Oliver Queen (Earth One)

## **Biography**

### **Early Life**

**Oliver Jonas Queen** was born to the elite Queen family on May 16, 1985 A.D. in Starling City. As a young child, he became friends with one Tommy Merlyn, and would be present at the funeral of Tommy's mother after she was brutally murdered by an at-the-time unknown assailant in the Glades. In his teen years, Oliver also had a one night stand with the girlfriend of one Simon Morrison. As a young billionaire playboy, Oliver knocked up a girl, Samantha Clayton, who was later paid one million dollars by his mother to fake a miscarriage and move to Central City.

In 2007, Oliver was accompanied by Sara Lance, the sister of his current girlfriend, Laurel Lance on a cruise in the North China Sea, which is where his heroic origins would begin.

### **Five Years in Hell**

#### **Sinking of the Gambit**

Boarding the *Queen's Gambit*with Sara was a direct betrayal of Laurel, though she wouldn't know about it until after the ship sunk in the North China Sea and Oliver, Sarah, his father, Robert Queen, and all other passengers of the *Gambit* were resumed dead. In truth, Oliver and his father, along with David Hackett, their bodyguard made it to a life raft, and Oliver would go on for some time to believe Sara to be dead. On the raft, Robert atoned for the sins he had committed in his reign of power, and begged a weakened Oliver to survive this, and when he returned home, to right the wrongs he had caused. He finally gave Oliver a book that would guide him in his crusade.

Oliver was too disoriented at first to understand what was happening until Robert, seeing as there was only enough food and water for one of them to survive, pulled out a gun and shot and killed Hackett, before then killing himself. Oliver was left disarrayed and in total shock.

#### **Purgatory**

Oliver eventually shipwrecked on the island of Lian Yu, where he took to burying his father. Immediately after doing so, he was shot in the shoulder with an arrow, and turned to see a hooded man on the rocks below holding a bow. The shock caused him to pass out from the pain, and he woke up in a cave, being nursed by his attacker, Yao Fei. When Yao Fei slept, Oliver ran from the cave in an attempt ro escape the attacker, only to be caught in a booby trap net. He was later found by Yao Fei, who cut him free, and this time, he followed him willingly back to the cave.

Days later, Yao Fei took Oliver hunting and shot a rabbit, telling Oliver to go pick up the corpse and carry it to the cave for dinner. Disgusted, Oliver suggested letting him shoot the animals and Yao Fei carry the dead animals. Intrigued by this, Yao Fei offered him the bow and told him to aim for a tree. Oliver missed the tree by a long shot, and Yao Fei sent him to recover the arrow so that it would not be found. Once Oliver was out of Yao Fei's sights, he was jumped by a group of armed gunmen, who kidnapped him and imprisoned him in a make-shift cage dug into the ground. They later took their prisoner to their camp to meet their boss, Edward Fyers.

Fyers showed Oliver a pictured of a clean-shaven Yao Fei dressed in a military uniform, and asked him if he had seen the man pictured. Despite his better instincts, Oliver told him that until Fyers' men captured him, he believed he was alone on the island. Not seeming to believe him, Fyers explained to Oliver that the name of the island, Lian Yu was Mandarin for Purgatory, but he told Oliver that he could make it feel like Hell. He then left Oliver to be tortured by a masked man. After hours of enduring this pain, Oliver was finally rescued by Yao Fei, who fought Billy and the two managed to escape.

The two retreated back to the cave, where Yao Fei laid Oliver down to rest, remarking that he was stronger than he took him for having been able to endure that much pain and not break. He told Oliver that it was only a matter of time before Fyers' men found them, and volunteered to lead them away. Oliver said there was no way he was going alone, but Yao Fei hindered his ability of following by collapsing a boulder in the doorway and trapping Oliver inside. While trapped, Oliver received a hallucination of his father, who berated him for wanting to take the easy way out.

Robert reminded Oliver that he had begged him to survive, but if he couldn't dewit, then he should just end it. He handed Oliver a gun, and Oliver attempted to kill himself, but since it was all fake, the gun didn't shoot him. An angry Robert once again yelled at him to right his wrongs, before leaving Oliver. It was after Oliver's next slumber, when he was about to burn the pages in his father's book that he discovered a list of names, which became visible when held over a fire, and he realized it was a list of Starling City's most corrupt elite officials.

Yao Fei returned days later with an imprisoned Fyers and explained to Oliver that Fyers had a plane that could get him off of Lian Yu. They ordered him to take them to it, and on the way, Fyers explained to Oliver that the island used to be a prison operated by the Chinese government until 1999, which captivated the most dangerous criminals. He said that the only two prisoners who were still alive were the man that tortured Oliver, and Yao Fei. He asked if getting off of the island was worth protecting a man who had slaughtered innocent people, to which Oliver told him to shut up.

Fyers then revealed to Yao Fei that it had been a trap he'd set for them, which they all just walked into. Billy Wintergreen stepped out from behind a tree and faced off with Yao Fei while Oliver bolted for his life. As soon as he got far enough away, Oliver looked back to see Yao Fei having been overpowered by Billy, as well as a team of Fyers' men, and they captured him. Fyers' men pursued Oliver, but only one came close to capturing him, having found a fire that Oliver put out only moments before. Oliver attacked him with a knife, though was no match for him. In their struggle, the two tumbled down a cliff, and Oliver landed in the water of a river, while the less fortunate trooper landed on a rock and died.

Oliver stole his clothes and used them to disguise himself as he entered Fyers' camp in search of Yao Fei. He told a fellow soldier that he was new, and that he was supposed to help transport a prisoner wearing a green hood The troop told him that he had the same assignment and told Oliver to follow him. Oliver got in the transport cart, and was soon joined by Fyers, who took a place in the backseat. He asked Oliver if he was new, and Oliver told him that he was. Fyers said that he did not recall a submarine dropping off new recruits any time recently, to which Oliver said that he thought all recruits arrived by plane. This was the case, and the trap Fyers had set to ensure the trooper was legitimate was evaded.

This did not last, however. As soon as they arrived, Fyers hit Oliver with a stick, knocking him on his back and allowing his men to seize him, putting him in a cage. He told Oliver that he could see in his eyes that he was no soldier, and told him that he had placed a misguided trust in Yao Fei. Fyres stepped aside and revealed Yao Fei wearing the same uniform as Fyers' men. Oliver felt betrayed, and Yao Fei left him there to wallow. Later that night, he released Oliver from his cage and took him to a crowd circled around a fight between Billy and an unlucky other man.

After the fight concluded with the other man's death, Fyers requested that the next to battle should be Oliver and Yao Fei, so that Yao Fei could prove his merit. The fight ended second after it began with Yao Fei knocking Oliver unconscious, and then he, Fyers and a few of their men took his seemingly lifeless body to a cliff to be disposed of in the river. Yao Fei volunteered to do the deed, and when he did, he slipped a map of the island into Oliver's shirt pocket and threw him off. They left him, and when Oliver came to and resurfaced, they were gone. He found the map Yao Fei had left him, and it instructed him on where to go next.

#### **Meeting Slade Wilson**

The directions Yao Fei gave to Oliver led him to the wreckage of a crashed airplane, where he was attacked by a man who threatened to slice his throat. Oliver told him that Yao Fei sent him there, and he was pretty sure that it wasn't so he could die. Upon hearing that he was sent by Yao Fei, the man explained that he and Yao Fei had been observing a landing platform that the two of them were going to use to escape the island, and seeing as Yao Fei was now compromised, he sent Oliver in his place. The man told Oliver to fight him to show him what skill he had, though it swiftly proved to be none at all.

He tied Oliver to a chair, explaining that he was better off going at this escape plan alone, and that he couldn't risk Oliver going free and telling Fyres anything, which meant Oliver had to die. Oliver begged for his life, which led to no success, and in a final attempt to save himself, Oliver tried to dislocate his thumb to free his hand from its binds, accidentally dislocating his left shoulder instead. He used his right arm to lay a nasty punch to the man's face, earning him his respect. The man introduced himself as Slade Wilson. He told Oliver that he would need his help getting off of the island, and so he needed to train to be ready.

When Oliver opened up his chest to grab a weapon, he found the mask which belonged to the man who had tortured him. Slade assured Oliver that they were two different people, partners who worked for the Australian Intelligence and had been sent to the island to rescue Yao Fei. Billy had gone to work for Fyres, leaving Slade with Yao Fei, and now just Oliver. And so Oliver began to train under Slade Wilson's guidance. Slade told Oliver that there was an airstrip that would be receiving a supply plane in ten days, which they would board, and it would take them off of the island.

In order to do so, Fyres' men needed to be incapacitated. There were ten men awaiting them on the ground that Slade would deal with, however, in taking them out, he would direct the attention of the one man inside the control tower, who would then radio in to Fyres that they had been attacked, making it Oliver's job to take out the man in the control tower so that Slade could do the rest. On their way to the airstrip, Oliver accidentally stepped on a landmine left behind by Japanese soliders during World War II. Just then, a group of Fyres' men arrived on scene, prompting Slade to hide and left Oliver to pretend to be one of them having been separated from his unit.

Before any of the troops could do anything, Slade attacked and killed them all, using the body of one of them to take Oliver's place on the mine, before they continued on. At the airstrip, Slade began sniping the troopers, allowing for Oliver to get to the control tower. He crept inside and attacked the operator with a sword, though he was overpowered, and the operator pulled a gun on him. Oliver tried to use a move that Slade had used on him during training to take the gun, though he failed miserably. Before the operator could radio to Fyres, he was stabbed through the chest by Slade, who then berated Oliver for failing at his one task.

Slade left Oliver to make sure all of the men were taken care of, and told Oliver to lock the door and not to let anyone but him. While Slade was gone, Oliver noticed a phone, and thought about calling someone that he knew. He dialed Laurel's number, and to his surprise, she actually answered, though he did not say anything. Slade came back into the tower and ripped the cord out, telling Oliver that Fyres could be monitoring calls. They were then radioed by the pilot on the supply plane, asking for verification.

The pilot said the line "Of all the creatures that breathe and move on this Earth..." and Oliver recognized it as a quote from *The Odyssey**,* which was the one book he actually read in college. He told Slade that the other end of the quote was "...nothing is bread more weak than man." Slade repeated the quote to the pilot, and the pilot affirmed that it was correct. After the crisis was averted, Slade informed Oliver of his plan to blow up Lian Yu after they were off of it, but Oliver told him that they couldn't do that because Yao Fei was still there. Slade argued that Yao Fei was no longer his concern, and that whatever plans Fyres had for the island had to be stopped regardless of collateral damage.

Oliver told Slade that he had spent his entire life only caring about himself, and he hurt people, but he was not going to be that person anymore, and he would save Yao Fei. Slade told Oliver before he left that the plane was leaving in three hours with or without him, and Oliver requested that, if he didn't make it back that Slade would call his family and tell them what happened to him. Slade very non-reassuringly told Oliver that he would, and Oliver left him at that.

#### **Rescue Attempt**

Oliver returned to the east camp and went inside of Yao Fei's tent, telling him that he had a way off of the island. But Yao Fei told him that he couldn't leave, but that Oliver needed to before it was too late. Just then, Fyres entered the tent, which forced Yao Fei to knock Oliver down. He was then brought to a circle similar to when he fought Yao Fei, but Fyres informed him that this time, it was not a match, but rather an execution. Oliver was then beaten by Billy, who he lectured for having given up his principles and values. Before Billy could finish him, an explosion went off in the camp and scattered Fyres' men.

The attack was prompted by Slade Wilson, who had gone back for Oliver against his better judgement. He engaged in a battle against his old friend, angry at his betrayal. He drove his sword in Bill's eye. Slade was then shot by Fyres, but Oliver carried him to safety, saving him from Fyres. The two were attacked by one of the troops, who pointed a gun at Oliver, which was when he perfected the move Slade has used on him, pinning him and taking the gun. However, he could not bring himself to kill the man, so he instead knocked him out. The two then watched as the supply plane flew overhead, meaning they had missed their ride home.

A few days after Oliver treated Slade's gunshot wound, it became infected, and Oliver recalled that Yao Fei had healing herbs that he kept in the cave, and he could get some for Slade. When he arrived to the cave, he found a man tied up and beaten who said his name was Alan Durand, and he had washed up on the island after a boat he was on full of students shipwrecked near it, but Oliver found it suspicious that no other student survived the crash. Durand told Oliver that he had been kidnapped by these masked men, and begged him to untie him. But Oliver could not trust him, so he retrieved the herbs he needed and left the begging, screaming man in the cave.

Oliver and Slade had no further plan to escape the island, though Oliver was not content to sit around and wait for Fyres to find and kill them. He noticed a broken radio in the crashed plane. He asked Slade if he had ever tried to fix it, but Slade said he was never good at that sort of thing. Oliver remarked that he knew a think or two about it, and so he spent days fidgeting with the device until he received a signal, much to both of their surprises. However, when Slade tried to call for help, they found that, while they could hear other frequencies, they couldn't actually say anything.

Slade, however, used the advantage that Oliver had allowed them, surfing the channels until he found the one being used by Fyres, who was speaking with his benefactor about a weapon they were building with the code name *Scylla,* another reference to *The Odyssey*. Upon investigating, they learned that the *Scylla* was a missile launcher that was powerful enough to start a war, and they determined that whatever Fyres planned needed to be stopped. Disguising as one of Fyres' men once again, Oliver brought an "imprisoned" Slade Wilson into the camp, and then Slade killed every last one of the men guarding the *Scylla*. They began setting explosives on the missile launcher, but Oliver found the circuit board and had the idea to use it as leverage off of the island, rather than blow the launcher up.

After hiding the circuit board, they contacted Fyres and made their demands for a transport off of the island in exchange for the circuit board. Fyres agreed to arrange a boat, and the following morning, they parlayed with their enemy, who was accompanied by Yao Fei. It was there that Fyres proposed a counter-arrangement, and then his men brought out Yao Fei's captive daughter, Shado, who they had been using to keep him in line all this time. Slade pointed a gun to Fyres' head, and so he ordered the girl to be killed and hid behind his men. Shado surprised them all by taking out her opposers, and the rest of Fyres' men were dealt with by the other three. However, they were ambushed by a second wave of troops, and Yao Fei was shot in the leg. He told them to go without him as he would only slow them down, and Oliver and Slade got Shado to safety, leaving Yao Fei to be captured. The three went back to where they had hidden the circuit board, only to find that Fyres' men had recovered it.

#### **Training**

The three returned to the hideout, where Slade and Shado took to sparring to pass the time. Shado asked how Oliver's training had come along, to which Slade replied that it had barely at all. She said that he could train him, and so she sat Oliver down in front of a bowl full of water and told him to smack it. He questioned the validity of this training session, but obeyed nonetheless, and for hours, she had him continue to smack the bowl of water, and refill it when it ran out. She told him a story of a boy who was sent off to a boarding school to learn Kung Fu, and after spending a year there, all he had done was smacked barrels of water. He was ashamed when he returned to his family to tell them he had learned nothing, and when he demonstrated what his instructors had him doing, he smacked the table on which they had been eating and broke it in half. Oliver doubted this would give him the strength to break a table, but she told him this exorcise had given him the strength to properly draw back his bowstring.

During his training, Oliver asked Shado if what Fyres told him about Yao Fei being a dangerous criminal was true, and she told him it was not. She explained that the Chinese military had committed a massacre, and, wanting to cover up for their atrocious act, they blamed Yao Fei for it and condemned him to be imprisoned on Lian Yu. When Slade asked Shado her plan to stop Fyres, she told him that while she and Slade were infiltrating the camp to rescue her father, they would have Oliver cover them, which meant they needed to train him how to aim with a bow and arrow. Slade was not on board with the plan, so she was given until sundown to teach Oliver. During his lesson, the two shared a kiss.

Back at the hideout, as they were preparing to go after Fyres, the found Yao Fei standing at their doorway, and they were ambushed by Fyres' men, who took them prisoner and escorted them back to the camp so that Fyres could finally explain his plan. Oliver also saw Alan Durand operating the flight charts system, as he was secretly a spy working for Fyres. This confirmed Oliver's suspicions not to trust him, and he was angry that he was ever duped for even a moment, though Slade told him they didn't have time for personal vendettas. Fyres told the gang that he planned to use the *Scylla* to shoot down a commercial plane going from Berlin to Hong Kong and start a war. When they asked him why, he said he didn't know why, but it was what his benefactors wanted.

He then said that Yao Fei was going to take the fall for the attack on the Berlin flight. When Yao Fei refused, he shot Slade in the leg and then shot Shado, telling him that while he needed him alive, he had no qualms with killing her. So Yao Fei complied, stating in front of a camera that he had initiated the attack on the Berlin flight, and once he was done, Fyres shot him in the head. However, while Yao Fei had been holding his wounded daughter after she was shot, he had managed to slip a knife into Oliver's hands, which he used to cut himself free

He and Slade attacked them, and then Oliver freed Shado's hands. Oliver stabbed Durand in his pure anger, and Shado finished him off by snapping his neck. They left the tent to stop the missile, which had already been launched at the plane. Shado told Oliver that she could redirect the missile to land somewhere else, making it his and Slade's job to protect her from Fyres' men. She managed to reprogram the missile's trajectory, and it landed right on the camp, sending a massive explosion underway.

Oliver found an unconscious Slade, who was still alive, and asked him where Shado was. Slade said he thought she was with Oliver, and then Fyres announced that she was with him. Oliver turned around to find him holding her at gunpoint. Oliver aimed his bow at Fyres, and Fyres offered to make one phone call that could set Oliver free, but he couldn't do so if he was dead. He asked Oliver if he was truly willing to sacrifice his freedom for her, and Oliver answered this question by shooting him with an arrow and killing him.

### **A New Threat**

For five months, Oliver, Slade and Shado knew only peace. Oliver continued his training under Slade, while Shado mentored him in learning Chinese. He and Shado also entered a romantic relationship, and fell deeply in love, despite Slade's warnings to Oliver that that kind of love would be a distraction that would get him killed. When those peaceful five months were over, a new threat emerged when Fyres' transmitter, which they had salvaged from his camp detected people other than them were on the island. The three of them went to scout, and Shado was taken.

When Oliver and Slade found her, she was being held captive by a group of pirates, who asked her where "the graves" were, though she didn't know what he was talking about. Oliver then tackled their leader when he pulled a knife to Shado while Slade took out the others. Oliver bludgeoned the pirate with a rock and showed no relent until he was dead. He later faced conflict within himself about the island turning him into something ugly, but Shado assured him that he was not a monster. She told him that everyone has their demons, but there is a balance between that demon and the hero inside one self.

Slade found a picture inside the pocket of one of the pirates that depicted a spot on the island, and as someone who had studied every location of that place, he recognized where the picture was taken. He also noted that whoever these pirates were working for, they had to know about Lian Yu as well, as that spot could have belonged to one hundred different islands just like that one. They found the spot in the picture, and then discovered a secret hideout under a boulder that had served as a Japanese stronghold during World War II, though all they found were the skeletal corpses of the Japanese solidiers.

Curious as to why the pilots were looking for the place, Shado took one of the skeletons with them back to the plane to study it. While she did so, Slade pulled Oliver away to go with him to find higher ground so as to have a vantage point to see where the pirates had come from. Atop a mountain, they discovered a boat three clicks off the shore, which immediately began to bombard an area of the island, which they quickly realized was the hideout, meaning Shado was in danger. Without a second thought, Oliver ran down the mountain and back to the hide out, where he was knocked unconscious by an explosion, and when he came to, he found himself in a cell in the brig of the boat he and Slade discovered.

#### **Aboard the Amazo**

Oliver was interrogated by a man, though he refused to tell him anything. The man told him that he was going to tell him everything he knew, and then he would kill him, even if he had to torture him first. He then shot him, and placed the tools necessary to dig the bullet out and treat his wound by his cell. Oliver asked the person in the cell next to him why he had done this, and the man said that it was to see if he was strong enough to survive. Oliver dug the bullet out of himself, and was then take from his cell to begin his torture, and was surprised to be brought before Sara Lance, who was apparently alive.

Before either of them could say anything, a man entered the room, introducing himself as Anthony Ivo, and he asked Oliver the same questions that the pirate had asked him, though he played dumb. Ivo explained to him that, while America had the Manhattan Project, during World War II, Japan was working on their own secret weapon called "Mirakuru", which was Japanese for "miracle". It allowed humans affected by this drug to access enhancements in their biology, particularly in strength. And thanks to Oliver, or "Tommy", as Ivo thought was his name, they now knew that the Japanese soldiers who were in possession of the Mirakuru virus were on Lian Yu.

After Oliver was returned to his cell, he was visited by Sara, who explained to him that when she came up from the water, she was found by Ivo and his men and brought aboard *The Amazo* where she had been for the last year. Oliver told her that he needed to warn his friends of Ivo's plan, and she said he said they were dead, but Oliver was certain that Slade and Shado were not that easy to kill. Later that night, Sara freed him from the cell and took him to a room with a radio, where he attempted to make contact with his friends. He was answered by Shado, but before he could say anything, the radio cord was ripped out by Sara, and then Ivo and the Captain stepped into the room.

They revealed that their ruse had been so that they could make sure his friends were dead, and they now had confirmation that they were not, and would need to be dealt with. At Sara's behest, Ivo elected to spare Oliver, as they would need him to lead them to the graves once Slade and Shado were dealt with. He also called Oliver by his actual name, meaning that Sara told him who he really was. The pirates, along with Ivo and Sara, took Oliver back to the hideout to watch them deal with Shado and Slade, and Oliver took the opportunity to call out to his friends and tell him to run, which caused the captain to hit him in the head and drop him to his knees. The pirates sprayed the plane with bullets, though they found that nobody was inside.

Ivo then threw a detonator inside the plane and forced Oliver to take them to the grave sight of the Japanese soldiers. While there, Ivo examined the bodies of each of them and became frustrated when he couldn't find an arrowhead, which Oliver remembered that he had recovered when he and his friends were there the first time. They then took him outside, where they were met by Shado and Slade, who told them to give up Oliver and they would leave them alone. Ivo ordered the captain to release Oliver, to which the pirate complied, though Oliver took this opportunity to punch him and erupt chaos, which allowed him to grab Sara and take her with them. Shado dropped the detonator on the ground and it served as a distraction, allowing them to escape.

Once they had alluded Ivo's men, they regrouped to discuss their next move. Oliver told them about the arrowhead that Ivo was looking for, which Shado revealed she had on her, as it reminded her of her father. They looked at the inscription on the arrowhead and found that they were coordinates, and Sara pieced together that the coordinates were the location of the Japanese submarine that had crashed near the island when the Allied Powers attacked them. They deduced that Ivo was searching for the submarine because it contained the Mirakuru. After the attack on the hideout when Oliver was kidnapped, Slade had been badly injured, and the four of them decided they needed to find the Mirakuru if they wanted any chance of saving his life.

On the way to the submarine, Shado asked Oliver how he knew Sara, and Oliver confessed that she was on the *Gambit* with him when it crashed, and that she was Laurel's sister, which began to put a strain on his and Shado's relationship. Afterward, they found the submarine, and dropped into it. They found the Mirakuru, but Sara said that they needed to mix it with a sedative, as giving it to Slade without one would likely kill him. Slade said he was going to die anyway, and to just give it to him, and so they did. He let out agonizing screams as blood ran down his eyes, before he died.

Ivo and his men then boarded the submarine, taking them prisoner and stealing the Mirakuru. They brought them into the middle of the woods and then stopped as Sara was begging for her life. Ivo told Sara that her death was entirely up to Oliver, and when Oliver asked what he meant by that, Ivo told him that in thirty seconds, he was either going to shoot Sara or Shado, and that the choice was his, but if he did not choose before the time was up, he was going to kill both of them. Oliver pleaded with Ivo to just leave, as he had already gotten what he wanted. Ivo told him his thirty seconds were up and pointed the gun at Sara, and Oliver instinctively dropped in front of her. Ivo took this as Oliver's choice, and so he killed Shado.

Soon after, Ivo's men were attacked by Slade, who was not only alive, but much stronger than ever before. Ivo was able to escape, but Slade took out all of his men with ease, and then he found Shado dead on the ground. When he asked what happened, Oliver and Sara told him that Ivo shot her for no reason, and left out the details. Slade told them that the one responsible for her death was going to pay with their life. Ivo escaped, but without the Mirakuru, which was, in turn, repossessed by the heroes.

#### **The Mirakuru Effect**

At Shado's funeral, Oliver insisted to Sara that Slade needed to know the truth, but she told them that the Mirakuru in his system made him dangerous When asked what she meant by that, she told him that the Japanese experimented on hundreds of prisoners, and the ones who didn't die were deformed either physically or mentally.

She told Oliver that Slade wasn't mentally stable and finding out the details of Shado's death would only upset him. Leaving the grave sight, they asked Slade what he was planning to do and he told them he was going to kill Ivo. Sara told him that Ivo was protected by several pirates and no matter Slade's skill set, he couldn't take them all on. Slade accused her of still working on Ivo, forcing Oliver to step between them and try to level the situation. Slade grabbed Oliver by the throat and nearly killed him, and Sara had to pull them apart so that Slade could regain his marbles. He apologized afterward.

That night, over Sara's walkie-talkie, Ivo's voice came over to give them an ultimatum, which was heard by Oliver and Sara. Ivo told them that if the Mirakuru wasn't delivered back to him, he would lay waste to the entire island and kill them all. Alternatively, in exchange for the virus, he would grant them all safe passage to freedom. He gave them until ten days. Oliver told Sara to get Slade, but she told him that Slade was gone, and he took the Mirakuru with him. They went back to the hideout in hopes of finding him, but he was not there. Sara suggested that when they find Slade and get the Mirakuru back, they should hand it over to Ivo and go home, but Oliver recognized that as an insane idea and that Ivo couldn't be trusted.

That night, after he gave her a heart-felt apology for being the reason she was in the mess she was in, they went to bed. Sara waited until she thought Oliver was asleep, and then took the walkie-talkie to reach out to Ivo. Oliver followed her and listened as Ivo attempted to regain her loyalty and justify his monstrous actions, but it was then that she realized what a horrible person he really was, and told him she would rather die than give him the Mirakuru. He told her that he was going to show her what real torture was when he hunted her and her friends down and captured them.

They used the tracker to find that Slade had gone back to the graves of the Japanese soldiers, but did not find him there when they arrived. Then Oliver saw markings on the wall that he hadn't before and eventually recognized them as launch codes for the *Scylla*, the missile launcher that Fyres had been planning to destroy the commercial flight with last year. Oliver then realized Slade was planning to use it to blow up *The Amazo*, along with many innocent prisoners as well as their only chance off of the island. They found Slade at the *Scylla*, aiming it at the freighter and attempted to talk him out of it. Slade pulled a gun on Oliver, but Oliver remained calm as he reminded Slade that Shado loved him, even if not in the way he wanted her to, and she would have wanted him to get home to his son. Slade eventually calmed down, asking what was happening to him, and Oliver assured him that he wouldn't go through it alone He also told him and Sara that they were going to take the freighter, and they were going to use it to get home.

While devising a plan to get on *The Amazo*, they watched a plane fly overhead and tried to call for help, but the plane was shot down by Ivo's men. They ran to the wreckage and pulled the pilot to safety in hopes to save him. Oliver and Slade rushed to the hideout to get medical supplies while Sara tended to the pilot, but he died before the two returned. Oliver did, however, find parachutes in the plane, which gave him an idea on how to get onto the freighter. That night, after extensive training, they drank to one last night on the island and burned the Mirakuru so that Ivo could never have it if things went south. Sara also fed Oliver herbs that would make him immune to suggestion chemicals such as sodium pentacide, better known as Truth Serum, which Ivo loved to use.

The following morning, Oliver fired an arrow at a structure and caused it to set fire, signaling to Ivo that he was on the beach, and Ivo promptly sent his men to capture him alive, which Oliver allowed them to do. He was brought to Ivo and, just as predicted, Ivo injected the truth serum into Oliver, though it did not work. Oliver played as if it had done its job, and he told Ivo that Sara and Slade were in the engine room, when, in reality, they were still on the island waiting to use the parachutes to fly them from the High Ground onto the boat. Oliver took out the pirates that were escorting him back to his cell and met his friends on the deck, where Sara gave him back his quiver and arrows, before going to free the prisoners. Slade went to the engine room to take out a majority of Ivo's men, and Oliver went after Ivo.

Oliver found Ivo in the control room, where he aimed an arrow at him. Ivo remarked how he could see that Oliver blamed himself for Shado's death, and it was because it was his fault. He then revealed that Slade was standing behind Oliver, and Oliver turned around to the confirmation of this. Slade asked if it was true, and Ivo told Slade that he gave Oliver a choice, and he chose Sara. Slade turned on Oliver, allowing Ivo to escape, and while tossing Oliver around, he accidentally caused the ship to deter from its course. *The Amazo* turned and knocked Slade over, allowing Oliver to escape him and he made it back to the ship deck, reuniting with Sara and Anatoly, the prisoner from the cell next to him.

Oliver told Sara that Slade knew about Shado, and she said that the mission was lost and they needed to get the prisoners back to the island to retreat, which Anatoly agreed to. Oliver agreed as well, and so Sara and the prisoners jumped ship, though Slade caught Oliver before he could go overboard, and took him to a cell in the brig. Ivo's newly appointed pirate captain told Slade that he was not the captain of the ship, but Slade, in turn, killed him and proclaimed himself the new leader of their crew. He brought Oliver out of his cell, and his new minions brought an imprisoned Ivo out as well. He gave Ivo a gun and told him to point it at Oliver and show him how he kllled Shado. After Ivo complied, Slade cut off his hand and sent him to a cell to wallow in his failures. Slade then told Oliver that he would only finally allow him to die after he had known complete despair, and he promised him that he would.

#### **Turning the Tables**

Having damaged the boat's engine during the attack, and killed the engineer, Slade required somebody who could fix it, and knew of a prisoner named Hendrick with that particular skill set. He contacted Sara and asked her if Hendrick had made it to the island with her, to which she replied that he did not. Slade knew that she was lying, and bargained that she deliver Sara to him in exchange for Oliver, but if she refused, he would kill him. Sara eventually agreed, and so Slade brought Oliver and Ivo back to the hideout for the trade. They gave Hendrick over, bound by ropes and with TNT in his belt that they had been hoping would kill Slade. However, he was able to smell it thanks to the Mirakuru heightening his senses, and he took the belt off.

When Slade aimed a gun at Sara, Oliver stepped in the way, and then Slade decided that death was too good for them, and that they would be sentenced to live on the island as a prison for the rest of their days. Before leaving with Hendrick, he told Oliver that as soon as the freighter was fixed, he would be paying a visit to his family. After Slade left, Anatoly wanted to torture Ivo for revenge, but Ivo told them that there was a cure for the Mirakuru, and he would tell them where to find it in exchange for a swift death.

Once they agreed, he told them that the cure was in a safe in his office on *The Amazo.* Sara could not uphold her end of the deal, so Oliver shot Ivo twice and killed him so that Sara would not have to live with the burden of murder. Oliver then had the idea of having Anatoly fix the Japanese submarine, given his time in the KGB, which entailed learning about Japanese transports. Anatoly argued that it equipped him with knowledge of how to destroy them, not fix them, but he tried nonetheless, and was successful in his attempt. Oliver's plan was to launch a missile at *The Amazo*, but when they examined the schematics of the ship, Anatoly determined that the missiles had to be steered manually, and whoever volunteered to steer would die with the explosion.

The only remaining prisoner besides Anatoly, that being Peter said that he would do it, as Ivo had given him radiation poisoning and he was going to die regardless. The first missile they needed to launch would be to break the sub free from the sea floor, and the second would be fired at *The Amazo*. Peter's sacrifice ended in success, as the submarine was free to set sail. However, before they launched the missile, Oliver had asked Sara to wait outside in case things went wrong and they died, and she complied. When Oliver radioed her to tell her it was a success, her signal cut out, and when he went out to find her, she was gone. Oliver returned to the sub and told Anatoly that he was going after Sara, and if they weren't back in an hour to destroy *The Amazo* and leave without them. Anatoly told him that he had made a friend for life, and told him to ask if he ever needed anything.

Oliver rescued Sara, and then told her to get to the submarine. He said he could not just write Slade off and that he had to save him, and Sara refused to leave him. Together, they went to Ivo's office to find the cure, and were met by Slade and his pirates, who captured them and brought them to the brig. Before he could kill Oliver, *The Amazo* was hit by the missile, which sent everyone in a frenzy as the ship began to sink. Sara fell out of the boat and into the ocean, where Oliver was sure she drowned this time. He fought Slade, though he was no match, until a part of the ship fell on Slade, entrapping him. Instead of injecting Slade with the cure, Oliver jammed an arrow in his eye and left him to drown.

Oliver awoke in an actual bed, in an actual room and in a state of confusion. He was then escorted by armed men outside and brought to a woman who introduced herself as Amanda Waller, and welcomed him to Hong Kong.

### **A New Mission**

For the next five months, Oliver continually tried to escape Waller's grasp, though all of his nine attempts were met with disappointing failure, as he was always subdued by her agent, Maseo Yamashiro. Waller told Oliver that he should be thankful that she rescued him from drowning on *The Amazo*, but he said all he wanted was to go home and that he would never stop trying to escape. She reminded him of how easy it was to kill a man that the world already thought was dead, and he told her he was fine with death, which forced her to find new ways to motivate him. Maseo then knocked him unconscious. When he awoke, he was being cared for by a woman, who was apparently Maseo's wife, Tatsu. Maseo told Oliver that Waller has made it his personal responsibility to ensure he stay in Hong Kong, and she threatened to kill Tatsu and his son, Akio should he fail. Oliver then realized he had no choice but to stay.

Maseo took Oliver to a rooftop, where he gave him a sniper rifle and told him that Waller had assigned him his first target. Oliver was reluctant at first, but after he saw that the target was Tommy Merlin, he refused to comply with Waller's wishes. Maseo told him that it was no coincidence that his best friends happened to show up in Hong Kong, and that Tommy had received an alert that Oliver's email account had been logged into when Oliver attempted to email Moira. Oliver said that he was not going to kill Tommy, even though Maseo argued that Waller would only have somebody else do it.

Oliver then had an idea, and so he and Maseo kidnapped Tommy in his hotel room and took him captive. When Tommy came to, Oliver, pretending to be somebody else, told him that he hacked into Oliver's account hoping to bait somebody in the Queen family to come looking for him, but the son of billionaire Malcolm Merlyn would do nicely for a ransom. Maseo then stormed the place, pretending to be a police officer, and Oliver "fled". After being freed, and once again believing that Oliver was dead, Tommy returned to America.

Oliver continued doing missions for Waller, and he was begrudgingly forced to kill a man who he was told to be a terrorist, though the details were not given to Oliver, leaving him to wonder why he had to murder him. He later offered to trade candy to Akio for allowance to use his laptop, and he uploaded a USB drive that he swiped from Maseo to learn more. What he found came to him as a shock, as the man he killed was working for Edward Fyers, and Fyres had been working for Waller during the plot to shoot down the plane going from Berlin to Hong Kong one year earlier. He asked Maseo to set up a meet with Waller, which he did, and she accepted with distaste.

He confronted her about his discovery, and she told him that while she had Fyers believing it was to start a war in China, she was only interested in killing one person on that plane: a woman named Chien Na Wei (China White), who led a terrorist organization known as the Chinese Triad. Waller told Oliver that he saved Chien Na Wei when he stopped Fyres from shooting down the plane, and it was now his job to help them bring her down. Oliver spent the following morning working with Maseo to track one of Chien Na Wei's delivery boys and intercept him before he could get a message to her. When they found him, Oliver chased him through an alley, and when the boy ran into the street, he was hit by a car and died.

Maseo searched the man's body for an envelope, but found nothing, meaning he had to have stashed it somewhere during the chase. Oliver said that he didn't see him stash anything, but Maseo assured him that he did see it, he just didn't remember it. That night, Maseo asked his wife to help Oliver meditate so that he could remember, and though she showed very obvious hatred for Oliver and what he meant for her family, she helped him so that he could leave them as soon as possible. The envelope contained a seemingly ordinary picture of a landscape, but upon decryption, Maseo was able to determine the message saying :Contact Li Kuan Hui." Oliver asked Maseo who that was and he told him that he didn't know, but if Chien Na Wei was interested in him, so was A.R.G.U.S.

The next day, Maseo told Oliver that he had received intel in Li Huan Hui and was going down to the docks to meet with their operative. He told them that he would not be gone for more than an hour and told Oliver to stay put, as a foreigner down at the docks would cause unwanted attention, and Tatsu was apparently making Oliver do his laundry, which he confessed to not knowing how to do. Nine hours went by with no word from Maseo, and Tatsu became very worried for her husband. Oliver assured her that everything would be okay, and he would go down to the docks to find him. She insisted, however, that she would accompany him and so they called a sitter for Akio and went down to the docks to find Maseo.

While waiting in the car and observing the scene, Oliver asked Tatsu why she and Maseo left Japan to live in Hong Kong, and she told him that they had upset very powerful and dangerous people, though she did not go any further than that. They suddenly saw a group of people coming out into the open, and Oliver approached them to ask if they knew anything about Maseo. They, instead, jumped him and would have likely killed him had Tatsu not shown up and single-handedly taken them all out with nothing but a katana. She left one man alive, and asked what he knew. He said that he saw three A.R.G.U.S. agents get killed earlier, but that was all he knew.

This led her and Oliver to the belief that Maseo was dead, and they returned home to somehow break the news to Akio. However, they instead found Maseo playing with Akio and he asked where they had been. She embraced him, and he apologized for not calling, but he had been reassigned by Waller and the place went under lock-down when three of their agents had died.

Weeks later, Amanda Waller brought Oliver to an abandoned building, where she introduced him to a man bound and gagged in a chair by the name of Katsu Cheng. She explained that Cheng was affiliated with the Triad, and their intelligence reported that he had planted a bomb somewhere in Hong Kong, and his task was to find out where. She then showed him his "tools", which were Yao Fei's quiver and a stack of arrows, which they had recovered from *The Amazo* the same time they recovered him. Oliver realized that she wanted him to torture Cheng to find the bomb, and she said she wanted him to find the bomb, and was not interested in whichever methods he chose.

Oliver attempted to interrogate the man, but Cheng told him nothing, except that he knew Oliver did not have the stomach to do what needed to be done to save the people who would die in his explosion. Before Oliver could get the information required, the bomb went off. When he went to the scene, he found Amanda Waller, who told him that he lacked conviction to do what was necessary, and it got people killed. She said that there were people in the world that dealt only in extremes, and it would be naive to think anything short of extreme measures would stop them. The next day, she returned him to the same abandoned building for a shot at "redemption" and brought forth Li Kuan Hui, who they had captured but was not being entirely forthcoming with the information regarding Chien Na Wei's plans, and Oliver was going to find them out.

### **Beginning his Crusade**

Oliver returned to Starling City to stay this time, and was immediately brought to Starling City General to be carefully examined. It was apparent to all who observed that he had endured many physical traumas in that five years, though Oliver would remain quiet about his time away. It was broadcast all over the news that he was back, alerting everyone in the city and across the globe that he was alive.

When Oliver and Tommy visited Laurel's office in the glades, where Oliver was set on making amends, which ended as poorly as he expected, the two billionaires were attacked by masked gunman hired by Malcolm Merlyn to extract any information Robert might have told Oliver before his death. With Tommy knocked unconscious, Oliver was able to free himself and fight off the gunmen, killing them all without a witness.

They would later be questioned about this by detective Quentin Lance, Laurel and Sara's father. Oliver told Lance that he and Tommy were saved by a man wearing a green hood that shot arrows from a bow. He had not planned on beginning his crusade that early, as he knew it would draw suspicion that he was, in fact, the vigilante, but he could not very well tell the officers that he had single-handedly dealt with them. This, would, however force him to accelerate plans. He already had his first target in mind: one Adam Hunt, who Oliver already knew was oppressing innocent people's financial well-being, and Oliver also knew was being personally gone after by Attorney Laurel Lance.

In light of Oliver and Tommy's attack, however, Moira hired a bodyguard to protect Oliver, in the form of John Diggle, who would become an obstacle that Oliver needed to overcome if he was to begin his crusade without interference.