Jennifer Walters, Avenger-at-Law: Season 3 - YOU KNOW MY NAME Search And Destroy, IV, an avengers fanfic

The Monster's Ball in a ComiCon. What could go wrong?

ComiCon 2013, Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucas, New Jersey, March 2, 2013

Author's Notes: Now we're getting to the exciting parts. The Mandarin gets his day in the sun. HYDRA is catering the party. Kamala gets an upgrade. And Reed gets to show off. The good old-fashion slobberknocker… in a crowded building.

And Kamala will legitimately have a 'Samuel L. Jackson' moment. Watch for the Easter Eggs.

America? It's Time For Another Lesson, ComiCon 2013

Trevor Benjamin Slattery stood upon the Main Event Stage of ComiCon 2013 with his eyes upon the mostly-ignorant crowd in front of him with a gun to the back of some man's head. Five men stood upon the main stage with eight hostages on their knees in front of them, four men and four women with guns pointed at the back of their heads. Trevor himself stood behind the Master of Ceremonies for ComiCon with his Colt 1911A1 .45 caliber pistol to the back of the man's head, ready to captivate an audience. It was time for the soliloquy. It was time to teach these fools a lesson in power.

"Read this." Trevor pushed a piece of scrap paper with a quickly-jotted note he had written a moment prior before taking stage to the MC, the mid-forties man blubbering on his knees with a gun held to the back of his head. "And make it real, make it Oscar-worthy. Or I will have one of the women shot in the throat so you can listen to her gurgle her life away." That had his hostage gulp as a couple of the female hostages whimper and wail at the threat. Still most of the audience were blissfully ignorant of what was happening, or if they saw it, thought that it was in preparation for an act or event. Well, they weren't exactly wrong, were they? The MC took the paper in one hand as he held the microphone in the other, taking several breaths to steady himself before speaking.

"Ladies and gentlemen… welcome to this year's ComiCon, where in a minute, we will be featuring the main event of the day." The man quivered in fear with the feel of a .45 at the back of his head, especially when the bearded man holding it to his head pushed it hard into his skull to remind him of where he was. "Today," the man's voice spoke up once more, quivering slightly in fear, "we have a special surprise for all of you attending here, especially that of our special guests. We would like to welcome you to the one, the only…" The man gulped audibly before he spoke again.

"The Mandarin."

The people on the floor of ComiCon were slowly turning to look at the stage where they could see the act; eight hostages, five men, and guns. It was clear that most of them thought that it was merely an act in a play. But some, the smarter of the lot, perhaps, were beginning to look in realization and horror that it looked too real to be fake as Trevor grabbed the microphone from the MC's hand, and readied himself for a dazzling performance.

"Hello, America." Trevor spoke in the voice of the Mandarin, that soft accented voice that was slow and measured, that slightly scornful tone and religiously-superior hint that had captivated the world in either terror or celebration as he stood there in full regalia. Cell phones were being pulled out to film it, and Trevor smiled. The show was on.

"It's time for another lesson."

Trevor took a deep breath, feeling the hate that he felt for all that was taken from him, from what he once had to where he was at now. No longer was it AIM that moved his strings, now he was his own master. HYDRA wanted an attack dog, but he could do much better. He had studied theater, after all, and every actor knew that the main effort in a performance was dialog and impact. And he was a master of those.

"Before you today," Trevor continued, "you see eight hostages plucked from this very venue, common citizens of this decadent, flawed culture you call America." The audience was swelling, now more than half were actively watching him while many others were stopping to see what the commotion was. Hundreds of cell phones were pointed his way, no doubt some viral video about to be downloaded. Good. "In this very ComiCon, hidden amongst you, are three members of the group you call the Avengers, hidden in plain sight, perhaps even disguised as cosplayers of themselves or their little friends. Amongst you are Bucky Barnes, Doctor Doreen Green, and Kamala Khan. The time has come for them to come forward and reveal themselves to their fans and the world, to show everyone what men and women they really are. Are they courageous or cowardly? Are they brave or just bluster? Will they help or will they hide? Because I have eight hostages and a room filled with people watching on with the exits blocked, and I will execute one person every minute that they hide. So find them, my good decadent Americans. Seek out the Avengers hidden amongst you, find them for me, or I kill someone for every minute that elapses that they remain hidden." Trevor had the audience's full attention, the sounds of their whimpering and denials coming forward. Good.

Because then he squeezed the trigger of his .45, and the MC slumped forward onto the stage with a round to the back of his head, the gunshot silencing the room as the man fell over dead.

"Starting five seconds ago."

That was when fear and terror ruled ComiCon.

Down To The Wire, ComiCon, 2013

Reed Nathan Richards felt his hands freeze when he heard who was identified over the Meadowlands Expo Center's Public Announcement System, and then he heard a voice that had been echoed by the news, social media, YouTube, and a whole bunch of dangerous elements for years in regards to a man who was said to be just as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.

"Fuck." Doctor Doreen Alleen Green swore loud enough from where she stood at the partition door where Kamala Aisha Khan, himself, and James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes were located, the two teenagers working on Bucky's fully-functional prosthetic to take out a piece of jamming equipment that was interfering with their cell phones, the wireless-fidelity network, and even radio. "That asshole. Didn't he get arrested?"

"HYDRA must have broke him out or something. That's just swell." Kamala grumbled as she inserted another alligator clip to another wire before snipping the link in between where the WARLOCK Ice laid in Bucky's arm. "I need another two minutes to fully disconnect this piece of crap! It's not exactly brain surgery, but it is delicate work. Rushing it might mean I deactivate Bucky's arm or trigger something worse!" They could already hear the Mandarin not only announcing their presence within ComiCon, but their identities as well. It was a good idea, making the public look for them. They probably only had a few minutes before someone curious found them, and then things would really go downhill. Kamala wasn't wrong about the sensitivity of her work; the ultra-thin wires didn't have much slack to pull them away from the thin hydraulic hoses that ran Bucky's arm, and Kamala was using toothpicks to edge away the wiring from the hoses to cut them after clipping leads to isolate that wire from the WARLOCK. It was painstaking work that had a very real possibility of going south fast.

"We don't have time, Kamala." Bucky said, sitting still in his plastic seat at the plastic table as the young woman worked on his arm. "Rip it out."

"HYDRA is here, Bucky!" Kamala countered, gritting her teeth as she clipped one wire. "I might temporarily or permanently disable your arm. And you're not going to be at your best to help defeat those guys. That'll be putting more people in danger than saving." The sad part was that the both of them were right; there was no good solution. The Avengers needed Bucky at his best if they wanted to escape, but the Mandarin was announcing his intent to execute hostages right on the main stage. "I've only got two more sets of wires! Give me time!"

The sound of a gunshot echoed throughout the large expo center, as if the entire place went silent the moment before it was fired, and continued until the moment after it was finished.

The Mandarin had just killed a man in front of everyone.

"Kamala…" Bucky growled.

"Almost… there…" Kamala promised, her teeth clenched as she took the sodering gun to soder the alligator clips to the delicate wire. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" Reed could see Bucky and Doreen looking at one another as if they weren't going to give Kamala the time. All that work for nothing, and perhaps worse as Reed saw the veteran's right hand reaching for his left.

"No one's ever won a fight half-beaten at the start." Reed spurted out, saying the first thing that came to his mind that made sense. Bucky's brown eyes went to his, and the young man wasn't exactly thrilled with being in a stare-down contest with a Super Soldier. "Physical fights, mental fights, science fights, doesn't matter. You go in with everything you've got, everything lined up and ready. Even if you're desperate and outnumbered, you give it your all to give yourself the best chance of success. Anything less and we might as well hand ourselves over. That man would have died for nothing if we're going in only partially-capable." Reed never looked away from the veteran's brown eyes as they stared at him hard. "Give her the time. HYDRA isn't pulling punches. Neither should we."

"'We'?" Bucky noted, his tone without emotion.

"We." Reed insisted, seeing Doreen looking at him, now. "You came for me needing help. I'm not quitting just because it's getting a little dangerous. If that were me on that stage…" He had never honestly thought about his life coming to an end, but with the very real scenario now playing out, with seven hostages on that stage? "I would tell you to kick every single one of their asses hard. Because you losing means they're winning, and I don't need a computer to predict that particular scenario out. Neither do you."

"God damn it." Bucky muttered, looking away in disgust for a moment before looking back at him. "You've got some balls on you, kid. Most talk tough, but I have a feeling you'll back up every word you just said."

"Well, I am from Brooklyn. We don't take lip from nobody, but we'll give it right back." Richards replied, getting the veteran to snort. But there was a ghost of a smile there.

"Last one!" Kamala announced, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she took a toothpick and began inserting it into Bucky's arm. "I'm almost there… I'm almost there…" Reed wasn't sure if she was telling them or herself as she muttered, putting alligator clips on the last fragile wire and sodering them together. Reed looked at her face and saw that Kamala's dark eyes were red with tears; she knew, just like they knew, there wasn't enough time.

Another gunshot came out, and pandemonium broke out in ComiCon.

"Thirty seconds before a mob finds us." Doreen called back, her voice tense as Kamala finished sodering the wires, Reed handing her the wire cutters as the young woman took them and snipped them away and yanked the device out of Bucky's arm ten seconds later with a 'a-ha!' of triumph. Both she and Reed immediately went to work on closing Bucky's arm, snapping the osmium steel plates closed that protected the fragile internals and began tightening the bands that held them in place. "Everyone's looking everywhere now! We got about ten to fifteen seconds!"

"Bucky? Do me a favor and crush that!" Kamala jerked her chin to the circuit board that was now removed as she finished tightening the bicep plate. Barnes wasted no time slamming his enhanced fist into the object, smashing it into pieces. "ULTRON? ULTRON! Can you read me?" The young woman called out. ULTRON? All Reed could see was some sort of… was that a holographic interface above her left wrist?

[Hello, Miss Khan. How can I help?] Came the deep voice of a man with a synthesized tone. It sounded familiar, almost like… Robert California from The Office.

"Medusa, Medusa, Medusa! Meadowlands Expo Center. Plus the Mandarin!" Kamala said to the interface while finishing tightening the bicep portion of Bucky's arm while Reed was finishing up the shoulder piece. No doubt the Pakistani-American woman just sent out a call for help. "And I need you to take over the PA system and play something for me to buy time!"

[What is your request?]

"The Wrestling Album from 1985. Track number three!" Kamala said as she slapped the special wrench down that she had been using to reconnect the osmium steel to Bucky's arm. "We need to go in hot and draw attention to ourselves."

"You've got drones?" Doreen asked over the clamor outside of the partition. The crowd sounded frantic and worry on the other side of the partition.

"No. I've got something better." The young woman said with a smile as she looked over at Reed and gave him a wink. "Microbots?"

"Hell no, we're not bringing him." Bucky was standing up from his chair, the surgery done. "I got that those little bead things are suppose to be nice…" Reed just went over to the two-wheeled blue plastic curbside trash container, lifted the lid open and stuck his arm inside of it before pulling it out… and showing that his arm was covered in geometric cones and spheres made of tungsten carbide.

Like armor.

"It gets better, trust me." Richards proclaimed as Kamala laughed and clapped at the same time before reaching into her messenger back and pulling out what looked to be two bracelets, two ankle bracelets, something that looked like a metal choker, and the last piece that was belted to her waist. "What's that?"

"Prototype. It has a 'fun' setting." Kamala replied as Bucky just shook his head. "ULTRON? Start the song.

"Let's get ready to rumble." The young woman told the others with a wicked smile on her face.

Lieutenant Commander Jackson Victor Rollins was in the middle of a ComiCon pushing people around with impunity. He knocked off masks, he pulled off wigs, he pushed people that didn't obey him and pulled out his gun when they thought talking back was cute. He had been searching the place for about twenty minutes, getting nowhere, when he heard the main PA for the Expo Center open up when someone announced the the arrival of the Mandarin.

That crazy coked-out sonofabitch is actually going to do it, Jack thought with a snort and a smile, remembering Trevor's plan to use the public against the Avengers. Even with eighty men under his command and four men blocking the main exit, trying to find anyone in this maze of shit was next to impossible. His men were highly outnumbered, and trying to use force would have someone finding a way of calling the cops and making this fuckfest even worse. But he wasn't going to go back empty-handed, so Rollins had his men scouring ComiCon for the Avengers through all the fakes and wannabes.

When the first gunshot indicated that the Mandarin actually shot someone (jack honestly doubted the man had the balls), he wasted no time being nice anymore.

"Alright, fuckers!" He roared out, hoisting his Fabrique Nationale Herstal FN SCAR-H Assault Rifle out into the open and pointing it at the nearest nerdy dipshits to him. "Masks off, hands up!" Everyone within a ten foot radius heard him, seeing a real gun and instantly began complying, masks and wigs coming off as hands came up, dozens of people standing very still as Jack looked at them for either Bucky Barnes, Doreen Green, or Kamala Khan. "Men? Fleece through the crowd. No more kiddie gloves!" Jack told his radio, communicating his orders to his men inside the Expo Center.

"You can't do this! We have rights!" Some guy dressed up as Superman of all things stated to the right of him. Jack snorted, pulled out his Glock 19 from his left thigh holster and put a 9mm in the man's gut, proving the guy wasn't the Man of Steel as he clutched at his belly and dropped to the ground gasping in pain, the people around him wailing in fear.

"You have the right to shut the fuck up and do as I say." Jack replied with a snarl as he holstered his pistol and kept both hands on his SCAR. "Unmasked assholes to the left, people still wearing shit to the right. I check you, you move to the checked people. Lip gets lead, understood?" There was another gunshot, probably another hostage or one of his men getting compliance from the crowd. Seventy or so men to search through this madhouse was nuts, but now they might actually get somewhere. Now that a few people were shot, the Avengers might actually come out of their-

"I am a real American…"

Jack stopped for a moment as the PA system… sang lyrics to a song?

"Fight for the rights of every man…"

The people around Jack shifted and squirmed a little as he looked up at the PA system.

"I am a real American…"

"Kamala fucking Khan…" Rollins realized, remembering The Black Parade being played when the Avengers dropped in on the Trisk.

"Fight for what's right, fight for your life!"

Did that little hajjie bitch really just play the old Hulk Hogan Theme song?

The sound of 80's guitar playing over the Meadowlands Expo Center as if it were the host of the World Wrestling Federation answered that particular question as the crowd around him became a great deal less compliant… and a great deal more more hopeful. Whatever tactical advantage that HYDRA had was eroding away as the people realized a very simple fact.

The so-called 'good guys' had showed up.

The guitar started playing to a simple beat as Jack moved away from where he was at, calling out over the radio for his men to rally up near the main stage; no doubt that was where the Avengers would show up to stop the killing of hostages. The crowd would just get in the way and would be a waste of bullets to bring down one of them, especially Bucky and Doreen. Assault rifle fire would bring down the Veterinarian easily enough, her skin not so dense as to bounce military rounds. Bucky… would be a problem, but Jack had several men bring CS Gas and chemical rounds to impede breathing and vision. And then there were the words if they had a chance to say them without being halted like last time. Even just the first word would freeze up the Winter Soldier for several seconds, buying them time. And the little hajjie bitch was no substance, Jack having figured out a few methods to see if an illusion was real or not with paintball rounds instead of killing his own men by accident. And they still couldn't call out for help, not with the WARLOCK in Bucky's arm snowing cell phone reception and wifi capabilities.

The Avengers were walking into a trap with no way out.

The song continued to play as a growing space appeared at the front of the main stage, the crowd backing away from the area reserved for an audience as Jack saw at least a dozen of his men forcing the crowd to back up with their weapons pointed at them as an area about half the size of a basketball court opened up as the song continued to play.

"When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside,
Ya' gotta take a stand, it don't help to hide.
If you hurt my friends, then you hurt my pride,
I gotta be a man, I can't let it slide.

"I am a real American,
Fight for the rights of every man.
I am a real American,
Fight for what's right, fight for your life!"

"Back up! Back the fuck up!" Jack shouted to some cosplayers as he saw the crowd parting near the end of the growing circle furthest away from the stage as four people emerged from the crowd. One was Bucky Barnes, dressed just like Captain America, complete with a shield on his left arm sans the cowl that covered his face, looking ready to do murder. Another was Doctor Doreen Green, dressed in a rather sexy Black Widow costume, pulling off the red wig to show her auburn hair as she almost lurched forward, already beginning to shift into her hybrid form as a tail burst through her costume as auburn hair began to grow from her exposed skin with fangs and nails became more apparent in her teeth and fingers as she hissed in defiance. The third was Kamala Khan, dressed in her own get-up of Miss Marvel minus the little blue eye mask, her own features spiteful as she walked alongside Bucky. The last one… was some kid, some school-aged young man dressed up in a blue worksuit like what mechanics wore minus there wasn't any nametapes on it. The thing that was different about him was that he was dragging a garbage can behind him, one of those wheeled ones people had for their houses. Jack had no idea what the fuck that was suppose to be about. But the four of them walked right to the center of the opened area, at least three dozen HYDRA members now having made their way to the main attraction and more on their way as the Mandarin stood center stage with two bodies laying before him; one a man, and another a woman. Well, the little druggie had proved useful.

He had called out the Avengers, and they had answered.

"Hello, Avengers." The Mandarin spoke over the PA system with the microphone in his hand, his .45 in the other with the barrel pointing at the temple of some blond girl who was crying. "It's nice of you to finally stop by to meet your fans. After all, what is fame without adulation? See? Look around you." Slattery waved his pistol-wielding hand in a semi-circle to indicate the crowd. "Your fans hope you are here to save them, to save the day. All they will see is your deaths if they are fortunate enough. You are surrounded, there are thousands of lives depending on you turning yourselves over or I will have HYDRA start opening up and have the death toll hit a hundred before you can move a muscle. The choice I leave to you."

The reply mystified Rollins; Kamala whispered something to the young man, and he merely pushed over his garbage can, tipping it over to spill out… some sort of small metal beads all over the ground, thousands upon thousand spilling all over the carpeted floor. And then he took a step to stand in it. Curiously, it look like he sank into the pile he had stepped in. That kid was either stupid or insane.

"You really are arrogant enough to think that you can come out on top of all this without a thousand dead bodies to answer for?" The Mandarin quipped at the stage. "HYDRA?

"Kill the Avengers.

"Kill them all."

No More Save Points, ComiCon 2013

The first move was the raising of nearly four dozen firearms of various calibers towards the four-man group known as the Avengers, in front of hundreds (if not thousands) of witnesses, not to mention how many cell phones that were drinking in the action. Lieutenant Commander Jack Rollins called out the order; to kill the Avengers save for Kamala Khan. The others would be nice to have, but not a necessity. And honestly capturing them and detaining them would likely be a complete and utter pain in the ass. Bucky and Doreen were expendable, and whoever the new kid was wasn't even a blip on the radar. The Madame wanted Kamala Khan, and the Old Man wanted Kamala Khan. Everything else was either secondary or an acceptable loss. So Jack ordered his men to fire upon the Avengers, ignoring the crowd of ComiCon attendees that surrounded them. None of them had the balls to interfere, not when HYDRA had so many men and so many guns. And the Mandarin had done his job well, threatening to shoot everyone to cow them into compliance. It was time to end this debacle once and for all as four dozen guns lifted up and Jack gave the order to fire.

The second move was some sort of steel bubble growing rapidly around the Avengers as gunfire deafened the Meadowlands Expo Center, swallowing those four figures within its confines and rounds impacted against the hemispherical object and pattered off. Whadafuq? Rollins went through the entire magazine of hisFN SCAR-H Assault Rifle on full-auto quickly, no less than nearly fifty men firing at a half-sphere about the size of an above-ground swimming pool that completely surrounded where the Avengers were at. Jack seethed at the sight as his SCAR ran dry, already switching magazines with his left hand as he called out cease fire! cease fire! over the radio. That kid, the young man he hadn't recognized? He had tipped over some garbage bin filled with some sort of metal beads… the same ones that were now making a fucking bubble around the Avengers! That shit hadn't existed at the Trisk… and as far as HYDRA was aware, the Avengers hadn't made any more members or were looking for anyone to bring in. Who the fuck was that kid? The gunfire stopped as Rollins tried to think of something that might work. HYDRA had grenade launchers, yes, but his own men were within range of potential shrapnel and usually one didn't fire at something so close because it took about twenty-five meters or so for a 40mm grenade to arm itself with rotations. Perhaps the CS Gas would filter in.

"Hey, for my next trick!" The sound of Kamala Khan's voice came over the Meadowland's PA system, the hajjie bitch buried in that protective bubble. "I like to call this one the attack of the fifty-foot woman!"

The steel bubble exploded into pieces as Jack shielded his face from the confetti of metal beads that pelted everything as it burst from the appearance of a young woman measuring nearly fifty-seven feet tall as Kamala Khan appeared to be eleven times her normal size, an enormous version of her standing within the Meadowlands Expo Center, nearly butting the rafters and ceiling of the building with her head. The crowds of ComiCon attendees gasped at the sight of a gigantic woman standing before them while Jack looked up and scoffed at the sight. He had seen this trick before.

What he hadn't seen before was when said fifty-foot tall young woman reached down and plucked one of his men from the ground and shaking him like a salt shaker before dropping him from about forty feet in the air, landing with a bone-breaking thud and a scream of pain.

"GUESS WHO JUST LEVELED UP?"The gigantic-sized teenager boomed, cackling with glee as she looked down on everyone, punching her fist into her opposite palm, sounding like a thunderclap. "AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!"

"Holy fuck! Engage Miss Marvel!" Jack called out as he raised his SCAR to fire at the young woman, seeing Bucky Barnes and Doreen Green bolt in two separate directions to fight back as the gigantic Kamala Khan roared in defiance as she slapped another one of HYDRA's soldiers down like a pancake with her hand, the force of the slap completely bringing the man down to a broken ruin, unconscious and unmoving. He saw what looked to be living carpet as he aimed up at Miss Marvel, those metal beads pouring over the ground like fast-moving water as they went across the floor and up on the stage, pulling the hostages that Slattery had taken while the hajjie bitch swung a rather epic backhand towards the five men on stage while shouting 'KAMALA SMASH!', Rollins firing on the teenager… without any real apparent effect. Four of his men on the main stage were clobbered hard and sent flying hard and fast like dolls suffering a toddlers' tantrum as Jack continued to fire on the gigantic teenager, the Mandarin able to avoid being struck by diving out of the way at the last moment as the former Lieutenant Commander's SCAR ran dry.

"HEY! COME BACK HERE, A-HOLE!" Kamala shouted, her enlarged voice echoing throughout the Meadowlands as Jack emptied another magazine for his assault rifle while he only half-saw the Mandarin scrambling off the stage. Jack reloaded his rifle again as he surveyed everything around him, dismayed by what he saw. James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes was like a speeding wrecking ball, smashing his way through HYDRA's men like they were bowling pins, dashing incredibly fast to each man, or leaping impressive distances to strike at others. Gunfire bounced off his metal arm (and somehow the son-of-a-bitch moved it around like a fucking lightsaber to do so) while he kicked, punched, smacked, or smashed through his men as if they were nothing. It didn't seem like anyone could take more than a hit from the WWII Veteran, especially when a solid punch drove them back ten feet or so. Doctor Doreen Green, on the other hand, was in her hybrid form and pouncing on his men like a jaguar or a panther, running on all fours and jumping men and mauling them with her claws. Men tried shooting her, but she was fast, dodging rounds and mauling the men firing at her. The kid, whoever he was, was in a league of his own, seemingly 'throwing' beads around like a living carpet only to morph them into forms of attack or defense, sometimes waves engulfing gunmen while other times snatching their rifles before a blob punched or hit them. He was currently covered in the beads like armor, and rounds merely struck and fell. Kamala, having actually grown to the size of a giant, was slapping, grabbing, or smacking anything with her six-foot long hands, sending men flying with a strike or slapping them to what was undoubtedly a very painful unconsciousness.

Everything had gotten out of hand, and what men he had left, perhaps a dozen or so now, were very much now on the losing end of a failed effort.

"Pull back and retreat!" Jack finally ordered, sneering at the thought but there was nothing else that would work. The target they wanted was as tall as a small building. Bucky and Doreen were going apeshit on them, and no one was able to slow them down much less stop them. And they had an addition they knew nothing about that was both fully-capable and extremely difficult to stop. The objective had been lost, and now all they could do was bug out and report their failure. No one would be pleased with that, but it was better to man up and debrief all that had happened to come up with a better plan for next time. Intelligence was intelligence, after all, and they were going to have to go back to the drawing board. The Madame wouldn't be pleased, and the Old Man even less pleased than her. But going to them with intelligence and a debriefing and not excuses and apologies would have them listening. They had good intel… but it hadn't been enough.

That damn ragheaded bitch had more damn luck than a fucking four-leaf clover.

Rollins went to move out, ready to push through the crowd… when a hand and sharp hot pain landed on his shoulder, something small and numerous stabbing him in between his shoulder and collarbone while his shoulder was grabbed. The former Lieutenant Commander of STRIKE Team DELTA screamed in pain as his left hand reached for his pistol in its thigh holster, drawing the Glock Safe Arms Model 19 semi-automatic pistol to shoot whoever had grabbed him as he was spun around to face his adversary.

Hazel felinoid eyes set within a short-haired feral face stared at him as jaguar-like fangs bared at him with a hiss as Jack found himself face-to-face with Doctor Doreen Green, known worldwide as Artemis.

"Fuck, it's you." Jack pulled the trigger of his Glock three times into Green's belly as her right hand rammed itself right into his left shoulder, stabbing him with those three-inch claws of hers. Rollins gritted his teeth and tried to keep his pistol in his hand as the fingers flexed and grabbed, the claws sinking deeper as her fingers grabbed bone; his left clavicle. A quick yank and a horrendously painful popping sensation sent him on his knees as the Glock fell from his nerveless hand. No, she hadn't dislocated his shoulder.

A quick look showed that Artemis had ripped a part of his fucking collarbone out of his body.

"You… fucking… bitch…" Jack seethed, the agonizing pain almost dulling his ability to think as he got up on one foot, seeing the hybrid woman standing there in front of him, breathing hard. "I guess… all those tests… we ran on you… struck a nerve, huh?" HYDRA had wanted to know what the members of PROJECT: ARGUS could do and couldn't do, including defense. Rollins had shot both Beastmaster and Venom with a bunch of different guns to see how bulletproof they were. Rollins knew he was a dead man, now. Might as well make it quick. "Or was it… the hard-core fucking… we gave you… every night?"

A cat-like hand grabbed under his jaw, nails digging into his cheeks as Jack felt himself getting picked up, those slitted cat-like eyes merciless as Rollins' feet kicked nothing but empty air as Artemis picked him up off the floor single-handedly, her right hand cocked back and ready to slash. There are worse ways to go, former Lieutenant Commander Jackson Victor Rollins thought to himself as he waited for the inevitable.

A metal hand grabbed the poised paw with its extended claws, Bucky Barnes, of all people, saving him. Jack looked at the Veteran with incredulity while Doreen just looked pissed.

"He deserves something worse than a quick death." The Terminator told her as he looked at Jack with a nasty smile. "Pay him back properly."

What the fuck does he mean by that?

The right hand moved viper quick… but it wasn't aimed for his throat. Instead, Rollins' eyes shot open wide as the Veterinarian aimed much lower, her hand grabbing as sharp nails dug in for a brief moment before ripping away, her clawed hand coming back bloody… and full.

"I can't remember which one it is for boy dogs." Barnes mused with a twisted grin. "Is it spay or neuter?"

Jack looked down, and saw exactly where Artemis had struck… and had torn off.

"Oh… oh fuck…" The former STRIKE Team DELTA member whimpered as the hybrid woman dropped him unceremoniously on the ground, his hands going in between his legs where a warm spread of blood was soaking his black military cargo pants, the front portion having been ripped off along with what it had contained. The cat-like auburn short-haired hybrid hissed at him as her right hand did a mic drop and Jack saw what splattered on the floor in front of his face, whimpering as a booted foot went and smashed it right before his very eyes.

Jack Rollins fell into pain-filled, blood-loss and shocked-induced unconsciousness ten seconds later.

Super-Size Me, ComiCon 2013

Kamala Aisha Khan, once again, was finding herself facing off against HYDRA. But this time it wasn't The Miss Marvel Project that she was fighting back with. Instead, she was using the working prototype version of the originally-named PROJECT DIANA PRINCE, named after the 'human' disguise of Wonder Woman. The young Pakistani-American woman had initially created it to make either a force field or a concussive blast like the Amazonian used her wrist guards in the DC comics and cartoons to protect herself, Kamala wanting to make an innocuous defensive feature for herself whenever she went to school at Coles Academy High School where such devices weren't allowed because nobody was thrilled with the thought of armed teenagers at school (and rightfully so). But the young Pakistani-American woman knew that she was on the chopping block like any of the other Avengers, and what was worse was that any potential attack would probably happen while she was in class… surrounded by innocent teenagers and teachers. So with the ideas (and permission) gleaned from Princess Shuri from Wakanda, Kamala tried to craft something similar to the Vibranium Force Shield the young Wakandan woman was making for the warriors of her country.

Instead, Kamala had accidentally made a pair of Vibranium-laced bracelets that had doubled (and later quadrupled) the size of her hands.

The teenager had gone a different route than Shuri had when making the project; instead of ionization through the electromagnetic spectrum, Kamala had gone for the intrinsic field that 'surrounded' everything via the strong and weak radiation force that bonded atoms and molecular bonds. To do so, she utilized PymTech in the form of the Pym Particle to manipulate the fields' malleability without breaking anything, so to speak, to create a stabilizing field of defense by energizing molecular pairing.

Instead, she had supersized her hands to rather epic proportions… and had jumped on the mistake as a whole new concept.

It had taken Kamala approximately a month of discrete testing and working on a series of accessories to create PROJECT POLYMORPH (named after a Dungeons and Dragons spell). With it, Kamala had discovered that not only could she enlarge portions of her body (such as her hands), but her body as a whole, turning her into a giantess. Further testing on a few non-organic objects had her also figuring out how to manipulate the capabilities of intrinsic fields, stretching and extending its pliability to new dimensions. What she had discovered had her amazed. Kamala had tested it on herself and punched a punching bag… from thirty-five feet away.

Much like Tony Stark, Doctor Hank Pym, and technically Doctor Bruce Banner had done, Kamala Khan had gone and invented her own superpower.

She hadn't done a full-blown test-run on PROJECT POLYMORPH, yet, but HYDRA wasn't about to wait around. And Kamala was going to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

Kamala had walked out in the center of the growing empty space in front of the Main Stage where the Mandarin was holding hostages alongside Bucky Barnes, Doreen Green, and Reed Richards, knowing that a good many people were going to die if they didn't do something. It was a trap; that much was obvious. But none of them were going to wait to be captured while listening to innocent people being executed, HYDRA ending lives and trying to place the blame on the Avengers. No, they were heading out in the open because there was no more reason to hide; the jammer had been deactivated, a call for help had been sent, and people were in danger. It was as simple as that.

So the four of them walked out into the open, in front of a crowd of thousands, dozens of armed HYDRA goons, and the Mandarin holding hostages on the main stage without much of a plan save save people and beat some ass. Sometimes it was the simple things that worked best. They stood in the center of the cleared area facing the Mandarin and HYDRA, something like four to five dozen of them surrounding them now as each of them faced a different direction like a compass, Kamala facing none other than the world-renowned terrorist leader of the Ten Rings. This was the turdblossom that used her religion for terror and profit, and she was looking forward to a little retribution.

"Reed? Kick the can, and get ready to make us a force field." Kamala turned her head to Reed, the young man nodding as he tipped over the blue two-wheeled trash container, half of the microbots spilling all over the ground while the rest laid waiting inside the plastic receptacle as the Brooklyn-born young man stepped into the pile of microbots, the small geometrically-shaped cones and spheres constructing over his feet, making it look like he sank into the pile with a word to his voice-activated operating system that controlled the microbots.

"You really are arrogant enough to think that you can come out on top of all this without a thousand dead bodies to answer for?" The Mandarin quipped at the stage, seeing their defiance. "HYDRA? Kill the Avengers. Kill them all."

"Bubble!" Richards force-whispered as a tide of microbots surrounded them not only in a circle, but a dome as well, assembling magnetically via electrical conduction and the operating system Reed had hand-written to run his Microbot Project to create almost any item needed with a word. True, it was limited by what Reed had inputted into the programs for designs and concepts, each one coded and design as a 'reference' for the microbots to assemble. But with that, he could literally recreate any said object and direct it where needed as long as he was touching the microbots and they were interconnected to each other, even just a single strand. As an engineering project, it was incredible. As a object of assault and defense, it toppled near any conventional weapon and defense as obsolete. The dome erected itself in a mere second, thousands upon thousands of microbots snapping together like magnetized Legos, 'growing' over them into a protective done. Gunfire erupted outside of the steel bubble, the sound of metal striking metal nearly deafening inside the metal cocoon, keeping the four of them safe from incoming fire. The sound of rounds striking the protective bubble dissipated after about five seconds or so, no doubt magazines in assault rifles running dry and whoever was in charge stopping the assault to come up with a better game plan

Kamala wasn't willing to wait that long. And she had an ace up her sleeve.

"Reed, get ready to slacken the bubble's integrity, and then use your microbots to pull the hostages from the stage." Kamala relayed, looking to the young man, who merely nodded. "Everyone get ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day early and go get us some snakes. Just leave the jerks on the stage for me." The young woman reached for the activated holographic computer on her left wrist as she took the setting that looked like a holographic volume knob and turned the knob setting to '11' with a smile. "ULTRON? Give me the mic, please."

[Acquired, Miss Khan], the holographic device relayed back.

"Kamala…" Bucky was trying to dissuade her, but HYDRA was going after her friends just to get to her. Screw that; kid gloves were coming off.

"Hey, for my next trick! I like to call this one the attack of the fifty-foot woman!" Kamala shouted at her holographic wrist computer, her voice echoing over the Meadowland Expo Center's PA System. "Reed? Drop the integrity, and it's time for the big show. EMBIGGEN!"

The world shrank rapidly as Kamala burst through the steel bubble as she went from an even 5'2"… to nearly fifty-seven feet tall. She had to guess just how tall the Expo Center really was (hoping it was less than sixty feet unless she wanted to brain herself on the ceiling) as her body multiplied its dimensions by a factor of eleven. She was now fifty feet taller than the tallest person in the Meadowlands (give or take a few inches), and most everyone was looking up at her in clear amazement or astonishment. She did happen to spy one of the HYDRA goons, easily identified thanks to his military gear and military-styled clothes and the assault rifle he had in his hands, looking a little less than impressed (or frightened) at the sight of her gigantic self. Likely someone who had survived the Trisk without being captured or likely was told that she could make illusions (such as her illusionary self slugging the USS America). Kamala had a nasty thought as she reached down and plucked the man up, her six-foot long, three-foot wide hand easily wrapping around him and hoisting the one-hundred and ninety pound man into air. The young woman then rapidly shook her as if she were shaking salt onto a dish, the man being held in her hand crying out in panic and terror as she let him go after a few furious shakes, simply letting him go at about the same level as her chest, the HYDRA goon falling with a cry before landing on his legs. Even she heard them break from where she was. NOW she had everyone's attention; HYDRA's included, HYDRA's especially.

"Guess who just leveled up?" Kamala hooted triumphantly, seeing all the ComiCon attendees looking at her like they had just lost their minds (oh, and about a thousand cell phones pointing right at her), while the HYDRA guys were pointing their tiny little guns at her… in fear. To punctuate to them exactly how this particular fight would go, the Jersey City-born young woman slammed her enlarged fist into her palm, the sound of it equally increased by a factor of eleven.

"Avengers!" Kamala called out loud, using the now-famous warcry that an illusionary Captain America had done in front of the Trisk to fight HYDRA but had been invented by her. "Assemble!"

With that, all four of them engaged the enemy.

Miss Marvel vs. The Mandarin, ComiCon 2013

Rounds were fired. Fists were thrown. Men were slapped. Microbots were deployed. Claws were extended. In the middle of the heavily-populated Meadowlands Exposition Center where HYDRA had taken over the comic book convention and the public held under threat and hostage, two men and two women held the line against a group that had spent decades attempting to take over the world (twice, actually) and one of the most well-known terrorists of the Twenty-First Century. While the plot wasn't take over the world, with HYDRA and the Mandarin, the stakes were certainly nothing less than disastrous if successful. They were in danger, the innocent lives that surrounded them were in danger, and people had already been shot and/or killed by either the Mandarin or HYDRA.

The time for talk and reason, as they said, had passed.

Kamala could feel the rounds being fired upon her striking her embiggened self, tiny bullets that were rather effective against man-sized objects but not so much gigantic teenagers. Oh, they did hurt… a little, but those rounds were made for people that were approximately a foot or two thick, not someone who was eleven times larger. They just didn't have the size or the velocity to go much further than skin-deep, her flesh now almost four inches thick. Plus she had tested the possibility of what would happen if she got hurt when enlarged; she knew the secret of reverting back to original form… including without being wounded. As long as she didn't actually die or suffer some major trauma, she could shrink back to normal size with her original health at the moment she enlarged. She had hilariously made her own version of a healing factor.

The battle between the Avengers and HYDRA was short-lived, thankfully, thanks to the impressive skills brought on by Bucky Barnes, Doreen Green, Reed Richards, and herself. The four of them knew that to keep the public safe, they would have to make themselves the target of choice for the armed HYDRA goons, and any one of them trying to flee was either targeted by the Terminator, Artemis, microbots, or Miss Marvel. Some of the goons had probably slinked off, true, but the four or five dozen or so that had appeared in the cleared-out ring to call out the Avengers fell quickly, unable to stop the totality that they could bring while the whole thing was being filmed by hundreds (if not over a thousand) of attendees of ComiCon, an Avenger fight literally happening right in front of them.

In less than two minutes, dozens of HYDRA goons were laying on the ground bleeding, broken, mauled, crushed, or unconscious. None were left standing defiant.

But there was one that Kamala didn't see, one who the young woman wanted to deal with personally.

"Did anyone see the Mandarin?" Kamala asked as she tapped her left wrist and shrank back down to her original stature, a cascade of blunted, deformed rounds falling at and around her feet as she looked over to Bucky, Doreen, and Reed. Bucky was just looking at her, then at the rounds that had just fell from her body, and then back at her again. Doreen, still in her weretabby form, just shook her felinoid head, while Reed looked around at the crowd. Don't tell me we lost that creep!

"He's right here."

The four Avengers turned to see a hole opening up in the crowd as a man walked forward with the Mandarin in a headlock, ineffectively struggling against his captor due to the man's sheer physicality. Kamala did a double-take at the sight of the one who had the Mandarin's head stuffed under his left armpit; the guy looked just like Thor. Actually… the young woman had seen that very guy in the parking lot when they had reached the Meadowlands' parking lot! While perhaps a little shorter and having brown eyes, the guy was ripped and his costume was legit; the Asgardian battle regalia he wore probably was made out of metal of some kind, and the details of it was spot-on. Hell, even the Mjolnir in his right hand looked pretty awesome. And this guy had the Mandarin in a headlock!

"Dude? You are so now on my FaceBook friend list." Kamala gushed as the man dragged the Mandarin into the cleared space, the terrorist trying to free himself but to no avail; the Thor look-alike was ripped as hell, obviously not show muscles or a fake muscle suit. "What's your name?"

"Eric. Eric Masterson." The Thor-clone replied, a mile-wide grin on his bearded face as he kept the Mandarin locked in with his muscular arm.

"Well, stick around, Eric. Last I checked, the American Government had a rather hefty bounty for the person who captured that bozo." Kamala informed the cosplayer, whose grin got even wider. "If you could do me a solid and chuck him in the middle? He wanted to be the center of attention, after all." That had the Thor-clone laugh as he bodily threw the bearded terrorist in front of the Avengers, surrounded by convention attendees as she looked over to Doreen (who had shifted back to her human form), the Veterinarian looking at her curiously. Kamala gave her a wink as she turned her attention back to the world-renowned terrorist who had been tossed forward by Masterson, the Mandarin looking at her with wary spitefulness. There was no pistol in his hand now, the HYDRA goons were laying all over the place, and there was nowhere to run.

"I invoke Sharia; this one is mine." Kamala told her counterparts as she walked forward five steps, bringing herself within twenty feet of the terrorist as her dark eyes zeroed in on the Mandarin… whose real name she knew of thanks to her mentor, Anthony Edward 'Tony' Stark. After the Second American Civil War, Kamala had asked the billionaire about his capture of the Mandarin, and had been both appalled and incensed by what Stark had discovered, collaborated and confirmed by Colonel James Rupert 'Rhodey' Rhodes. Trevor Slattery had been some sham or shemp for Advanced Idea Mechanics to create a terrorist for profiteering and to hide the organizations' more illegal activities. His capture in December hadn't proved to the world the fact that Trevor was a con man, a British actor making a role to appear as a guise of a world-famous terrorist of her religion. There were men and women throughout the world (and most definitely of the Middle East) that saw the Mandarin as an Arbiter of Islam and a Grand Cleric, a man who used the faith of believers to forward his cause of bloodshed and death. The problem was that when Tony and Rhodey had discovered the fact that Trevor was a fake, they had been the only people in the room to see that fact.

Not so much, now. Especially with so many cell phone cameras to commemorate the event.

"Trevor Benjamin Slattery!" Kamala Khan called him out vocally and publicly, hundreds of eyewitnesses of just about every demographic possible (it was America, after all) with an additional hundreds of photographic and videographic pieces of evidence to support it. She had been raised by her wadin to believe that her religion was one of peace and understanding, that the will of the Prophets wanted people to work together through unity and cooperation. But for decades there had been men who had used the name of the Prophet and her religion to put forth causes that put them in power, toppling governments and creating war while invoking the sunnah and hadiths as their justification. Once, the Islamic world had been the most civilized, the most advanced, the most artistic, and most progressive culture in the world, its poetry and architecture celebrated, its scientists and philosophers edified, its cities looked upon in wonder. When Europe built cute castles and warred on each other (usually in the name of God), Muslims were building wonders across several continents, from as far east as India and further, all the way to Morocco and Spain. They had held two holy cities and honored them equally, had recovered ancient tombs of knowledge and preserved them and copied them lovingly, and kept true the word of the Last Prophet of God. Anyone who knew Kamala knew her to be both Muslim and American; she loved and believed in both.

As for the man standing in front of her, she knew who and what he was. And she was going to prove to the world the truth.

"Han al-waqqat ledres acher." Kamala said in Arabic to the man standing twenty feet in front of her, the man glowering at her as he stayed silent, frowning. Kamala just smiled at him as he stood there. "You really have no idea what I said, do you? It's your own tagline in Arabic, kadheb; time for another lesson. But this time, I'm the muallem, charlatan. I name you dejal, an impostor, unless you can identify the the surah and āyāt from the Qur'an. And don't worry, I'll make it an easy one for you." Kamala spoke out loud, obvious that she was heard by the crowd by the way they were shifting slightly where they stood and a few looking at one another. "Ready, Trevor?"

"Girl, do you think anyone will believe a word you say?" The actor asked, his tone measured and deliberate, just like the voice of the Mandarin.

"Al-Fātiha." Kamala spoke out loud, naming in Arabic a portion of the Qur'an; a part that every Muslim knew and recognized. It was the beginning of the first surah of the Qur'an, the prayer on every lip in a masjid, the incantation of every imam, the recitation of every salat. Known as the Opener, it invoked the name of Allah, giving praise for His dominion, His compassion, His mercy, and sovereignty. It had the supplicant worship in His name and ask for His help, to walk along the straight path He had made and not to be led astray or to be lumped with those who had invoked His wrath. Any who went to salat or jama'ah, any who went to Mecca, any who professed to being a leader in the Muslim world (government, spiritual, public, or other) would know the words. In Arabic, as was required by the Qur'an. Yes, a Muslim from a nation in which Arabic wasn't the native language may know the prayer in their native language as oppose to Arabic, but for a Muslim leader, not knowing many of the proscribed hadiths, surahs, or sharia in Arabic was very nearly a political death sentence (and sometimes an actual death sentence). Every Muslim knew the requirement, knew Al-Fātiha, and would know who was a believer… and who wasn't because of it. Kamala was calling the Mandarin out, publicly, for the world to see what she already knew.

That he was just a phony.

Five seconds went by… and not a peep was made by the man who called himself the Mandarin, Slattery glaring at her with enough intensity to strike her dead if he had possessed the ability.

"Dude, even I know what Al-Fātiha is and I'm Jewish." Doctor Doreen Green catcalled from behind Kamala, the Veterinarian's tone most certainly amused as a small chuckle came from the crowd of on-lookers. "Admittedly, not in Arabic, but even I could recite it pretty well if I needed to." Someone in the crowd began chanting 'fake-fake-fake' as it built up in volume and numbers until hundreds of voices were calling out Trevor Slattery for what he was, viewed by any standing around him and recording what was going on with their phones. Kamala raised a hand for silence as the Mandarin stood his ground, looking pissed but defeated as the chanting finally subsided.

"The words from the prophet Ezekiel." Kamala called out, the crowd shushing itself as she spoke. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides of the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men." Everyone was quiet as they listened on, Kamala seeing everyone filming her. "Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepards the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brothers' keeper and the finder of lost children." Seeing the fake in front of her had the Pakistani-American seething, and she was going to destroy him. "And He will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy our brothers." This charlatan had used her religion for power and popularity, and she was going to take it all away from him. "And you shall know His name is Allah when He lays His vengeance upon thee.

"It's called a bitchslap." Kamala finished with a dark grin as her right hand wound back across herself and delivered a backswing.

Her hand flew out as her arm extended twenty feet long and her hand quadrupled in size as she knocked the Mandarin off his feet, the man careening away several feet as he landed in a heap on the floor in front of hundreds of ComiCon attendees, much to the cheering appreciation of those watching on. Kamala's hand shrank back down to size as her arm went back to its original length as quickly as it had grown. Everyone around the Avengers were applauding them and cheering them as Meadowland security guards finally showed up to take control of the situation. She looked over to her friends with a triumphant smile, dashing back to them to give them hugs in true teenaged girl fashion (making Reed stammer and blush when it was his turn). HYDRA had come for them, and had lost publicly.

Despite it all, today had turned out to be a pretty good day.

"So… who's up for slushies?" Kamala asked innocently. Bucky just groaned in reply.

Author's Notes: Yep, I just reinvented the classic Ms. Marvel with a technological duplicate.

It was always my intent to have Kamala as Ms. Marvel, as like Tony Stark, she evolves with technology. While she can't shape change or polymorph, I gave her technological abilities that do the same thing such as changing her image into something else with The Miss Marvel Project, using the Pym Particles and intrinsic fields with Vibranium to expand and extend her body (through commands, not will), and even have a 'healing' factor as returning to normal size reverts Kamala back to her original state; uninjured (basically, its an intrinsic field mold of her current self). The only power she doesn't have (and probably won't) is the slightly glowing luminescence comic Marvel has. Instead of having all her powers at once, this Kamala evolves.

Yes, ULTRON does exist now, which you will be seeing more of later.

The Hulk Hogan Theme - Written by Rick Derringer, 1987.

Reed Richards does have Hiro Hamada's microbots from Big Hero 6 (a Disney movie), so I'm running with the fact that Reed, like Kamala, invented his own superpower (and didn't steal a spacecraft and launch it into space to have some alien race shoot comic energy into the four helpless astronauts).

And yes, poor Jack Rollins got… neutered (actually, 'castration' is the male term, 'spaying' is the female term, and neutering is either gender). I've implied that Doreen and Jessica Drew were sexually abused at the hands of HYDRA. This will be brought up next chapter.

Eric Masterson - In the late 80's/early 90's, Eric Masterson was the human disguise of Thor (pony tail Thor with a beard, calling himself Thunderstrike).

Yes, Kamala did Ezekiel 25:17 on the Mandarin. Because Pulp Fiction doesn't exist in the MCU :'-( [yes, I am aware Fury had that as his epitaph on his gravestone, but that would have just been a Bible quote but also a nod to his iconic role as Jules]