Ultimate Arrow: Year End #2 - Day 1: The Hierophant

Ultimate Arrow: Year End #1 Recap
Oliver Queen, the vigilante Star City knows as the Hood, brought lethal justice to the criminal Frank Bertinelli. An act witnessed by the man’s own daughter. The Hood was aided in the endeavor by Queen’s “bodyguard” John Diggle. Warned by Diggle, the hooded vigilante found himself in for the shock of a lifetime as in the wake of one mission he was needed elsewhere to save hostages from a man specializing in electricity. When the chaos was over and the hostages saved, Oliver found an unusual crest hidden on the man’s person. The sigil and the electric man’s dying words left Oliver worried about the days to come.

Characters
Oliver Queen/The Hood: A former playboy, Oliver Queen, his father, and the crew of the Queen’s Gambit six years ago. Somehow he survived and returned to his city with skills and a maturity that he had once lacked. Using those skills, Oliver saves his city by day utilizing his family’s legacy while at night he becomes Star City’s lethal protector The Hood.

John “Dig” Diggle: Diggle had been hired as Oliver’s personal bodyguard and driver but through a string of events that would be expected of two people in close proximity to each other discovered Oliver’s secret nightly activities. He decided to aid the man in his quest, most often acting as his conscience and his handler.




“…name is Oliver Queen and after five years stranded on a hellish island, he came home with only one goal… To fulfill his dying father’s wish, to see the Queen legacy through –“

The sound of the television echoed throughout the Queen Manor’s halls as Oliver hustled down the stairs. The report made him grimace while he struggled with his tie. The Queens didn’t employ much in the way of servants outside of security, grounds-keeping, and the kitchen – which admittedly was still a lot – but at least he never had to worry about someone dressing him. In hindsight, it could be helpful in situations such as right now to prevent him from strangling himself while half asleep. He nodded at a maid who giggled at him before he entered the den.

There he was on the TV, reporters in his face. The den, despite the six years without Robert Queen putting his foot down, still featured his father’s personal touch. Hunting trophies, weapons, a suit of armor… That’s what his father had called décor. If there weren’t at least a dozen dead animals staring back at him, vowing revenge, then he considered the room to be boring. His grandfather had been like that from what Oliver could remember. His mother, however, hated it. She’d rid all the other rooms of the animal skins and leather and what not except this one.

This remained his father’s.

His mother and little sister mirrored each other curled up on one of the leather couches staring at the report on the flat screen. The two were the spitting image of each other with exception of thirty plus years and a dye job separating them. Both women were petite with ready smiles. Both had that same look where they could tell he was lying – or rather think they could – that they fixed him with at least once a week. Thea was his junior by nearly ten years. His mother had him young. The two looked perfectly content still in pajamas.

“Hey,” he knocked on the wood paneling by entryway, aware that a bear looked at him with hungry eyes from not a foot away. “What’s this?”

His mother and sister jumped in surprise.

“Our correspondents caught up with Mr. Queen and asked how he’d be spending the evening, Queen responded with…”

An image of Oliver coming out of the club Verdant superimposed itself over the anchorman.

“Staying away from boats.”

“Ollie’s charm at work,” laughed Thea.

His mother came around the couch, laughing along with her daughter. She was good head shorter than him. She seemed so much smaller than he remembered. She kissed his cheek before slapping his hands away from his pathetic attempts at the tie.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a board meeting,” he explained, confused enough by the lack of sleep to answer plainly, “which you should be at and Thea should be at school.”

“Mom said I could stay home,” it was the petulant whine of a teenage girl who always got what she wanted.

“Walter will handle it. That’s his job.” She finished with the tie and looked up into her son’s eyes. “I figured that since it’s been one year since – “

“The world does not stop just because I came back from the dead, mother. We have a business to run, people rely on us.”

She rested a hand on his chest and he tried not to wince as fresh pain erupted from the lightning blow he had received last night. “Your father would be so proud about the man you’ve become. You’re right. Just wait, I’ll go get dressed and come with you.”

A large form blocked her exit.

“Car’s around front, Mr. Queen.” John Diggle said in the voice he used around Moira Queen.

“Mom. . . Stay here, relax, make sure everything is good to go for that party you’re no doubt throwing me tonight. I’ll handle Queen Consolidated.”

There nearly were tears in her eyes now that she quickly covered up with a chuckle. “You know me so well.” She patted his chest a second time and Oliver had to call on the candle to keep from crying out. “Don’t you dare miss it. And you, Mr. Diggle, I’m counting on you to make sure he’s here by a quarter till eight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Oliver gave his mother a big hug – the pain in his chest from more than just wounds received – goodbye and began to leave with Diggle, their footfalls echoing across the wooden floor. They were almost to the open atrium when a voice rang out from behind them.

“I’m serious, John. If he’s not here then I’m docking your pay.”

The two men waited until they were secluded away in the car, Oliver with his head back and eyes closed, before saying anything.

“I told you she’s ferocious.”

“Just drive.”

SCPD canvassed the Bertinelli estate with all the focus and knowledge of crime scene investigators who knew they would find nothing but still held out a prayer that today would be the day they’d break the case. The Hood rarely left evidence – short of dead bodies – behind nowadays. Hadn’t been like that at the beginning. He used to make sure you found his arrow buried in a corpse. It had been his signature, a sign for Star City’s blue collar, white collar, and whatever other color collar criminals that he spared no one. Now the city knew. Now he retrieved everything.

He’d gone green and started recycling arrows.

The joke made Detective Lance grin a bit inappropriately over the dead body. He was an aging man who no longer had it in him to keep up with the nonsense of Star City’s cyclic bureaucracy. The buzzed cut of his hair was as harsh as his features. The rest of the department knew that it wasn’t for show. He had a morbid sense of humor and only smiled when it applied to his daughters or some joke that would most likely offend everyone else present.

His examination of the cadaver finished, he wandered over to his new partner taking a statement from the vic’s daughter. It was strange to have a partner half his age but the last one got put on early retirement with a few of the Hood’s darts to his back. She reeked of being fresh out of the academy with that doe eyed look all rookies had belaying her attempts at stern expressions across her dark features.

“Looks like your father found God in his final moments Miss Bertinelli,” Lance interrupted the conversation.

“That’s a bit crass, Detective.”

“Crass? I was going more for a word without the ‘cr’ on it.” The memory of all the burnt bodies pulled out of an apartment complex built and owned by the late Bertinelli that had not been up to code was still fresh in his mind. Or rather the smell was still fresh in his mind. Bastard wouldn’t have seen court even if he lived. He had thrown someone else to the wolves for that and now he got an arrow to the chest with the added bonus of a slit throat.

Helena was as young as his partner with the smoky sort of beauty only achievable through mixed heritage from Lance’s experience. Two probably were in high school together. He glanced back and forth between the women. Yup. Definitely an air of familiarity between the two. Hall was too earnest to push as hard as she should. Probably shouldn’t even be on the case but hey, what can you do?

“Wouldn’t happen to know where the rest of your security detail – excuse me – I mean guard would be would you, Miss Bertinelli?”

She fixed him with a good stare quite reminiscent of his ex-wife. “I don’t know. Perhaps they were smart enough to run away from a deranged serial killer that Star City’s finest have allowed to run rampant for nearly a year?”

“You see… I don’t buy that,” Lance placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “My partner and I and you know all these forensics people wandering about… We’ve found a lot of blood. A lot. Only one corpse though and I’ve been to enough crime scenes to know that one of those pools we found couldn’t have lived through the night. Now your guards that are here… they got superficial wounds and I do wager they were smart enough to stay down after getting hit by an arrow. Most people would but they don’t have enough blood between them to cover all the extra bits we’ve seen splashed against the walls.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Detective,” her eyes started to water on cue to go with the trembling lip. “My father sent me away the moment he first heard the gunfire. I didn’t see anything until… until,” here came the tears, “until I broke free of them and saw that monster slit my father’s throat!”

Oh she was hiccupping now. Really good. Hall tried to pull out of Lance’s grip but he kept a tight hold of her.

“Alright, alright. Calm down, calm down,” Lance’s expression shifted to one who had raised a daughter or two in his time. “We can finish taking your statement at the station. Perhaps once you’ve had time in someplace less full of memories you’ll remember something new.”

There was fire behind those eyes just as he guessed. Sure, a part of her mourned her father. He could tell that much. But it was the mourning of one seeking vengeance. She’d be trouble in the future.

The art of mediation had been taught to Oliver Queen in the most remote of places where it became easy to ignore the world around you. The trick nowadays was achieving that state while simultaneously not losing his place in it. The rest of the board had been surprised to see him present today of all days. He had noted every face that held a flicker of disappointment. After that, he practiced his tried and true method of keeping his eyes and ears open but going somewhere else while they blathered on about profits and budget cuts. As much as he hated it, there was not much he could do. His family did hold a majority of the shares and they kindly gave him his back when he had returned but they truly didn’t run the company. Not anymore.

It was in good hands though. Walter had been his father’s CFO. He knew how to play the game with the rest of the board. He was even generous enough to give Oliver control over Queen Consolidated’s Applied Sciences Division despite a serious lack of formal education. The board had been looking forward to seeing him fail. If he had then they would never have to worry about the playboy taking over the company in the future. He hadn’t. Applied Sciences – now dubbed Q-Core – was one of their leading subsidiaries instead of some charity case.

So he listened and replied when needed while not really being there. His ears were trained for any dangerous slips that never happened. The rest of the board walked on thin ice now that they saw him there. That was the exact reason the meeting had been called while they assumed the same thing his mother had.

Such was the curse of spending all your nights in a nightclub that one had bought to cover one’s true activities.

Meeting over, he had a quick bite to eat with Walter and Diggle before wandering to what their employees and the rest of Star City unofficially called the Queen’s Square outside of the main entrance. He sat beneath one of the many ostentatious statues in the square and wondered what they had hoped to achieve today. Some of them feared that very soon he’d be running they place. Those that didn’t fear it would vote in his favor. Both sides agreed that he wouldn’t play the same game as Wal—

“Hey Pretty-boy…”

Oliver reacted by instinct. His fingers grasped at arrows in a quiver that weren’t there. His heart raced with the stomp of a charging stallion’s hooves. It took far too long for him to calm down by summoning the image of the candle and lighting it. Long enough for him to be forced to wave Dig back into unassuming bodyguard mode. The bigger man didn’t want to take a step back but did eventually.

“Di…” Oliver choked out. His throat had dried quite unexpectedly. He had to cough to clear it.

“It’s been too long.”

“Far too long.”

“Haven’t seen you since you –“

“ – came back into the flashing light of paparazzi and cameras.” Oliver finished for her.

Dinah Lance was not exactly the last person he expected to see today but she definitely made the top three. They had been nearly inseparable in their late teens and early twenties. Nearly inseparable was the key phrasing because at the time Oliver had done everything within his power to make it so that she would hate him from sleeping with her best friend to puking in her father’s hat and far too many other despicable acts to list. But she stayed by him. She had a thing for bad boys and often times she had been the only thing between him and overnight lockup or worse. Very nearly she had made an honest man out of him before he had vanished for those five years.

He hadn’t recognized her immediately. The hair was new and blonder than he had ever seen her wear it. She kept her shoulders bare except for thin straps. And then there was the plunging neckline. Dinah hadn’t been prudish back when they were, well, kids but this was her skipping a few dress codes into territories she had judged him for being attracted to. Oliver couldn’t help but notice how muscular her arms had gotten since then.

“You see your father yet?”

“No. Have you?”

“A few times,” Oliver admitted with some reluctance. “He hasn’t quite forgiven me for coming back without his baby girl.”

“Hey, it was my own choice to chase after the rumor that you were still alive. Not my fault the rest of the world believed you drowned.”

Oliver laughed at the attempted levity. After a few seconds, he became marginally aware that he hadn’t relaxed despite their cheery attitudes. They were behaving like the way the board treated him. There was a distance between them that shouldn’t be between two childhood friends. Especially with a friend that had been willing to chase you to the ends of the earth to prove you weren’t dead.

Dinah found herself wrapped in a massive bear hug before she knew it. Oliver put all his emotion behind it as if it would be the last hug the two would ever share. She folded into his arms just as she had six years ago. Her scent was just as he remembered. Unchanged.

Finally the two pulled apart.

“What brought you back?” he asked with easy grin now that he’d been able to hold her again.

“Oh you know… You’ve been back for what? A year now? Figured I couldn’t go on avoiding Star City and you and…”

“And your father.”

“And my father,” she agreed.

Dinah joined him beneath the statue of his choice. The two caught up with everyday nonsense. He filled her in on what he was doing with Q-Core. She told him about the sights she had seen since leaving Star City. The sun soon began its descent past noon and shadows lengthened. Finally, he invited her to the party his mother was throwing that evening.

“Is that wise?”

“I can’t think of anything wiser,” confirmed Oliver with a smile that immediately changed his features to the boy she had once known.

“I’ll be there.”

Oliver and Diggle watched her leave. The former probably enjoyed the sway of her hips as she walked away a fraction more than he should have. Dinah had legs that did not end. He’d not forgotten about them once in all their time apart.

“What was that all about?”

Instead of answering, Oliver replied with his own question. “Do you have your glock?”

“Always.”

“Carry two tonight. Extra ammo too.”

Leaving Diggle to trail after him confused, Oliver returned to Queen Consolidated. There was still work to be done as Oliver Queen. There would always be work to do. Trouble was the real question was starting to feel like would he live to see it done.

Lance was in a good, fantastic even, mood despite his current company. His little girl was back. Sure, she looked a bit different than she had a couple years ago but to see her in the flesh instead of reading a little letter about her on the back of a postcard sent from Rhelasia or some other country in the middle of nowhere had him soaring on cloud nine. It made him feel things that a man like him didn’t normally have words to properly illustrate.

It was probably for that reason he was giving the bastard in the shadows such a hard time. He hadn’t been this happy since his divorce had been finalized.

“Now I’m all for you no longer being kill happy but did you really have to finish Bertinelli in front of his daughter?”

“I let her go,” answered the shadows, “she came back.”

The sun had just set, bathing the rooftop in the last of its rays. It always amazed Lance how the Hood could hide the best where the light met the dark. You’d think he’d vanish the most at night but that wasn’t quite right. You could see him if you knew how to look. Just barely but you could. It was at times like now where there was still some light that made him impossible to find.

“Yeah, well I hate to be the one to tell you but she’s probably gonna come back again. And hard. That girl has murder on her mind and I’m thinking it happens to be yours.”

“I’ll be prepared, Detective.”

“I bet you will. Who was the second corpse?”

“Nick Salvati.”

Now that was the name of a born scumbag if there ever was one. Bertinelli had managed to keep his hands clean all these years, buying up land cheap and at auction or evicting tenants without ever having to raise a finger himself by employing a man like Salvati. Neither one had ever been caught but this was the kind of thing every copper knew, felt, in his gut. He’d been so close to at least finger Salvati for that apartment fire last month before the case had been take away from him.

If Salvati had been found there then it would have just been further proof of his collusion with the Bertinelli Family. That girl, smart of her… Ready to take her father’s empire and made sure to take out the trash first. Oh forensics might confirm it belonged to Salvati if they didn’t get paid off but without a body… Well, they wouldn’t be able to make it stick.

“Don’t expect a thanks.”

“I never do.”

He truly never did. Even now Lance considered trying to take the vigilante in but he might as well try to put handcuffs on Peter Pan’s shadow. There’d been a time when he would have done so without a doubt. That time passed when the Hood saved him from getting shot in the back by his last partner after learning he was on the Triad’s payroll. Had the Hood actually killed the traitor then there could have been difficulties but all the parties involved agreed that an early retirement was the best result instead of the Hood becoming known as a cop killer or his old partner losing all credibility and possibly his family if exposed.

Lance hated working in the gray areas of justice but sometimes it was the only way to see it done.

Suddenly, the roof was a little too silent. He stared into the growing shadows, searching. Nothing. No hooded figure.

“One of these days you’re going to say bye!” he shouted at no one.

People still didn’t look up these days. It always amazed Oliver every time he put on the uniform and didn’t bother to fade into the shadows, to exist in the corner of your eyes. The Hood had made a name for himself among all walks of life. Didn’t matter if you were rich and stole people’s money legally or if you were here in the Glades trying to hold up the corner store. It was no difference to him. That’s how they saw it. Wasn’t quite how Oliver saw it anymore.

Diggle had made sure of that.

The man he had once tried his best to get fired and to avoid had become his closest confidant and even his conscience.

“There’s that red x in a circle on the wall again,” Oliver spoke softly so that he couldn’t be overheard by the gathering below.

“Probably just some teens playing at Slender Man.”

“Slender who?”

“Slender Man. He’s a fictional boogie man invented by the internet. Got a pretty freaky game, a few web series, and everything.”

Oliver let Diggle’s words sink in and tried his best to decipher them. This was a man approaching middle age. This was an ex-special forces soldier approaching middle age. This was a ranger who had done two tours in Afghanistan and one in Bialya. He’d expect that sort of random knowledge from his tech guy bug not Dig.

“Listen man, I spend my nights beneath a bar with people getting drunk and enjoying life while I’m stuck sitting in front of a computer running interference for you. Sometimes I get to ride shotgun with you if I’m lucky. Most of the time I’m bored out of my goddamn mind and I can punch that punching bag for only so long.”

“There’s the salmon – “

“I hate that damn salmon ladder.”

There was the sound of giggling that didn’t seem to be coming from below. Oliver frowned and tapped his ear.

“You hear that?”

“What?”

“Laughter.”

“You don’t laugh when the hood comes on.”

“That’s not what I meant. I heard… Hold that thought…It’s happening.”

Beneath the overpass he had not been trying too hard to hide on, a gun was exchanging hands. They were the Los Halcones – one of the few gangs that were still independent of Brick. Tonight was initiation night or so he had heard. The one passing on the gun had all the look of a tough guy who wouldn’t talk to no cop and would never give up a brother. Of course that was all bull. The one taking the gun was just a kid. The kid was probably looking for the protection of the Los Halcones for him and his family from the Culebras and Brick. That protection of them looking out for their own would come at a cost.

His innocence.

A few others were there to confirm this rite of passage. Hanger-ons and the ilk for the most part. They slapped the kid on the back and told him he could do it. They told him he could do it right up until the smoke arrow exploded in their midst.

“It’s the Hood!”

“Run!”

Bang!

Idiot kid just reacting…

Oliver appeared in the smoke and twisted the kid’s wrist before catching the dropped gun and dismantling it. “Get out of here,” he growled. The kid took off like the Grim Reaper was on his trail.

The Hood stared through the thinning smoke then took aim in the direction he had seen the tough guy flee. He pointed his bow up, took aim at the sky, judged the distance and released. There was a very satisfying scream a few seconds later. He took his time catching up. He wanted the fear to fill the man as the shadow surrounded him.

The screams grew louder when he twisted the arrow buried in the gangbanger’s leg.

“No more kids.”

Twist. Another scream.

“If I catch you or any of the Los Halcones trying to initiate another kid…” Oliver drove the arrow clean through the man’s leg farther. “… walking without a limp will be the least of your worries.”

“Si. Yeah man. No more, aarrrrrrghh, kids.”

“Good.”

The Hood vanished leaving behind only the shadow of his presence.

Oliver sighed with relief a few blocks away. He could only move with the shadows for so long before relying on his own physical feats. Those very feats brought the pain of his chest and his back to the forefront of his mind when he wasn’t focusing. Diggle had treated the burn left by the lightning strike the best he could and he couldn’t very well go out on patrol while taking pain killers. So he paused to breath and focus on his candle now that he had saved one kid from making a mistake at least temporarily.

“It’s nearly seven-thirty, Ollie.” Diggle’s voice chided him over the radio. “If you start heading home now you might just make it there before eight.”

“I read you.”

“I’m leaving Verdant now. Be there.”

“I will.”

“I mean it Oliver… I’m not going to get chewed out by your mother just because you aren’t looking forward to tonight.”

That wasn’t entirely true. The foolish part of his youth that was hidden beneath his brooding exterior was hoping to see Di there. She was very nearly a good way to forget the hell he had been through before he’d been discovered by that cargo vessel a year ago. He held out hope that –

“I heard it that time.” Diggle’s worried tone drew Oliver back to the present.

There was distinctive laughter coming through his ear peace. Muffled but distinctive.

“Cut the comms now!”

The line went dead. No. Not quite. Oliver could still hear the laughter in his ear. He yanked back his hood and pulled out the earpiece. His boot crushed it beneath his heel. The Hood had no time to worry about who had been listening in on their conversation and apparently having a good time of it. He had to be Oliver Queen now and pray that there would be no further incident tonight.

The problem with that was he didn’t hold much for prayers.