Chapter 5: The First Major Battle (Part 2)

While Superman and the others had been taking down Green Goblin, Venom, Baron Zemo, and Abomination, Wonder Woman was leading Aquaman, Thor, and the Hulk to take care of the Wrecking Crew, who were tearing up every apartment building in their path with malicious glee. Wonder Woman observed the four strongmen and said firmly and simply, "Four of them against four of us. Nobody back down from this."

With that, the four heroes moved in to fight and Hulk charged headlong at the villain Bulldozer, blowing him off his feet and into a building across the street. The Wrecking Crew looked up and recognized Thor and Hulk immediately, but as expected, they had no idea who Aquaman and Wonder Woman were. As the heroes moved in to fight, the youngest member of the Wrecking Crew; Piledriver, went for Wonder Woman, and he smirked as he saw her in her superhero uniform.

"Well, hello, beautiful," he sneered. "If I had known someone like you would be coming to take me on, I'd have told Hawkeye about it."

Wonder Woman had no idea who Hawkeye was, and she wasn't going to inquire about it in conversation with a supervillain. Moreover, she had taken womanizing comments from plenty of men back home and hearing it from a criminal was the most insulting manner of receiving it. Wonder Woman charged at Piledriver and somersaulted over him before kicking him hard in the back and sending him head-first into another building. Piledriver rose up and charged her, but every one of his punches missed. Wonder Woman was not fazed by him in the slightest and simply kicked, punched, blocked, and shoulder-tackled him until Piledriver was too dizzy to stand. Finally, Wonder Woman head-slammed the villain, knocking Piledriver out.

"That'll teach you to ogle a woman when she's about to haul you to prison," the Amazon princess said with an icy frown.

While Wonder Woman took down Piledriver, Thor faced off with the head of the Wrecking Crew; the crude and sinister Wrecker. Thor's hammer rang against the villain's crowbar with the sound of a brass gong magnified a hundred times. Each blow forced Wrecker to move back, and when Thor flung Mjolnir at him, Wrecker jumped aside, only for the hammer to hit him in the back and knock him to the ground with a flash of lightning. As the villain rose up, he noticed Wonder Woman as she knocked Piledriver out, and the crook smirked, "If I was you, Goldilocks, I'd back off if I knew Miss Tiara would get hurt!"

"Churlish knave!" Thor spat. "Have you no respect for the person of women?!"

"If I did, I wouldn't be in this business, now would I?" sneered Wrecker.

"Then I warn you now: do not expect this maiden's blows to be any softer than her words."

Wrecker would have said more, but he soon learned the meaning of Thor's words the hard way, for Wonder Woman seized him by his coat and twisted him around to face her. Before Wrecker knew what was happening, Wonder Woman had pounded him in the gut and dealt a punch to his face that had the villain spitting up blood. He tried to fight back but in vain, for he received the heel of Wonder Woman's boot to his groin and dropped to the ground. Quick as a wink, Wonder Woman whirled Wrecker over her head and then flung him at Thor, who gave him a lightning bolt clean to the chest, knocking him out.

Meanwhile, Hulk had his hands full with Bulldozer, who was trying to ram him head-on like a mad bull. But he soon found that his method of attack was no good as Hulk managed to hold him back with one great hand.

"Little metal-head man funny," Hulk smirked.

Bulldozer only bellowed, "Lemme go, you big, green chowderhead!"

Hulk growled and said, "Okay."

And with that, he grabbed Bulldozer under his arms and slammed him back and forth over the ground, leaving craters wherever the helmed menace landed. After slamming him about for a few moments, Hulk began pounding Bulldozer as he would have done to Abomination, but he was satisfied when his huge fists finally cracked and then broke Bulldozer's nigh-impenetrable helmet.

Thunderball was the only one left, and he scoffed at first to see Aquaman facing him. However, he was surprised at how swiftly Aquaman moved to dodge the unceasing strikes of the enormous wrecking ball that Thunderball had wrapped around his wrist by the chain.

"Stay still, will ya?!" Thunderball bellowed at Aquaman.

"Not before you cease this unprovoked aggression against the people of this city," the king of Atlantis answered.

"Ha! I'd sooner eat another meal in prison before I give up this job!"

"That can be arranged," said Aquaman with a scowl as cold as the Arctic Ocean.

With that, he slammed the lower end of his trident into the ground and caused several manholes to blow jets of water high into the air. With a few twists and twirls of his trident, Aquaman surrounded himself in a wall of water which kept turning the blows of Thunderball's wrecking ball. Then Aquaman dispersed the flow of water in time to see Thunderball hurl his wrecking ball once again.

This time, Aquaman was going to give the last Wrecking Crew member the shock of his life. As the wrecking ball came at him, Aquaman only raised his trident and stood his ground. The wrecking ball collided with his weapon, and the tri-pronged spear caused the metal ball to crack first, then splinter, and then the wrecking ball was blown into shards of metal.

Thunderball barely had time to gasp in shock before Aquaman released the magic of his trident and hit the villain in the chest with a bolt of mystic lightning. The pain was tremendous and soon proved too great for even the deadly Thunderball. He tried to force his way to Aquaman, but was soon overpowered and collapsed to the ground. Wonder Woman and Aquaman managed to place inhibitor collars on the Wrecking Crew, and thus only Doctor Octopus and Crimson Dynamo were the last villains to take down.

…

At the First Residential Bank, Doctor Octopus had finished raiding the vault while the police had been getting every civilian away from the bank and out of danger. Still, Doctor Octopus' octo-arms were clenching at least ten thousand dollars in bills each. It was an inconvenience for sure, but Octopus was satisfied with using his legs if he still got away with it. However, he was barely out of the bank when there came a sound like a rushing wind and in an instant, his ill-gotten money was out of his mechno-arms and back in the vault.

The Flash zipped up in front of Doctor Octopus followed by Black Widow, who had her wrist gauntlets armed and ready to fire her Widow Bites if the sinister scientist tried anything. Doctor Octopus said to Widow, "So, the infamous Black Widow returns with her fellow Avengers to foil my future plans. But who is your companion? Surely he is not Quicksilver."

Flash only replied, "Who I am isn't important right now. Stopping you from stealing from the bank is."

With those words, he ran at Doctor Octopus before the villain could react and dealt him a punch that sent him reeling back across the street. Then Black Widow came leaping and somersaulting toward him and fired some of her Widow Bites at Doctor Octopus, but while they did shock him quite a bit, he managed to swat Widow away with one of his mechno-arms. But while she was dodging the attacks from those deady metal tentacles, Flash ran up behind Doctor Octopus and shoulder-tackled him from behind.

Doctor Octopus rose up and then tried to attack Flash, but he soon found he was in over his head. Flash dealt a few punches to Doctor Octopus before avoiding the attacks of his mechanical tentacles, and Flash moved far too swiftly for the menace to get a hit. In moments, Flash began running around Doctor Octopus and striking him so many times that the villain tried to use his mechno-arms to shield himself from the blows. Then he had the idea to lash out with just one of his arms as Flash came around. It only proved to be a sad mistake, for Flash saw it coming and grabbed it, then he said to Doctor Octopus, "Pardon me, Doc. But you've spun up enough trouble today."

And with those words, Flash began spinning in circles at incredible speed, taking Doctor Octopus with him, and he didn't stop until he flung the villainous scientist into the bank wall. Doctor Octopus was too dizzy to fight back, and he had wasted the battery that powered his mechno-arms trying to hit Flash.

Black Widow clamped an inhibitor collar on Doctor Octopus, then she said to Flash, "That was impressive. I've never known any superhero to use their brain that well, aside from Captain America."

"Well, being a speedster also means I can use more of my brainpower to determine where I'm going before I move," Flash replied. "Let's go meet up with the others."

"Yes, let's."

Meanwhile, the mayor of New York and his staff had not been able to get out of the office before Crimson Dynamo attacked and nearly demolished the building, but Iron Man and Martian Manhunter showed up just in time to stop him. Crimson Dynamo launched another missile attack on the building, only for Martian Manhunter to crush every missile with a psychic wave.

"Nice move," Iron Man told him. "Now let's finish this."

Crimson Dynamo yelled, "Mayor Cage, you filthy coward! Come out and die if you value democracy so greatly!"

Iron Man was so mad at that, he came up behind Dynamo and blasted him with his gauntlet lasers and catapulted the villain across the street. As the armor-clad menace rose up to fight again, Iron Man hovered down to the street and said, "It doesn't take my IQ to know you should back off."

Crimson Dynamo replied, "I've waited a long time for this, Iron Man. It's time to prove who among us is the strongest."

He charged Iron Man and managed to dodge each Uni-beam strike from the armored hero until they grappled and wrestled together. For a moment, Iron Man's punches seemed to disorient the villain, but Crimson Dynamo fired on him with his laser cannons set at maximum power. The shock was enough to stun Iron Man, whereon Dynamo activated flamethrowers in his suit, intending to burn Iron Man where he stood. But he had reckoned without Martian Manhunter.

The Martian hero telekinetically disconnected the flamethrowers and then charged Crimson Dynamo from the air. When he rose up, Crimson Dynamo was shocked to see Martian Manhunter hovering before him and said, "Well, well, what have we here? Another of HYDRA's experiments gone rogue?"

"It is you who are the rogue," Manhunter replied. "And if you have a sliver of respect, you will end this conflict with dignity."

Then he began striking Crimson Dynamo with blows that began to destabilize the armor suit he wore. Crimson Dynamo retaliated with missiles, only for Martian Manhunter to use his intangibility to avoid harm. He dodged each missile fired and then exchanged blows with Crimson Dynamo until Iron Man flew over to hold him back. As Crimson Dynamo flung Iron Man away, Martian Manhunter telekinetically caught him and set down, and then flung large chunks of asphalt at the villain to throw him off-guard.

The telekinetic attack was difficult enough to handle, but when Martian Manhunter shapeshifted by growing an extra pair of arms, Crimson Dynamo was utterly shocked. He grappled with the Martian hero, who began slamming his two extra fists into the midsection of the suit, then retracted the extra arms before expanding his hands to the size of boulders and knocked Crimson Dynamo into a skyscraper. Then he telekinetically drew the villain back, allowing Iron Man to hack into Dynamo's suit and shut down all systems. Then Martian Manhunter telekinetically pulled the suit apart and then pried it open, whereon Valentin Shatalov, the man who was the Crimson Dynamo, tumbled into the street.

Martian Manhunter had an inhibitor collar clamped on Shatalov's neck, but Iron Man was skeptical about it. "You do realize he doesn't have powers, right?"

"That isn't why I placed the collar on him," Manhunter replied.

As Shatalov tried to get away, the collar activated and shocked him so he collapsed to his knees. Then Martian Manhunter explained, "Batman had these collars enhanced so any super-criminal we capture will not be subjected to the shock at our hands. It is only used to stop them from resisting arrest, not to harm them."

"Huh. Tough but fair," Iron Man thought. "I wonder why S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't use those restraining methods more often. It would sure take a load off of our shoulders."

…

A number of S.H.I.E.L.D's agents arrived to bring the escaped supervillains back to prison, and they were instructed to not remove the collars under any circumstances or the villains would be able to escape at their leisure. When the vans finally moved off to the tower, the reporters who had been recording the villains' rampage immediately turned their attention to Superman and the Justice League. However, Captain America waved them off and said, "We're sorry to run, ladies and gentlemen, but Doctor Doom is still at large and this time, we need help from our new friends if we're going to find out what he's up to."

And with that, the Avengers headed for the Helicarrier with the Justice League following. It was time to meet the rest of the Avengers and then find out what Doctor Doom was up to and foil his plan, hopefully for good.

A/N: And here's how the Justice League helps the Avengers take down crime. Hope you all like this follow-up to Chapter 4, and keep an eye out for Chapter 6. We'll see how the rest of Earth's Mightiest Heroes react to the League.