Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ACT I

Chapter One

Knowing that there’s no escape from The Raft (except if you’re friends with Steve Rodgers himself*), Layla El-Faouly did the only thing she could do, contemplate how she even got into this situation. She was never one to be willing to break the law. That’s more of her husband’s kind of deal. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to explain why the mighty Fist of Khonshu, Moon Knight would be caged inside in the underwater prison created by the US Government to house super-powered adversaries. What about the actual reality that sees the Scarlet Scarab trapped inside The Raft? Now, that does require some mental gymnastics to explain that scenario. As she leans on the glass wall of her cell, Layla tries pulling at the power dampener that’s clamped to her neck. That god ugly metallic choker will definitely not move a single inch. If only Taweret could tell her how she can escape, but the dampener is severing that connection with the Egyptian goddess. Layla scratches at her curly black hair in a moment of thought. How did she get in here in the first place?

She remembers it all in crystal clear detail. The Scarlet Scarab was in Egypt. Operatives of The Ten Rings got their hands on a powerful artefact that somehow had a connection to the Ennead. She did what she could to protect the innocents that would have been killed by The Ten Rings operatives and that damn artefact turned weapon. Did it have a name? If it did, Layla couldn’t remember. Everything went by too quickly. Before she could strike at the foes, he arrived on the scene. Their petty squabble quickly turned duel made them lose focus. With both of them distracted, The Ten Rings operatives managed to explode the foundations of an entire building. Despite their best efforts, there was still dozens of lives lost and that was when the military arrived. Both of them arrested while the true culprits walked away scot free with the artefact in tow. Layla knows he’s in The Raft in one of the cells but from the angle her cell was positioned, she couldn’t see any other prisoners on the floor she was on.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a prison guard open the door to the lift, the only way out. Layla turns around to observe the scene. Stepping out of the lift was two more guards, and more interestingly, a smartly dressed woman. Layla deduced that this woman couldn’t be any older than fifty but then again, if she was older, she was aging gracefully. Her shoulder cut brunette hair and a streak of grey that cover part of her right eye. She had soft face, slim but not ill looking and was around five and a half feet tall. The two guards from the lift stood by guarding the lift as the third one followed behind the woman, who quickly clocks Layla looking at her.

“Ah. There she is. The Scarlet Scarab herself.” The woman speaks, poorly disguising a sense of schadenfreude to her voice. Layla picks up on that.

“You like kicking people when they’re down?” Layla quickly responds as the woman walks to Layla’s cell. The sound of the woman’s boots on the metallic floor echo through the entire floor. As she reaches the glass wall of Layla’s cell, the woman chuckles.

“I see The Raft hasn’t taken your sense of humour away from you. Your powers on the other hand? Not so lucky, are we?” She quips while fully embracing the sense of schadenfreude she tried to hide moments ago.

“What do you want?” Layla cuts to the chase.

“I’m here to offer you a deal, Layla El-Faouly.” The woman responds. Layla slightly tilts her in interest.

“What are we talking?” Layla asks.

“The Raft sets you free, in exchange of doing a favour for me”. The woman bluntly sets her terms.

“And who are you?” Layla stands in her cell to fully judge the woman. Despite her best efforts, Layla cannot get a good read on her. The woman hides her true intentions very well.

“Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. But it’s too much of a mouth full. So, call me Val.” The woman introduces herself to Layla. “I’m a busy woman and I haven’t got all day, so let’s get straight to it. You got either two choices. You come with me and regain your freedom after doing a itsy bitsy favour for me…” She pauses for effort to let her words sink in before continuing “…or you refuse and you remain a goldfish in a bowl for god knows how long your sentence lasts.” She shrugs at the mention of Layla’s sentence. Layla sighs. Val’s right. She really doesn’t have a choice. It’s not like she can just wait for Moon Knight to break her out. Plus, she would receive an unbelievable amount of flack from Taweret for leaving it up to the man in her life to break her out when she’s the avatar for The Goddess of Women and Children.

“Fine. I’ll do your task. After it’s done though, I’m going to spread my wings and soar”. She agrees to Val’s terms.

“Alright. Open the cell.” Val turns to face the guards to order Layla’s release. A soft alarm sounds as the door from Layla’s cell unlocks. The power dampener from her neck breaks in half and falls onto the cell floor. The Scarlet Scarab walks through the cell door towards Val. Both women shake each other’s hands in agreement.

“What’s the job?” Layla immediately asks determined to get Val’s ‘itsy bitsy’ favour out of the way as soon as possible.

“We need the assemble the team before the debrief”. Val answers keeping her cards to her chest a bit longer.

Layla looks at her in confusion. “What do you mean ‘team’?”

“Did I forget to mention it? We’ve still got someone else to pick up.” Val answers Layla’s concern as both women enter the lift and Val presses the down button signalling her desire for them to go deeper into the underwater prison…

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

As the lift goes further and further down into the depths of The Raft, Layla El-Faouly realises that Val’s seeking an inmate that’s in the solidarity confinement wing. Usually, these cells house the most dangerous and deadliest villains that various heroes have fought against over the years. The only thought going through Layla’s mind is Val isn’t gathering a forming a team of villains to do her will, right? She attempts to reform her psychic connection with Taweret but the effects of the power dampener are still wearing off. It’s no use. The lift finally stops on the solidarity confinement level and the doors slowly open. As they do, an eery silence creeps in. Val is the first to step out of the lift followed by Layla moments later.

Unlike her cell, Layla notices each cell on this floor has no glass walls looking in onto the prisoners themselves. Just metallic walls and doors with an eye level hatches on them. Next to each door is a guard making sure that inmate doesn’t escape. On the other side of each door is a plastic label with the name of the inmate inside said cell. As both women walk past the cells, Layla reads the labels. Minn-Erva. Barney Barton. Rachel Leighton. Cletus Kasady. Mary Alice Walker. These people cause so much chaos and for what? A place in “the fish bowl” that is The Raft.

Val and Layla reach the end of the corridor that composes the solidarity confinement wing. At the end is one last guard and cell. No identifying prisoner label this time Layla notices. Val walks up to the guard that’s about to approach Layla.

“She’s with me”. Val quickly states as the guard slowly returns to his post. “I’ve got orders for the immediate release of this inmate”. She orders.

“That’s a surprise. He only came in a few days ago. Knocked many of our people unconscious with his bare hands attempting to escape. He failed and we dragged his ass back in here”. The guard explains which peaks Layla’s curiosity. Maybe Marc heard about her false imprisonment and attempted to break her out but got locked inside himself in the process. If Val needed him, that would be fantastic. They’ve already teamed up against Arthur Harrow and Ammit*. It’ll just be like old times! The guard gets the keys for the cell off his belt and begins to unlock the door. Val notices a slight smile on Layla’s face. Then the cell door opens…

…and Layla’s slight smile is completely removed from her face. Instead, a scowl as she comes face to face with him. The one she fought before she was thrown in here. The Master of The Ten Rings. Shang-Chi.  “You’ve got to be shitting me”. She groans.

Both women walk into the cell to see Shang-Chi in deep meditation. They wait for a moment as the guard follows them in before saying “Shang-Chi, it’s your lucky day”. The man opens his eyes to see both Val and Layla. He clocks Layla first.

“You”. The only word he manages to get out before Val interrupts.

“Before you say anything, it’s best we release any tensions out into the open. What exactly happened with you and Ms. Scarab over here?” Val asks, determined to know all the details about her players in her little game.

— — — — — — —

TWO WEEKS AGO

Location: Giza, Egypt

Layla is in hot pursuit of the fends. All she knows through Taweret is that they’ve stolen a powerful artefact that’s connected to the Ennead and she has to get it back before more damage can be done. The three thieves are jumping across the rooftops of the city. Making grand leaps that the casual tourist would panic at the sight of, but somehow always making it to the other side without any damage to themselves or the artefact. On foot, there would be no way she could catch up to them. So, thank god for the Wings of Taweret.

Layla gracefully swoops through the streets while keeping a bird’s eye view on the thieves who manage to descend from the rooftops down towards a crowded bazar. She retracts her wings as she gets closer to the ground and transitions to a run. The thieves notice their pursuer is still on their tail.

“This bitch won’t goddamn quit!” One of them, an extremely athletic male of asian descent in his early thirties, whines in disgust.

“Split up!” Another, a latino woman with brunette shoulder blade length hair that’s tied up into a pony tail, orders. She’s clearly the leader of the thieves.

“Good luck, assholes!” The third, a caucasian man in his early twenties, wishes his fellow thieves luck as they begin to split up to three different corners of the bazar. Layla decides to follow the latino woman. Surely the leader isn’t that dumb enough to entrust carrying the artefact to one of the colourful language using men. The thief pushes various people out of her path and even towards Layla herself. Luckily, Layla manages to still keep pursuit of her. Realising that even going through the bazaar isn’t enough to stop the Scarlet Scarab, the latino woman runs into one of the many buildings in hopes of losing Layla.

As she enters the building, Layla is suddenly hit in the face by a powerful roundhouse kick from an unseen assailant. The latino woman looks back to notice it’s Shang-Chi. Former protégée and son of Wenwu. The Mandarin and former leader of The Ten Rings before his demise in Ta-Lo. Now, his daughter (and Shang-Chi’s sister), Xialing rules over the criminal organisation** and expects the thieves to return with the artefact. Knowing Shang-Chi will actively go out of his way to stop them, the latino woman is extremely thankful that the master of The Ten Rings (the weapon. Not the organisation. Big distinction!) thinks the Scarlet Scarab is the enemy here and manages to flee the scene. Layla gets up from the floor to see the thief escape. She tries to follow but Shang-Chi grapples her.

“Stand down. This is my fight. Not yours.” He orders Layla. She ain’t having it.

“It was mine until that roundhouse kick”. She protests as she manages to break free of Shang-Chi’s grapple. “Don’t make me kick your ass”. She warns him but Shang-Chi is determined to stand his ground.

“I would like to see you try.” He tempts her before she launches herself towards him^. She tries many punches at him but he miraculously manages to deflect every single one. He then lands a blow on her right rib that knocks her back a bit. In retaliation, Layla reveals the Wings of Taweret and the blades the go alongside it. She slashes at Shang-Chi and manages to lightly cut his chest with the blade. She doesn’t manage another slice as he manages to dodge two more strikes before punching the swords out of her hands. The sound of metal hitting the stone floor echo throughout the room.

Layla is slightly taken back by how he’s managed to disarm her. That surprise doesn’t last long as he punches her straight in face, causing her to take a few steps back and for her nose to begin bleeding. Layla takes a moment to feel the slow drip of blood before getting herself refocused. She runs towards Shang-Chi and dropkicks him that launches him straight into the stonewall behind, winded him. She slowly gets up from the cold stone floor and picks up the blades that he knocked out of her hands moments ago. After walking towards where Shang-Chi is struggling to get up and catching his breath, Layla raises one of her blades to his eyes.

“Do…you yield?” She barely gets the words out as she’s struggling to catch her own breath. Shang-Chi looks up to her. From the look on his eyes, Layla knows that the fight isn’t over yet. Before she attempts to strike, both of them feel the ground violently shake and the sound of a large explosion comes from outside the building. Once the shaking stops, he slowly gets and both look outside. They’ve been too distracted and the thieves have used the artefact to blow something up in the distance. The contrasting black smoke rising in the sharp and almost sickly summer Egyptian sky. Both Layla and Shang-Chi look at each other and give each other a nod. Set aside their differences later. Save the innocent now. Both of them run out of the building and Layla takes to the skies…

— — — — — — —

PRESENT

Location: The Raft

“Why the hell was it your fight? I was pursuing them before you stopped me. They stole something from the Ennead. That’s my jurisdiction”. Layla demands to know. Shang-Chi gets up from his meditative position on the surprisingly cosy looking cell floor and stands.

“Those thieves were members of The Ten Rings. The organisation that I thought was dismantled upon my father’s death. Clearly, my sister is more my father’s child than I previously thought. They were my closest lead to finding my sister’s location. And thanks to you, it’ll take me even longer to find her”. His answer turned from a calm response to something more like a pathetic whinge from a pouty child.

“You’re welcome?” Layla grunts her response before Val decides that she needs to step in to stop these childish squabbles.

“Look, I need both of you for my itsy bitsy problem; and I can’t have you be like little toddlers”. Val bluntly states as Layla and Shang-Chi take a moment to look at each other. “While you work for me, break it up. Once the task is done and you both got your freedoms back; punch, kick, slice, shoot, whatever you need to. Are we clear?” She firmly orders a truce between the two currently childish acting heroes. Shang-Chi is the first to offer a handshake to signal the truce to which Layla accepts. “Excellent. Now, let’s get to my chopper. I’m starting to feel a bit trapped in this fish bowl”.

Minutes later, Layla and Shang-Chi feel drops of rain for the first time in weeks as they and Val are out on the top of The Raft. Her helicopter’s blades begin spinning as they approach. The doors to the helicopter open.

“Get in. We’ve got a bit of a ride to get back to my place” Val calls for both Layla and Shang-Chi. The trio enter the helicopter and put on their seatbelts as the helicopter crew shuts the doors. Moments later, the helicopter takes off. Layla watches on as The Raft begins to submerge back into ocean. Thank god she’s out of that fish bowl…

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

MEANWHILE…

Location: A.I.M “Kratos” Facility, New Jeresy

As she is close to arriving to her mission location, Yelena Belova, continues to listen to music on her iPhone. “I come and I go. Prove you’ve got the right to please me. Everybody knows. Catch me or I go…”^ she sings to herself before fully realising she’s where she needs to be. She pauses the music on her phone, turns the phone onto sleep mode, takes out her EarPods and puts both away in her tactical vest. Now it’s time to be serious.

Advanced Idea Mechanics. A.I.M for short. She’s known about them quite a while now. They were supposed to be dismantled after Tony Stark took out their former leader, Aldrich Killian, who went insane with the now infamous Exteremis experiments*. Regardless, they reorganised themselves into their current form. A group of scientists and inventors determined to change the world… but when you’ve got people like Justin Hammer (former criminal who’s well known for trying to steal the Iron Man technology**), Darren Cross (Hank Pym’s former protégé who’s been driven insane trying to recreate the Pym Particles and been defeated by the Ant-Man, Scott Lang***, on numerous occasions), Monica Rappaccini (a twisted scientist who genetically modified her own daughter with toxins, transforming her into Spider-Man’s reoccurring foe, the Scorpion) and George Tarleton (surprisingly, the only decent person out of the lot of them. Seeks a way to cure ALS - which he also has early stages of - through science, but still hasn’t made a breakthrough yet), it doesn’t encourage signs ups. Somewhere in this old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of New Jersey that they sieged as their ‘Kratos’ facility, lies A.I.M’s currently only attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum… And that’s what Yelena’s been hired to steal.

After putting her iPhone and EarPods away into her tactical vest, she quickly checks her outfit. The contrast of the dark grey of her tactical vest stood out from her white leather catsuit. Yelena doesn’t care. As a former Black Widow, she’ll be able to remain in the shadows and infiltrate ‘Kratos’ without detection. She hides behind a corner of the facility’s walls to watch A.I.M’s security officers’ patrol routes. Yelena waits and notices a narrow opening where she can slide into a nearby vent entry that should allow her access into the deepest parts of the facility where they should be keeping the recreation of the serum. Waiting for the patrol to line up with the narrow opening once more, Yelena takes the risk, runs towards the facility’s entrance and slides into the open vent before the patrolling guards would be able to spot her. Given their job as security for A.I.M, they should really check their vents, a pesky Black Widow can easily get in there with ease.

Inside the vent, Yelena begins to crawl further into ‘Kratos’. She controls her breathing to be more quiet and less detectable by anyone who’s stood below any of the vent entrances. As she gets deeper into the facility, she overhears two A.I.M scientists above her.

“Progress on Compound 97 is steady”. The first scientist, a smartly dressed black man with a buzz cut, states.

“But still not enough progress for human testing?” The other, a caucasian woman in her forties, asks.

“The compound is still volatile in its current state outside of its containment”. The first scientist admits they’re nowhere near close to even guinea pigs trials yet.

“Be thankful it’s Hammer doing routine inspection today rather than Cross or Rappaccini. He won’t care about the compound’s progress while the cybernetic argumentation wing is making significant progress. You know how he craves the life Stark leads.” The second scientist quietly warns. “You never see anything of Tarleton these days, do you?” She asks her colleague.

“Last I’ve heard, he’s slowly deteriorating with the ALS. That’s why he’s desperate for Compound 97’s completion. If he needs it from its current holding place down the corridor, he’ll send Rappaccini in his steed, and then we’re all screwed”. The first scientist answers as both A.I.M scientists head back to their work stations. Yelena makes a mental note of Hammer’s presence as well as the location of Compound 97. She keeps moving and prays that she won’t raise any alarms. Hopefully her ‘colleague’ will do the same. She continues to crawl in the vents towards where A.I.M is holding the serum recreation.

Yelena slowly and quietly opens the vent in the corridor that connects to Compound 97 to survey her surroundings. Three guards protect the entrance to the compound’s holding area. The heavy duty metal door requires a facial scan for entry. She checks her tactical vest. Thank god she brought smoke bombs with her this time. She’s gonna need them. Yelena slowly rolls one of the smoke bombs into the middle of the corridor which gains the attention of the guards. The first guard walks slowly towards the bomb and as he reaches it, the bomb goes off. PFFFT! Smoke covers the corridor as Yelena gets herself out of the vent. She takes a couple of steps back in order to build momentum. She begins running then jumps to the right side of the corridor’s wall before jumping to the left. In one extremely smooth manoeuvre, Yelena jumps from the left side of the wall and lands on the closest guard’s shoulders. With a quick twist of her body, she uses her thighs to snap the guard’s neck. They crumple to the floor like a sack of potatoes which leads Yelena to follow suit. As she rolls on the ground, she pulls out her trusty Glock 26, and as she returns right side up, quickly dispatches the remaining two guards with a shot in their heart each. As the smoke fades away, Yelena returns her Glock 26 to her tactical vest and goes to the body of first guard she killed and drags it to the metal door. She slams their face to the facial scanner.

“Access granted.” the scanner announces as the door slowly opens. Yelena drops the guard’s body on the floor as she walks into the room.

Inside the surprisingly large holding room for Compound 97, stands a large window that looks out to the courtyard of the ‘Kratos’ facility. She takes a moment to observe that the courtyard is empty. Those scientists did say Hammer was doing a routine inspection. So, all hands on deck inside. She then ponders how her ‘colleague’ is distracting the rest of A.I.M from her presence. She turns to see the podium in the centre of the room that houses a glass chamber. Inside said chamber is Compound 97, housed in a glass test tube that’s mechanically sealed at both ends to ensure the compound doesn’t escape from its containment. Next to the podium is a keypad. Yelena assumes a code’s required to unlock the chamber that houses the test tube. Luckily for her, her contract came with the code. She types 6702 into the pad and hears an audible click immediately after. She’s in.

Just as she’s about to grab the test tube, a white arm fades into existence that tries to grab it before her. Yelena involuntarily punches the arm away and grabs the tube with her other hand. She looks to see a person dressed in an all white combat gear. She’s can’t see a face as there’s a hood covering their hair and a mask with three night vision lenses for eyes (two smaller lenses on the right and one large lense on the left). Yelena quickly realises who she’s about to face. Black ops operative Ghost. She had a feeling things were a bit too easy. Before Yelena can pull out her Glock 26 again, Ghost immediately lead hooks her which temporarily stuns the White Widow. Through that lead hook, Ghost manages to knock Yelena’s iPhone within her tactical vest. It begins to continue playing the music Yelena was listening to before she infiltrated the facility. Instead of playing through her EarPods, the phone decides to play the music loudly on its speaker.

“…Houdini. If you’re good enough to find a way. Maybe you could cause a girl to change…” the music plays from Yelena’s phone as Ghost fades in and out. She moves around Yelena before she grabs the compound from her tactical vest followed by a hook kick and a series of short jabs. Yelena quickly regains her focus from Ghost’s attacks and notices a pattern of her ‘fading’. Weirdly, to the beat of the song.

“…her ways. Do you think about it night and day?” Yelena times her punches to the beat and they actually hit Ghost a couple of times before the black ops operative begins to swerve to dodge her blows. In a brief moment of realisation, Yelena remembers that she’s wearing her widow gauntlets. Why the hell hasn’t she been using her Widow Bites? She stops fighting Ghost as she fades back in. Ghost, mistakingly thinking Yelena’s given up, tries to run out into the corridor.

“…Maybe you could be the one to make me stay stay stay…” As the song begins to echo and go into its instrumental bridge, Yelena positions herself ready to fire the Widow’s Kiss.

“Thwip” Yelena states smugly as she’s got the perfect aim on Ghost. She fires a Widow’s Kiss that instantly hits Ghost in the back who falls to the floor with the shock. As Ghost struggles to move, Yelena gets her iPhone out of her pocket. She turns it off and places it back into her tactical vest. She then walks up to Ghost’s crumpled body and takes Compound 97 from black ops operative’s hands.

“You know he’s gonna sue you, right?” Ghost barely gets her words out.

“Who? Spider-Man? Oh, please. He doesn’t have financial support like the other Avengers. Why else would he sell photos of himself to that Daily Bugle paper? Face it, the Spider’s a bum”. Yelena quips as Ghost begins to recover from the Widow’s Kiss. In that moment, Yelena knew she had run. She remembers the large window that looks out to the facility’s courtyard. It’s her only option. She quickly pulls out her glock 26 from her vest and fires at the window, shattering the glass as she launches herself through it…

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

Location: New York City

The concrete jungle of New York City looks so insignificant when you’re in the clouds above it. Layla El-Faouly already knew this but for Shang-Chi, it’s a first time experience. Layla clocks his wondrous look at the city below from Val’s helicopter.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Layla asks having softened her stance on the former protege to The Ten Rings. They’ve opened up to each other on the copter ride from The Raft. It doesn’t mean she’s entirely forgiven him for what he did to her in Cairo, but she doesn’t exactly hate him like she did while she was stuck in the fish bowl of a prison.

“I’ve heard the name people give NYC. How could it be a concrete jungle? But looking at it from this perspective, it does really look like that”. Shang-Chi laments as Val’s helicopter gets lower in altitude.

“We’re arriving to our destination, folks”. The pilot announces as the helicopter stops its descent and Layla realises where they’re heading towards. The former Avengers Tower that’s behind Central Station. Layla paid attention to the news and kept the knowledge that Tony Stark sold the former Avengers headquarters to a mysterious buyer a few years ago*. After they sold it, the Avengers moved into their current headquarters, the Avengers Compound in Upstate New York. While the News reported about the sale of the tower, they never disclosed the “anonymous buyer” publicly which lead to many conspiracy theories. Some believed that Wilson Fisk bought it. Others thought Reed Richards did the deed. Turns out, it was just this mysterious woman who came into Layla’s life unexpectedly. Layla connects these metaphorical dots together as the helicopter lands on the tower’s helipad. The blades slowly decreasing their speed to a satisfying halt. Val is the first one to leave the helicopter followed by Layla and Shang-Chi after the pilot opens the passenger doors.

“Welcome to Fontaine Tower. Former Stark and Avenger. It belongs to me now”. Val introduces her headquarters to the heroic duo behind her. The trio walk inside. Layla notices Val has kept the bar Tony Stark had installed right next to the helipad entrance to the tower. Weirdly, she continues to observe her surroundings and realises that Val really hasn’t changed much since Tony owned the Tower. Maybe the interior decor has changed from Tony’s playboy sensibilities to Val’s more practical businesswoman vibes. She notices Shang-Chi is also weighing up his surroundings underneath his zen demeanour. Val walks towards the elevator at the back of the large living space and presses the down button to summon the lift. “If you’re both done gawping”. Val says with a bit of bluntness to her voice. Both Shang-Chi and Layla’s attention finally turn to her. “I get it though. The battles that occurred here…”

“The Battle of New York**.” Layla interrupts.

“The birth of Ultron***”. Shang-Chi adds. He is quickly reminded how the damn A.I is still out there somewhere despite the Avengers foiling its efforts to wipe out humanity. It’s just waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

“Exactly”. Val nods. “There’s so much history here. And now we stand in its hallowed halls”. A loud ding alerts them to the lift’s arrival as its doors opens. “Shall we?” Val gestures as the trio enter the tower’s lift. The doors shut behind them before they descend.

A silence covers the lift before Shang-Chi asks the most important question. “Is it just the two of us?”

“Oh please. The team’s coming together. My people are collecting half of our ranks from across the Hudson now.” Val quickly explains before taking a brief moment to inspect the level the lift is going down to. It is definitely the right one. She continues “And as for where we’re going now, two more members are waiting for us at the bottom of his lift”.

“We’re going pretty far down, aren’t we?” Layla asks noticing the lift level has gone from zero to minus one and counting.

“Did you know Tony Stark built a bunker underneath the tower? After The Battle of New York and the damage the Hulk inflicted onto this building, Stark came up with safety precautions. In case the big guy came out and Banner couldn’t keep his hands on the metaphorical wheel. The bunker is Hulk-proof. Nothing gets out of there unless you want them to”. Val reveals which gets Layla thinking. Who the hell is strong enough that Val needs to keep them in the Hulk-proof bunker underneath the tower? The lift comes to a slow stop. Level minus five. Pretty damn deep. Ain’t no way a Hulk can climb out of here even if they could break out of the bunker.

As the lift doors open, music fills the room. Shang-Chi immediately recognises it. Layla doesn’t know it exactly but she does recognise it from some Bollywood film she watched with Marc Spector a little while back. Might it have been one of Sri Kingo’s classics? Regardless, the sounds of a reoccurring drum line fill the lift space as the trio see a man with raggedy brunette hair standing with his back facing them. Shang-Chi gives Layla a look of confusion to which she returns before they continue to look at the man who extends his arms as the drum line reaches its crescendo. As the music reaches the crescendo, the man turns around to reveal he is of mexican descent and seems to be wearing Día de los Muertos inspired make up. He grins as he walks towards them. Val scoffs as she realises that the man must of been practising this routine ever since she told him that she was picking up ‘recruits’ from The Raft.

The mysterious man walks up to greet Layla. “Name’s Jack Russell.” He introduces himself smoothly with a sly hint of flirting.

“Layla El-Faouly and I’m a married woman.” She introduces herself and quickly shoots down his move.

“Well, whoever the lucky fellow is, he’s an extremely lucky man”. He quickly bounces back before shaking Shang-Chi’s hand. “Jack Russell.” He repeats himself.

“Shang-Chi”. The former protege of The Ten Rings says firmly like his hand shake. Jack is quick to let go and for a brief moment rubs his hand to ease the tension from it. He then turns around to reveal the rest of the bunker… that’s been turned into a bit of a dorm room. One queen sized bed in the corner, a toilet and sink at the other side and opposite the bed is a TV… and some green moss?

“Where is his manners?” Jack mutters before he claps his hands. “Ted. We got company!” Jack says to seemingly thin air before the pile of green moss starts to move to reveal a being that’s a similar size to The Hulk. In both height and muscle mass. Its face on the other hand? Big button like red eyes and three tentacle looking tendrils dangling where its nose and mouth is supposed to be. Both Layla and Shang-Chi take two steps back in fear.

“What the hell is that thing?” Layla asks in horror. Jack tries to calm them down.

“This is my friend, Ted”. Jack introduces the towering behemoth that stood in front of them.

“It has a name?!” Shang-Chi barely gets his words out. His zen-like demeanour just straight out of the bunker. Ted groans and whimpers to which Jack comforts him.

“He has feelings, you know?” Jack tells his new acquaintances before going back to comforting Ted. “It’s okay. It’s okay”.

Before Layla and Shang-Chi can get the obvious questions out of the way, Val beats them to the punch. “Turns out, there’s an entire hidden supernatural world underneath what we know. I found these two in Times Square last week. From what I’ve seen these do, they’ll be very valuable in what I need you for.”

“And what can they do?” Layla asks as Shang-Chi attempts to shake Ted’s hand but before he can, Jack immediately stops him.

“You don’t want to touch him”. Jack bluntly states.

“Why?” Shang-Chi confusingly asks.

“Go ahead. Give Ted a handshake, but if you combust into an acidity mess on the floor here, don’t go blaming me!” Jack sarcastically says causing Shang-Chi to stop seeking a hand shake from Ted.

“So, Green Giant can turn people into acid. Good to know”. Layla makes a note not to touch Ted who groans again.

“He’s really a big softie. Just misunderstood.” Jack translates for his friend.

“And what about you?” Layla turns her attention to Jack. “What do you do?”

“Oh, me? You’re looking at a very successful monster hunter.” Jack answers.

“Like the Capcom games.” Shang-Chi adds smugly.

“The what?” Jack asks in a state of confusion to which Shang-Chi walks up to Jack and places his right arm across Jack’s shoulders.

“We have much to discuss”. Shang-Chi quietly states as he nods. Layla turns to face Val who’s been suspiciously quiet for a while now.

“Is this it?” She asks with a tempted tone.

“Like I told you earlier, my people are out collecting our final members as we speak. Seems like they’re a bit delayed though”. Val answers.

“And once we’re all together, what’s the mission?” Shang-Chi raising the other elephant in the room.

“By now, you all should have noticed all of you are connected to the hidden supernatural underbelly of our world in some form. Scarlet Scarab with the Egyptian gods…” Val begins to answer.

“How do you know that?” Layla is blindsided by Val’s knowledge of the Ennead.

“It’s kinda your whole shtick, hon”. Val masterfully jokes while gesturing to all of Layla before going back to her original point. “Shang-Chi’s connected to the realm of Ta-Lo…” Her brief mention of his home reality causes him to raise his eyebrow with curiosity and a sense of trepidation. “…Jack’s an ‘actual’ monster hunter and ‘Ted’…” she continues before she struggles to figure out how to describe the weird Hulk-like thing she’s managed to keep in the Tower’s bunker. “…is ‘Ted’”. She gracefully uses the right way to describe it without offending him or Jack. “Our remaining members have experience in black ops and underground warfare across the board”. She explains why she’s gathering the other members of the team.

“So, supernatural and black ops. How the hell does these polar opposites intersect with each other? Cause to me, they clearly don’t”. Layla interrupts in pure bafflement.

Val answers with a swift and clear answer “Our foe does”. This gains all of their attention. Somebody with both supernatural and black ops experience would be a force to be reckoned with. “And that foe has a name. The Balsphemy Cartel”. She finally speaks the name of the group she needs these ragtag team to take down. A silence quickly fills the room.

Layla is the one to ask the question the rest of the ‘team’ wants to ask but clearly don’t quite have the guts to speak it into existence. “Who?”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

MEANWHILE…

Location: The streets of New York City

In the bustling streets of the Big Apple, nobody really pays attention to the herds of people around them. Among the crowds are two teenagers. One of which is a young girl whose looks indicate she’s in her mid twenties but in reality, she’s only sixteen. With shoulder length blonde curly hair and a small hint of mascara under her eyes, it would definitely be hard to believe she’s a student of the Strange Academy. The school that Doctor Strange founded just shy of a year ago following his discovery of an surge of young people with talent for the mystic arts; with no teacher to guide them and warn them of the cost magic always requires*. This young girl has a streak of confidence in her as she’s searching the streets of New York City for something…

“How much longer till you find it, Amethyst?” The other teenager began to whine as his legs began to ache. They must of been around the entire city looking for this thing his fellow student is so determined to find. Unlike Amethyst, this young man has a severe case of the baby face. Looking a lot younger than what he actually is. With oddly cute cubby cheeks and freckles, one could easily mistake this teenager as a stand in for a young Rupert Grint. Amethyst turns into a dark and empty alley away from the hustle and bustle of the busy main drag of the city. The young man groans as he quickly follows her. He turns into the alleyway to see Amethyst standing in front of a weird looking door. While the door looks like a traditional entrance to an apartment complex, it has something akin to a hex symbol with a ton of norse runes and other mystic symbols that both teenagers couldn’t quite interpret quite yet. It’s probably something they’ll learn in their second year at Strange Academy.

“I told you it was here, Caspian!” Amethyst proclaims as she pumps her fist in the air in victory. She found the entrance to it.

“Are you definitely sure this is it?” the young man asks, knowing from his studies that there are some hidden doorways in New York City that lead to alternate dimensions. Some interesting like the paint universe. Others incredibly dangerous like the demon homeland of Limbo and Dormammu’s home-turf of the Dark Dimension.

“From my studies in Asgard: A History, the runes here confirm this is exactly what I’ve been looking for”. Amethyst excited answers before she opens the door.

Caspian’s mouth drops upon seeing what lies on the other side of the mysterious door. Amethyst grabs him by his academy blazer and the two walk through the door to somewhere that honestly looks like it was pulled straight out of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. A fantasy bazar full of street vendors and a variety of fantasy creatures roaming around it. Goblins, Dark Elves, Angels, Fairies, Demons, Sorcerers, Asgardians. If you could name them, you could see at least one of them in the crowds in this mysterious marketplace. Caspian manages to pick his jaw off the floor as he follows his fellow Strange Academy student. “I can’t believe this place is real.” He barely manages to get his words out in disbelief.

“I’ve known about The Shrouded Bazaar for years. Just never knew where the entrance was here on Earth”. Amethyst explains before her friend interrupts her.

“You knew where the entrance is back home on Asgard, don’t you?” he asks to which she briefly nods to confirm his suspicion.

“Oh yeah. Momma just never let me through that door as much as I wanted to see it”. She explains before they continue walking through the bazaar. After a moment, Amethyst turns around to face Caspian while walking and speaks once more. “I hope they’ve got Muspelheim fire-wasp wrap her somewh-“. Before she can finish talking, she accidentally bumps into a bazaar patron. A towering muscular man with a dwarf-like beard who turns to face both Strange Academy students. He looks furious at them at first but as soon as he realises they are students of Doctor Strange’s school; his expression turns to soft and gentle.

“What are you two young ‘uns doing here?” the towering man asks in gruff but gentle voice to both of the terrified students. Caspian swallows before speaking.

“My friend here has been looking for this place for an awfully long time. The whole day actually. And we’re absolutely starving for a…” He improvises before turning to Amethyst and whispering “what was it again?”

“Muspelheim fire-wasp wrap” she carefully whispers.

“…a Muspelheim fire-wasp wrap…” Caspian repeats louder for the towering man to hear before continuing. “So, if we pay for you to have one, we would gratefully appreciate of you could give us some directions to a vendor who might serve them?” He finishes speaking. The towering man inspects both teenagers for a moment before laughing. Caspian and Amethyst look at each other in confusion while the man chuckles to himself before his laughter dies down.

“I’ll take you there myself. Considering this young woman here is like me, Asgardian.” The towering man offers.

“How do you know that?” Amethyst asks.

“Look, nobody asks for Muspelheim fire-wasp wrap unless they’re Asgardian or in the company of an Asgardian”. The man quickly answers before turning to Caspian “Word of advice, mate. You’re gonna need a side of Heven Mayo with it. Otherwise, your human taste buds won’t work for a good month”. The man begins walking as Amethyst and Caspian follow.

“We didn’t get your name?” Caspian asks.

“Where are my manners? The name’s Lucan”. The towering man finally introduces himself.

— — —

One Muspelheim Fire-Wasp Wrap Later…

As Caspian, Amethyst and Lucan finish off their wraps at a picnic table, the trio watch the hustle and bustle of the bazar’s activities. From the hammering of a Vanahiem blacksmith near by to the screams of a Limbo Demon offering “eternal burning coals from the heart of Limbo”, The Shrouded Bazaar screams life. Caspian dipped the last bit of his wrap into the Heven Mayo dip before placing it into his mouth. Lucan was definitely right. Even with the mayo, the wrap was on the edge of his spice tolerance. He then grabbed a napkin, wiped his mouth clean with it before turning to Lucan.

“This place is so spectacular”. He says in awe.

“It is quite nice, isn’t it? The average Joe in the concrete jungle outside wouldn’t believe the supernatural half-world that lies at the core of the Big Apple”. Lucan adds.

“And all it being hidden from the outside with memory charms and the like?” Amethyst asks the towering man who has now become a friend to both of the students.

“Well, more or less. Plus the runes. And all the other stuff that I can’t quite understand myself.” Lucan answers with a bit of chuckle. “For those without the gift of mystic arts or not been touched by the supernatural, they just see the entrance to this place as a seedy alleyway where a mugging would happen if they were to proceed down it”. He continues to explain. He pauses to drink a small potion bottle of some kind that Caspian notices has a dark blue liquid inside it. The man finishes gulping.

“So, who controls the Bazaar then?” Caspian asks a question that raises Amethyst’s eyebrows.

“You know, that is a good question. Never thought to ask momma it back home”. She adds to which Lucan looks a bit nervous.

“We control ourselves here. This is a free bazar for all creatures in the Ten Realms. No one runs us”. He firmly states.

“Has anyone tried to control things before?” Amethyst asks out of curiosity.

“The Kingpin of crime out there tired his hand. Luckily for us, magic in all its form proved to be too tricky for him to grasp. The Hood also attempted it but he understood magic less well than he had thought.” Lucan confidently answers before he stops. He looks around to ensure nobody was overheating their conversation. “There’s the newbies in town who attempted it last week.”

“Who?” Caspian asks quietly.

“The Blasphemy Cartel. Seeking the bazaar only for mystical artefacts to power their experiments. No desire to keep this place free and ripe of magical potential. Just a power station for their own mysterious needs.” Lucan answers in a low whisper. Both Caspian and Amethyst look at each other to confirm their thoughts. Maybe this is something their headmaster should look into…If both of them even knew where he was. They look back at Lucan. “They barged in here last week think we would easily fold. We told them where to stick it…in a lack of better term. They won’t be back”. Lucan finishes  explaining in his low whisper. Both Amethyst and Caspian stand up from their picnic table.

“Well, that has been lovely. We best be heading back out into the concrete jungle outside.” Amethyst says as she wipes her mouth with a blazer sleeve, ensuring there’s nothing stuck to her mouth.

“Hey, can I ask you both a favor?” Lucan asks before continuing “If you two ever spot a man with Dia De Los Muertos-like make up called ‘Jack’, tell him that he still owes his friend, Lucan, twenty bucks!” He laughs.

“Nice meeting you, Lucan.” Caspian says before the two Strange Academy students begin to leave Lucan’s sight through a sling-ring portal.

“Just be careful, kiddo! Don’t go sticking your heads into places you should be”. He shouts before chuckling to himself. “Bloody Strange Academy kids.” He says to himself before he huffs. “Okay. Back to work.” He tells himself before beginning to walk to his blacksmith shop. Lucan opens it up and places a glass container on the windowsill. Inside the container is a mysterious glowing blue shard. It looks like it is pulsating with energy.

Opposite Lucan’s shop is a hooded man with a long white beard. He is in a long robe that covers his face and holds a long staff with a white gem at the top of it. After taking another look at Lucan’s mysterious pulsating shard, the hooded man walks down a back alley of the bazaar and checks to make sure nobody is looking. The man taps his staff on the floor once as he magically transforms from an old man to a military combat ready soldier dressed in all black and a matching balaclava with the number ‘47’ written in white on the forehead. His staff is now a tactical rifle and with his free hand, the mysterious man grabs a walkie-talkie from his tactical vest. He activates it and begins to speak; “This is Nobody-47. I have found the prize. Calling for an immediate regroup to strategise prize extraction”.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

MEANWHILE…

Location: Outside A.I.M “Kratos” Facility, New Jeresy

Yelena Belova stumbles to the harsh asphalt ground after breaking that window and failing to land properly in the process. She turns her head to barely notice that Ghost is still on her trail. Yelena quickly pulls herself up from the ground and before she can continue running; a near eardrum piercing alarm begins to sound. A.I.M knows she’s here. Yelena quickly grabs her retractable electrified batons from her tactical vest ready to fight her way out.

“What do you call this, Yelena?” A male voice shouts to her. Both Yelena and Ghost turn to see a man with rough and ruggy brunette hair… and an incredibly shiny metallic arm, heading towards them as he fights off two A.I.M security guards effortlessly.

“Nice for you to show up, Bucky”. Yelena answers with a sharp yet friendly quip. Before she can get closer to him, she hears the footsteps of more A.I.M security guards. She turns to see a trio of guards running out of the facility’s back doors fully armed and ready for a fight.

“There they are!” One of the guards roars but before they can shoot our heroes. Bucky’s metal arm mysteriously grows mechanical tentacles that wrap around the necks of the three guards. Yelena looks back at Bucky who’s looking at his arm with equal amounts of surprise, curiosity and horror. The guards fall unconscious from the lack of air before the mechanical tentacles retract back into Bucky’s metal arm.

“What. The. Hell.” Yelena struggles to get her words out as Ghost reappears in front of her to reclaim Compound 97 from her. The two women engage in an eloquent battle that looks more like a fine tuned piece of ballet than actual combat. Before Ghost can steal Compound 97 from Yelena’s tactical vest, she feels four mechanical tentacles wrap around each arm and leg. She’s restrained. In that brief moment, Yelena grabs the glass test tube of Compound 97 from the vest and throws it on the ground before stamping on it to ensure it breaks. As the liquid oozes away from the broken tube’s remains, the mechanical tentacles that were restraining Ghost release her and cover themselves with as much of Compound 97 as it can before they retract back into Bucky’s metal arm. “Okay. We seriously need to talk about that arm”. Yelena turns to see Bucky trying to understand it himself. Ghost slowly picks herself back up as she realises her mission has failed and there’ll be more A.I.M guards on their way.

“Project Kobik.” Bucky states.

“What?” Yelena asks him to repeat in confusion.

“The arm. It’s one of Princess Shuri’s technological experiments. A gift from Wakanda for giving them Baron Zemo as their prisoner instead of the US Government*. Shuri warned me that she used a Cosmic Shard in its creation…” Bucky begins to explain the unpredictable nature of his new metal arm to which even Ghost is curious to know about.

“Hold on. A Cosmic Shard. Oh no.” Yelena mutters in disbelief.

“What’s one of those?” Ghost asks.

“As far as I know, they’re supposed to be the remains of the heart of a dead Celestial. Carol Danvers and the Guardians of the Galaxy discovered the source of them not so long ago. The headless remains of Knowhere…” Bucky begins to answer.

“It’s definitely somewhere. Not nowhere.” Yelena comments not knowing that Knowhere is a real place in the galaxy.

“No. Knowhere. The headquarters for the Guardians deep in space. Try to keep up, Yelena.” Bucky scorns the White Widow before he continues to explain the Cosmic Shards. “Here’s the thing. Before Danvers and the Guardians could investigate the Celestial corpse further; they were locked out of it. The planet were it resides is sealed by ancient magic.” He continues to explain.

“Could Doctor Strange break that mystical lock?” Yelena asks.

“He’s gone. Vanished without a trace. His wife, Clea**, has been trying to move heaven and earth to get him back since.” Bucky answered with his extremely limited knowledge on the matter. Before he could continue to explain his new ‘Project Kobik’ arm, the main warehouse doors of the A.I.M facility began to slowly open. Bucky, Yelena and Ghost turn to see the doors and begin to mentally prepare for the conflict ahead. A new piercing alarm rings in momentary intervals for a few moments before the alarm changes to some music. Bucky recognises the music as something from the 1980’s^. He can’t recall the exact song from his mind at the moment though. With a big enough gap in doors, a smartly dressed man in a grey business suit and bright blue tie begins to walk toward our three heroes. Well, to say it’s a walk is a bit of a miscommunication cause the man begins to shuffle to the beat of the music. As if the bass line just flows straight through his body. Thick rimmed glasses, perfectly combed and jelled brunette hair and an aura of smug superiority radiating from him. Yelena immediately knows who this man is. Fucking Justin Hammer himself. He stops a few steps away from our heroes before he begins to slowly clap. Condescending them with ‘big dick on campus’ energy that radiates from his smug face.

“Well, well. I wondered when the Avengers would finally turn up on my doorsteps. Turns out I get the B-Team. What are you guys? The West Coast Avengers?” Hammer mocks them.

“Oh. Try and remember that. Could be good for expansion purposes later. Tony would be all over that”. Bucky quietly mutters to Yelena.

“Noted.” She quietly answers. Hammer doesn’t wait for the trio to respond to him before continuing.

“So, here’s the deal. You return Compound 97 to us and I’ll let you walk away unharmed. Look, how generous I’m being. Unharmed. Monica, Darren and Georgie-Boy wouldn’t let ya do that but good ol’ Justin Hammer is just too nice”. He offers to which Ghost chuckles to herself. Hammer notices and asks “What’s so funny about my generosity?”

“The Widow here already smashed it to dust before Winter Soldier’s new arm here consumed the remains like it was the last meal it would ever eat on this earth”. Ghost openly admits the truth before Hammer grunts in disappointment.

“Listen. This isn’t my usual arm here, Hammer. It’s-“ Bucky tries to explain but Hammer immediately interrupts him.

“Seems like it’s time to try out the latest in A.I.M robotics, then.” He rips the right sleeve off his business suit to reveal cybernetic enhancements to his right arm. Yelena notices that A.I.M’s roboticists clearly got the memo that Hammer’s cybernetics had to have a look similar to that Cyberpunk video game. Cause clearly, why design something new when you can blatantly rip off something from someone else? No wonder he’s fascinated by the latest A.I technology. Hammer then flicks his right arm for the cybernetics to reveal a long sharp blade that comes out his skin like a sword in a scabbard. It definitely confirms Yelena’s suspicions. It’s a damn mantis blade. Yeah. A.I.M is definitely out of fresh ideas. Hammer then uses his free left hand to pull the other sleeve off to reveal another mantis blade on his left arm.

“What do you think, huh? We liked the design of the praying mantis and thought…” Hammer begins to explain before Yelena interrupts him.

“You played Cyberpunk and thought why can’t I have some of that in real life, didn’t you?” Yelena mocks which blindsights Hammer. He turns to his fellow A.I.M guards before turning back to Yelena, Bucky and Ghost.

“Is it really that obvious?” Hammer asks.

“Yeah. Definitely is.” Yelena answers at point blank.

“Oh well. Doesn’t matter. You three won’t be alive to tell anyone about my copyright infringement.” Hammer states as he prepares to attack but before he can strike at Bucky and Yelena, Ghost fades in and out before grabbing one of the mantis blades and yanking it out of Hammer’s arm. “What the f-“ Hammer tries to comprehend what’s going on with the pain of the first mantis blade being ripped from his arm before Ghost fades back into existence and ripping the other blade from his other arm. Hammer then falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes, defeated before he could even strike.

“Right. That’s sorted then. How about a coffee with a job well done?” Yelena remarks to Bucky and Ghost but before they can leave, she notices a new group of soldiers behind them. From the balaclavas on their heads to the steel toe boots on their feet, every part of these soldiers were covered in beige apart from the weird blasters they were welding.

“Yelena Bolova, Bucky Barnes, Ava Starr. You’re coming with us.” One of the soldiers exclaims.

“Under whose’s authority?” Bucky asks.

“Ours.” Another soldier coldly answers before all of the soldiers pull the trigger on their blasters which begin to release a hyper sonic screech that pierces through Yelena, Bucky and Ghost’s ears. The trio drop to the floor as the soldiers loosen the triggers. Another soldier throws five small circular spheres around the heroes. The spheres open to reveal an electrical current that connected to each one of the spheres. One last soldier then grabs three power dampening collars and manages to get through the spheres’ electrical current to put the collars on Yelena, Bucky and Ghost. Before she can protest, Yelena passes out with Ghost and Bucky quickly following.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

TWO HOURS LATER…

Location: Fontaine Tower, New York City

After coming to terms with the fact there’s a mysterious cartel that Val needs exterminating with a team composed of black ops operatives and supernatural-touched beings like herself; Layla finds herself at Val’s built in home bar and makes herself a glass of rum and coke. She downs the drink in one go. Layla definitely needs the alcohol in her body to fully comprehend the situation she finds herself in. Why does it phase her when she’s the living avatar for the Egyptian Goddess of child birth and fertility and her husband is the Fist of Khonshu? Layla doesn’t understand it. She then notices Shang-Chi and Jack coming to join her at the Bar. She knows that Ted feels comfortable in the bunker and is relaxing down there. The two men sit at the bar as Layla is ready to become bartender for them.

“What will be it, fellas?” She asks them.

“You got a bourbon back there, Scarab?” Shang-Chi asks her before Layla searches the bar. Pretty much every alcoholic drink under the sun is in there. From Lager to Rum, Val’s definitely stocked up.

“Coming right up, Master of Kung-Fu!” Layla states as she grabs the bottle of bourbon whiskey from underneath the bar and a large pint glass.

“Master of The Ten Rings, yeah”. He begins to correct her as he feels some of the rings on his arm. For a brief moment, he’s reminded of his father, Wenwu, when he bequeathed the rings before his death at the hands of The Dweller-In-Darkness*. While he knows that he doesn’t want to become the villain that his father became; Shang-Chi still feels a tinge of sadness at the brief memory replaying in his mind. “Master of Kung-Fu? Definitely not. Bruce Lee and Donnie Yen both hold that title in my humble opinion”. He finishes correcting Layla.

“Don’t sell yourself short. I’ve witnessed your abilities first hand. You’re just as good as they are in the movies”. Layla responds as she pours the pint to just below the top of the glass. “Here.”

She passes the drink to Shang-Chi who proceeds to take sip. Layla’s attention turns to Jack. “What about you, Monster Hunter?” She playfully asks him.

“I’ll take a coke, thanks.” He answers softly. As Shang-Chi finishes his first sip of his bourbon, he turns to face Jack.

“Come on, man. It’s an open bar. Take something stronger.” Shang-Chi quickly berates him.

“Alcohol just doesn’t do me any good”. Jack quickly explains.

“You religious or something?” Layla kindly asks as she knows Islams and some Buddhists don’t partake in active drinking.

“I don’t believe in any.” Jack answers.

“So, take a whiskey…” Shang-Chi states before playfully adding “…or is the big bad monster hunter scared?”

“It just doesn’t anything for me. Doesn’t heighten my abilities nor gives me a sense of thrill unlike other people”. He firmly explains before turning back to Layla. “A Coke, please.”

“Coming right up!” She states as she finds an unopened can of Coke in the mini fridge next to the bar and passes it to Jack.“Cheers.” He thanks her before taking a sip. The trio then hear the ring of the elevator shift as the lift opens. Layla, Shang-Chi and Jack turn to face the lift as the remaining members of their team have finally arrived.

“No way.” Shang-Chi mutters to himself as Bucky Barnes is the first person to leave the lift. How the hell has ‘Val’ managed to recruit a former Avenger? And the Winter Soldier no less! Layla begins to weigh up her new ‘teammates’. Baring the Winter Soldier, the other two members are unknowns to her. One looks like a Diet Coke Natasha Romanoff with a blonde layered bob haircut. The other looked more like a teenage girl than a young woman with her youthful face and shoulder length brunette hair.

“Val!” Yelena begins to shout in frustration while ignoring the bar patrons. After a brief moment, she tries again. “Valentinaaaa!” Only silence fills the room as Bucky, Ava, Layla, Shang-Chi and Jack just stare at her. “What? I know this is her doing”. She quickly defends her actions before joining the rest of them at the bar as Layla pours more drinks for the newcomers.

“Welcome strangers. Drinks are on the house.” Layla welcomes Bucky, Yelena and Ava as she finishes preparing their drinks and passes them to all three of the heroes. As Bucky takes a sip of his, he starts to recognise Layla.

“You’re the Scarlet Scarab?” Bucky asks her.

“Layla El-Faouly.” She introduces herself before Bucky shakes her hand. He turns to face Shang-Chi.

“That must mean you’re Shang-Chi?” Bucky asks him.

“In the flesh”. He playfully answers as he gives Bucky as fist bump. As they fist bump, Bucky then finally turns to face Jack.

“You on the other hand… You’re new?” Bucky’s lack of knowledge of him clearly shows. Jack gives a faint smile.

“The name’s Jack”. He coolly states before  giving Bucky a reassuring nod. As Bucky takes to Jack, Yelena heads towards the bar and looks at Layla.

“What are you supposed to be? The golden eagle, liberator for freedom?” Yelena joking asks her.

“Sounds like more of a gun name than a hero identity?” Layla plays along with her joke.

“Yeah. You would think so, but it’s the best name to describe what she is than picking something that she’s not. Like, imagine if she’s called the Scarlet Scarab.” Both Yelena and Layla chuckle to themselves for a moment with their playful banter. Yelena offers Layla her hand. They both shake hands. “I know who you are. I have to keep tabs on every enhanced who’s publicly known. It’s nice to finally meet you, Scarlet Scarab. I’m Yelena Belova.” She finally introduces herself to Layla.

“Yelena? You mean like former Black Widow, Yelena? Like Natasha Romanoff’s sister, Yelena?” Layla stunningly asks. She can’t be the same person as that Yelena surely? She seems like a genuine woman who would be fun to be around.

“So, you’ve heard of me then?” Yelena gives Layla a sly grin to confirm her suspicions. The Scarlet Scarab is about to ask the question on everyone’s lips. “Before you ask, no. I haven’t seen Natasha since we destroyed the Red Room. She went radio silent following that mess**. Didn’t even get in touch when The Sokovia Accords were abolished. Honestly thought that she got herself killed by Clint Barton somehow. Luckily, the cool Hawkeye put me on the right path***. Still, I’m still searching for Natasha. I miss her dearly.” She quickly answers and unexpectedly tells a bit of her life story in the process.

“A toast? To Natasha?” Layla comfortingly asks her as she notices Bucky moving on from Jack and begins talking to Shang-Chi. She also clocks the other mystery woman about to talk to Jack.

“To Natasha.” Yelena repeats before the two women clink their glasses and down their drinks.

Meanwhile, Jack notices the mystery woman sitting next to him at the bar. “What are you supposed to be?” He asks her.

“Could ask you the same question. Lost your way to the out of season Dia De Los Muertos festival?” Ghost responds which gets Jack chuckling.

“Fair point.” He says as he composes himself. “The name’s Jack Russell”. He offers her a handshake which she takes.

“Ava Starr.” She introduces herself before she asks about his name; “You mean like the dog breed? Your parents must have a sick sense of humour when they named you.” She quips.

To which, he responds with his only thought, “It wouldn’t surprise me to be honest with you”. After a moment and allowing Ghost to finish her drink, Jack has an epiphany. The newcomers haven’t met Ted yet! “You guys need to meet Ted!” Jack calls for Bucky, Yelena and Ghost.

“Who’s Ted?” Bucky asks.

“Trust me, man. You probably won’t want to know.” Shang-Chi quickly answers, still a bit traumatised over meeting Ted.

“He’s part of the team and loves to meet new people!” Jack quickly adds.

“Then why isn’t he up here with us?” Ava asking the important question.

“Cause he’s down chilling in the bunker with Valentina.” Jack answers.

“Why didn’t you start with that? I need to give her a piece of my mind.” Yelena responds in frustration as she heads towards the elevator. Layla, Shang-Chi, Jack, Bucky and Ava quickly follow her.

— — — — —

When they all finally arrive in the bunker underneath the Tower, Bucky, Yelena and Ava finally get a glimpse at their final teammate. While Ava is in awe at the creature, Bucky and Yelena are nonplused by Ted’s appearance.

“Great. We’ve got monsters now.” Bucky sighs knowing that there’s a whole new side of the universe that he and Yelena are gonna have to discover and mentally catalogue after all of this.

“Had you asked me up there, I could have told you that there’s a realm of monsters out there.” Jack quickly adds while he notices Ava in awe over Ted.

“He’s not a monster. Look at its eyes.” Ava tells Bucky and Yelena.

“His!” Jack corrects Ava as Bucky and Yelena look into Ted’s eyes. There’s no animalistic aggression in them. Just hope, kindness and sorrow. A moment of silence pierces the bunker as our heroes properly notice the empathy in Ted’s eyes.

“Oh, I see you’ve all bonded over drinks then.” Val interjects over the silence to which Yelena finally notices her.

“Okay, Valentina. What have you got us in for?” She asks in a disgruntled tone.

“Straight to the chase. That’s why I like you, Yelena.” Val playfully responds before she begins to explain to Ghost, Winter Solider and the former Black Widow what she’s already told Layla, Jack, Ted and Shang-Chi. “As you may of noticed, some of you are expert black operatives. Others are touched by the supernatural forces of our world. The Balsphemy Cartel are both”.

“Hang on. Who are The Balsphemy Cartel?” Yelena is stumped. Despite knowing all the players in the black ops world, that’s a name she’s never heard of.

“They’re the target. I need you folks to find them, shut down any operations they’re currently conducting and dismantle them before they gain a bigger foothold in our Big Apple.” Val continues to explain.

“That doesn’t answer her question. How do you know them if miss former Black Widow doesn’t?” Ava speaks up.

“I have my channels and sources, Ghost.” Val quickly answers while also expertly avoiding revealing all her cards in her hypothetical hands.

“And why do you care about them gaining more of a presence here?” Yelena suspiciously asks. Considering it was Val that sent her on the warpath against Clint Barton for something he didn’t even do, Yelena knows that there’s more to Val’s story that she’s unwilling to reveal.

“I can be a concerned private citizen who wants the best for this city, can’t I?” Val quietly asks her in a slight manipulative tone that only Yelena picks up on. She then continues her mission briefing. “Anyway, I pick you guys for this for your unique skills. We’ve got a Black Widow assassin, a one hundred-plus year old super soldier, the Avatar for an Egyptian goddess, a Ghostly assassin, the master of The Ten Rings, an actual monster hunter and…’Ted’.” At the mention of his name, Ted lets out a grunt of displeasure and sadness which Val picks up on. “Which is a good thing, big guy.” She quickly saves herself from ‘Ted’ disapproval. “You lot are gonna make a perfect team. The New Avengers!” Val finishes her mission briefing confidently to which Bucky sighs.

“We can’t call ourselves that.” He bluntly tells her.

“Why not? The team’s been gone since The Sokovia Accords. It’s about time they came back.” Val quickly responds.

Bucky sighs before he goes onto solemnly explains to Val and the rest of his new ‘teammates’; “There’s a reason they’ve not come back. The world showed what it thought of the Avengers and every enhanced individual with the Accords****. Earth doesn’t want the Avengers”.

At that moment, Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm releases a mechanical yet beastly grumble. Everyone around him takes caution of the grumble before Val asks. “Can you guys at least workshop the name?”

Chapter Text

ACT II

Chapter Eight

MEANWHILE…

Location: Graveyard, [UNKNOWN]

From where he stands, he only knows that there is no life here. No joy or pride. Only sorrow and loss. Sometimes, there’s anger and frustration but grief and sorrow always lingers here. There’s not even the smallest hint of life trying to regenerate itself as all plant life baring grass, weeds and the occasional oak tree are in the process of decaying or already done so. The weeds have begun consuming some of the countless tombstones here. Covering names and dates that were once important to someone decades ago but now, are meaningless to everyone.

It’s moments like this where he renounces the deal he made with her. The large steel chain links that he’s forced to wear over his large overbearing robes are a stark visual reminder of who is mistress is. He feels the chain with his free hand for a brief moment. He sighs at the weight of his burden before facing towards an oak tree in the distance.

The man begins to walk slowly towards the oak tree while he drags his overbearing scythe on the ground behind him. Sparks fly from the scythe when it collides with occasional brickwork on the ground below. The man’s face is unreadable as a dirty bronze metal mask seals his identity from his allies and foes equally. Only she knows who he is and she intends to keep it that way. His silver hair flows freely in the wind alongside his dark grey cape. For a moment, the bandage on his right arm starts to loosen itself. The man halts his movement and quickly fixes it to be aligned with the other bandages on his other arm and both legs. After correction, he continues to walk until he makes it to the oak tree where three crows await from him.

In a dark stormy night like those from classic horror stories, the man could only see the crows when the flash of momentary lighting would appear. To a regular person, these crows seem to be normal but for someone like him, he is not blind to their unnatural appearances. Their heads contort and twist with the slightest of movement. Each one out of time with each other with body twitches periodically. The most important aspect to these crows that hasn’t been raised yet is the fact they’re messengers… that can talk.

“Ahhh. My harvessssstman” the first crow speaks unnaturally with a deep booming voice overlayed with the voice of a powerful woman.

“I see you found the placeee.” The second crow talks in the same voice as the first. As if they’re a hive mind.

“You expect too little from me, my mistress.“ the masked man begrudgingly states.

“I expect you to follow my will, harvesssstman.” The third crow is quick to respond in the same voice as the others. The man takes a moment to look away from the crows. He’s under her command for a reason and he always has to remind himself why every time he is in communication with his mistress. He quickly turns back as the crows continue to watch his every move.

“I have a tassssk for you.” The second crow talks again. “I have found the source of the Revenant threat…” It begins to speak again before the first crow continues without skipping a beat.

“…The Blassssphemy Cartel. Seek them out. Destroy the threat. Do that for me.” It demands of the man who says nothing in response. “Do you undersssssstand, my harvestman?” The crow asks when met his silence.

“Yes, my mistress” the man coolly answers.

“Gooood. Now leave us. Find The Blasssssphemy Cartel. Destroy the Revenant threat”. The third crow demands before all three of birds fly away from the masked man to places unknown. As the man walks away from the oak tree, he listens to the violent wind between the gravestones. With his hand upon the scythe, he knows that being the reaper of the errant dead, her will must be done…

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

Location: Fontaine Tower, New York City

As much as he doesn’t want to be away from him too long, Ted understands why Jack has to leave him in the tower bunker with only Val as company. The outside world doesn’t take too kindly to monsters. Both he and Jack came to learn this quickly in the past week. They escaped The Shrouded Bazaar after a poker game gone wrong and found themselves right in the middle of Times Square. All Ted saw was the eyes of the people in that square. All of them had the same look, queasy at the very sight of him. He remembers a time where he was like those innocent bystanders and his pal, Jack. Human. Now is not the time to wallow in self pity by remembering all of that sadness. His friend has a new job to do with these new folks he just met. Ted lets out a pitiful sigh.

“I won’t be long. Once we find these people, we’ll back for you, Ted.” Jack comforts his friend before giving him one last wave and heading into the elevator. Once the lift reaches the ground floor, Jack reunites with Layla, Shang-Chi, Ava, Yelena and Bucky just outside the Tower’s lobby. “I don’t like leaving him for long periods.” he tells the group as he catches up with them. They begin walking through the streets of New York City.

“It’s only until we find out where The Balsphemy Cartel are hiding. When we know where they are, you can come back, break ‘Ted’ out of Val’s bunker and he can touch as many of the Cartel as he wants”.  Layla tries to reassure her new teammate but with how she says it, it causes Yelena, Ava and Bucky to look at her in equal amounts of disgust and confusion. “Trust me. It makes sense if you know what Ted actually does.” She tries to save face but it just digs a bigger hole for herself. “You know what, forget it” she gives up trying to explain herself to them.

“You know, Val’s right. We should have a code name.” Shang-Chi suggests after a couple of moments of silence.

“What do you suggest then, wiseass?” Yelena asks him.

“And it better not be the Avengers or I’ll choke the daylights out of you”. Bucky quickly adds.

“Not exactly Avengers per se.” Shang-Chi weakly tries to explain. “How about the Mighty Avengers?”

“I don’t care that you’re some type of martial arts master or whatever. Suggest another Avengers adjacent name and I will kill you”. Bucky warns him.

“Okay. You don’t have to tell me twice.” Shang-Chi backs off from suggesting anymore team names.

“What about A-Force?” Ava suggests in sympathy.

“Too forceful. Make us sound like cops.” Yelena playfully shoots down her idea.

“Freedom Force!” Layla teases the former Black Widow to which she snickers for a brief moment.

“What did I just say, Golden Eagle?!” Yelena pretends to be expatriated while playing along with Layla’s suggestion.

“It’s just a thought. That’s all.” Layla pushes away from her own idea.

“How about Heroes For Hire?” Ava hopefully suggests seeing it’s not an Avengers adjacent name. For a moment, the group actively considers Ava’s suggestion.

“I think it’s already taken?” Layla asks Bucky who’s more in the know in regard to which heroes are active or not.

“Yeah. Afraid it’s a no on that one. They already operate out of Harlem.” Bucky unfortunately admits before adding “It was a good suggestion though”.

“The Midnight Sons.” Jack says quietly which Shang-Chi picks up on.

“Say it louder for those at the back, Jack!” Shang-Chi loudly states before Yelena, Bucky, Ava and Layla turn to face the two men.

“The Midnight Sons”. He repeats louder as the rest of the group take a moment to contemplate the name.

“I mean, it sounds more like a heavy metal rock band than a team like us. It’s a pretty cool name though. Maybe save that one for future use somewhere else?” Layla answers on behalf of the rest of the gang who immediately nod in agreement. A moment of silence goes by as the group become stumped in figuring out a name for themselves. It is Yelena who finally breaks the silence.

“How about Thunderbolts?” She asks to which, the entire group’s faces light up. Now, that has a ring to it.

“Delivering justice, just like lighting.” Bucky vocally muses. “I like it.” he quickly adds as Ava pumps her fist in the air in amusement. Both Jack and Layla give Yelena a comforting smile of approval while Shang-Chi nods his head in the same notion.

“Where did you get that from?” Ava asks the former Black Widow.

“It’s an embarrassing story…” She begins to answer but before she can tell the story, she adds “I’ll tell you guys what. Once this is all over, I’ll share all the details”. Yelena’s thoughts turns to the main issue at hand, their mission. Their entire conversation has got all of them distracted. “We need to focus!” She yells at them releasing her frustration at herself for getting distracted by trivial things like team bonding. “We’ve got to find The Blasphemy Cartel.” She reminds them all.

“But where do we even begin to find a group like that?” Layla asks them all and as if by cue, Jack begins to sniff the air… repeatedly.

“Something’s not right.” He quietly mutters.

“What do you mean?” Ava asks as the ‘monster hunter’ continues to smell the air around them.

“Don’t you smell that?” Jack asks to which the newly christened Thunderbolts look at their fellow teammate in confusion. How can they not smell that scent? It’s so potent. Disgustingly potent. Almost hypnotically potent… and not in a nice way. “It’s a smell of roasted Niflheim boar. Way overdone for my personal tastes but it’s definitely from Niflheim…” Jack explains as he finishes off sniffing the air to begin tracking that scent. “…which means The Shrouded Bazaar is close by!” He finishes explaining.

“The Shrouded what?” Shang-Chi asks curiously to which Jack turns to face him.

“The Shrouded Bazaar! It’s like a hodgepodge cauldron of a marketplace for all of The Ten Realms. It’s overflowing with mystical energy...” Jack begins to explain before Bucky interrupts.

“…which makes it a prime target for The Balsphemy Cartel”. He confidently concludes to which Jack nods in confirmation. Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm begins to grumble again for a moment before going silent once more. He’s sure that ‘Kobik’ is becoming more sentient after it consumed the remains of Compound 97 earlier that morning. Like it wants to make its presence known to everyone around it, including the man out of time that it’s attached to. Bucky quickly gets out of the train of thought and back to Jack’s hunch. Seeing there’s no other options, Bucky commands the ‘monster hunter’ to “Lead the way”.

Jack then begins chasing that scent of Niflheim Boar… like a dog following the smell of freshly roasted chicken. Even barging through crowds of people in the middle of the street to keep on trail. Bucky, Yelena, Ava, Shang-Chi and Yelena pick up their paces to keep up with Jack. The team go through not only major streets like Park Avenue and Broadway, but darker closed-off alleyways too in the pursuit for Jack. For a ‘monster hunter’, he’s extremely athletic on all fours, Layla thinks to herself. As if by out of thin air, a thought pops into her head. Why did Shang-Chi refuses to use The Ten Rings in their confrontation in Cairo? She then notices the master of The Ten Rings struggling to keep up with the rest of the team. He’s trying to catch his breath but he’s obviously tired. Layla slows down to be alongside him.

“I just had a thought.” She begins to speak.

“Which… is?” Shang-Chi attempts to ask in between breaths.

“Cairo.” Layla bluntly states.

“What… of it?” He asks.

“Why didn’t you use The Ten Rings in our little scrap back then?” She asks with curiosity before Shang-Chi lets out a heavy sigh.

“Be thankful that I hold these rings with a heavy burden, Scarab.” He begins to explain. “My father originally found them over a thousand years ago.”

“Hold on. A thousand years ago?” She interrupts with a very good question.

“Yes. Turns out, as well as giving the holder immense power, it also grants one immortality”. Shang-Chi answers her question before continuing. “Even though he lived for all those years, it took a toll on his mind. No man or woman should live for that long. So, when my mother was killed by a rival criminal gang many years ago, I think something snapped in my dad’s mind and got obsessed with not only power, but seeking ways to defy death to bring my mum back to the land of living”. As he explains all of this, Layla notices Shang-Chi’s eyes and how they express all the sorrow and hardship he experienced in his youth. He continues to explain “In the end, that obsession for both power and bringing my mother back from the dead were the things that killed him*. Part of me does wonder if the Ten Rings added to his strife without him noticing they were”.

Shang-Chi realises he’s been going on about his past without getting to his main point. “To answer your question, Layla, my father got consumed by those rings. I don’t want to follow in his footsteps and become the same man he became. I only use The Ten Rings when there’s no other choice. My weapon is my fists”.

“And don’t I just know it.” Layla says with softness in her voice. Both of them chuckle for a moment. Shang-Chi gives her a comforting smile.

“You know, you’re not actually a bad person.” He compliments Layla.

“And it seems I’ve underestimated you in way too. I hadn’t realised how much pain and sorrow you must of suffered over the years”. She apologises to him with genuine empathy.

“If you’re both done with your heart to heart back there!” Ava shouts from the front of the pack as Jack leads them all down a dark and empty alleyway. The ‘monster hunter’ stops at a peculiar door as Bucky, Yelena, Ava, Shang-Chi and Layla catch up to him. As she approaches, Layla recognises the symbols on the door. Some hieroglyphs from the Ennead themselves. Others very witchcraft and occult looking. The rest she can’t make out.

“Oh Taweret. Why didn’t you tell me about this place?” She mutters underneath her breath. Jack looks at her and the rest of Thunderbolts as he grabs the handle of the door.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you…” He opens the door to reveal The Shrouded Bazaar to Bucky, Yelena, Ava, Shang-Chi and Layla for the first time. “…the Shrouded Bazaar.” He finishes announcing as they all step into the door before it closes behind them.

The Thunderbolts begin to walk around the Bazaar. It’s like nothing they’ve ever seen. Bucky thinks it’s like how he imagined the marketplaces of The Shire to be like when he first read The Hobbit all those years ago. Yelena’s taking mental notes on how it all works and how to gain access to the Bazaar without Jack for future intel purposes. Ava is in awe over the vast range of people. From asgardians, to dwarfs and angels, it’s like a hodgepodge of all the Ten Realms. For Shang-Chi, he sees a lesson in cultures outside of his own that he’s ready to embrace. Finally, Layla looks around to see any Ennead influences anywhere but can’t seem to find any at the moment.

The team eventually walk past an open bar in the middle of the Bazaar. Bucky takes a moment to look around at the bar when he spots something weird. Even by Shrouded Bazaar standards. A random goose is sat on a high stool at the counter waiting for a drink of its own. It notices that Bucky is watching it and begins to stare right back at the former assassin. Bucky reads from its eyes a malicious aura that sees chaos as the only option. He quickly turns away from looking at the goose before the team continues their tour of The Shrouded Bazaar.

Eventually, the Thunderbolts make it deep into the Bazaar. From out of nowhere, the group hear a man yelling.

“Oi! Jack. Where’s my twenty bucks?!” The man shouts towards Jack as they all turn to see a blacksmith where a towering muscular man with a dwarf-like beard stands watch. Jack laughs nervously.

“Oh hey, Lucan. Listen, it’s been quite the crazy week. I swear I can get it ba-“ Jack sheepishly begins to respond as the Thunderbolts walk towards Lucan and his blacksmith.

“I don’t care if you’ve gone to the moon in that time. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks and you and that green guy owe me for saving your asses at the last Shrouded Bazaar poker night.” Lucan interrupts with his gruff and sharp voice. While Jack and Lucan are arguing with each other, Bucky notices the glowing blue shard in his shop’s window.

“Sorry to interrupt you with an obvious grievance against our monster hunter friend here.” Bucky begins to talk to Lucan.

“‘Monster hunter’?” Lucan asks before he laughs. While Layla, Ava, Shang-Chi, Yelena and Bucky look at the Asgardian with confusion, Jack is shitting himself. Will he reveal Jack’s true nature to the rest of his team?

“What’s so funny?” Ava asks the important question. Lucan turns to look at Jack with miming cutting his throat if the Asgardian dares to say what he truly is.

“This ‘monster hunter’ is a terrible one. He rather make friends with monsters than kill them!” Lucan jokes to which Jack sheepishly laughs at.

“Oh good one, Lucan.” Jack softly punches the blacksmith. For a brief moment, Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm roars before stopping itself.

“That.” Bucky points at the glowing blue shard. “That’s a cosmic shard.” He says nervously.

“Hoho. Indeed. You have a good eye, my-“ before Lucan can finish, Bucky grabs the ‘Kobik’ arm with his other free arm to restrain himself. ‘Kobik’ roars once more as a metal tentacle grows from it to remove Bucky’s other arm from it.

As this is going on, the rest of Thunderbolts hear screams from the other side of the Bazaar followed by large groups of people fleeing. From those groups, they all see them. Emerging from the fires and wreckage behind them, fifteen soldiers dressed in all black with a matching balaclavas. Each one with a different number on their foreheads. All welding tactical rifles and some with ancient scrolls and weird looking grenades on their belts. Layla, Shang-Chi, Ava and Yelena prepare themselves both physically and mentally for what’s about to happen. The Blasphemy Cartel won’t go down without a fight…

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

With their rifles aimed and ready, The Blasphemy Cartel soldiers begin shooting at the Thunderbolts and Lucan. In a split second decision, Layla extends her wings before jumping in front of her teammates and the blacksmith. Her wings of Taweret not only deflect the bullets away from the Thunderbolts and Lucan, but they bounce off Layla’s own body too. Gunfire slowly stops as the soldiers realise what they’re dealing with. One of the soldiers with a “72” on their balaclava quickly pulls out their walkie-talkie from their tactical vest.

“We have a Ennead avatar on the field. I repeat. We have a Ennead avatar on the field!” The soldier reports as Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ goes quiet. It has realised that a fight will soon be on its hands. It releases its metal tentacle from Bucky’s free arm as the former Winter Soldier prepares for the battle ahead.

Ava, Yelena, Layla and Bucky launch themselves at the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers in different directions while Lucan and Jack hide inside Lucan’s shop. The sounds of gunfire quickly continue as the battle commences. Lucan grabs the glass container with the Cosmic Shard from its place and holds its under his arm. As all of this is going on, Jack begins to focus on his breathing to keep his head clear and his heart rate at its usual pace. He closes his eyes for a moment and reopens them to see Ava stood over him which makes Jack jump out of his skin.

“What are you doing?” Ava asks him as she ‘phases’ in and out of existence.

“Hiding. I’m a pacifist. I don’t fight other humans!” Jack screams as gunfire continues outside of the blacksmiths.

“Aren’t you a ‘monster hunter’?” Ava asks in both confusion and frustration. She can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Monster. Hunter. It’s in the name!” Jack answers before the door of the Blacksmiths slams open with two of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers entering. Rifles aimed at both of them and Lucan. Ava quickly grabs both men as the soldiers fire their rifles at them. Luckily, Ava manages to not only phase the bullets through her body; but through Jack and Lucan’s as well. The bullets damage the wooden walls behind the trio. Both of the soldiers look at them with confusion.

“Get Lucan and the shard to safety!” Ava orders her fellow Thunderbolt before she charges at both of the soldiers and sends them flying out of the blacksmiths. She leaps outside after them as Jack looks at Lucan and the Cosmic Shard he’s holding.

“Listen to me. Let me get you out of here. Once we’re all safe, I’ll talk debts I need to pay.” Jack quietly suggests to Lucan.

“Fine but I will get my twenty bucks from you at the end of all this.” The Asgardian grumbles as he keeps a firm grip on the glass container with the Cosmic Shard within it.

Meanwhile, Bucky finds himself against three of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers. Thanks to the ‘Kobik’ arm, those seemingly impossible odds are more in his favour. The metal arm produces six tendrils that launch at all three of the soldiers at the same time. Two of the tendrils wraps themselves around one of the soldier’s waist and arm. The other four tendrils do the same for the other two soldiers. ‘Kobik’ unleashes a mechanical sounding war cry as its hand turns into a robotic version of the mouth of a Venus flytrap. Bucky looks at his mechanical arm in equal amounts of horror and awe. After a moment, the tendrils fling the three soldiers across the Bazaar, away from Lucan’s blacksmith. The tendrils retract themselves back into ‘Kobik’ as its hand turns transforms back into the usual robotic arm form. Bucky looks at the battlefield with calculation as he checks on his teammates. Shang-Chi’s using the Ten Rings to hold off most of the soldiers. Layla’s using her wings and a blade to fight any of the stragglers that manage to push through Shang-Chi’s barrage. Yelena and Ava are also helping out Layla in catching the stragglers. Yet, Jack’s nowhere to be seen. Bucky decides to check where Jack is in all of this chaos… before he sees it. The goose from the open bar. He knew something was up with that goose.

“Go away. You’ll die.” Bucky bluntly tells it before he heads towards the blacksmiths.

“HONK!” The goose screeches before it finds a sword on the ground. Obviously from Lucan’s blacksmith before the current skirmish kicked off. The goose grabs the sword with its mouth and starts waddling towards Bucky.

“Guess I’m fighting a bloodthirsty goose now.” He mutters to himself as he uses ‘Kobik’ to defend himself from the goose’s attack. As the sword hits ‘Kobik’, the goose vibrates alongside the sword with the strength of its attack. ‘Kobik’ unleashes a tendril from itself that wraps itself around the goose’s neck. It drops the sword as it struggles to breathe.

“Okay. That’s enough.” Bucky tells ‘Kobik’ as he kicks the sword away and the goose begins to turn blue with the lack of air. “Kobik. Enough!” He commands his arm as it finally releases the tendril from the Goose’s neck. ‘Kobik’ lets out a mechanical grumble of sorts as its tendril returns into itself. Before the goose can follow Bucky with its murderous intent, the former assassin notices two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers about to enter Lucan’s blacksmith. “Here we go again.” He grumbles before charging at them.

At the other end of the bazaar, Shang-Chi’s keeps the majority of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers at bay by using the Ten Rings. For a criminal organisation that specialises in both black ops and sorcery, they’ve surprisingly not used any magic yet. As he keeps firing the Rings to keep the soldiers back, Shang-Chi notices one of them with the number “58” on their forehead talking into a handheld radio.

“Combatants and Ennead avatar are proving to be uncooperative. Permission to use a Soloman Grenade on the field?” The soldier speaks into the radio.

“Denied, Nobody-58. Soloman Grenades for use in combat against sorcerers only. We can’t make more of a scene than what we have done already. Can grant permission to use Rebound Grenades if needed?” The commanding voice of the radio responds.

“Thank you, sir.” The soldier thanks the voice before it puts away the radio and grabs a weird looking grenade from their belt. Shang-Chi notes how this grenade has ancient runes engraved into its outer shell. More importantly, some of those runes are of Ta-Lo origin. The soldier quickly pulls the pin of the grenade and throws it towards Lucan’s shop. In a split second, Shang-Chi fires a couple of The Ten Rings at the grenade just before it implodes. An explosion of invisible force quickly follows that send The Ten Rings back into Shang-Chi’s direction at full force.

“Ah shit.” He murmurs before he is fully knocked back by the returning rings. Seeing the Master of The Ten Rings is temporarily removed from the equation, the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers move forward to Layla and Yelena. The Scarlet Scarab sighs.

“Who wants to go first?” She mocks the soldiers before they start firing their rifles at her. Layla uses the Wings of Taweret to protect herself and Yelena from the gunfire when The Scarlet Scarab notices one of the soldiers pull another one of those wacky grenades from their belt. She turns her to Yelena and commands “Shoot at that grenade!”

“Alright, Golden Eagle. No need to be bossy”. Yelena jokingly whinges as she fires at the grenade which explodes knocking a few of the soldiers to the ground. “Yeesh.” The ex-black widow grunts. As Layla struggles to hold her Wings of Taweret up against the gunfire of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers’ gunfire, Yelena spots potential cover for them to move back into. “Over here!” She points to it in Layla’s eyesight and the two heroines dive into it.

As they position themselves for a counter attack, Layla feels a presence she hasn’t felt since Cairo. Taweret.

“Oh no. Not now…” Layla mutters before her body jolts and her eyes turn white for a brief second before regaining composure.

“Layla! Thank the stars you’re alright.” Layla speaks to herself but in actuality, it’s Taweret using Layla’s body to communicate with her. In a split second, Layla’s body jolts again before returning to normality.

“Now isn’t the best time to chat, Taweret! In the middle of a fight right now.” Layla talks to Taweret which gains the attention of Yelena who is still trying to fend off the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers. Another jolt of Layla’s body as Taweret takes over again.

“Marc, Steven and myself have been so worried when I lost our connection. Even Khonshu and Jake have been concerned”. Taweret in Layla’s body speaks before the body twitches again.

“That Spanish bastard is only concerned because Marc and Steven wouldn’t co-operate with him or Khonshu if anything did happen to me”. Layla grunts before Taweret takes over her body again.

“What happened in Cairo and since then?” Taweret asks in Layla’s voice before Layla regains control.

“The Ten Rings got away with that artefact. I got captured by the US Government and placed in the Raft in a two week ‘time-out’. This… eccentric woman got me out in exchange of doing a job for her. Now, I’m working as part of a team for said job and currently in the Shrouded Bazaar trying to fight off an army that has black ops experience and can use the mystic arts”. Layla catches Taweret up on the last two weeks as Yelena turns to her with a look of equal amounts of strangeness, bafflement and humour. Layla’s body jolts again as Taweret once again takes control.

“I see. Things haven’t been smooth sailing for Marc and Steven either. Actually, a lot has happened with them*. You s-“ Taweret tries to explain before Layla swiftly takes her body back.

“I’m sure they’ll tell me all about it when all of this…” Layla quickly cuts Taweret off as she gestures to the ongoing battle before continuing. “…is over. I’ll get back in touch once we’ve done this job, okay?” Layla’s body twitches once last time.

“Yeah. From what I sense, your foes have intentions to upend the natural order of our world. You cannot allow them to do this. Be careful, my avatar”. Taweret warns as her farewell before Layla fully regains her body back. She quickly adjusts herself before noticing Yelena.

“You know, I didn’t take you as the flamboyant type of woman, Golden Eagle.” Yelena mocks with hint of endearment to her voice.

“You saw all of that?” Layla asks her.

“Yep”. Yelena quickly responds.

“I’ll explain later”. Layla puts off telling her new team mate (and friend?) from all of the weirdness of being an Ennead avatar for now as she notices the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers heading closer and closer to Lucan’s shop.

As Yelena reloads her trusty Glock 47, she asks “Ready to take down some random soldiers?”.

As Layla extends the Wings of Taweret to give herself and the ex-Black Widow cover from the gunfire of the soldiers. “Just try to keep up.” She responds to Yelena before the two heroines make a push forward towards the remaining soldiers.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the rest of the team, two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers head towards the back entrance of Lucan’s blacksmith. The very same route that Jack and Lucan are taking to flee the scene of the chaos with the glass container that holds the cosmic shard.

Inside the blacksmith shop, Jack quietly asks Lucan “They won’t come through the back door when the rest of us are out there, right?”

“Probably.” The Asgardian whispers before they both hear footsteps and the sound of radio static from outside.

“Commander, with all due respect, engaging combat with an Ennead avatar and her band of mercenaries is a large distraction.” One of two soldiers that are just outside of the back entrance of Lucan’s blacksmith’s talks into a radio.

“What do you propose, Nobody-84?” A masculine voice on the radio asks with a strong leader-like tone.

“Nobody-63 and I raid the building, assassinate the blacksmith and steal the cosmic shard from underneath the avatar and her allies.” The soldier answers with a clear and murderous intention. A moment goes by while the voice on the radio contemplates the idea.

“Permission to proceed is granted, Eighty-Four.” The radio voice calls with confidence before it goes silent again.

“Thank you, commander.” Nobody-84 thanks the voice as they put the radio away into their trousers. After a moment, BANG! The other soldier kicks the back door of Lucan’s blacksmiths down. Both Blasphemy Cartel soldiers notice Jack and Lucan before their eyes locate their prize. The Cosmic Shard. “Kill them both, Sixty-Three”. In a split second before both of them can acknowledge what’s going on, Nobody-63 aims their rifle and fires a single bullet straight into Lucan’s skull. Before the soldier can do the same to Jack, Ava manages to arrive in the nick of time and phase both her and Jack before the rifle bullet can pierce through Jack’s skin. The ‘monster hunter’ looks at the bleeding corpse of the Asgardian blacksmith as Nobody-84 takes the glass container with the Cosmic Shard. Ava grabs the soldier’s arm before Nobody-63 tears it off their fellow comrade. Both soldiers quickly run from the scene which Bucky quickly notices.

“Thunderbolts, to me!” Bucky shouts at the top of his lungs as he begins chasing the two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers. Yelena, Shang-Chi and Layla reconvene with Ava and Jack who all stand over the bleeding body of Lucan for brief moment before running to catch up with Bucky.

Nobody-63 pulls out their radio to communicate with the voice inside it. “Sir, we have it. We have got the prize. The shard is ours.” They speak in the middle of short breaths from the running they’re currently undertaking.

“Excellent work. Both you and Eighty-Four will be commended…” The commanding voice begins to give them a job well done as Nobody-84 notices Bucky and soon enough, the rest of the Thunderbolts attempting to catch up with the two soldiers.

“Ennead Avatar and accompanists are in pursuit. Will attempt to lose them before returning to Emerald City.” Nobody-84 quickly adds.

“Rodger that, soldier.” The radio voice acknowledges before going silent as Nobody-63 puts away their radio. The soldiers find the door out of The Shourded Bazaar and back to New York City. They quickly go through it before slamming it shut…

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

At the edge of the dark alley where the door to The Shrouded Bazaar resides, there are two large black vans. Alongside the parked vans are six Blasphemy Cartel soldiers awaiting for further instruction. Both Nobody-84 and Nobody-63 quickly stumble out of the door to The Shrouded Bazaar with the Cosmic Shard within its glass container. They quickly slam the door shut before Nobody-84 turns to their fellow comrades.

“We need a quick extraction. Now!” They command.

“Let’s move it, people!” One of the soldiers yells before the clapping their hands. All the eight of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers enter the two vans before they ignite the vans engines. At this point, Layla, Yelena, Shang-Chi, Jack, Ava and Bucky arrive onto the scene through the door. Before they can reach the vans, the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers begin to drive away from the scene. Bucky turns to Layla.

“Scarab, can we get eyes in the skies?” The Winter Soldier asks.

“Already ahead of you!” She responds as she takes a quick run to launch herself up into the skies of the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Shang-Chi notices a parked motorbike and runs to it. Ava and Jack quickly follow him but before they can get to him, the master of The Ten Rings manages to hot-wire the bike and takes off on it in pursuit of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers.

“We need a ride of our own, stat!” Ava commands the rest of the team that remains behind. Yelena then notices a Jeep at the end of the road.

“How do we all feel about all-terrain?” The ex-Black Widow asks Bucky, Ava and Jack smugly. They’re gonna be back in the chase in no time!

Meanwhile, halfway across New York City, the soldiers of the Blasphemy Cartel celebrate their escape from the Ennead avatar and their acquirement of a Cosmic Shard in the two vans while driving. The Director will be most pleased! Nobody-87 guards the Shard and its glass containment with their life in the passenger seat of one van while their comrade, Nobody-63, drives. It is this moment when they see it. The Ennead Avatar… flying right towards the van… with no intention of moving out of the way. Nobody-63 presses harder on the accelerator hoping to crash into their foe.

“Are you crazy?!” One of the soldiers from the back roars. As they get closer and closer to hitting her, Layla doesn’t change direction… until the last moment when she swerves out of the way of the van while firing two blade shards from her wings that pierce through the van and manage to kill the two soldiers in the back.

“Holy shit!” Nobody-63 yells as they get back on track with the other group’s van. Nobody-84 grabs their radio from their belt and speaks into it.

“Alright folks. Time to utilise Ley Lane shortcuts.” The soldier states calmly into the radio signalling to the other team with their van.

Layla adjusts herself in the skies as she notices the two vans turn down an empty one-way alley. “Oh no.” She mutters to herself as she descends towards both vans again. Before the vehicles can collide with the building at the end of the alleyway, a portal opens up. Layla notices it has similarities to a sling ring portal but with a more scrappy look to it. Maybe it’s more ancient than other mystic arts portals she’s seen. The two vans drive through the portal before it vanishes. In this instance, she recognise what the portal is. “Ley-“ she begins to mutter…

“-Lines.” Jack finishes saying loudly from the back right passenger seat of the all-terrain Jeep that he, Bucky, Ava and Yelena have stolen to keep chase with the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers and their fellow teammates.

“What lines?” Bucky asks from driver’s seat. Yelena looks at the ‘monster hunter’ from the front passenger seat while Ava does the same from the left passenger seat.

“Ley Lines. They’re portals that act as ‘lines’ to each other. They form on sites where strong mystical energy resides. It wouldn’t surprise me that New York City has tons of them considering The Shrouded Bazaar and the Sanctum Sanctorum.” Jack explains to his teammates.

“So, very ancient portals, then?” Ava asks.

“Basically, yeah.” The ‘monster hunter’ answers and gives a slight nod before they notice it. The two vans of the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers appearing right in front of them out of nowhere. Bucky slams the accelerator to keep up with vans. Yelena turns to Bucky.

“Wind the window down, will ya?” Yelena asks the Winter Soldier who slowly opens the front passenger window. Yelena grabs her Glock 47 and takes aim at the vans. She starts shooting at the first van’s back doors for four shots before the doors open up. Two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers rain fire on the team’s Jeep which causes the windscreen to shatter. Bucky uses the ‘Kobik’ arm to shield himself from the gunfire before it roars. ‘Kobik’ grows a series of tendrils that covers all of Bucky’s face baring his eyes almost like a metal gun-proof wall.

“Well, this works”. Bucky mutters to himself as he continues to keep chase to the van in front of them. Ava and Jack notice Shang-Chi catching up to their Jeep on his motorbike and begins firing a couple of the Ten Rings from one of his arms at the van. The attack from the Rings manages to cause the first van to swerve for a moment before the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers driving it manage to safely correct its course. The soldier on the passenger seat gets out their radio and uses it.

“We can’t take much more of this, Eighty Four!” The soldier shouts into the radio.

“Then we split up, Forty-Nine! As long as they don’t follow us into Emerald City, we’ll be good!” Nobody-84 commands as the vans head towards a two way split at the end of the road. One van takes a right turn while the other takes a left turn. Shang-Chi follows the van on the right as Layla swoops down to remain in pursuit as Jack, Ava, Yelena and Bucky follow the van on the left^.

Seeing that the Ennead avatar and one of their allies are still following them, Nobody-49 steers their van into another “Ley Line” down a different alleyway to create some distance between them. They sigh a breath of relief thinking they’ve gotten away from them… but one look in their mirror shows them that the one on the motorbike followed them into the “Ley Line”. Are they insane?! Don’t they know that unprotected travel through one of those can wrap the matter of the human brain if not protected… or is that for multiple trips through them? No matter. These mercenaries need to be killed in order to get back to Emerald City.

Shang-Chi takes moment in the chase to mentally wrap his head around the experience of travelling through that weird portal. It isn’t like Wong’s sling ring portal where you just step into another place on the other side without any issues.  It’s more like being on drugs. Maybe cause it travels through another dimension before it spits you back out somewhere else on Earth. Regardless, Shang-Chi doesn’t want to experience that feeling again. With his head back in the game, the master of The Ten Rings accelerates his motorbike as he gets closer to the van… that is until the back doors of the vehicle open as two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers aim their rifles directly at Shang-Chi. While maintaining his grip on the handle bars with one hand, he uses the free arm to deflect the bullets from the rifle fire with the rings on his arm. By doing this, the master of the Ten Rings slows down as the van gains more distance. That is until Shang-Chi noticing Layla landing on the roof of the van.

The Scarlet Scarab retracts the Wings of Taweret before she grabs the open roof of the back of the van and swings inside it in one smooth movement. Layla launches herself at the first soldier and knocks their rifle out of their hands and onto the speeding street behind them. The second Blasphemy Cartel soldier begins firing their rifle at Layla, but she uses the other soldier as a human shield against the bullets. She then throws the now dead solider out of the van and onto the street before engaging in hand to hand combat with the other alive one. In mere moments, Layla manages to put the Blasphemy Cartel solider into a choke hold.

“Where is it?” She aggressively asks in a quiet voice.

“This is Nobody-23. Requesting immediate summoning”. The soldier states boldly while ignoring the Scarlet Scarab.

“Where. Is. It.” She asks again while making the hold around the soldier’s neck tighter.

“Re…quest…ing…immedi…” The soldier continues to repeat as they begin to transform into butterflies. A single centimetre of skin turns into one butterfly. Starting slowly from the feet and to the top of their forehead. Layla is completely baffled by the development as well as Shang-Chi who remains in pursuit of the van as it slows to a halt in the middle of the busy New York City street.

“What the hell?” Layla mutters to herself as the butterflies that were once a Blasphemy Cartel soldier fly into the skies of the Big Apple. After regaining her composure as Shang-Chi enters the van, the Scarlet Scarab heads towards the front of the vehicle. Inside the front, are also butterflies. What the hell did those soldiers do to themselves? She opens one of the doors at the front and releases the butterflies that were once soldiers into the New York City skyline. After a quick inspection, Layla realises they’ve been following the wrong van. It’s been a distraction. She heads to the back of the vehicle where Shang-Chi awaits for her.

“It’s empty. We gotta catch up with the other one. That’s the one with the shard.” She informs the master of The Ten Rings before she takes to the skies again. Shang-Chi sighs.

“If only I could fly.” He mutters to himself as he gets back on his motorbike and takes off in pursuit of the other van.

Meanwhile, Jack, Ava, Yelena and Bucky remain close to the van in their commandeered Jeep. Nobody-84 and Nobody-63 remain as the last two Blasphemy Cartel soldiers in said van as they continue to drive through a series of ‘Ley Lines’ scattered across the Big Apple to gain distance. It’s not enough as the Thunderbolts continue to remain close of their tail. Even when Layla and Shang-Chi reunite with them. Nobody-63 grunts in frustration.

“We can’t keep doing this. We’re gonna have to go to the Broadway Ley Line before they get to us.” They state in frustration.

“If the Ennead avatar and her mercenaries follow us to where Director resides, it’ll be your head.” Nobody-84 warns them as the van steers towards Broadway where their desired last ‘Ley Line’ resides.

“How haven’t you managed to burst their tyre yet?” Jack asks Yelena who’s reloading her Glock 47.

“Maybe it would be easier if we weren’t moving and they were still!” She yells as she fires at the van once more. After two shots, a third one manages to hit and burst the wheel of the Blasphemy Cartel soldier’s van. “Yesss! I did itttt!” Yelena yells in victory as she pulls herself back into the Jeep before Bucky winds up the window on her side.

Meanwhile, Nobody-84 and Nobody-63 both feel the back wheel of their van burst.

“Hold on. This is gonna be a bumpy landing!” Nobody-63 warns their comrade as the van attempts to go through the Broadway “Ley Line”. Due to the burst tyre, the van enters the portal in a peculiar angle that causes it to spin out and roll across the portal. The Jeep, Shang-Chi on the motorbike and Layla quickly follow it into the ‘Ley Line’.

The other side of the ‘Ley Line’ is an entirely different place. It’s definitely not New York City but somewhere more rural. No major buildings for miles. Instead, it’s a rustic mountain scape… baring the huge fortified green castle. As she gets out of the Jeep, Yelena sees the castle and is reminded the Wizard of Oz while Layla thinks of Wicked.

Jack on the other hand is horrified. Wherever they are, it’s dusk and the sun is setting. His true nature is going to appear soon if he doesn’t go back through the ‘Ley Line’ but it’s too late. The connection to the portal back home is temporarily closed. While Bucky and Ava get out of the Jeep following Yelena, Jack keeps inside it… waiting for his true self to break out of it.

Shang-Chi parks his motorbike at a nearby tree and Layla lands and retracts her Wings of Taweret. They both reunite with Yelena, Ava and Bucky as they all notice it. The wreckage of the van. The soldier that was driving it is now dead while the other (who Bucky makes out to be Nobody-84) has managed to drag themselves out of the wreckage. They climb on top of the van with the Cosmic Shard and its container intact. They let out a harrowing maniacal laughter of joy and triumph while lifting the Cosmic Shard into the air with one arm. Despite the many casualties of innocents and fellow comrades, the mission was a success. The Blasphemy Cartel has acquired a Cosmic Shard…

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

Layla, Shang-Chi, Ava, Bucky and Yelena watch on as Nobody-84 celebrates their victory… a little bit too early. Before the five can chase after the Blasphemy Cartel solider, a sling ring portal opens. On the other side of the portal are three more Blasphemy Cartel soldiers. Layla recognises them. It’s the ones who turned into butterflies from the other truck.

“What the hell?” Layla whispers to herself as the team watches Nobody-84 jump through the sling ring portal with the Cosmic Shard in tow.

“Activate the Revenant agent”. Nobody-84 commands one of their fellow soldiers.

“Are you insane? There-“ One of their soldiers protests before Nobody-84 interrupts.

“Just do it!” They shout as the sling ring portal closes behind them. Layla, Shang-Chi, Ava, Bucky and Yelena take a moment to survey their surroundings before quickly noticing that that Jack isn’t with them.

“Where’s the monster hunter?” Yelena asks before she feels a rumble from the ground before her.

“Still in th-“ Bucky tries to answer her before he feels another rumble from the ground.

“Did you feel th-“ Shang-Chi tries to ask before another louder and longer rumble from the ground occurs. Layla follows her instincts. She expands her Wings of Taweret and quickly gets airborne. As she does, the team notices a large rotting arm emerge from the ground.

“Whhhiiiipppp…” a quiet grumble is released the ground as a second large rotting arm rises to follow the other one. As the rest of the body rises from the earth, it roars “…LASHHHH!” Bucky recognises the undead figure. A foe Tony Stark fought along ago. Whiplash… somehow back from the dead. Somehow, even after death, Whiplash looks taller, intensely muscular and more powerful than he did when he was alive. As he roars, Whiplash unleashes the two electrified mechanical whips from technology attached to both of his decaying wrists.

Shang-Chi readies the Ten Rings. Bucky’s ’Kobik’ arm begins to produce a series of tendrils from within itself. Yelena reloads her trusty Glock 47 and powers up her Widow gauntlets. Ava begins to ‘phase’ in and out of existence. Layla watches the chaos emerge from the skies as she produces two blades from Wings of Taweret. The Thunderbolts (excluding Jack who’s still cowering inside the Jeep) are ready for a long and gruelling battle with this somehow reanimated corpse that was once one of Iron Man’s earliest foes.

Yelena is the first to strike at the undead Whiplash by firing a couple of bullets from her Glock 47. The bullets just ping off the hulking corpse. Bloody magic. Whiplash then launches one of his whips towards the White Widow who effortlessly manages to dodge the strike. Before it can do the same move again against her, Whiplash’s arm is grabbed by the tendrils of Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm. Wrapping around Whiplash like creeping ivy climbing up a building’s wall. Despite managing to wrap around the undead warrior, the tendrils struggle to hold Whiplash in place. Seizing this moment as an opportunity for a strike, Shang-Chi uses the Ten Rings to hold Whiplash’s other free arm in place before Ava ‘phases’ in around one of his restrained arms to remove the electrified whip from his wrist. Unlike Hammer Tech, whatever company Whiplash used for the whips are super durable and near impossible to remove with just hands.

“Whiplashhhh!” The reanimated corpse roars as it manages to rip off both the Ten Rings and the tendrils from Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm. It flings Ava out of its way… and towards Yelena. Both heroines hit each other and quickly stumble to the ground. Before Whiplash can strike once more, he feels a series of metal shards strike at his back. The undead warrior turns to see the Scarlet Scarab in the skies above it.

“Oh shit”. Layla mutters to herself as he watches him notice her in the sky. He makes a Hulk-like leap towards her which she barely manage to dodge. The Scarlet Scarab notices that while her metal daggers have dug deep into Whiplash, it has made no damage on the undead warrior at all. On the ground, Bucky, Shang-Chi, Yelena and Ava regroup and move away from the crashed van in an effort to find environmental cover. Whiplash lands in a nearby tree before attempting the same move again. Layla manages to dodge once more which leads Whiplash to land on the crashed van, causing it to explode.

Layla, Bucky, Shang-Chi, Yelena and Ava watch on in a moment of relief. Maybe the explosion might of killed the reanimated warrior. Then they see it. Coming out of the flames, without any burns or damage to him, the undead Whiplash emerges from the inferno and smoke from behind him.

“Can’t this guy just die?!” Yelena screams in frustration as Whiplash once again sets his sights on the Scarlet Scarab above him.

“Whip…” It begins to utter before to launches its electrified whips to the skies. “…LASHHHH!” The undead warrior roars as Layla realises the whips are coming for her. It’s too late. The whips wrap around her and immobilise her. Whiplash then uses the whips to slam the Scarlet Scarab to the ground with unrelenting force.

Layla slowly awakens moments later and instead of focusing on her teammates and the battle that’s occurring around her, she notices something unusual. A woman on the battle’s sidelines. She’s dressed in black from the shadow-like colour of her shoulder length hair to the long flowing dress that’s almost like a robe. She then notices the most striking factor of this woman who’s seemingly watching the chaos unfold in front of her. While the woman’s eyes, nose and everything above them are like her, very human looking, her jawline and mouth are skeleton-like. No skin. No muscle. Just teeth and bone. Layla knows she’s hallucinating from the sheer shock of the fall from the sky at this point.

While concerned for her, both Shang-Chi and Yelena can’t get anywhere near Layla as Whiplash continues to strike at them both as well as Bucky and Ava. Bucky’s ‘Kobik’ arm produce tendrils that try to slash at Whiplash but they can’t get anywhere near the hulking reanimated corpse.

“Somebody needs to check on Layla!” Shang-Chi yells to his teammates.

“We need an opening!” Yelena responds she continues to fire her Glock 47 while interspersing with shots from her Widow’s gauntlets.

From nowhere, they all hear an unearthly roar. Ava almost recognises that roar as wolf-like. The fighting between The Thunderbolts and Whiplash stop for a moment as they all turn towards the Jeep where the roar originates. The all terrain vehicle begins to shake violently.

“Jack?” Ava quietly asks as the shaking increases in intensity until they hear loud scratching from within. With the full moon above them and the tree surrounding them, Shang-Chi starts to feel like he’s just been placed inside a horror film. While he usually enjoys the genre, living through events that’s similar to that genre is definitely something he doesn’t enjoy… like at all. For a few moments, the scratching from within the Jeep stops as the roof comes clean off and a brown blur launches itself at Whiplash. Within all the chaos, Yelena and Ava help up the barely conscious Layla who notices Whiplash fending off the brown blur. As the undead warrior manages to throw off the mysterious attacker, the Thunderbolts pay close attention to their appearance. Almost wolf-like but yet still has the appearance of a man. Covered fully in brown fur and with claws on both of its hands and feet, Layla is the only one to notice it has the ripped remains of Jack’s clothing.

“Jack’s a werewolf?” Layla weakly asks both Yelena and Ava.

“Great. There’s werewolves now.” Bucky sighs knowing that Steve Rodgers would love the fact that they actually exist. Especially after that Halloween trick Steve and the howling commandos pulled on him during the Second World War where he pretended to be a werewolf. ‘Capwolf’ is what the commandos called his best friend that night. Bucky makes a mental note not to ever mention this to Steve before he’s brought back to the reality of now. He walks up to the werewolf as Shang-Chi, Yelena, Ava and a refocused Layla regroup with them both. Here they are, the Thunderbolts... in their almost full glory (just need “Ted” to complete the team roster).

“WhipLASHHHH!” Whiplash roars as it makes a beeline straight towards the group.  The werewolf that’s known as Jack is the first one to strike as he leaps in the air towards the hulking undead warrior. He begins scratching at Whiplash who manages to throw him away before he feels more metal shards enter his chest. Layla stands. Not fully back to full health, but got enough strength to keep fighting.

Before Whiplash can fully attack Layla, Shang-Chi blasts the reanimated corpse with the Ten Rings. Using a range of punches, kicks and blasts from the rings, he actually begins to make a decent attack on Whiplash… but it’s still not enough. The undead warrior manages to kick Shang-Chi in his chest to send in flying.

Yelena is the next to strike with rounds of Widows Bites from her gauntlets. Usually, one strike from the gauntlet is enough to immobilise a person for a short while. With the reanimated Whiplash? Not even a slight delay or a scratch of damage on him.

“Come on.” Yelena mutters to herself as the undead warrior turns to face her. Before he can strike, Jack howls into the night. Realising that the werewolf plans to attack him yet again, Whiplash begins to use his electrified whips on Jack. As he’s doing so, the werewolf lets out some whimpers of pain. Bucky then uses his ‘Kobik’ arm to produce another set of tendrils that manage to slice at Whiplash’s back where some of Layla’s metal shards are still lodged inside the undead warrior. Not a single dent is made on Whiplash’s back. No blood and no sign of damage.

“How the hell can it not take a single hit?!” Bucky asks the rest of the Thunderbolts as Shang-Chi returns to the fray.

“It’s like every single thing we do either bounces off it or just heals itself almost instantly!” Shang-Chi responds as he continues to fire the Ten Rings at the hulking undead corpse.

“Hey, Buck, don’t you think this shows us that we’re terrible assassins if we can’t even kill a corpse?” Yelena makes a jokingly snide remark as she continues to fire Widow Bites from her gauntlets.

“Now’s not the time, Yelena.” Bucky responds as he notices Layla launching herself back up into the skies above them as werewolf Jack charging towards Whiplash.

While she hasn’t seen the mysterious woman with her exposed bone jaw since Yelena and Ava helped her back on her legs, the Scarlet Scarab is the first to notice him. Floating in the air, calculating for the perfect time to strike. Large overbearing robes bogged down with large steel chain links all around his body. A dark grey cape flows along with his silver hair in the winds around him as his face is covered with a dirty bronze metal mask. Bandages on both arms and legs while carrying an overbearing scythe in both hands^.

Seeing that Whiplash is about to launch at Layla, the mysterious man shouts “Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!” as long crimson red bands attempt to tie themselves around the undead warrior who uses his whips to cut the bands into small shreds.

“Who the hell are you?” Ava asks the important question to the mysterious man.

“No time. This Revenant needs to be slaughtered at my hand!” The man quickly and bluntly tells the Thunderbolts.

“Revenant?” Bucky asks.

“I said no time!” The man repeats before he points to both Bucky and Shang-Chi. “We need to tie it up with its whips…” He suggests to which both the master of kung-fu and the Winter Soldier nod in acknowledgment. Bucky gets his ‘Kobik’ arm to reproduce its tendrils and uses them to grab one of Whiplash’s whips. Meanwhile, Shang-Chi uses the Ten Rings to tangle the other whip around them. Together with the help of Layla who realises what the pair are doing, both Bucky and Shang-Chi manage to tie up Whiplash using the hulking undead warriors whips. While Yelena and Ava watch the events unfold, a weak werewolf Jack scampers away to a nearby tree to recover from its injuries.

Whiplash bends down to its knees immovable and defenceless as the mysterious scythe welding man lands behind it. He readies his weapon.

“For you, mistress. A grim harvest.” The man mutters to himself before decapitating the undead nightmare. As Whiplash’s head rolls onto the ground below, a series of ghosts and spectres erupt from Whiplash’s corpse. All of which let out unearthly screams and howls. The Thunderbolts regroup at the source of the seemingly endless stream of ghosts as they all watch.

“What the hell.” Shang-Chi mutters as the stream of ghosts end and Whiplash’s body turns limp on the floor. The mysterious man looks at them all.

“For the final time, who are you?” Yelena bluntly asks as she aims her gauntlets at the man.

“The wind between the gravestones. The hand upon the scythe. The reaper of the errant end. I am The Harvestman”. The masked man introduces himself as he rests his scythe on the lifeless body of Whiplash. Jack slowly walks towards the rest of the team, still healing from the fight that’s just occurred.

“That…” Ava begins to ask as she points to the corpse and rotting head of Whiplash. She continues “…thing we just fought. What the hell is it? It wasn’t human”.

“A Revenant”. The Harvestman coldly answers.

“You said that before.” Bucky quickly states.

“A reanimated husk of a corpse has been commandeered by thousands of rogue ghosts”. He begins to explain.

Layla interrupts to confirm she just heard their new ally right.  “‘cuse me? What do you mean thousands of ghosts?”

Ignoring the Scarlet Scarab, The Harvestman continues to explain what a Revenant actually is. “A vessel for unquiet spirits rebelling against my mistress, ridden between life and death. A gestalt-entity of mad souls, their own identities worn away by the grit of ages. They take the form of an icon, and what better icons there are now than heroes and the villains that rise up against the light”. The Thunderbolts all look at each other nervously. This is bad. Very bad. Ghosts taking over the corpses of dead heroes and villains to have another go around in the game of life. That spells danger and a terrible tragedy waiting to happen.

“We share a common foe. This, Blasphemy Cartel, seems to have the technology and knowledge to manipulate these rebelling ghouls into reanimated and supercharged corpses of their own design. For what purpose, I do not know”. The Harvestman ponders aloud before Layla asks an important question.

“It seems like we’re aligned in our goals here. Can you help us?” The Scarlet Scarab asks hopefully. The Harvestman sighs as he grabs his scythe from what he positioned it on Whiplash’s headless corpse.

“Our goals are nowhere near aligned. You wish to save people. I have my own reasons. I saved you all this once but I’ll warn you now, stay out of my way. The Blasphemy Cartel are my prey and my prey alone. If it comes to killing them or helping you, they will be slaughtered without hesitation. Do you hear me?” The Harvestman brutally and ominously warns them all. Yelena is quick to notice a sling-ring on the Harvestman’s hand before he uses it to produce a portal back to a later afternoon Times Square. As this is happening, Jack begins to slowly change back from his werewolf form back to his usual human form. Bucky, Shang-Chi and Ava nod at the Harvestman’s warning before walking through the portal back to New York City.

Both Yelena and Layla are hesitant to follow their teammates. Layla is keeping an eye on Jack as he recovers back into his human form but Yelena is more curious about this new potential ally and/or adversary.

“And if we don’t stay out of your way and go after the Blasphemy Cartel ourselves?” Yelena asks the mysterious man suspiciously.

“Then you’ll meet my mistress sooner than you ever want to.” The Harvestman coldly responds.

“Right.” Yelena matches the man’s tone as she follows Bucky, Shang-Chi and Ava through the sling-ring portal. As Jack completes his transformation back into his human form, Layla puts her arm over his shoulders and helps him slowly walk towards the sling-ring portal. As they both take one last turn to see The Harvestman (who flies off while keeping the sling-ring portal open), Layla notices her again. The woman with the exposed bone jaw.

“Do you see her too?” Jack faintly asks before Layla nods. She isn’t hallucinating. That woman is definitely real. The woman clocks that both Layla and Jack see her and turns to face them. She raises one of her hands and gives a small wave. Not a traditional wave but more of a wave in the same fashion as what Queen Elizabeth II used to do but slowly. In a way that signifies that ‘I see you. I’ll be seeing you very soon’. Both Jack and Layla turn away as they both slowly stumble through the sling-ring portal behind their teammates before the portal closes behind them…

END OF ACT II

Chapter Text

ACT III

Chapter Thirteen

Location: Graveyard, [UNKNOWN]

A Revenant slain at his hands… with the help of some of Earth’s heroes. The Harvestman scoffs at himself. He recognised the Winter Soldier but others like the werewolf, the scarab and the white widow? They must be new to the scene. It reminds him that so much has changed in the world in the eleven years since his demise. He lands near an oak tree where three crows reside. Her messengers. Why does she toy with him like this?

“Ahhhh. Harvessssstman. Have you worked my will? Have you disposed the Revenant threat?” The first crow asks as it contorts its head and neck.

“It’s been taken care of.” The Harvestman lies hoping that she does not know about the involvement of Earth’s heroes. The three crows begin to laugh at their servant in disgust at his deception towards them.

“I know a liar when I hear one. You dissssappoint me Harvesssstman.” The third crow bluntly states before the second crow continues “This is not done. The source of the Revenant threat is still active. The ones who assisted you in killing this recent Revenant know this. Why do you refusssse to acknowledge the truth in front of your eyesssss?”

At the moment that the crow mentions his eyes, the Harvestman grabs his dirty bronze mask to reveal the face behind the mask. In the middle of his forehead, is the eternal mark of the Dark Dimension’s Lord, Dormammu. The skin around his eyes are a dark purple with cracks around the outer edge where the area of his eyes meets his regular pale skin. Outside of the distinctions of the Dark Dimension, the Harvestman is of Danish nationality. Despite the theatrics of removing his mask, his mistress already knows who he truly is. He went by one name in life. Kaecilius.

“Because I resend our agreement, Mistress Death. It’s defies all laws of nature. It’s unnatural”. The Harvestman protests. The three crows begins to laugh at their servants face once more.

“One would consssider it to be unnatural to be an acolyte of Dormmamu.” The first crow responds.

“It’s unnatural for me to choosssse my avatar from the deceased. Unnatural for my avatar to be consumed by the Dark Dimension in their demisssse*”. The second crow continues.

“Unnatural to make a deal with my avatar that allowssss them relinquish their duties for passssssage to the afterlife they do not dessssserve access to. An afterlife where their wife and son awaitssss for them to be reunited”. The third crow concludes their reminder to The Harvestman the deal he made with his mistress along ago.

“Remind me. How long has it been since I defied the natural order and ressssurrected you, my Harvesssstman?” The second crow asks her servant.

“A decade is a lot of time to gather knowledge.” He carefully responds which causes the crows to stare at him in silence for a few moments.

“What do you mean?” The third crow asks to break the silence. The Harvestman has her exactly where he wants her.

“Ten years is an awfully long time to gather knowledge on lots of topics. Like… say, the six foundation entities**”. He begins to answer his mistress.

“Where are you going with this?” The first crow asks but the Harvestman ignores it.

“How come you never told me about your brothers and sisters, mistress?” He mockingly asks. As the crows look at each other in deep thought, The Harvestman continues. “It does remind me that you’ve gone by many names over the millenniums, haven’t you?”

“Watch your tongue, Harvessstman.” The second crow bitterly warns.

“Tell me. How was 1719? Plundering the oceans as the cutthroat lord of the pirates, Madame Dread of the Seven Seas? Or how did you feel watching the Titanic sink into the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912?  I bet you enjoyed that mass influx of souls into your domain”. He continues to ask in rapid succession.

“Harvesssstman” The third crow tries to gain the attention of her servant but to no avail.

“Or what about more recently in Westview? The last location of one Agatha Harkness”. He asks to which silence takes over the crows with the only sound between them is the ongoing raging winds. The Harvestman grins.

“I sense I’ve touched a nerve there, haven’t I? Ever since the witch trials of Salem, there’s always been a Harkness wherever you go. Cutlass Harkness in 1719. A unaccounted for Lady Harkness in the wreckage of the Titanic. Now? An Agatha Harkness in Westview who killed The Vision and manipulated the grief stricken Scarlet Witch into taking the entire town hostage in a horrific illusion of what she took from them***”. He continues before taking a moment to gather his thoughts and plan his next words carefully. “The Scarlet Witch eventually defeated Harkness and escaped seeking redemption****. That’s when you decided to arrive on the scene, didn’t you?”

“I said watch your tongue, Harvesssstman!” The second crow roars. Still her servant ignores her.

“You saw her again. Agatha. You wanted to apologise for your actions in something long ago, but she has no love left for you. She knows all of your names. Madame Dread, Mistress Death, Rio Vidal. Shall I carry o-“ He continues to push too far.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” All three crows roar at her servant till silence returns.

“You shall not speak no more of this matter. Do you understand, me, Harvesssstman?” The first crow bluntly commands as her servant firmly places his dirty bronze mask back on his face before adjusting it to sit right once again.

“Yes, my mistress”. He quietly responds.

“I didn’t hear you.” The third crow states coldly.

“Yes, my mistress!” He yells.

“Let me remind you of your fate. You are to carry my will as I command it. Desssstory the ssssource of the Revenant threat. Properly. All before the natural order of the universe is undone. Once that is complete, I’ll ssssset you free to your afterlife where your wife and sssson await for you.” The second crow coldly commands.

“Are we clear, Harvesssstman?” The first crow asks bluntly.

“Yes, mistress”. He responds.

As he’s about to leave, the third crow adds “If the heroes of Earth become involved with our matters, work with them to get your task done. Do you hear me?” The Harvestman scoffs at the thought of working with some of Earth’s heroes as he walks away…

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen

MEANWHILE…

Location: Blasphemy Cartel Headquarters “Emerald City”, [CLASSIFIED]

Nobody-84 awaits for their fate. It was their actions that got the Director the Cosmic Shard from The Shrouded Bazaar. It was also their actions that attracted the attention of an avatar of the Ennead and their mercenaries. Thus leading to the use of a Revenant… that is now decapitated and no longer usable. It’s all a mixed bag. It could go either way for them.

They contemplate their thoughts as they look around the command centre. Usually bustling with activity from The Director and his commanders, it’s now oddly quiet. Probably because the Director is getting reports and test results from the dead Revenant. Nobody-84 tries to control their breathing but their anxiety is getting to them. As the thought of being put out of their misery pops into their head, the command centre’s narrow but tall doors slide open to reveal The Director and the living members of Nobody-84’s extraction squad.

“Hmmm.” The Director speaks with a calm voice that has a slight edge to it. Nobody-84 looks at their leader’s face. Every single time they’ve had a conversation with them, they never remember The Director’s face. It always seems to shift. Beard. No beard. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Moustache. No moustache. Large nose. Average nose. Freckles. No freckles. Weird shaped ears. Normal ears. His face always changes. Almost like he’s a shapeshifter. As Nobody-84 refocuses on the situation now, she notices her extraction team standing in formation. “I’m at a loss with what to do with you, Eighty-Four.” The director continues calmly.

Nobody-84 gulps and nervously asks “What do you mean, sir?”

“I would like you to imagine yourself in my shoes for a moment. You’ve been in the shadows for years. Awaiting for the right time to enact our bold plan. Slowly undertaking experiments on our Revenant program. Eventually, making the move towards our shared purpose”. The Director begins to explain as he slowly walks around Nobody-84 and the extraction team. “Then, a marvellous opportunity arises. Nobody-47 from the Eagle Division discovers a Cosmic Shard in the wild”. The man chuckles for a moment. “A cosmic shard… from the heart of a Celestial… that’s meant to house immense cosmic power”. The Director continues with pausing for effect to drive home the sheer strangeness of the entire situation. He then pauses for a moment as he calculates his next words carefully. “Do you know what the odds are on that, Eighty-Four?”

Nobody-84 takes a moment to think and carefully says “Close to zero point eight percent, sir”. The Director sighs in response.

“Closer to zero point four percent”. He states with a hint of disappoint. After a moment, he softly adds “I will say that was a good guess for someone who’s a field agent and not science division”. Again, The Director pauses before walking towards the room’s main control panel.

“Anyway, I’m going off track with my point, Eighty-Four. Extracting that Cosmic Shard from The Shrouded Bazaar? Huge success. Alerting an avatar of the Ennead and a former Avenger? Massive failure”. He tells Nobody-87 as he begins to fiddle with a switch on the control panel that he knows is broken and can’t do anything. With the mere mention of ‘a former Avenger’, one of the Extraction team loudly gulps before opening their mouth.

“Sir, are you mistaken? The Avengers haven’t existed since The Sokovia Accords”. The soldier asks their leader to which The Director stops messing with the broken switch on the control panel. He suddenly turns to the Extraction team.

“Are you questioning my authority on these matters, Thirty-Eight?” He asks firmly. Before the soldier can respond to the allegation, they suddenly (along with the rest of the extraction team) drop to the floor in severe pain. The Director makes a quick swishing motion with his left hand as the extraction team slowly begins to combust into flames. Beginning from their chests and expanding to the rest of their bodies, the inferno engulfs all of them… until they all vanish from the command centre without a trace.

Horrified, Nobody-87 asks “What did you do?”. The Director smirks at what he’s about to say next.

“Oh, you don’t know? Every single person under my command…” He gets a bit more cheerful as he adds “…Yes. Including you… has a microchip implanted in them. Extreme failure and you’re sent to a dimension of my choosing where every day becomes a waking agony until death herself eventually takes you as easy prey”.

A moments silence takes ahold of the command centre between The Director and Nobody-87. The leader begins to clarify “To answer their point of The Sokovia Accords dismantling the Avengers. Yes. It did*. However, it doesn’t mean heroes stopped being heroic. They just do it on the sly**. Away from the limelight. Away from the adoring public. Being out in the open is how some people manipulate matters to make the world into a worse place.” He begins to walk back to Nobody-87. “Our little operation to get the Cosmic Shard worked. But the fact it and your little ‘Ley Lines’ getaway alerted not only an Ennead avatar, but a former Black Widow and one James Buchanan Barnes makes a large success into a colossal failure”. The Director continues while trying to drill in his feelings of exacerbation into Nobody-87. The solider takes a deep breath before talking.

“Sir, no offence, but it’s not like they know where we are”. Nobody-87 decides to bring up that these heroes don’t know where exactly Emerald City is. Maybe it’s to bring some comfort to their boss in overwhelmingly bad news, as well as trying to save their ass from the same fate as the Extraction Team.

“Oh, I’m not too worried about them knowing. We have contingencies we can utilise for them. What I am worried about is the mystery masked assailant that decapitated the Revenant”. The Director clarifies before continuing “They’re an unknown wild card here. Former Avengers we can deal with. The Strange’s we can deal with. Maximoff we can deal with. This mysterious sorcerer? We have no files on them and that poses a huge security risk”. He slams his fist down on a nearby table. The Director rubs his hand immediately afterwards to cover up the surprise pain he felt in that brief moment after slamming it down. Once he finishes rubbing his hand, The Director quickly pulls out the revolver from its holster on his left leg and shoots Nobody-87 point blank through their left eye. The solider falls to the floor instantaneously as he puts his revolver back into its holster and three of the Director’s ‘commanders’ enter the room.

“Commanders. We have an escalation. We are too far along with the Ultimate Nullifier project to lie down and hope outside forces stop poking around. We need to show an overwhelming force to those who dare to start a fight with us. I want heads on stakes, which is why I’m authorising the Zephyr Lazarus for deployment in the field as soon as possible. I want nothing to stand in our way with the Ultimate Nullifier project. Am I understood?” The Director proclaims as his ‘commanders’ nod in agreement. “Now, clean this mess up. I need to inspect the Zephyr Lazarus at once.” He commands and gestures to the bloody corpse of Nobody-87 before he leaves the command centre.

A few minutes later, The Director has reached the Revenant containment wing of Emerald City. While some of the large metal warehouse doors are open revealing containment cells for former Revenant agents, there is still one that’s still closed and locked down. The Director reads the writing on the door ‘Zephyr. Revenant Prime. No entry. Extreme occult hazard’. Within the door itself is a small hatch that’s locked shut with a padlock. The Director pulls out a small old looking key from one of his pockets that he places into the padlock. He twists the key before the padlock falls to the ground with a large ka-funk. From his other pocket, he pulls out the glass container with the Cosmic Shard Nobody-87 and the Extraction Team acquired from the Shrouded Bazaar. He places it on the open metal hatch before he picks up the padlock from the floor. The Director then quickly slams the hatch up, allowing whatever is on the other side of the locked metal warehouse doors to have the Cosmic Shard. He locks the hatch with padlock and key as he hears unearthly roars coming from the other side. As he walks away from the Revenant containment wing, The Director internally contemplates. Could he have taken the powers of the Cosmic Shard for himself? Probably. But when you’re already playing with a wild card in a tarot deck, you can’t make the game more dangerous than it already is…

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen

THE NEXT MORNING…

Location: Fontaine Tower, New York City

Yelena Belova awakens from a very deep slumber in one of ‘Val’’s many guest rooms within Fontaine Tower. After the long and drawn out battle with the Revenant, the team decided to return to ‘Val‘’s place for the night to regroup. More importantly, to figure out where they all go from here to take down The Blasphemy Cartel and their plans that somehow include more Revenants. Wearing only a plain white gym sports bra and matching shorts (in Yelena’s mind, wearing long trousers to bed doesn’t feel right on her sensitive skin), the former black widow gets out of the queen-size bed and walks towards the tall curtains at the other side of the room. She pulls them open to reveal a skyline view of the Big Apple below. Yelena takes a moment to bask in the view before she remembers the last moments of the day before.

Every single one of them at a loss of words at what happened. From the Blasphemy Cartel being able to resurrect dead heroes and villains with a colossal army of rebellious ghosts; Jack not actually being an actual monster hunter and in fact, is a goddamn werewolf; to the mysterious sorcerer only known as The Harvestman who is willing to kill them if they get in his way again, The Thunderbolts felt that they all needed time to process everything before even attempting to relay their knowledge to themselves. Let alone ‘Val’ or ‘Ted’. Yelena also noticed how shook up both Layla and Jack were after everything. Both were close to dying and somehow found the strength to push through and live another day.

Yelena finds herself brought back into the present with the sound of heavy traffic in the city outside. She should find Layla and Bucky. Knowing what she knows about The Blasphemy Cartel now from what The Harvestman told them of the Revenants; the former black widow knows that ‘Val’’s definitely got ulterior motives. But first, Yelena treats herself to one of her morning self care routines, a nice long warm shower in the adjoining bathroom to her guest room.

One deep clean and contemplation later, Yelena Belova emerges from the shower and dressed her tactical gear once again… but it’s now slightly smelly due to the events of the night before. Her nose catches a short whiff of the strong scent coming off it.

“When this is all done, I’ll have to take you to the dry cleaners”. She mutters to herself as she heads out of the bathroom and towards a table dresser where her Glock 47, Widow Gauntlets and electrified batons currently resides. After finally equipping herself with her weaponry, Yelena hears a knock at the door of the guest room.

“Yelena, you got a moment?” The voice from the other side of the door asks. The former black widow knows that voice to be Layla El-Faouly as she heads to the door to unlock it.

“Yeah. What’s up, Golden Eagle?” Yelena answers as she opens the door. Layla walks in before Yelena closes and locks the door behind her.

“I think Val’s lying to us”. The Scarlet Scarab coldly gets to the point. Hearing that come from Layla’s mouth startles Yelena for a moment. “Do you hear me?” She quietly asks her.

“Yeah. I hear you.” Yelena quickly and quietly answers. “Where’s the others?”

“Ava, Shang-Chi and Jack are in the lobby. Probably at that bar again. I haven’t seen Bucky since he went to his guest room last night”. The Scarlet Scarab softly explains.

“Okay. Okay”. The former black widow repeats to herself as Layla reads her face. Yelena’s thinking the exact same thing as her.

“You think she’s a liar?” Layla asks as Yelena sighs.

“Did you hear about what happened here in New York last Christmas?” She quickly asks in response.

“To be honest, my husband and I spent Christmas in London. We had a lovely time ice skating at Hyde Par-“ Layla answers before beginning to go on a side tangent. Yelena places her hand on Scarlet Scarab’s shoulder.

“Golden Eagle. Focus.” She quietly interrupts her before she continues “Last Christmas, I was hired by Valentina to assassinate Clint Barton…”

“Wait. Hawkeye?” Layla asks.

“The original not cool one”. Yelena answers.

“We’re talking the same person, right? Clint Barton. Hawkeye”. The Scarlet Scarab asks for clarification from the former Black Widow.

“Yes. The original Hawkeye. Another emerged last Christmas and she’s called Kate Bishop”. She confirms before softly whispering to herself, “What a woman”. Layla gives Yelena a short suspicious look that tells the former black widow that she heard her whisper. A short silence fills the room before Yelena quickly continues; “Anyway, I tracked Clint down and nearly killed him*. Turns out both of us were very alike in one way. We both care for Natasha deeply. With the help of both Clint and Bishop, I discovered that Valentina hired me to do the dirty work of Wilson Fisk”.

“The Kingpin.” Layla quietly adds.

“…who’s now mayor-elect apparently**. I don’t know what the public sees in that man. They’re so stupid.” Yelena complains.

“So, what did you do?” The Scarlet Scarab asks her new ally (and maybe friend? Would Yelena even want to be friends with her?).

“Took down the Tracksuit Mafia in Rockafella Plaza. Helped break Kingpin’s ‘daughter’ break free from him to become her own person. Got Bishop’s mum arrested. Clint and Bishop spent Christmas together at the Barton Ranch. All in all, I call that a great success”. Yelena lists off what went down last Christmas Eve before she takes a moment to breathe. “As for Valentina, she’s been elusive. Never been able to get at her… until yesterday when she grabbed Bucky, Ava and myself during a raid on a A.I.M facility”.

“She lied to us about Jack”. Layla reveals the reason why she suspects Val knows more than what she’s letting on.

“Well, duh. Mister Monster Hunter is actually Mister Monster Mash”. Yelena responds snarky.

“And I noticed it in your face when she told us about The Blasphemy Cartel”. Layla continues to relay her suspicions to the former black widow.

Yelena is surprised Layla picked up on her facial expression back then. Seems like she needs more work in hiding her facial expressions then. She wisely says in a quiet but wise tone. “Cause I knew she’s only wants us to know what she wants us to know. Why reveal your hand when you still got moves to play in order to win?”. With those words, Layla grows silent. In that case, it does make a lot of sense why Val has been holding back information from them all, but it leads to the elephant in the room. Why?

“Then, what does she want?” Layla asks the biggest question of them all right now.

“I don’t honestly know”. Yelena answers before quickly suggesting “I think we need to find Bucky. We need his insight”. As she says this, she unlocks and opens the door. Both Yelena and Layla exit the guest room quickly in order to find Bucky Barnes.

Bucky Barnes is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morning. He’s been cursing Shuri from the minute he got rudely awakened by his ‘Kobik’ arm at 4am. It’s somehow managed to learn how to grow its tendrils into praying mantis-lile legs and turn the hand into a venus flytrap like mouth. The thing is turning into a sentient creature made out of Vibrainum… actually scrap that. It’s a beast made out of Vibrainum! Bucky watches as ‘Kobik’ continues to try and eat the spare bed pillow in one go but fails to do so. Instead, the metal creature rips the pillow to shreds like a crazed dog instead. It is at this moment both Yelena and Layla walk through the door then shut and lock it behind them. Both Bucky and ‘Kobik’ look at them. A moment of silence drifts across them all.

“Is this a bad time?” Yelena asks to break the silence.

“You think?!” A very grumpy Bucky sarcastically responds before ‘Kobik’ tries to head to the door.

“What the hell? Is that your arm?!” Layla is both stunned and horrified at the sight of ‘Kobik’. Before it can get at them, Yelena fires three quick rounds of her Widow bites at it which temporarily immobilise the metallic creature that was once Bucky’s metal arm.

“Quickly. Give it here!” Bucky commands as both Yelena and Layla grab one end of ‘Kobik’ each and carry it to Bucky. He presses three separate parts of ‘Kobik’ in a quick sequence before twisting the top into place onto his shoulder. ‘Kobik’ lets out quiet mechanical grumble of defeat as it shifts back from the mechanical beast to its usual metal arm looking self as Bucky locks it back into place. He moves the arm and fingers to ensure he has control again. Knowing ‘Kobik’ is back into its place, Bucky falls back onto the guest room bed in relief. Both the former Black Widow and the Scarlet Scarab have questions and thoughts for the Winter Solider. He looks at them and knowledges that they both need context to what just happened.

“‘Kobik’’s got a mind of its own. That cosmic shard and that knock off super soldier serum from A.I.M must have given it sentience.” Bucky states tiredly before Yelena quickly places her cards on the table.

“We both think Valentina is a lying sack of shit”. She bluntly and quietly states as Bucky sits himself up on the bed and turns to face Layla.

“You think this too?” He asks her.

“We all saw Jack last night. He ain’t no monster hunter. She’s hiding something else from us but we’re unsure what?”. Layla quietly and slowly conveys her point to The Winter Soldier who takes a moment to contemplate his thoughts.

“Jack’s no monster hunter. That is true”. Bucky begins to slowly state as he continues to think. After a moment of a silence, he asks “Did Valentina ever mention why she wanted the Blasphemy Cartel to be disposed of?”

“Just that she’s a ‘concerned private citizen who wants the best of the city’.” Yelena recalls ‘Val‘’s reason when she asked her yesterday. Both Layla and Bucky nod slowly before turning away from her. Bucky pulls himself up from the bed and stands.

“Yeah. She’s hiding something else from us. We need to find out what she knows.” Bucky firmly states before adding “I trust Yelena on this. She’s had experience with Valentina in the past and how she likes to hold her cards close to her chest for as long as possible. Plus, Yelena’s a surprisingly good truth detector”. Bucky openly admits which causes Layla to turn to Yelena.

“It runs in the family”. The former black widow quips as she looks around at the mess that ‘Kobik’ has made in the room.

He wished he hadn’t turned. The after effects of his curse take a toll on him the following morning after a deep slumber. Jack Russell stumbles out of his guest room with a banging migraine. He wonders if this is what it feels like to be hungover. He slowly shuffles to the open bar area where both Shang-Chi and Ava are helping themselves to early morning drinks. You know what they say. It’s five o’clock somewhere in the world. Both Ava and the master of Kung-Fu turn and notice Jack as he enters wearing the torn remains of his shirt and a fresh clean pair of black jeans that were luckily found in his guest room.

“Look who finally crawled out of the gutter.” Ava quips.

“Don’t. Please don’t.” Jack quietly and weakly protests. He doesn’t need to explain his situation to them. Not now. Not like this.

“What? Don’t ask why you’re a goddamn werewolf, Jack?!” Shang-Chi quickly asks the ‘monster hunter’ determined to know what he is and how he became it. Jack slowly walks to the bar. He grabs a glass bottle of coke from the mini fridge and opens it. Jack takes a swig before signing. He definitely should explain himself to them.

“I’m over three thousand years old”. Jack begins to explain as both Shang-Chi and Ava lean towards him eager to listen to his story. “I was born in 1725. In my youth, I met a malicious witch. She cast a curse on me that slowed down my aging significantly…” He pauses for a moment as he mentally recalls that gypsy witch. So charming. So charismatic. Draped in purple. If he ever found her, Jack would not hold back and tear the limbs right out of their bloody sockets. He recollects himself and then continues “…at the cost of being forced to transform into a terrible beast every night”.

“Every night?” Ava asks to confirm she heard him correctly.

“Every. Night. Without fail”. Jack firmly answers.

“Must be real awkward in the dating scene then. You’re Cinderella but if she turns into The Beast at the stroke of midnight rather than a peasant”. Shang-Chi states semi-jokingly.

“It makes sense how you could track the scent of that Asgardian meat from The Shrouded Bazaar from so far away in hindsight”. Ava quickly recalls the event from the day before.

“It’s why I was staying close to one of you at all times yesterday. I had to imprint”. Jack states before he takes another swig of his coke.

“Imprint?” Ava asks.

“A way to ensure the beast within doesn’t hurt anyone I don’t want them to”. Jack answers as he finishes off his drink.

“Good to know”. Shang-Chi responds as both him and Ava finish their drinks. The trio quickly notice Bucky, Yelena and Layla enter the room with a look of determination on their faces.

Yelena is the first one to speak. “Nice to see you’re finally awake, Monster Mash”.  She taps Jack’s back on the way to the open bar to pour herself, Bucky and Layla a morning drink.

“You know that I’m gonna have to admit to Steve that he was right in believing in werewolves back in the war days?” Bucky lightheartedly asks.

“You’re telling us that Captain America himself, believes in the supernatural?” Shang-Chi responds to Bucky’s comment. The Winter Soldier sighs.

“Yeah. Pretended to be a werewolf on Halloween back on the frontlines”. Bucky openly admits in front of the team as Yelena passes him his drink.

“You know, while we’ve been waiting for you all, Shang-Chi and I made a bit of an observation”. Ava begins to tell them all to which Yelena, Layla and Bucky turn to each other. Are they going to agree with them on the stance that ‘Val’’s hiding something from them?

Recalling the earlier conversation from before Jack’s arrival into the room, Shang-Chi speaks “As a child, I was trained by a father to become a relentless killer and operative of The Ten Rings organisation***. All to follow in his footsteps”.

Ava adds “And after my parents died, S.H.I.E.L.D saw…” as she begins to ‘phase’ her left hand in and out of existence. She pauses for a moment to ensure the rest of the team notice the use of her abilities in her hand before continuing “…potential within me. What I see as an affliction, some saw as an opportunity. They trained me to become an operative in stealth to work for them****. They saw me as formidable and invaluable. Of course, S.H.I.E.L.D fell***** but the damage inflicted on me is irreversible”.

At this point, Yelena mentally makes a connection to her own childhood with Ava and Shang-Chi. “I never knew my real family”. She vulnerably states as the team turns to face her. “The earliest memory I have is of my found family. Natasha. Alexi. Melina. We were happy in Ohio. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to being a normal person. After that, General Dreykov then separated all of us and took me away to the Red Room to become a Black Widow******”.

Layla has an epiphany as finishes her drink. “Don’t you all think this is all suspicious?” She asks them all.

“What do you mean?” Jack asks.

“Half of us were child soldiers fighting battles that weren’t ours to begin with”. Layla begins to answer.

“That’s just a coincidence”. Shang-Chi shrugs Layla’s suggestion off.

“I’m not so sure”. Layla coldly responds which causes him, Jack and Ava to look at her.

“What are you trying to imply, Layla?” Ava asks her but before Layla can respond, ‘Val’ enters the room.

“Nice to see you’re all rested”. ‘Val’ makes herself known which causes both Layla and Yelena to look at each other. They’re gonna have to accuse her to know what she’s really up to here. “Have we got an update on the mission?” She asks the team. Everyone looks around to Bucky to provide the update but both Yelena and Layla stand up and slowly walk towards ‘Val’.

“We found the Blasphemy Cartel’s hideout but we were ambushed”. Yelena begins to explain before Layla adds.

“With a reanimated corpse of Whiplash. I’m sure you’ve heard of him”. The Scarlet Scarab adds.

“We barely made it out of there with the help of someone called The Harvestman. We had to regroup and plan our strategy of attack before we infiltrate the area again”. Yelena finishes catching up ‘Val’ as both women notice that ‘Val’’s still trying to act like there’s no atmosphere between them.

“So, they’ll be eliminated by the end of the day. Brilliant. I think this calls fo-“ ‘Val’ tries to distract them but Layla isn’t having any of it.

“We know what you’re doing here. Lying about Jack’s true abilities. Recruiting former child soldiers. You’re not a citizen who’s concerned about a criminal organisation. You want something from the Blasphemy Cartel and need us to get our hands dirty so that yours remains clean. Admit it”. Layla confronts ‘Val’ about her intentions which causes a heavy silence to fill the room. After a moment or two, ‘Val’ slowly and condescendingly claps her hands. Ava, Shang-Chi and Jack look on in utter confusion. What the hell is going on? And why haven’t Bucky, Yelena and Layla filled them in on this?

“I can’t believe it took you all this time to figure it out”. She begins to mock our heroes. “Bucky was right. The Avengers are no more. Why would anyone want them to return after Sokovia and Lagos?” She raises Bucky’s point from the previous day. “Why else would anyone want to bribe the wardens of the fish bowl of a prison to release two enhanced criminals who committed war crimes in Cairo before their time were up?” She openly admits to her shady dealings to release Shang-Chi and Layla from The Raft. “Why would a team of soldiers know exactly where The Winter Soldier, a former Black Widow and a former S.H.I.E.L.D asset would be?” ‘Val’  continues to reveal her sinister dealings including sending the soldiers after Bucky, Yelena and Ava at A.I.M’s ‘Kratos’ facility. “And how the NYD weren’t alerted to a duo of monsters roaming Times Square in the middle of the night and were subdued by a team of soldiers instead?” She admits to capturing both Jack and ‘Ted’ following the escapades in The Shrouded Bazaar.

Our heroes turn back to each other for a moment before Yelena is the one to speak on behalf of the rest of them. “And why The Blasphemy Cartel?”. Best to know all the facts before they have to do the inevitable; break ‘Ted’ out of the bunker and escape the Tower now that ‘Val’’s showing her true colours.

“Two words. Real estate.” She coldly answers.

“I beg your pardon?” Ava says stunned by ‘Val’’s cold admission.

“Do I care about the Cartel managing to defy the natural order of things to resurrect dead villains to do its business? No. In fact, that could be handy in what I’ve got planned once I’ve got my hands on how they do it”. ‘Val’ begins to explain in her unique way.

Noticing what Yelena is trying to do here, Shang-Chi asks “And what have you got planned?”

“Control. As simple as that. With the Kingpin of Crime trying to be mayor of this city, there’s a vacuum of power in the shadows that’s begging to be filled. I intend to fill that hole”. ‘Val’ openly admits. Another large silence fills the room as Yelena walks closer towards her in sheer determination in her face. As she does this, Layla, Bucky, Shang-Chi, Ava and Jack prepare themselves for a potential showdown with this criminal mastermind in front of them.

Yelena responds to ‘Val’ and the reveal of her true character with just three words that she’s sure the rest of the Thunderbolts want to say to her. “Eat shit, Valentina”. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen

Before the Thunderbolts can do anything to her, ‘Val’’s soldiers arrive onto the scene welding the sound piercing rifles that Bucky, Yelena and Ava struggled to fight against the day before. It’s almost like they appear right on cue… alongside a helicopter landing on the tower’s helipad. As Bucky, Yelena, Ava, Jack, Shang-Chi and Layla notice the soldiers and the helicopter landing, ‘Val’ gives these enhanced heroes a shit eating grin.

“Look, as much as I would love to stay and chat. I’ve got places to be and things to do”. She confidently and smugly states as she makes her way towards the helipad. “See you around, ‘Thunderbolts’.” She mocks them as she notices a soldier with a radio. She grabs the radio from the soldier before she enters the helicopter and the passenger door closes behind her. Yelena overhears Val on the radio from one of the soldiers who has theirs on a high volume “Execute the thing in the bunker and kill the rest”.

Before the soldiers can fire their rifles, Shang-Chi uses the Ten Rings to produce a dome around him and the rest of the Thunderbolts to protect them all. Managing to hold this protective dome with the rings, Shang-Chi turns to face the rest of his allies.

“How long can you hold this?” Yelena asks him as the pressure of the sonic blasts from the rifles begin to close the circumference of the dome.

“Not long!” He yells amidst the struggle to maintain the protective dome.

“I know this tower well and I’m the quickest out of all of us. I’ll have to be the one to save ‘Ted’!” Yelena states before turning to Jack. He gives her a nod of reassurance in this fast hatched plan of hers.

“I’ll give you a window.” Shang-Chi struggles to say before he pushes his arms out. This causes the protective dome made by the Ten Rings to cease and for the rings to fire out in all directions towards the soldiers. ‘Val’’s soldiers are flung back to the ground by the impact with a rifle being tossed towards Jack’s direction. Yelena makes a break for it and manages to run towards the tower’s only staircase. She enters the staircase as Jack picks up the rifle from the ground to defend himself.

The soldiers manage to stand as they notice the Ten Rings return to Shang-Chi. Stood in a circle to face the enemies in front of them, Layla, Bucky, Jack, Ava and Shang-Chi prepare themselves for the incoming battle ahead of them^.

Before he can strike, a soldier manages to use one of the sonic blast rifles to launch Shang-Chi from out of the tower’s glass window, across the tower’s wide balcony and into the skies of New York City.

“SHANG!” Layla screams but before she can retract her wings and fly after him, more soldiers begin to fire traditional bullet rifles. Layla uses her wings as a shield for her, Bucky, Ava and Jack to defend themselves.

For a brief moment, Layla turns to the now broken glass window to see Shang-Chi using the Ten Rings… as monkey bars and stepping stones in the sky to make it back inside of Fontaine Tower. The soldiers barely have any time to react as Shang-Chi then fires a couple of the rings at the soldiers on his descent back in and towards the rest of the Thunderbolts.

Layla then retracts her wings as she, Shang-Chi, Bucky and Ava charge themselves at ‘Val’’s soldiers. Jack holds ground by using the sonic blast rifle he picked up earlier to distract soldiers from firing their rifles at him.

‘Kobik’ roars as the sentient metal arm detaches from Bucky and transform itself into the Virbrainium beast that the Winter Soldier had to deal with earlier that morning. It begins to shuffle around the tower before leaping onto one of the soldiers. It inserts its tendril legs into the soldier’s chest before leaping off them and doing the same to another one. Bucky notices this in the middle of the chaos and manages to grab ‘Kobik’ in mid pounce. He reattaches it back to his body as ‘Kobik’ transforms back into its usual metal arm form.

Meanwhile, Ava and Shang-Chi make a dash towards the tower’s balcony and helipad to reach the helicopter and ‘Val’. It begins to take off as Shang-Chi attempts to catch up with it by using The Ten Rings as floating stepping stones. Alas, it isn’t enough as the helicopter flies away from Fontaine Tower at a speed that Shang-Chi cannot match. The master of The Ten Rings returns to the balcony where Ava awaits for him.

“She’s still out there”. Shang-Chi states disappointingly as he notices a trio of ‘Val’’s soldiers sneak up behind Ava with their rifles drawn and ready to shoot.

“Beyond you!” Shang-Chi calls as the three soldiers begin to fire at both heroes Ava manages to ‘phase’ through the bullets as Shang-Chi uses the Ten Rings to defend himself. Immediately, the soldiers stop firing at look at their rifles in confusion before Ava ‘phases’ in and out of existence to throw them off the tower’s balcony.

Back inside the tower, Layla lands in front of Bucky and uses the Wings of Taweret to deflect the rifle fire from the soldiers within. She turns to face the Winter Soldier.

“We’re gonna have to fight our way out.” She tells him.

“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Bucky asks her as he leans across Layla’s wings to fire metal tendrils from ‘Kobik’ at the soldiers. Some hit. Others miss as the soldiers manage to dodge them.

“Hope Yelena has got to Ted.” Layla wishes as the duo continue their fight against ‘Val’’s soldiers.

MEANWHILE…

Yelena Belova manages to get to the long and winding staircase at the heart of  Fontaine Tower. She leans over the handrails to inspect how many stairs she’ll have to walk down. It’s a lot. More importantly, she notices more of ‘Val’’s soldiers climbing the stairs to join their brethren up above. Realising there’s no other way down (as ‘Val’ would probably lock down the elevator), Yelena readies her Widow’s Gauntlets before the soldiers notice her. She leaps down towards one and fires a widow bite that paralyses them. She uses the temporary paralysed soldier as a launch pad and jumps off them towards the wall next to them. Using the wall to adjust herself, she fires another widow bite to the next soldier below and repeats the same process.

By the fourth time, the next soldier begins to aim their rifle at her. Realising she can’t keep using the same trick to descend the tower’s staircase, she makes a smooth manoeuvre from jumping on the wall to stepping on the staircase rail. She jumps off said rail as uses her elbow to knock the solider down with the velocity of her descent. Yelena manages to roll past the fallen solider and pull herself back up to begin running once again towards what she currently sees as the final solider guarding the staircase’s entrance to the Tower’s bunker.

The final soldier pulls out a knife and attempts to stab Yelena. She barely manages to dodge the swipe before delivering a blow to the solider’s knee. The strike causes the solider to drop the knife which Yelena manages to catch in mid air. She attempts to swipe at the solider with it but they manage to move out of the way of the blade. Realising they’re equally matched, she throws the knife which deeply penetrates the solider’s thigh. They fall to the ground which allows Yelena to deliver a fast but powerful kick in their face causing the soldier to fall unconscious.

At the bottom of the staircase, Yelena looks back up at where’s she been and the soldiers she’s managed to defeat in her descent down. “So much for elite security, Valentina”. She mutters to herself as she heads towards the bunker.

Inside the bunker, Yelena watches as four of ‘Val’’s soldiers have cornered ‘Ted’ with their rifles. She’s luckily arrived in time before they can kill Jack’s friend! As the soldiers begin to slowly walk closer to the hulking beast, ‘Ted’ looks around the bunker and notices Yelena in the shadows watching on. Sensing him that Jack is safe and he’s sent this woman to help him out, ‘Ted’ lets out a monstrous roar!

“Open fi-“ One of the soldiers begins to instruct the others before ‘Ted’ launches himself and grabs the soldier in question. They begin to scream as they begin to turn into acid that slowly drips onto the bunker’s floor. The remaining soldiers take one moment to look at each other in disbelief and before they can rethink their actions, ‘Ted’ grabs two of them and they too descend into an acidity mess that covers the floor of the bunker.

“I don’t get paid enough for this shit”. A solider states as they throw their rifle to the ground but before they can leave, Yelena fires a widow bite into them which causes them to fall to the ground near the entrance to the staircase. ‘Ted’ turns to face Yelena again. The creature lets out a loud and aggressive roar that’s meant to intimidate her.

“Ted?” She asks which causes ‘Ted’ to soften his eyes and face. “We need to get out of here. Jack’s waiting for us up there”.  Yelena points to the entrance of the staircase to which Ted slowly walks through.

Yelena then looks back at the staircase to notice the solider’s she fought on the way down have regained their strength ready for a rematch with her. ‘Ted’ begins his ascent towards the ground level of the tower and touches the soldiers that dare to stand in his way causing increase of acid dripping down the staircase. Yelena quickly follows behind ‘Ted’ to ensure she’s not in the vicinity of the acid that were once soldiers.

It’s at this point Yelena remembers what Layla said about what ‘Ted’ can do from the day before. “Huh. That’s why you like touching people”. She amusingly states which causes ‘Ted’ to let out a series of disapproving grunts. “I didn’t think you would be so touchy about it. I’m trying to be friendly with you”. She quickly states to which ‘Ted’ releases a couple of kind but short grunts in response to her.

Yelena and ‘Ted’ enter the ground level lobby to see Shang-Chi kicking ass using The Ten Rings. From using the Rings as projectiles to floating stepping stones to fly above ‘Val’’s soldiers, Shang-Chi knows how the keep on top of his foes in combat. Following Shang-Chi, Layla flies in and uses a combination of her Wings of Taweret and blades to destroy the soldiers’ rifles before they even have a chance to use them. Finally, Bucky, Ava and Jack arrive into the ground level lobby. Jack then notices ‘Ted’.

“Oh buddy! I’m glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would do if any of them harmed you in anyway.” He tells his friend who lets out a series of comforting and reassuring grunts and grumbles. Jack then turns to Yelena. “Thank you for getting him out”.

“Can’t let one monster leave without his buddy, right?” She states before the team manages to escape Fontaine Tower safely as soldiers continue to fire at them.

HALF AN HOUR LATER…

Location: Darkened Alleyways of New York City.

Having managed to escape Fontaine Tower and ‘Val’’s forces, the Thunderbolts take a moment to breathe. That was a relentless fight to get out of there. Yelena and Layla’s suspicions of ‘Val’ were right. She’s manipulated their involvement from the very start. From gathering each one of them to the team to disguising the actual reason she wanted the Blasphemy Cartel stopped. Not because they’re trying upheld the natural order of things by using rebelling ghosts to resurrect dead heroes and villains. No. It’s all because Valentina wants to take over the criminal underworld of the Big Apple. It makes Layla sick to the bone.

The team haven’t spoken a word to each other since escaping the tower but Ava is the first to break the silence between them all^^.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” She asks Layla and Yelena.

“What do you mean?” Layla ask naïvely.

“That Valentina was a manipulative piece of shit.” Ava clarifies.

“In Golden Eagle’s defence, we only had suspicions that she was a piece of shit.” Yelena begins to answer.

“Sure. Suspicions.” Jack sarcastically responds which Layla picks up on.

“Like you have room to talk.” Layla aggressively responds to Jack’s comment. “You’re here being flipping David Kessler…”

“I don’t know who that is?” Jack asks in confusion but Layla continues.

“…and you thought it wasn’t something to tell any of us?”

“You’re avoiding the question, Layla…” Ava tries to get the Scarlet Scarab back on track to her own question.

“I’ll get back to you once Jack tells us why.” Layla’s is unwilling to budge on the matter at hand.

‘Ted’ lets out a short grumble of disappointment to his friend which Jack acknowledges. He then quickly sighs before coldly answering “I’ve lost the people I loved to the beast within. The rage consumes it and I can’t control it. It just takes over and I’m helpless to stop it. The less people know about my curse, the better it is for everyone”.

“Don’t you think nobody here has ever hurt somebody? Get a grip, Jack”. Yelena responds with the same amount of harshness in her voice.

“Yelena, there’s no need”. Layla tries to defend Jack now that she’s got her reason from him.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know the wife of the Moon Knight defended werewolves. Oh wait, they’re travellers of the night aren’t they?” Yelena snaps at the Scarlet Scarab.

“You knew?” Layla quietly asks.

“Knew that your husband is Marc Spector. The Moon Knight. The Fist of Khonshu. I don’t know how you forgot that I keep tabs on every enhanced individual out there. Especially one that was supposed to die in a mercenary mission and got resurrected by Khonshu to be his warrior of the night”. Yelena coldly admits. With this single comment, Layla is stunned.

“Is that what I am to you? An asset? You’re no better than Valentina”. Layla asks with disappointment in her voice.

“You’ve not no room to talk either, Scarab! You kept your suspicions of her away from me, Jack and Shang-Chi. How can we function as a team if some of us are unwilling to share all the details?” Ava responds raising her own question again to the rest of them.

“How could we be so sure that we could trust you?” Bucky asks.

“How can we trust you when your metal arm seems to have a mind of its own and can be a beast just like me?” Jack responds acknowledging that ‘Kobik’ seems to be a beast in its own right.

“QUIET!” A very quiet up to this point Shang-Chi shouts. “Can we just get a grip of ourselves for just a moment?” This causes the rest of them to look towards him.  “We all have our problems. We all have made mistakes. Some of those more recently. We’re blinding ourselves to what really matters right now.” He begins to explain in order to keep the team together.

“And what’s that, smart ass?” Yelena asks.

“The Blasphemy Cartel are still out there, trying to upend reality as we know it. Our gripes are just petty squabbles in comparison to that”. Shang-Chi answers as he attempts to refocus the rest of them. He then turns to face Jack. “Yes, Jack hid the fact that he’s a goddamn werewolf but he had his reasons”. He then turns to Layla, Yelena and Bucky “Yes. Some of us suspected Valentina was a traitorous bitch but they had their reasons too”.

“What are you trying to get at here?” Ava asks.

“What I’m trying to say is that we need to forgive each other for these small and silly mistakes we’ve made recently and refocus on the task at hand. The Blasphemy Cartel are still out there and they need to be stopped once and for all”. Shang-Chi concludes his major speech before the others look around at each other.

Yelena sighs and is the first to admit her faults. “I should know better than to hide knowledge from the rest of you. I’ve never worked as part of a team before and I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings in anyway.” She begins to apologise for her recent actions before she turns to Layla “Are you willing to take this idiot back and be friends again, Golden Eagle?” She asks her.

Layla gives a small reassuring smile now knowing that the former black widow wants to be friends with her. “Firstly, you’re definitely an idiot. But, yeah. I would like that”. The two heroines give a short hug in confidence with each other again.

Jack is next to admit his mistakes. “I’ve haven’t opened up to anyone since…” He points to ‘Ted’ and continues “…I met this guy”. He lets out a short sigh. “I should be more open about my curse with you all”.

“You didn’t want to be a werewolf in the first place?” Layla asks him.

“No. I originally looked for a way to slow my aging and maintain my youth. Then I encountered a very charismatic witch draped in purple who knew the exact spell that could achieve that. It wasn’t a spell at all. It was a curse she placed on me for no other apparent reason other than pure Schadenfreude”. Jack answers honestly.

“What the hell is Schadenfreude?” Ava asks completely baffled by the word.

“Getting pure joy out of other people’s misfortune”. Bucky explains.

“Ah. Right”. Ava responds to that new piece of knowledge. Following this, Bucky walks up to Shang-Chi and places his hand on Shang-Chi’s shoulder.

“You’ve done good here, kid.” Bucky tells the master of the Ten Rings in an approving tone.

“Now that we’ve all returned to harmony of sorts, how do we get ready to storm the Blasphemy Cartel’s hideout?” Yelena asks as both ‘Ted’ and Layla notice a floating figure in the sky above them descending towards them. A familiar voice emerges from the floating figure.

“Maybe I might be able to provide assistance?”

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen

Slowly descending towards them, The Harvestman notices that the heroes he encountered the day before are on edge in his presence. He is then reminded of his warning he gave to them following the beheading the Revenant.

“I am not here to fight you”. He calls out to ease tensions between them.

“How can we be so sure about that? You were the one to threaten us the last time we met.” Bucky bluntly asks the mysterious sorcerer.

“I can give you Emerald City”. He answers which causes the Thunderbolts to contemplate their thoughts a moment.

“You’re shitting me.” Layla is the one to break the silence among them all.

“No wonder that place gave me the heebie jeebies”. Yelena quickly adds which causes Shang-Chi, Ava, ‘Ted’ and Jack to look at both heroines in confusion.

“Care to share what you’re thinking?” Ava asks them both.

“The Blasphemy Cartel’s base. It’s called Emerald City. A large green castle in the middle of nowhere”. Yelena states as she tries to get them all on the same page with her illustration. When both ‘Ted’ and Jack look at each other baffled with Yelena’s train of thought, she bluntly calls out “All of it is named after the Wizard of Oz”. The entire team baring The Harvestman release a collective ah as they all connect the same metaphorical dots together.

“So much for subtlety”. Bucky quickly comments before Layla walks towards The Harvestman who’s now landed on the ground.

“That won’t be enough for us to trust you. For all we know, you could be using us as the first line of defence against whatever forces they have contained in that castle”. Layla suspiciously tells the mysterious sorcerer.

Seeing no other choice in getting these heroes to trust him, The Harvestman vulnerably tells her “I can reveal who I am underneath this mask”.

“Then do that right now”. Ava commands as The Harvestman looks around. This place is too open for that reveal. Especially with how he knows the Blasphemy Cartel’s soldiers can use the mystic arts to conceal their true identity.

“Not this place. Not here”. He quickly responds before turning to who he thinks is the team’s leader. “Is there anywhere away from potential prying eyes? There, I can tell you what I know”. He asks Bucky.

Ava, Layla, Bucky, ‘Ted’, Shang-Chi and Jack look at each hopelessly. It’s a good point. They’re out in the wide open. Fontaine Tower is no longer safe for them. They can’t go anywhere without being spotted and ‘Ted’ is a News At 10 live report waiting to happen. It is then Yelena gets an idea. An equally good and terrible idea. Layla notices the cogs inside the former Black Widow’s head turning.

“Yelena, what are you thinking?” She asks her which causes The Harvestman to turn and face her.

“I know a place”. She boldly states.

HALF AN HOUR LATER…

Location: Kate Bishop’s Apartment, New York City.

“Give me a moment”. Yelena states as she attempts to lock-pick the door to the cooler Hawkeye’s apartment. Behind her, Shang-Chi, Ava, Layla, Bucky, Jack, ‘Ted’ and The Harvestman await for Yelena to do her thing.

“This isn’t your place, is it?” Shang-Chi naively asks the former black widow.

“It’s not but I’m on really good terms with the owner”. Yelena quickly answers continuing to lock-pick the door.

“Being on good terms means having your own key. Not picking the lock to get in.” Ava snarky comments.

“I’ll leave a note for her. She’ll be fine about it.” Yelena responds as she finally unlocks the door. She opens the door and gestures to the rest of her team and The Harvestman, “After you”.

As Layla walks into the apartment, she notices the furniture and decor of the place. It’s very modern in design with art deco styled paintings on the wall along with framed newspaper clippings. She makes a mental note to examine the newspaper clippings later on to know the owner that Yelena is seemingly on good terms with.

In order to minimise damage to the apartment, ‘Ted’ slowly crawls into the place and shockingly doesn’t touch anything. Yelena breathes a sigh of relief knowing Bishop would kill her if she broke the place. Especially after what the Tracksuit Mafia did to the first one.

Seeing that everybody is in the apartment and the door is locked behind them, The Harvestman decides it’s time they know who he really is. He balances his scythe on the wall of the apartment as he removes his dirty bronze mask. The Thunderbolts turn to face him as he does this to reveal the face behind The Harvestman. A seemingly elderly Danish man with a mysterious mark on his forehead. His skin around the eyes are a dark purple with cracks around the outer edge where the area of his eyes meets his regular pale skin. Jack and Shang-Chi both wince at the sight of his eyes. Something very unnatural at about him. Yelena immediately recognises the signs of a sorcerer like Doctor Strange but feels that this person went down a darker path in life than what the Sorcerer Supreme did.

“My old name was Kaecilius”. He begins to slowly get explain his origins. “I once lived a happy life in Copenhagen with my beloved Sonia. We were even expecting. A baby boy.” It hurts The Harvestman to even remember those days.

“What…” Ava struggles to gather her words as she has a very strong feeling on what the answer to her question is going to be. “…What happened?”

“She fell sick. An illness that still cannot be explained.” He answers with a hint of unresolved rage in his voice. He did everything he could to save her and their unborn son. How can you even describe the death of a child when you still live on without them? “It took both Sonia and our son. Life’s unmerifical and I just wanted to know why. Why would it do so such a thing to someone so undeserving of it.” With his words, Shang-Chi gets instant memories of his mother. Her death at the hands of the Iron Gang in place of his father*. Ava remembers her father and his own experiments with the Quantum Tunnel that led to the demise of both of her parents**. Layla recalls what Marc told her about her father at the dig site with him and an old accompanist that quickly lead to her dad’s murder at the hands of the accompanist; despite Marc’s best efforts to save him***. The common thread between these three heroes is a single thought. Maybe the Harvestman does have a point here? Life is an unforgiving and cruel master of us all.

The Harvestman takes a moment to recollect himself and gather his thoughts. “I needed answers to why. That’s when I was led on the path to meeting The Ancient One”.

Invested with his story, Yelena asks “The same person who trained Doctor Strange in the mystic arts?”

“The very same”. The Harvestman answers before he continues his story “Over time, I began to realise that despite my teachings in the mystic arts, I was nowhere near close to learning why Sonia and our son were taken from his plane. The Ancient One was a liar and deceiver for hiding truths in powers we don’t fully comprehend”. As he says this, he points to the mark on his forehead. “Thats what led me to become a disciple of Dormmamu of The Dark Dimension. Strange and I had…” The Harvestman pauses as he tries to word those events without coming off as the antagonist against a hero that he knows they would closely get along with. “…a disagreement on these matters and I was banished into The Dark Dimension****”. He pauses as he places his mask upon his face again. “That should have been my end. But my mistress found me and offered me a deal. Get transported eleven years in the future to eradicate the Revenant threat for her and in return, she can reunite me with Sonia and our son in the great hereafter”.

“While this is interesting and all, how does this relate to the problem we collectively have with The Blasphemy Cartel?” Bucky sees through The Harvestman’s story that’s designed to compose sympathy for the broken husk of a man.

“Because despite my warnings to you before, I’ve come to realise that you will need my help in order to dispose The Blasphemy Cartel and the Revenant threat they impose”. He openly admits his mistake for before and puts forward the motion of an alliance. The Harvestman continues “One sorcerer won’t be able to tear down Emerald City. Nor will a team of people unrefined in the mystic arts. But together? We might stand a chance to siege the City and dismantle the Cartel once and for all.”

Hearing his call, Layla quickly states “While I agree with you, I’m going to need a few moments to collect my thoughts.” before she walks away from the group. ‘Ted’ releases a collection of reassuring and calm groans of agreement. Jack then turns to Yelena.

“Before we can plan a siege of this place, do you know where the bathroom is?” He asks.

“Straight down the corridor and on your right”. The former black widow answers before Jack heads in that general direction. She then turns to The Harvestman. “I too have something to do before we can properly end this”.

Yelena walks towards the kitchen in Bishop’s apartment where she sees a blank ‘to do’ list stuck to the fridge with a magnet. She then sees a black pen on the countertop next to the fridge. Yelena grabs the pen and takes the blank ‘to do’ list from the fridge. On the countertop, she begins to write a note to the cooler Hawkeye…

Dear Bishop,

Sorry about the mess your place is in but we had no other place to crash. Who’s we? Turns out I’m in a team now. Who knew I could be a team player?

Anyway, I’ve told them to keep the place clean and spotless but if anything is out of place, missing or damaged; it’s their fault and not mine. I’ll replace anything that doesn’t live to your high living standards.

We should catch up again sometime. Maybe when you’re back from New Jersey with your new friend? Hope I’m not being replaced, lol.

See you soon, Hawkeye.

Yours kindly,

Yelena

Layla El-Faouly takes a moment to contemplate her thoughts away from the rest of the team and The Harvestman. Despite his history, Layla still gets a weird feeling from the man. Something about him is still sinister despite his circumstances. She walks down the apartment’s hallway where at the end of it lies the place’s bathroom. To the right of the bathroom, there’s an open door. Jack’s head pops out of the doorframe and takes a moment to notice Layla.

“Errr. I think you might want to see this, Layla”. He quietly whispers to her.

“What do you m-“ Layla begins to ask as she walks closer to the room when she sees it. The lady draped in black and bold green with the jaw out of raw bone sat on the double bed in the room. Layla quietly walks into what she assumes is the bedroom of apartment’s owner and quietly closes the door behind her. As she does this, Layla notices the various trophies for archery competitions and fencing from the years past. Whoever this apartment owner is who Yelena is in good terms with is definitely formidable. With the room door now being completely shut, both Layla and Jack look at his woman in terror. The last time they saw her was at Emerald City following their close shaves with death itself.

“I fear I do not have much time. So I will be quick”. The woman quietly and quickly states but before she can continue, Jack asks the important question.

“Who are you? Why do you have no skin around your jaw and mouth?”

“I’ve gone by many names in my lifetime. Some know me today as Rio Vidal. But you’ll commonly know me as Death”. She introduces herself.

“Death. You mean like…” Layla tries to ask but the woman interrupts her.

“I don’t mean it metaphorically, or rhetorically, or poetically, or theoretically, or in any other way. I am Death. Pleasure to be in your acquaintance”. She doubles down on her identity before bowing in front of both Layla and Jack.

“So, the grim reaper is a woman. I always thought that they would be gender neutral being a living skeleton…” Jack begins to comment before he notices a cold hard stare from Death which causes him to rethink his next words carefully “…but considering you have a raw bone jaw and mouth, I can see the confusion in the tales”. He laughs sheepishly with embarrassment.

“Listen, I do not have much time but you need to know the truth”. Death begins to explain to both heroes, “My Harvestman does not want to acknowledge the truth of what’s at play here. He’s too blinded by his grief to see”.

“I knew I felt something off about that man”. Layla states knowing that her suspicions about The Harvestman were correct in some form.

“The Revenant threat that you know as The Blasphemy Cartel are beginning to turn the gears on their plans that would defy the natural order.” Death begins to explain.

“How?” Jack asks her.

Death quickly answers, “They plan to use the rebellion of souls in my domain to resurrect the dead into an unstoppable Revenant army under their command. More worrisome is their ultimate goal. They have device housed in Emerald City. If they use it, they would be able to break reality as we know it”.

“Hang on.” Layla interrupts. Usually the Scarlet Scarab would attempt pressure her into giving how she knows that knowledge but considering how worrisome all of this is (and the person in question is the literal personification of Death itself), Layla brushes these suspicions aside. “Break reality? How?”

Death lets out a deep breath before answering. “Their device can… and will break the barrier between our reality and another where nothing will ever die; causing an incursion that would destroy either one or both realities”.  Both Layla and Jack turn to each other in both a panic and in concern for not just each other, but for everything they’ve ever known. They finally know the reason The Blasphemy Cartel are playing with supernatural forces not meant for human nature. The Cartel’s trying to destroy reality as we know it…