intelligence, and now a homicidal robot wants me to re-create it?" Felicity said, not pausing for breath during the entire sentence. It was forced out, angry, matching the darkness in her face as she glared at both of them. "And before that, you created a robot army and didn't tell me?!"

"I thought they were all destroyed, but yes. Essentially." Ted tilted his head to the left, lips twisting together. "And now our robots are maybe going to take over the world."

"Stop calling them our robots!" Felicity shouted in reply, clubbing Ted over the head a few times in an effort to get her point through his thick skull. Visibly shaking from anger, she stood over him as he ducked his head as much as he could with the limitations of the chains. "You did this, Ted. I can't believe you . . . you-"

"Hey! Hey, stop hitting the guy who can't defend himself!"

"No!" she yelled immaturely, the last of her blind anger draining from her body. Hands going to her forehead, she slumped, sitting on the concrete, tears stinging the back of her eyes. This hurt, a lot. It felt like a betrayal. "How could you do this?"

He babbled, trying to defend his actions although he knew he was wrong. But even as he spoke, his stomach churned and bubbled with guilt, twisting him to sickness at the sight of his best friend sitting and crying in the dungeon, thinking it was her fault.

"I – I never meant for this to happen, I was just trying to fix Skeets. It was never supposed to be like this, Felicity. . . Felicity? Please, don't . . . don't ignore me. I've been down here for days on my own. You're right. You're always right." Ted's voice grew quieter with every word, thick with regret. "It's all my fault. I did this to us. I'm sorry."

Felicity didn't answer. Still sitting with her feet tucked up to her chest, her arms looped around them, she turned her head away from him at the apology, her only sound muffled sniffling.

If he could have put his head in his hands, Ted would have then. Instead he hung it, feeling the migraine that had been building for days spike beneath his eyelids; crushed, Ted bitterly grit his teeth, speaking as though pained, "I really screwed up, didn't I? Everything that's happened these past few months – becoming the Beetle, finding you guys, what we've done in the city – I thought it meant something. I thought I was making up for it. For Dan, for – for letting him die down here."

Felicity felt a kick in her chest. She looked up, turning back to him. "What happened wasn't your fault."

His words broke off with a shake of the head, dismissing it, even as a few tears leaked from the edges of his eyes. "I thought that I could do enough, that I could be enough, to make up for not saving him. I thought I could make Dan proud. But this? I've messed up so bad, I don't even know if we'll be able to stop Carapax. Instead of saving the world – I might just have wiped it out."

Felicity tried to be angry at him for a minute, but managed maybe twenty seconds before she cracked.

"Hey," she said, moving closer to him again. Sitting at his feet, she put a hand on his knee so he looked up at her, eyes bright with tears – in them, she saw his guilt. Ted spent his life wearing his heart on his sleeve, and all the while it was bleeding for the world around him. He cared, more than anyone she had ever met. He didn't mean for this to happen, not that she ever thought he did – but as much as he cared, Ted was ten times as arrogant and fifty times as reckless, so he didn't always think his 'brilliant' plans through. He acted on impulse, and sometimes that had consequences, like right then. But she forgave him anyway. It's what friends do. "We're gonna find a way out of this. Whatever – whatever we've done-"

"I've done. This is on me, Felicity." Ted cut her off. His next words were barely more than a whisper. "I should have been the one to die down here."

"You can't think that!" she argued, grabbing his hands in her own this time. Feeling her own eyes well up and begin to steadily flow, Felicity leaned in closer, upright on her knees now. "Look at me – look at me, right now. You couldn't have known this was going to happen."

"I never do. I still chose to create something potentially dangerous."

"Maybe," she nodded. "And I'm still mad about that. It's something we're going to have a very long, serious talk about when we get out of here. But that doesn't matter right now, none of us do – what matters is stopping Carapax."

"How?"

"He left me with tech," Felicity said, smiling. Her eyes jumped to the partial lab and computer system to the left, and it was only then Ted noticed she had hidden her purple handbag behind his chair, pulling out a tablet. "I'm going to use it – just not how he wants me to. You, cut him loose."

The last part was directed at Booster, who switched places with Felicity to quickly begin work using his gauntlets to blast the chains, slowly heating them until he could kick them, breaking them enough to free Ted. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually he broke the chain, unwrapping it with ease and helping his friend to his feet.

"Whoa," Ted said, falling in the exact same way Felicity had as soon as he stood. When Booster caught him, he didn't even pretend to be fine – Ted sent him a shaky smile of gratitude until he found his feet, walking together to the clicking of a keyboard. "I've been sitting like that for days. I can't tell you how badly I need to pee."

The joke was a weak one, but Booster laughed anyway. "I sure as hell ain't helping you do that."

Rewarded by a more genuine smile, Booster felt his own face ache from grinning at seeing Ted alive and well. Felicity looked up, saw this, and rolled her eyes.

"You two can get a room later, right now I'd get your weapons out and be ready – there's no way Carapax won't know what I've done."

Booster tore his gaze to her, disbelieving. "You've been on there for two minutes."

"I'm that good," Felicity replied, grinning like she stole all the light from a solar storm and put it in her smile. She took in their gawping and grabbed her bag again, fishing out a metal object that she tossed to Ted this time – his air compressor gun. "Come on, Teddy boy – keep up."

"God, I love you," he replied, catching the gun deftly and standing alone, the adrenaline filling his body quicker than the pain could.

"You better," she answered, eyes never leaving the screen but full, bright from more than just the reflection. This was Felicity in her element, and it was scary and brilliant. Walking over, Ted took one glance at the lines of coding on both that and her tablet screens, which he recognised as a virus she had developed to attack video cameras he came into contact with while in the Beetle suit, turning any video and audio footage taken of him to a grey screen and white noise.

It stopped Carapax from seeing their little revolution, but it probably wouldn't go unnoticed for long.

"We need to get out of here."

"Yeah, working on it," Felicity replied, looking up ahead. "Dropping the force field in 3, 2, 1 –"

With a humming noise sounding out the powering down of the force-field, Felicity's smile widened in victory for half a second before a second sound clicked in; ahead, the room became laced with straight lines, cutting them off from the door. Lasers.

"Who the hell uses lasers in real life?" Booster yelled, saying what they were all thinking. It left them in the same position they were in five minutes before – trapped thirty foot away from the only exit with no windows or other means of escape, a homicidal robot just a room away.

"Don't worry," Ted announced, but he wasn't really Ted anymore. While they were talking, he had picked up his broken goggles from the floor, powered-up his gun, stood with his back straight and tensed. The Blue Beetle was back in business. He turned and flashed them a dazzling smile, "I'm an ex-gymnast. I've so got this."

"Ted, oh god no-"

"Holy shit don't do it-"

Booster and Felicity shouted protests in tandem, the latter's falling incomprehensively into a scream as Beetle ran full pelt towards the laser beams. Just as her scream reached its peak, he launched himself into the air, twisting above a pair of lasers at waist height and landing in a roll beneath another. When he stood, Felicity lapsed into silence, hand held over her heart and mouth agape.

She assumed that he would slowly manoeuvre a way through the laser grid from there. She assumed wrong.

Beetle stood for less than a second to assess the space in front of him and the distance he needed to travel. Then he flipped. Booster's hand clapped over his mouth as Ted, like some freaking spy in an action flick, literally flipped through a grid of lasers, switching from hands to feet in every landing and varying the heights of each leap to compensate for the beams of light. It couldn't have took more than thirty seconds for him to cross the space, each movement punctuated by squeaks and half-screams from the other end of the room, where his two co-conspirators watched in abject horror.

When his feet touched the floor for the final time, Beetle stopped with his back to them, lifting his gun and shooting a control panel on the right hand side without a word. The laser grid shorted out, and he turned to them seriously, silhouetted in the shadows.

Then he stepped forward into the light with a goofy grin covering most of his face, "Tell me that looked cool."

"You're a moron," Booster said to himself, the hand on his mouth going to his head. He huffed a breath out heavily, meeting Felicity's eye, who was struggling not to laugh. "I'm sorry. I can't believe you had to deal with that idiocy alone for years."

She shrugged, "You get used to it. Trust me."

"Hey, I can hear you!" Ted shouted from across the room, pouting. A hand strayed to his hip. "I'm still right here."

"Unfortunately," Felicity replied, and Booster snorted. It was okay again; they all felt it. A change in the air. It started in their guts; a warm feeling, spreading out, filling everything – bones, blood, hearts – it was like hope. She looked up, but Beetle was wryly smiling in her direction. She grinned back. "And now . . ."

As a reveal, she hit a button on her tablet and the machines around them went haywire. Suddenly, they shifted into overdrive – they had been slowly making parts for more robots before, but at Felicity's touch the steady chugging screamed into a groan. As the machines struggled under the new speed, too fast for them to safely process, circuits shorted out around the room, sending sparks flying wildly in the roar.

The main lights went out immediately. There was no gradual loss of light of flickering, just a total, complete blackout, like a candle being blown out in the wind.

"Felicity?" Ted shouted, looking around. In the cacophony of noise all around, the groaning and shrieking of machinery that would haunt his dreams for years to come, his own voice was swallowed up. Booster was across the room, emitting his own glow from his suit, but not enough to see far. Ted took off, back the way he had just come across the room, looking for his friend. "Felicity! Where are you? We need to get out of-"

"What have you done?!"

Carapax stood near the exit, blocking their way out. The only thing Ted could see were two red eyes in the darkness, staring into him. The hulking robot form was hidden, which should have been a relief, but somehow it only unnerved him more.

"What we had to do," Ted replied.

Then Beetle pulled out his gun and started shooting, blasting Carapax in the chest repeatedly until the robot fell backwards into the cave wall. It shook violently, jerking Ted from his feet. Landing hard on the ground, thumping, a drum beneath him, he realised what they had forgot to calculate – the cavern could handle the machines as they were, but the maxed-out workload was causing too many vibrations.

The cavern was going to collapse.

By the time he was on his feet, Booster had taken the charge. Flying above Beetle's head, he sent blasts from his gauntlets into Carapax's chest. They made him stumble, but nothing they had was enough to defeat the robot. It was just prolonging the inevitable.

"Fools," Carapax said, stopping the fight. He stood tall, red eyes still the only thing they could see. "You will die down here."

To illustrate his point, a large part of the ceiling fell, barely missing Booster; clipping his shoulder, the rocks brought him crashing down to earth with a groan. He couldn't see it, but from the sound mingled in with the machinery of heavy crashes, rocks breaking up, he knew the rest of the cavern was faring about the same. It wouldn't take long for a wall to crack, and then the collapse follow, burying them.

The robot turned, meaning to leave them in the collapsing cavern. It walked down the passage, heading for the sunlight, while they stood in the dark waiting to die.

"Booster, you have to stop him," Beetle shouted, turning to his friend. Picking the glowing man up, Ted looked through cracked goggles in the chaos, not able to even see the roof to know if it would collapse in the next second, and he pleaded. "You have to follow him, get out of here. One of us has to stop him."

Booster shook his head, "Ted, no-"

"I did this! I can't let him get away and hurt people," Ted was shaking his head, hand on Booster's shoulder. The way his voice quivered wasn't right - it sounded like he had given in. "I can't. Please, pal. I need you to do this for me. I need you to stop him."

"I'm not leaving you again!" Booster argued. "I did that once, and I thought – we thought we'd lost you."

Ted shrugged simply, "I can't leave. I have to find Felicity."

The cavern gave another creak, debris falling around them in heaps. Although it was lost in the noise, Booster let out a scream of frustration, lips coated in dust and throat raw: he felt the absence of Ted's hand on his shoulder like a cold burn as they were forced apart. Head twisting, he spared a glance towards where he knew the tunnel was – Carapax was out of sight.

Ted's desperate eyes were sickly in the faint yellow light, and Booster left a heaviness fill him, lifting up a finger before saying, "You come out. You find her and you follow me right out, okay?"

Ted nodded, "I will."

Booster paused for a moment longer, but turned and flew away, taking the light with him. In the pitch black, Ted turned his head, not that he would know if he were staring at wall or machine or even right at Felicity. On his skin, he could feel the light layer of dust that was falling, the thumping beneath his feet like a dancefloor as he stumbled in what he hoped was the direction of the chair he had been held captive in, knowing that was the last place he had saw Felicity.

Coughing, he held out a hand and shouted again, but the screaming of metal on metal was overwhelming. His ears were ringing. If it came, he wouldn't see Death coming. "Felicity? Felicity!"

Oliver was climbing the cliff face when a twenty foot robot jumped over his head and onto the beach below. It was kind of startling, which what was he told people afterwards when they asked why he let out what could only be described as a squawk and let go of the rocks, falling himself.

In pain from the jolt of his landing, Oliver winced and slowly stood, not quite sure what the appropriate reaction to this was supposed to be. He settled for slaw-jawed awe, drawn to how the red metal shone in the sun. The robot stood in the sun, reaching out hand and watching it oddly, as if trying to feel the sunlight on its cold metal skin, fingers flexing and uncurling as it stood unaffected and apparently unaware of their presence.

Blinking, Oliver opened a sand filled mouth, "What the-"

Two things happened at that moment: Booster flew out of the cave after the robot and hit it with a blast strong enough to knock it to the ground, and the entrance to the cave collapsed.

Oliver jumped out of the way of debris, diving as the rock slide almost overcame him, thundering as they fell, sealing whatever lay within. Stumbling forwards, he outran the collapse onto the sand, notching and firing an explosive arrow into the back of the robot as it tried to get to its feet to pin it back down. He ran ahead to stand by where Booster was flying, looking up.

"What is it?"

"Calls itself Carapax!" Booster yelled back, "It's a guy, or he used to be. He fused himself with a robot. We have to stop him."

Oliver nodded in agreement, turning around to look for Beetle and Felicity. Seeing the beach deserted aside from Diggle, who was running towards them, whites of his eyes showing as he took in their foe, the Arrow frowned. "Where are the others?"

Booster didn't answer, hanging his head, which was answer enough.

"No," Oliver breathed. Turning back to the cliff, he saw the rocks piled up there, blocking the way out – cutting off the air supply. Beneath his feet, the ground gave another jolt, close to collapsing. Without a second thought to the robot and fighting and what happened next, because if Felicity died there was no next, not for him, Oliver ran back towards the rocks. He threw himself onto them, scrabbling up them like a senseless staircase; where the tunnel began, he started desperately moving rocks.

"Please, please, please."

The muttering was a side effect of the desperation that ruled his body and mind. Oliver was sweating from the effort, every rock he lifted getting heavier as he grew weary, the wall of stones in front of him not seeming to grow any thinner no matter how many he moved. Underfoot, he was slipping every few seconds as the unstable pile shifted unexpectedly, jagged edges of the rocks pressing against his ankles.

Oliver's hands were raw and bloody, cut up by rock, leaving impressions on every one he lifted, but still he did not stop. He couldn't. They needed him.

They're probably dead already.

"No! Shut up, shut up," Oliver shouted at the voices in his head. The weakness in him was clear at his tone and the way he wasn't getting anywhere, the path ahead too blocked for one man to clear. He felt helpless - something he hadn't in a while.

Tilting his head back, he screamed.

In the background of the raw, animalistic sound he was producing Oliver was aware of a fight; Diggle's guns were firing, as well as the hum which accompanied Booster's blasts. The other sounds he assumed must be Carapax – louder blasts, the clanking of metal and curses shouted in a voice that was too human. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, the Arrow pressed his head against the stone.

Facts: He wasn't getting anywhere trying to clear the path. Felicity was trapped under there. He had to save her. He had to –

Oliver's eyes flew open. He had to blow the beach and make another way out.

Hands flying to his quiver, he grabbed the sonic device Sara had given him, remembering her words: set it off once to immediately blow a hole in the roof of the cavern. Hoping he wasn't too late, Oliver held the device in the air and pressed the red button.

"Felicity? Felic-" Ted broke off into a deep round of coughing that left him leaning against the wall, hardly able to stand. There was dust everywhere and it was getting thicker in the air, more and more rocks falling from above – there was still no light, no way to see them coming. The world was shaking; he knew from the way his head spun that he wouldn't survive much longer down there.

Ted was walking through hell, but he had to keep going.

"Felicity!"

The noise was still deafening. A few steps more, and Ted fell, colliding with something steel and falling to the ground, hands cut on fallen rocks as he went. Groaning, he forced himself to sit up and touch the object, feeling its edges around to figure out what it was – the chair.

That at least gave him some perspective of where he was in the room, but he couldn't stop: Ted stood again, desperately hoping for something, anything, to tell him where Felicity was.

Staggering, something ahead caught his eye. It was half obscured by something, but shining through was a light, tiny, end-of-the-tunnel style, but it was a light nonetheless.

Unintelligibly breathing words of relief, Ted managed to run the last few steps to it; throwing himself to his knees, he felt around and found rocks, pulling them away and finding Felicity underneath them, the light coming from the tablet still clutched in her hands.

"Oh, no, no," Ted muttered, brushing the dust away from her face and cradling her head in one hand. The light from the tablet let him see her, but it was when his hand touched something wet that he realised she was bleeding from the head. "Felicity, wake up. Please."

At his touch and words, she stirred a little, coughing herself awake. Not moving apart from her eyes, she slowly blinked up at him, tears falling as she came to, trickling down the side of her face. When she saw the blackness and reddish layer of dust covering Ted, it only took even her concussed brain a few seconds to piece it all together.

"Ted."

"What happened?"

"A rock hit my head when the lights went out, I never saw it coming," she whispered back. It hurt to talk, throat dry from the dust that had gotten into her mouth while she was unconscious. Swallowing, Felicity tried not to cry out in pain as Ted moved her so he was holding her better, leaving her lying over his knees, his arms around her protectively. She could see no one else. "Booster?"

"I told him to go after Carapax," Ted said. "I'm sorry. Someone had to stop him. But you did the rest. You stopped the machines, Felicity – he can't make any more."

"Good. It's okay, Ted," she blinked up at him, but couldn't stop the tears. "I know what's happening. And it's okay. It's okay."

"No. No, it isn't," he replied, rocking back and forth. His own eyes were flowing, streaking down his face and removing the dust for just a few seconds before more fell to replace it. "I should never have gotten you involved in this, it's my fault."

"No," Felicity shook her head, although it took most of the effort she had left. "I would have been doing this anyway. I chose this life because I knew I could make a difference." She allowed herself to laugh for a moment, "It's not a bad way to go out, saving the world."

Ted sobbed in reply, crushing his head towards her in what was too awkward to be a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Felicity allowed it, burrowing her head into his neck, breathing in his smell underneath the overwhelming scent of dirt. She cried harder herself, allowing the fear to show on her face now he couldn't see it, glad she was being held by someone she loved and not alone.

"I forgive you, Teddy. I'm glad you're here with me," she said tearfully, still cradled. "I'm glad it's you."

"I love you," he replied, squeezing her tighter. It was getting darker by the second, the little light from the tablet not doing much now the dust was coming down even more thickly, both of them so used to the vibrations that they stopped noticing the shaking, the clumps of rock falling around them insignificant. They were together; that was all that mattered. But Ted would never let it end in tears, so he added, in their old goodbye, "Nerd."

Felicity laughed, and it was the best sound in the world. It was weak, and mingled with tears, but she shuddered with laughter in his arms, clinging to him more tightly as a rock fell and smashed the tablet lying to their left, leaving them in darkness once again.

She felt his grip grow tighter in the dark and squeezed her eyes shut, replying in turn. "Dork."

The darkness took them, clinging to each other in the end of the world.