Arrow: Survival Part 2.5

One Way Ticket

The sudden awareness of the darkness jolted Oliver to lash out into the pitch black that surrounded him. His hands quickly struck a wall directly in front of him, the same wall that seemed to be currently in casing his entire body. A flutter of thoughts shot through his mind as he tried to discover where he was and how he had gotten here. He played back what he could remember from the previous evening before everything turned to black and engulfed the past few hours of his life. A dinner with Felicity on the patio of their hotel room overlooking the beach was the last complete memory Oliver could picture as he struggled to free himself from the case he found himself trapped inside. The muffled sound of Felicity's voice caught his attention and cut his struggling short as he listened for her to call out again.

"Oliver?!" Her fear stricken voice began, prompting Oliver to force his way out of the box. He backed away from the front of the box and began to slam his shoulder into the sturdy wall, again and again. The entire case shook with every impact as the crease along the side began to weaken and reveal a stream of light. Oliver bucked against the wall once more, this time splintering the door latch on the inside and ripping the door open. The sudden brightness from the sun blinded Oliver as he shielded his eyes before quickly taking in his new surroundings. The thick jungle all around him was alive with all sorts of animal cries as well as vegetation stretching as far as he could see. Oliver stepped away from the large box he had just exited, examining it while he moved toward the second box beside him.

"Felicity!" He began, stopping in front of the large case and looking it over before causing any unwanted damage to its occupant. A steady pounding sound exited the box as Oliver grabbed the latch and quickly opened the door, revealing a shaken Felicity. Her hand quickly moved to cover her temporarily blinded eyes as Oliver carefully helped her out of the box and examined her for any wounds.

"Are you okay?" He asked, visually checking for any harm done to her.

"I guess." Felicity replied, grabbing ahold of Oliver's arm and scanning the environment around them.

"Where the hell are we?" She asked, turning to inspect the jungle that they currently found themselves in.

"I have no idea." Oliver replied, glancing to the boxes once again. Felicity also looked to their previous holding cells and visually inspected the would be coffins, her mind rushing to catch up with the situation. The two stood beside one another as they stared back at the strange cases, both pausing to take in whatever they could from their sudden awakening.

"What the hell is going on?" Felicity asked, turning toward Oliver in hope that he would magically have an answer. The determined gaze and shaking head did little to comfort her as he finally spoke.

"I don't know." The intense heat and humidity became all to aware to Felicity as she felt her adrenaline begin to subside and shower her with the climate change.

"Wow, it's really hot." She began, fanning herself with her hand. Oliver moved to the single backpack sitting on the ground across from the boxes and checked its contents while Felicity further inspected the cases they had just exited. The collection of survival gear caught Oliver completely offguard as he searched through the backpack and found the much needed supplies that were simply waiting for them. He looked up from the backpack and examined the jungle ahead of him, searching for anything out of the ordinary as his mind circled back to the question of what was going on. Dozens of possibilities passed through his thoughts as he eliminated them one by one, slowly finding his way back to exactly where he was when he started. His first thought was that one of his numerous enemies had arranged for this somehow, but the fact that Oliver Queen and not the Green Arrow had been taken halted that theory to a point. There were some of his enemies that knew of his true identity but surely they would have simply killed him when they had the chance as opposed to dropping him in the jungle somewhere with supplies. He glanced back at Felicity and added the complication that she had also been taken too, further pulling him away from the idea that one of the Green Arrow's enemies was behind this. Despite that being the obvious reason behind anything bad happening in their lives, both Oliver and Felicity were both high ranking members of Queen Technologies and that made them prime targets for kidnapping. Even though their vacation destination was completely under the radar and any trail of such was hidden by Felicity herself, it was possible that someone wanted the QT billionaires bad enough to go the extra mile. Oliver stood up and strapped the backpack to his shoulders as he pushed the unsuccessful thoughts of tracking whoever was behind this aside and instead focused on keeping Felicity and himself alive. Old instincts from Lian Yu came rushing back to him as he planned their next move. Felicity pulled herself away from the boxes and moved beside Oliver, hoping he had a plan to get them out of this.

"So, what'd we do now?" She asked, looking to Oliver with a forced smile.

"We find higher ground and survey the area, hopefully find signs of civilization nearby." Oliver answered, pointing toward the incline in the trail ahead of them.

"Great, atleast I woke up with tennis shoes on." Felicity joked as she looked toward the rough trail they would need to move through.

"Stay close and stay behind me." Oliver added as he turned and started up the trail with Felicity quickly moving to be close behind him. The sound of her nervous rambling began soon after they moved away from the two boxes and the hidden camera resting in the tree above where they had been. The camera swiveled slightly to follow after them as the footage relayed to a command center in a dimly lit room with two men sitting behind the large collection of monitors and computers.

"They're heading East toward sector K3." One of the men began as he turned in his chair and faced away from the monitors. He wore a military style jumpsuit with a tiger insignia on the shoulder, his tone and attitude fully professional.

"Have unit Bravo intercept them." The man sitting behind the other two ordered, his low and clear voice speaking slowly to avoid any mistakes. The soldier nodded and relayed the order while switched to a satellite view of the jungle and tracked the two signals as they moved East toward another group of signals converging on their path.

The jungle was much thicker than Lian Yu and as such made it harder for Oliver to keep an eye out for threats. A few leaves crumpled beneath his boot as he moved up the faint trail and tried to listen for any threats but instead heard Felicity's deductive facts of who could be behind the situation.

"I mean who would go to so much trouble to drop us off in the middle of the jungle and give us supplies if they were just trying to kill us...it doesn't make sense." She began, clumsily moving over an exposed tree root.

"And the fact that we seem to be in a different climate in combination with the crazy coffins we woke up in shows that whoevers behind this has a lot of money to throw around. Personally I'd spend my extra income on shoes or on charity, but then again I'm not a psycho who kidnaps people and drops them in a jungle." Felicity continued as she followed Oliver up the trail, unaware that she had been speaking nonstop since they had left the boxes.

"Speaking of which, if you're going to kidnap people isn't the point to keep them close and safe so you can ransom them?" Oliver glanced to the side and replied.

"I'm not entirely sure this is a kidnapping." His cryptic comment only fueled Felicity's verbal rampage of their current predicament, causing her voice to carry through the jungle around them. Oliver stopped and turned to Felicity, catching her off gaurd as she stopped speaking at the sight of him waiting for her attention.

"Not that I don't love your cute little rambling, but now might be the time to stay quiet until we know what's going on." Oliver politely suggested as he passed Felicity a smirk, hoping she woukd accept his advice.

"What? Are you affraid that I'm gonna attract our kidnappers who have seemed to lost us?" Felicity joked as a playful smile reached her lips. The loud bark of gunfire snapped Oliver into action as he grabbed Felicity and dropped to the ground while doing his best to shield her from the danger. The bullets struck against the nearby trees, spitting off chunks of bark that showered over Oliver and Felicity as they stayed as low as they could.

"You were saying?!" Oliver remarked over the sound of gunfire as he and Felicity hunkered down against the ground. Felicity replied with a warning gaze as she shielded herself from debris.

"Stay low and move!" Oliver ordered as he motioned Felicity to crawl away from the trail and into the bushes beside them. The gunfire continued to echo from all around the dense jungle as Felicity gripped onto the ground and pulled herself through the vegetation with Oliver close behind her.