The islands scattered across the South China Sea were countless as stars, making the search torturous. Thea's operation had to stay covert, and fuel was always a constraint. For the first two days, she flew out only in limited circuits—returning to port by nightfall for refueling, lodging, and a hot shower in civilized comfort.
By the third day, she was tired of the back-and-forth. After rigging two auxiliary fuel tanks to her chopper, she began camping directly on the islands: sleeping by day, flying by night.
Each afternoon she would find a quiet, sun-drenched beach, summon her little unicorn for fresh air, and bask under the burning sun herself. When darkness fell, she'd take to the skies again—dodging patrol boats, fisheries enforcement vessels, and maritime police. Left turns, right turns, low-altitude maneuvers… it was exhausting work.
"Ugh… I'm so sleepy…" Thea yawned, watching the tiny creature bounding happily over the sand. Its four hooves kicked up glittering dust as it frolicked about, utterly delighted by the clean air and golden sunlight.
An idea popped into Thea's head. She sent out a mental whisper in the coaxing tone of someone luring a child with candy: Come here, come here…
Their telepathic link was still crude. The baby unicorn's thoughts were limited to simple sensations: hungry… comfy… happy…
Thanks to several days of intense sunlight exposure, the creature had grown noticeably. Once the size of her palm, it was now roughly as large as her foot.
When it trotted up expectantly, wagging its tail and blinking its big eyes—no doubt hoping for another tasty snack—Thea struck. In one swift move, she grabbed its forehooves and hoisted it up like a protesting kitten, scanning its underside quickly.
"Hmm. Aha! A little princess," she muttered with satisfaction. "Good—if you were male, that'd make our future 'fusion' very awkward…"
The unicorn kicked indignantly, but its tiny legs couldn't reach her. Thea set it down before it could retaliate with one of its trademark spit attacks, smoothing its mane to calm it down.
"Now then," she said, hands on hips. "We need to give you a name."
The unicorn snorted, sending an impatient thought that roughly meant, Already have one.
"Nope," Thea declared grandly. "I'm your master. I get naming rights!"
She thought hard… and harder. Nothing came. So she went with the first ridiculous thing that came to mind.
"My daughter, when you were born," she said dramatically, "the forests of Lordaeron whispered a single name—Arthas! How's that? You like it?"
The unicorn's horrified squeal clearly said no, but Thea ignored it, laughing as she tossed it gently into the air twice before catching it again. "Done. Naming ceremony complete."
The creature gave her a sulky look and trotted off to play by itself, and Thea stretched out in the sun, quickly dozing off again.
Day blurred into night, night into day.
On the seventh dawn, fortune finally smiled upon her.
Through a gap in the dense fog, she saw it—the island she'd been searching for.
"Finally! No one told me the damn place was hidden inside a cloud bank!" Thea muttered, both relieved and irritated. She'd flown past this area before, but the mist had been so thick she'd dismissed it as just more ocean haze. Only when the morning sun hit the vapor directly did the silhouette of the island emerge beneath it.
Half-moon in shape, ringed by dense primeval jungle. At its center rose an old stone watchtower of unmistakably Han Chinese design. To the south ran a shallow stream—probably where that World War II submarine carrying the Mirakuru serum had wrecked. Cross-checking against memory, she nodded. This was it.
Thea had no intention of touching the Mirakuru itself. She didn't need some half-century-old formula that traded sanity for strength. Still, a few samples for study wouldn't hurt.
The scientist who'd once obsessed over perfecting that serum must have had rocks in his head. A Japanese formula from the 1940s—half a century old! Sure, the world had seen geniuses decades ahead of their time, but not that far ahead, and certainly not in wartime Japan.
Thea decided she'd bring one vial home anyway—maybe the Court of Owls' biotech division could glean something useful comparing it to their own enhancement serums.
She didn't fly straight toward the island's heart. Up close, it was far larger than she expected—nearly the size of a mid-sized city.
Oliver had always assumed the island was deserted save for a handful of survivors. He couldn't have been more wrong.
This place teemed with life: mercenaries, drug runners, illegal miners, scavengers, treasure hunters, freelance researchers. A thousand souls at least, constantly rotating in and out. But the island was vast enough that few ever crossed paths.
Dropping to low altitude, Thea found a secluded valley to land in and carefully parked the helicopter.
Out came her full kit: bow, trick arrows, glider board, everything. Her mechanical arm was finished at last—an engineering marvel built on Batman's nanotech. Normally disguised as three sleek bracelets, it could unfold and lock into place in under a second.
Forged from pure hafnium alloy—dense, heat-resistant, and near-indestructible—it was the same metal used in U.S. Federal Reserve vault doors. In full combat mode, the arm granted her strength between two to ten tons.
Hidden inside were three retractable claws of an even harder synthetic alloy—titanium mixed with carbon nitride. Fifty scientists at Queen Applied Sciences had spent a month perfecting them, and the results didn't disappoint. So far, she hadn't found a substance they couldn't cut—short of the exotic matter inside neutron stars.
After camouflaging the helicopter under netting and foliage, Thea mounted her glider board. If she were still the old, mundane her, navigating this place would be a nightmare. But now she had magic.
A soft blue rune flared on her palm. "Tracking spell," she murmured.
Immediately, a faint tug brushed her senses—a link of shared blood.
"Found you, big brother…"
The pull was weak, distant—so faint it was nearly beyond her range.
"Far to the west," she confirmed after another test.
Kicking off the ground, Thea skimmed above the trees, following the invisible thread that connected her to Oliver Queen.
By evening, the sun hung low over a glassy lake, its light spilling like molten gold across the water.
A man and a woman stood facing each other at the water's edge. The man's expression was weary, burdened by guilt; the woman's eyes shone with quiet concern and something softer—love.
"I just… feel like this island is turning me into something terrible," the man murmured.
The woman cupped a handful of water and brushed it gently across his brow.
"No island—no place—can make you something you don't already choose to be."
But her gentle words didn't lift the shadow from his face.
"So I've always been a killer, then?" he asked bitterly.
She hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Everyone carries darkness inside them. As the Tao teaches—yin and yang, shadow and light. Within each of us is both killer and hero."
Her hand lingered on his cheek, eyes full of warmth.
Neither of them noticed the broad-shouldered man watching from the treeline—his face twisted with conflict, jealousy, and pain—as they slipped into the water together, unaware of the storm that was already beginning to brew.