Civil War – Deals With Devils

Geffen-Meyer Chemicals

9:25 PM

John Walker was a simple man. He was a man who loved his mother, loved America, and loved the people that lived in it. It was why he went underground and waged war against the registration act. He could have just went to the Supreme Court, but he had it on very good authority that SHIELD had people within the government, so the law being overturned wasn't a sure thing.

He felt awful about everything that was happening. Friends and colleagues were trying to tear each other apart and innocent civilians were getting caught in the middle. He was afraid that his people were losing sight of what they were fighting for. This wasn't 'us vs them'. It was right vs wrong. Registration based on genetics was wrong, pure and simple. It was a prejudice and bigoted law that only served to provide the authorities an opportunity to persecute Gifted's who only wanted to do what was right.

They weren't fighting other heroes. They were fighting the law. John knew that it was impossible to defeat a law by punching people in the face until they stopped getting up, but with corruption in both the government and SHIELD, he wasn't sure what else to do. He sure as hell wasn't going to just bend over and let the government molest his and everyone else's civil liberties.

He was certain that his hero, Steve Rogers, would have done the same thing.

When Ant-Man arrived with Sargent Barnes, Wasp in tow, John was wary. He knew that the Wasp was registered and had just arrested the Young Avengers hours earlier. He planned on interrogating her to find out what the pro-registration side was planning. That was, until Ant-Man explained that she had been under mind control from Loki's scepter.

Upon consultation and comparing that with the explanation Scott gave them, they believed him and let Janet be. For right then. They weren't there for when she woke up, because their wiretap of police dispatch alerted them to a fire at a petrochemical plant owned by Stark Industries. There were three to four hundred workers trapped and in danger of being killed in the fire.

This was what John's secret team of heroes was all about. Quickly, he, along with a team led by Hercules - yes, the actual Hercules, who became a hero after seeing the exploits of his long, long, long time friend, Thor - Daredevil and Goliath - Bill Foster, who was yet another one of Hank's protégés to join on the superhero work - left quickly to resolve the issue.

Pixie, an X-Man with the ability to create portals to anywhere on the planet and even to the moon, transported the team from their hideout in the sewers under Manhattan to the chemical plant by the Hudson river.

As soon as they arrived, John had another mutant, Cable, whose origins were too confusing to get into, determine just how many workers were trapped.

"The radio said three to four hundred, Cap," he answered, slightly bemused. "There's something weird, though. I'm not getting anything over my info-net connections in terms of panic signals, or –" He suddenly stopped when he noticed that there was a tanker nearby. On the tanker was the very recognizable Oscorp Industries logo. "Get outta here, boys!" he roared. "It's a trap!"

Suddenly, a cloud of tranquilizer darts lanced through the air and struck Pixie. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.

"Pixie!"

"Of course it is," Iron Patriot stated with a little amusement. "How else were we supposed too get you all in one place?" Around him was a team of registered heroes, including the Fantastic Four, Yellowjacket and Wonder Man.

A SHIELD transport and four drone hovered ominously above the standoff. They had their orders – they were there purely for support, if Osborn and his team needed it.

John noticed this and approached Osborn. "Your paymasters going soft, Osborn?"

"We didn't come to arrest you, Cap," Norman stated calmly. "I've managed to talk SHIELD into giving you one final amnesty."

John knew a trap when he saw one. They may have convinced Osborn, but he knew that they weren't going take his leaving abruptly and putting a lot of their men in sickbay kindly. "You mean surrender? Thanks, but I'll take my chances."

"Come on, big guy!" Wonder Man said. "The only people who win when we all right each other are the bad guys. This goes against every principle you ever subscribed to."

"Don't talk to me about principles, Williams. As an actor, I doubt you'd know much about them unless the role of the day called for it," John retorted snappishly.

Norman flipped his face mask up. "Cap, please," he begged sincerely, "I know you're angry. I know this is an enormous change from the way things have always been. But the things that were just fine in the Invaders' days back in the forties aren't going to fly nowadays. The public doesn't want masks and secret identities anymore. I mean, look at the Avengers. They were the most beloved heroes on the planet and none of them had secret identities.

"You've seen in my business deals, I don't go into something unless I believe in it with everything I have. We don't have to fight. Just give me the chance to tell you our plans for the twenty-first century overhaul." Norman held his hand out as a show of good faith.

John looked at the hand, then at the SHIELD drones overhead. He removed his shield from his right arm and shook the hand. "You got five minutes," he said.

Norman smiled and shook it firmly. "Five minutes is more than enough." The pro-registration side cheered happily at what they thought was the end of a short, but violent civil war. However, Norman just so happened to glance at his hand and noticed that something was stuck to it. "What the hell?"

Suddenly, sparks of electricity jumped from the device and danced over his suit, locking it up. He groaned in pain and keeled over when John smacked him with his shield.

"That's an SHIELD electron scrambler designed by Nick Fury's tech team in case Stark or Rhodes ever went rogue." John struck him again and knocked him down. "You shouldn't have taken out one of mine, Osborn."

Caught offguard, the pro-reg heroes weren't ready for the anti-reg assault. Goliath grew to giant size and smashed through a swath of them to clear a path. "Head for the water! GO!"

At seeing Goliath grow, Yellowjacket grew herself to match his size. Even at her tallest, she was still noticeably shorter.

"I don't hit ladies, Rita," Goliath said when she grabbed onto him.

"Good." She kneed him in the groin and then twice the face when he keeled over. "That'll make it easier to beat you up."

The heroes collided into a mass whirlwind of fists and powers, punching and attacking each other as though the other side was threatening the safety of the entire planet.

Nighthawk, another unregistered hero, zipped across the sky and crashed through the SHIELD transport, sending it hurtling to the ground like a metal ball of fire. He then circled around and began to take down the drones. They fired on him as a purely defensive measure, but he was too elusive for them to get an aim on.

Down below, the registered heroes focused their efforts on taking down Captain America. His ability was too much for regular humans, but not for other Gifted's. Some who weren't occupied with more powerful Gifted's swarmed around him. He used his shield to keep them at bay, but they were too much.

"To your left, Captain!" The son of Zeus clapped his hands together just as John ducked down behind his shield. The concussive wave generated by the clap blew the registered heroes away, but was absorbed by John's shield.

"Thanks, Herc." John stood and tackled the nearest hero.

"Armor," Norman said while his armor was still locked up, "reroute primary power system and reboot."

"Rerouting." His armor shut down, shutting off the electron scrambler. "Rebooting." Osborn rose up and rocketed toward John, who was too distracted fighting someone to notice.

"Captain! Beware!" Hercules warned, but it was too late. Osborn slammed into John and drove him through a building and into an empty warehouse.

John groaned and staggered to his feet to try and throw a punch, but it was dodged easily. "You're wasting your time, Walker." He punched him in the face before he could raise his arm to parry. "This armor has every punch you've thrown the past two years on record." He punched him again, rocking him and nearly knocking him over. "It knows your next move before you do."

His next punch tore through his mask and splattered blood across the warehouse floor. Teeth flew from his mouth and clattered on the floor.

Hercules was surrounded by six other heroes when he heard John screaming in pain and heavy punches being landed. "AWAY FROM ME, YOU DIRTY TRAITORS!" he roared as he powered his way through them. "HE'S KILLING HIM IN THERE! HOLD CAPTAIN, I AM COMING!"

Five hundred more Apprehension units moved in to surround the perimeter. Although they were prepared to move in, Trent ordered that they hold back. =Codename: Lunar has first pass at this,= he said through the comms.

Suddenly, a tremendous beam of blue energy slammed into Hercules from above and buried him in a fifty foot crater.

"What the hell?" The unregistered heroes stopped what they were doing, bemused and wary. The next instant, multiple beams transpierced them nonfatally. Some dropped, others managed to stay on their feet. The ones that could watched the origin of those beams hover menacingly over the battlefield. "My god."

"Hello, boys," Moonstone said with a chilling sneer. "Guess who got herself a shiny new sheriff's badge?"

Karla Sofen, the same Karla Sofen who phased her hand through the head of the crown prince of Asgard to kill him, had joined the battle, on the side of registration.

"Moonstone? The hell is you doing here?!"

"Oh, you know. Adding a few more hero murders to my résumé." She extended a hand and unleashed a wave of energy that carved a twenty foot wide trench on the ground and engulfed the heroes.

One of them, named Dagger, struggled to her hands and knees. "Oh my God," she gasped. "This is wrong! This is very wrong! We have to get out of here!"

"No. You peons aren't going anywhere." Energy emanated from her hands and she slammed them into the ground. Like a miniature earthquake, the pavement beneath them ripped apart and washing the heroes in photonic energy.

Within the abandoned warehouse, John had been beaten nearly unconscious. His jaw was broken, to the point of almost falling off if not for his jaw muscles. The blows he took from Osborn would have killed any other man, but he still rose to his feet. "Cap, please," Osborn begged, "don't get back up. I don't want to hit you again. You're jaw's practically hanging off. Just surrender and I'll make sure you get medical attention from the SHIELD people outside."

John could barely stand, much less fight. Still, he wasn't about to give up. "Me… surrender to a punk like you, Osborn? Not on your ass."

Norman sighed and raised his arm. "Iron Patriot to all points. Activate your audio blockers. This is going to hurt." No sooner had he spoken, an ear-splitting sonic blast erupted from his gauntlet. Being the closest, John roared and fell to his knees, hands clutched tightly around his ears.

"Oh Lord, this is horrible," Invisible Woman lamented, "I can't even watch." She covered her forehead and eyes with a hand and shook her head in disgust.

Moonstone rolled her eyes and kicked one of the writhing heroes in the stomach. He grunted and skidded against the pavement. "Mm, they're so cute when they're in pain." She laughed and went to stomp on someone else.

"I don't like it either, Sue, but at least this way there aren't any broken bones. That's enough, Moonstone. You've done more than enough," Reed said firmly.

She scoffed and gently tapped Daredevil with her toe. "Spoilsport."

Within the warehouse, despite the sonic wave bombarding him, John was still attempting to stand. "You're a tough guy, John, I'll give you that much," Osborn admitted. "This frequency puts the human brain into shutdown, but look at you – still trying to get up." His gauntlet whined with a charging repulsor blast. "Just close your eyes, and you'll wake up in one of our detention centers."

"Warning. Nonhuman attack incoming," his armored warned.

"Huh?" Norman turned in time to see Hercules explode out of the crater Karla put him in, a gas tanker held over his head. Before he could do anything, he slammed the tanker down on him. A tremendous explosion ripped the warehouse to bits of scrap metal and cement. John was sent flying back into the battle proper.

The explosion not only distracted the registered heroes, but it also shut off the sonic blast. John's team quickly regain their wits and took advantage of the distraction.

"Nighthawk, see to the Captain! Get him out of here!" Hercules roared as he continued to tear into Osborn.

"Halfway there, Herc." Nighthawk sped through the air and crashed into the pile of rubble that had buried John. He burst out of the debris with him in tow and head for somewhere safe. Of course, with SHIELD on the perimeter and Moonstone just a few yards away, safety was relative.

"Open fire!" A hail of gunfire peppered Goliath furiously, but to no avail.

"You guys are joking, right?" He grabbed an oil tanker like it was a toy and hurled it at them. It struck the building they were standing on and exploded, sending them flying in a ball of fire. With them dealt with, he turn his attention to Moonstone. "You," he snarled. "Get ready for karma to bite you in the ass!"

"Yeah, I don't think so." She fired a beam that pierced through Goliath's chest, straight through his heart.

"My God …"

The fighting came to a complete halt. Silence fell over the battle, except for the loud rumble of Goliath's lifeless body falling into a building.

Karla smirked and flipped her hair over her shoulder, only to notice that everyone was staring at her in unmitigated horror. "…what?"

"Moonstone just killed Goliath …"

"Fall back and regroup! We gotta all get outta here, or we'll all end up like Bill!"

She turned her attention to the unregistered heroes that had just huddled next to a newly revived Pixie. "You're all going to end up like him regardless." She fired a small orb that would erupt in a massive explosion when it contacted a solid object. Exactly that happened, but the explosion was blocked by an invisible force field. "Huh?"

Sue Richards glared at Karla, pure hatred and anger boring into the other blonde woman, as she spoke to the unregistered heroes. "Get out here. Now!"

Pixie opened a portal within the force field, allowing John's team to make a hasty retreat. "Thank you, Susan."

"Sofen! Return to base, now!" Norman ordered as he landed amongst his team.

"Whatever you say, boss," she replied, voice dripping with sardonicism. She snapped a mock salute and took off toward the nearest SHIELD base.

"What the fuck was that, Reed?!" Yellowjacket shrieked. "I thought you said those nanites in her blood would stop her from doing shit like that!"

Reed ignored her and tried to approach his wife. "Please, Sue. You have to believe that this wasn't –"

"Don't speak to me, Reed," she almost snarled. "Don't say a damn word."

With the appearance of Moonstone, the landscape of the war had change drastically. With the usage of the most dangerous super criminals in the world, the pro-registration side opened a can of worms so unpredictable that none of them wanted to see how it would turn out if it didn't go precisely how they envisioned.

People like Karla were loose cannons. She was one of the saner villains, and she blew a hole in the heart of a man who was simply trying to do what he thought was best. And she did it without hesitation prior and without remorse afterwards. When the press grilled Osborn and Reed about why she did what she did, they both said that she reacted exactly how a police officer would.

With the wounds of many unarmed black men, young and old, being killed by police for little reason still fresh in the minds and hearts of Americans, that perhaps wasn't the right thing to compare her actions to.

Regardless, she changed the landscape of the war. Behind her were many more registered supervillains – Bullseye, Hobgoblin, Lady Deathstrike, Venom, Carnage, Songbird, among others. Some of them were unknown, others notorious. All of them were varying degrees of insane and completely unfit for any form of civil service. However, for reasons known only to a select few within SHIELD, they were enlisted into the pro-registration army and told to obey with the incentive that their crimes were going to be absolved.

For people like Karla and Bullseye, that meant nothing for different reasons, but for others, it was everything.

But the question of the night was was it worth it? Was it worth making deals with various devils to win the war? Was it worth the lives of heroes like Goliath, and potentially others in the future?

No one wanted to know any of those answers right now. Because they all knew that they were playing with fire in the middle of a puddle of gasoline on an oil tanker. It wasn't a matter of if it was going to blow, but when. And how many people were going to die when it did.