Across Prison 42 rang the alarm, lights flashed, drawing the attention of everyone in every sector of the prison complex. All of the guards stared at the with queer perplexation as to what this meant. Was it a fire? A drifting piece of rock in this strange dimension, hurtling towards them? The answer came in the form of an automated feminine voice, blunt tone "Self-destruct sequence has been initiated, all personnel and staff are to evacuate in T-minus ten minutes."

This announcement was met with utter confusion and a deepening dread. The armed Cape Killers in the Icarus Tower found themselves caught in a queer predicament having just been released from Devin's control and in the same room with the newest incarnation of Spider-Man.

"What's happening?" asked one of the guards with a hand on his helmet.

"How the hell should I know" barked another guard with his rifle trained on Spider-Man. "Get somebody on the radio now!"

"I'm sure the Spider-Freak knows something" said another guard.

"Control, this is CK-Delta Squad. What's going on with that alarm?"

The group grew quiet except for the occasional grunts of pain from bruising that they did not remember getting.

"Delta Squad, your orders from on high are to evacuation until further notice. If you see any capes once the cell doors unlock you are to escort them to the nearest dimension gate"

The armed guard on the radio relied the message to his teammates. Each of them looked in spider-Man's direction without a word and drew their firearms. One pulled of a pair of cuffs and tossed them at the spider's feet as though it did not need to be said what would happen next.

Peter simply looked back at them with the eyes of his expressionless mask. After just losing Kaine his options were to fight or put on the cuffs but after an untold amount of time in the care of Tony the answer was obvious. Before their eyes Spider-Man had become transparent and then he was gone.

They frantically shot at his last known position with no success and proceeded to bark at one another before a self-appointed leader reminded them to switch to thermal vision. The team proceeded to sweep the floor but by then it was too late. Spider-Man was already at the nearest window and slipped outside into the open space left to glide freely.

He could feel his suit heating up the longer he stayed camouflaged. If it continued, he would have to power it down again for it cool off. The black, red, and blue suit could be seen flying through the negative zone uncontested.

The alarm was still sounding off though and his spider-sense was not unlike a jackhammer at this point. How could it not be if the complex was going to be eviscerated? Red lights flashed at each building's room and entrance. With that in mind, he tried to steer his thoughts away from the shame of losing a second person to Devin. Now a man involved in something more complicated than simply being a registered hero.

As he glided through the space of the negative zone Peter could see the main building that he and Kaine escaped from earlier. When he looked down, he spotted a group of cape killers guard prisoners as they were shepherded to an armored transport.

Among the group were the black Cat and Hawkeye (Kate Bishop). Kate was being carried, as though she was unable to walk by herself. Both had a pair of guards with them.

The spider tilted downward, speeding towards them like a missile. The black cat caught sight of him seconds before his dive bomb hit. She ducked, allowing him to knock over the guard behind her.

Felica then performed a sweep kick for the guard in front of her. The two guards carrying Kate seemed torn between who should let go of her and attack. The result was both letting her drop to her knees in pain. She would have screamed if her mouth were not gagged.

The two guards drew their side arms when the spider slipped into his camo mode after he knocked over his target. The good thing about the camouflage was that he had time to wind up his attacks. He ran behind them and leaped into the air, allowing himself to come down hard with a drop kick to one of the guard's shoulders. The attack brought so much force that the cape killer's shoulder dislocated.

Peter shifted out of the camo mode to keep the suit from heating further. The second killer was spooked so badly that he froze up. This allowed the spider to give him an uppercut and left him with enough time to web down the killer that black Cat gave the sweep kick to.

"What took you so long spider" Felica gave his suit a look up and down as he assisted her to her feet. "Did I mentioned how much I like this new look?"

"You did. What's going on?"

"With the alarm? No clue but the guards are spooked so I doubt it's Tony trying to make a statement"

"A little help here?" asked Kate after removing the gag herself.

Peter moved to help Kate to her feet as Black Cat rummaged thru the pockets of the cap killers for the keys to her cuffs.

"Are you in pain?"

"Kinda, my arms and legs are burning like I just ran a marathon. Something they injected me with."

"I was hit with the same thing. It'll pass"

"I would be more worried about our next move or Patriot. He was going to break out the Human Torch but my guess is that he ran into trouble"

Spider-Man could almost feel his grip tighten on the sore arms on Hawkeye. Hawkeye winced in pain.

"You mind?"

"Sorry"

He thought about going after Johnny, a friend. Perhaps the last one that he had who was connected to his past. He did go after Kaine but lost him and with Hawkeye handicapped leaving them, wouldn't be the best option. Not with the facility in the midst of self-destruction.

The best option might be to regroup with the rest of the New Avengers team. The alarms and flashing lights didn't stop, and they were losing time with every passing second. Pressure was mounting.

"Don't you want to go after him?" Asked the cat in a soft tone "I know you were fr-"

"We need to regroup with Luke and the others. The sooner we do that, the sooner I can make another trip."

He looked at the building before them and saw the faint glows of energy blasts. The best way up was to scale the outside to the roof.

The newly suited spider laid Hawkeye onto the floor and wrapped her into a full body cocoon. He then attached a web string to it and looped it around his chest.

"Can you climb?" asked Spider-Man

"I'll be fine Spider. Let's go"

The three proceeded to climb up the building to meet up with the rest of their team.

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As the alarms rang and the ten-minute warning came to the mighty and New Avengers teams, dread was shared by both sides. The fighting continued, however the only they could seem to think was that the other side was somehow responsible.

"What did you do?" yelled Wasp as she flew circles around Deadpool and blasted him.

Deadpool simply ignored her accusation and reached into one of his many pouches while keeping an eye on the Wasp. "Luckily I never go anywhere without my handy dandy wasp swatter" he said with a smirk and a wagging index finger pointed to the sky like Sonic the Hedgehog. "Brought to you by none o'ya beeswax!"

He gripped the large swatter with two hands which like a baseball bat. It crackled with electricity that surged through the swatter and even lit up, possibly to attract the unsuspecting fly.

Wasp seemingly did the same to strike Wade's body so did he swing his wasp zapper. When she moved down towards his feet was when she came undone. Deadpool swung the zapper just like one would a golf club. Wasp was electrocuted, her tiny body sent in one direction. Her body to return to normal size and collided with Miss Marvel, which knocked her out of midair.

With Miss Marvel down, Luke, who was fighting Miss Marvel made a mad dash towards her for the finishing blow to knock her out. The Sentry broke away from Venom to appear before Luke. He forced the Power man back with merely an open palm to the chest.

Tony Stark immediately retreated to a few yards up above the roof of the complex with one hand trained on Iron Fist as the orbs from his axis suit relegated Iron Fist to simply dodge.

"What the hell's going on Reed? This sequence shouldn't be happening without approval and I didn't give it."

Reed stood just outside of the cell which had once confined Johnny Storm. The door was now sealed shut after the alarm sounded off. As were the other cell doors of the facility. Not only was the prison about to destroy itself but it was going to take everyone trapped within as well.

Johnny was still trapped in foam, helpless as the Cape Killers carted him off down the hall. His eyes did not move from Reed as until they were moved around the corner.

"Neither did I but I've instructed all teams evacuate the facility in case a shutdown isn't possible. That means prisoners too but we have less than ten minutes."

"With Sentry's help I can wrap this up in less than a minute."

"No, Robert's too strong to cut loose. I'm sending Johnny to you in case I can't reverse this..."

"Any losses?"

"Not on our side. Black Cat and Kate Bishop have been captured but Patriot is dead."

"What?"

"It looks like a guard administered the sample through his mouth. After I gave explicit instructions to use the darts. The formula must have attacked his digestive system."

"And that will be the least of our trouble if we can't stop the self-destruct. Plus, whoever is doing this has locked all cell doors."

"I have my own team to meet me at the control room, if you can meet me within Three minutes than gather whoever you can and leave."

Tony gazed off into the distance to see a glaring purple light grow closer by the second. A torrent of purple energy followed what appeared to be doctor strange as he approached the roof to rejoin his team. He crashed onto the floor and moved into a roll to regain his footing and balance.

"…I'm gonna have to call you back Reed. Strange is here."

"Say no more but remember. If I cannot stop the countdown, we need to evacuate, Tony. Maybe Luke and his team can be reasoned with for the effort"

"I'll try but with our history it'll be a hard sell."

Stark disconnected with Reed to address everyone on both sides of the mayhem on the roof as Sallvira arrived in his purple, radiant energy to catch everyone's eye. All took the time to stop what they were doing to look and him and Doctor Strange, the presumably defeated opponent.

Strange rose to his feet while holding his head with one hand but quickly readied his hands for another spell.

Stark seized the moment to grab everyone's attention by recalling the orbs of his suit and ordered them to blast into the seemingly endless sky to grab their attention.

"Everyone, we need to stop fighting right now" yelled Iron Man from the sky.

"Funny, hearing you say that. I bet the alarms are some kind of trick to scare us" replied Iron Fist.

Tony ignored Danny and continued to speak his point. "The Base is currently entered a lockdown protocol and a self-destruct. We don't know how this is possible but it's happening and it's real. Reed is going to try and stop it but in the event that he can't we need to get as many people out of the negative zone as possible."

The New Avengers leered at him without speaking a word but he could tell they were at least considering his words. That was all he needed to know that they were still reachable.

"Don't listen to him!" shouted Deadpool. "This is the part of the story where he lowers our guard with sweet talk. I have the knives in my back to prove it! Or was that a leftover from my last job?"

"I know that I haven't been the most honest, going back to my fights with cap but he wouldn't lie about this and neither am I." He looked Sue in the eyes. Her stare could hurtle missiles the way they locked onto him. "Sue, Johnny is being sent up now because your team got his out before the doors could lock. I have a plan but we have to get these cell doors open now or it'll be too late."

Doctor Strange stepped forward with his own proposed plan. "The hold on this dimension is broken. I could transport everyone back to Earth with a spell."

"Not likely" replied Sue. "Reed and Tony were likely to prepare a ward on each cell to keep you from doing just that. Right Tony?"

The face plate to Iron Man's helm retracted from his face in time to reveal a bewildered man ad he nodded to confirm the invisible woman's guess. "but I have a way around it."

"Then what are we waiting for?" added Daredevil. "What do we have to do?"

Just then Sallvira bellowed "no!" His body shined with a purple brilliance which recaptured everyone's attention.

His mind began to race at the thought of the prison which was to be evacuated. The power that he had acquired was sure to go along with all of the captives. Would they even return? He had no answer, but the solution seemed simple enough. They would have to stay. Them and their emotions could not be allowed to leave the dimension.

"None of you can leave. I will not allow it!"

Sallvira readied himself with four purple orbs, which surged with energy. Both the mighty and New Avengers team members stood their ground to face him on a united front. The more resilient members took the frontline, composed of Wolverine, Ares, Sentry and Luke Cage. Deadpool cowering behind Wolverine. "I've got your back Logan"

Sallvira lot off the four blasts simultaneously. One of these beams bounced off wolverine and hit a dimension gate that was nearby. The four front liners took the brunt of the attack and held the line as Doctor strange and Ms. Marvel fired their own volleys in retaliation, which did not seem to do much.

Sentry flew straight to Sallvira with every intention of striking him with his all-powerful fist but Sallvira caught it, stopping the avenger in his tracks.

Iron Man descended down towards the invisible woman. She looked at him with cation as though he would strike her when she least expected it.

"You can trap him with your powers. He's made of energy, so physical attacks won't work but you can ensnare him and I can disperse the energy with my suit after I absorb him."

Sue looked to Luke who strained to nod as the continued to block the oncoming beam.

Tony's visor took its place over his face and approached his imprisoned former comrade with the axis armor's orbs on surrounding him. The orbs appeared to form a cage of energy over Sue's prism and drew in the energy. He called foe Ms. Marvel and the Sentry to assist him absorb the power with their own abilities.

"You can't do this Anthony Stark" pleaded the entity. What will become of me?"

"You'll return to the universe. Just sooner than the rest of us."

Sallvira's being was ripped apart and separated into the energy compartments of the Axis suit. His face was not unlike that of a child, fearful of his impending death. The Axis glowed purple with new power, the same as Sentry and Ms. Marvel.

"It feels strange" said Carol Danvers as she examined herself as though she were in a new costume.

"Well we're not keeping it. Fire it off into separate directions now"

The three pro registered heroes put space between each other and released their newly captured energy into the vast space of the negative zone.

The tension did not leave however as Luke and his team still questioned what was to happen now. Tony Stark, Carol Danvers and Robert Reynolds descended back to the roof victorious as Spider-Man, Black cat and Hawkeye arrived after scaling the side of the building.

Hawkeye was still in her cocoon, she called to be let out so that her feet could touch solid ground. Black cat did just that while the new Spider-Man locked eyes with the Axis armor. Black Widow put herself between the two in an attempt to stop another fight from breaking out.

Following her lead was Daredevil, Wasp and Iron Fist

"We don't have time for another fight between you two. Tony, how do we get the cells open?"

"It's too late…"

"The window is closed and the gate was destroyed. There's no way we can save them."

Luke Cage stomped over to Iron Man. His face filled with sheer scorn.

"What do you mean? I didn't come here the leave these people to die!"

"Neither did I! But the fact is we're out of time"

Tony attempted to reach Reed over the comms but got no response.

"I can't get in touch with Reed. DAMMIT!"

"What about Johnny?"

"Sue?" called a weak voice in the distance. Everyone turned to see Johnny Storm, the Human Torch encased in solid foam as two Cape Killers wheeled him out.

Sue ran towards him without a second thought. The guards were ready to strike at her but Iron Man gave the signal for them to stand down. She hugged her brother through the foam and cried as she did. All watched as brother and sister were finally reunited after a year of time on earth but for Johnny the time was far more.

Tony took a step to address everyone on the roof. "I hate to say it but we have to leave"

"No!" screamed Hawkeye in defiance. "What about Patriot? What about Vision? Those Runaway kids? We can't leave yet!"

"Patriot is dead…" answered Johnny Storm in a hoarse voice. "I saw with my own eyes"

Everyone could hear the countdown to the facilities detonation as it came down to the last 2 minutes. The young Hawkeye's eyes welled up with streaming tears for her comrades. With anger at the teammate she loved. She pulled her bow from her back with as much strength and speed and strength as she could and let the arrow fly. In retaliation, Black Widow fired a tranquilizer dart from her wrist.

The dart was caught by Spider-Man, the Arrow by Ares bringing the action to a stalemate. Iron Man revealed his face filled with remorse. "I'm Sorry"

The counter came to its final minute

"Don't talk to me!" spat Kate Bishop with vindictive rage. She ran back towards the side of the building with every intention to jump off the ledge. Of course, she was planning to use her bow to make a line she could swing from.

In the end it was Doctor Strange who made the executive decision. He was the only one that could open the way without access to a dimension gate. With a wave of his hands, he and everyone not within the walls of the buildings were transported back to Earth, leaving those within behind.

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The corridor seemed to go on forever to Reed as the clock to the prison's destruction counted down. If it were not stopped, the facility would be lost but more than that, precious lives would go with it. For once the line between right and wrong was so black and white. 42 was a "best choice" scenario, a hard decision was not easy at the time but now it was the thing that could cause only more pain.

He thought about why the self-destruct was there in the first place. An option to discard it once a better resolution was reached after the initiative took hold and the anti-registration movement saw the error of their ways. But one day turned to a week, a week to a month and so on. Yet now it was being used to take lives.

Mr. Fantastic ran down the halls passed locked cell doors, the inhabitants screaming to be let out for fear of their lives.

He was sure to call for guards to help him take back the control room. Hopefully, they would get there before himself. Non-combatant personnel were told to evacuate as well to the nearest gate.

When he felt that his body did not move fast enough, he rolled into the shape of a tire and rolled down the halls, leveraging his bodies weight to create the momentum to stay in motion. Eventually the floor close to the control room was found to be covered in water. Red puddles littered the floor's surface, coating his blue suit with red stains.

Reed rolled out of his tire shaped and back into his human one, tiptoeing to his destination. He saw the bodies of the team he had dispatched on the floor. All of them, dead. Some had a single hole in their chests, some were cut in half, but they were all dead. He tried to contact anyone over the Comms but received no signal. An announcement reminded everyone that destruction was coming in five minutes which nudged him to move faster.

Blood stopped just in the threshold to the control room. The sliding door to it was constantly attempting to close if not for the ice which had blocked it.

As he stepped through the main control room door, Reed's eyes scanned the environment. It was not unlike that of a command center at NASA. The wall on the opposite end of the room was covered with screens, linked to cameras all over the prison. Rows of workstations took up the space leading up to those monitors where people used to observe the captives.

The people who operated in this room were dead. There was nothing left of them but ice blocks and ice was something that the former leader of the Fantastic four was susceptible to. Water dripped onto the drenched floor and before he could react, he was met with cold wind and frost. Ice form at his feet and rapidly moved up his elastic body until it reached the middle of his face and stopped short before his nose.

Two men dropped down from the ceiling, one on each side of him, while Another fight stepped out of the shadows. Each of them was cast in black attire from head to tough. Outfits suited for black ops. There was no way to tell them apart from on another besides their mannerisms. Six of them stood at attention as the apparent leader approached Richards, his arms folded behind his back. His posture was not unlike that of a soldier and a pistol rested upon each of his hips.

"Time to give your life, Richards" said the leader in dull tone which lacked enthusiasm. "I wasn't sure if my forces would be ready to act but it seems progress does not wait. Even a man like yourself can be left behind."

Reed could only feel the numbness which encased his body but he could still think. Think of the souls lost in his charge, think the ones he had captive. What would the ramifications be?

He thought about Sue, his wife whom he sacrificed and their children he left behind. Would he not see them again? Could he not start over with them if he had the chance?

Primal emotions swelled within him. They urged him to push on despite the facts. He mustered the strength that he could to break out of his encasement. The elastic skin tore itself in multiple areas, but he did not care because this was his last stand.

The six subordinates in the group of 7 people did nothing to stop the hero. In the end it came down to their mysterious leader. With great efficiency the leader unfolded his arms from his back. One hand reached for his gun the other for his head.

The hand the reached for the mask had the shorter trip, it pulled off the black mask that had covered his face and revealed what was underneath causing Reed to stop his movement for a second. That second was just enough time for the other hand to clasp onto its pistol and aim. The bullet it launched was shot square in the center of Reed's forehead.

Usually, the bullet might bounce of but because he was caught of guard by what he saw, his mind lost concertation required to maintain the elastic properties of is body.

The bullet forced its way through the head of one of the smartest men on earth, killing him dead.

The leader slipped back on his mask, holstered his gun and said simply "My superior sends his regards."

Enough gawking. Did the shutdown window close yet?

"Yes sir, no way to stop it now"

"Then move out. Nothing left to do but watch the fireworks"

And in minutes later, Prison 42 and the souls left within its walls were no more.

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The New Avengers team had set out to free all the prisoners held at Prison 42. An idealistic goal but one they were willing to stack everything on. In the end, they returned to their base with just two liberated captives, the mighty Avengers, six cape killers and about 20 lower level prison staff. They filled the base with murmurs and ramblings.

This made the original inhabitants of the base nervous and agitated, unsure if that day was the day they were finally being raided.

The fire wielding mutant Hotspot was that first to arm himself, shouting for answer from Prison staff while he shielded his little brother along with Franklin and Valeria Richards. Cape killers were all too willing to raise their arms. This caused the two sides to once again be at odds, forcing Tony and Luke to tell their people to disarm. Even after they did so reluctantly the murmurs did not stop.

Prison staff were screaming to know if missing coworkers had made it back. Iron Man was taking the chance to calm his people. As he did so Hawkeye took her leave and Sue stayed with her brother for fear someone would try to take him from her again.

"I know that you're all scared. We had a malfunction at the facility which I will investigate personally.

"Malfunction my ass" screamed a lowly staff employee. "These renegades did something to the security system!"

"Yea!" shouted another in agreement "and what happened to the gates? We tried to use one to get out but it wouldn't power on."

"I bet one of the supers did it. They tried to kill us!"

"We cannot go jumping to conclusions just yet until an investigation is completed" said Tony.

"But you can't just let them get away with this! Terry is still back there!"

Peter watched as Tony was berated by his own people. He saw the anger well up among their numbers and was sure that a fight could break out any moment. Should he even bother speaking of what he witnessed in the negative zone? No, the mob were more likely to ignore his testimony and yet it was clear that someone saw the holes in Tony's plans. Someone gave Devin the tools infiltrate the prison and kill the entire hero population in one feral swoop. That could not be ignored.

After all of this time, the spider may have been proven right about registration, but it came at a cost neither side wanted to pay.

Tensions grew once more, Luke Cage put himself between the cape killers and his own faction as he spoke "I'm sorry that it played out like this, but we didn't activate no self-destruct. And while you might not believe me, we lost people on the other side too.

Luke looked at Doctor Strange to get ready, and with a swipe of the doctor's had Iron man and his people were gone.

Franklin and Valeria made a beeline for their long missing uncle (still trapped in his foam cocoon) and their mother. Daredevil, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist and even Deadpool took in the moment. Black Cat took her place beside the Spider, she coiled her arms around his. And though the sole survivor of the Young Avengers was gone she was at the very least alive.

The Venom Symbiote had abandoned the captive body it took during the prison raid to allow Strange to send it away with the others. It slithered on the ground to take it's place by Peter, who encased it within a layer of his suit.

The large monitor in the space rang out for an incoming call, Luke approached it with a furrowed brow

On the main monitor was the image of Nicolas J. Fury, the former Director of Shield. A man with brown hair, a bit of gray on both sides of his face. An eye patch covered his left eye. This man was the picture of clandestine in any spy movie with an unlit cigar protruding from the corner of his mouth.

His appearance demanded the attention of everyone at the base just because of his sheer legacy. A man who worked for the greater good at all times. If he took time out of his day to appear before them then a bad situation was about to get worse.

"What the hell happened to you people?" he said in a direct fashion.

"We lost prison 42…" said Luke.

Fury grunted at the sound of this news. In a way that a man who experienced many loses could. It was the way of his trade. The only thing you could do after something like this was damage control.

"It doesn't matter who did what. The president and his administration are going to have to blame someone. Obviously, you all will take the fall and be condemned as outlaws, more so than before. Stark will be replaced be someone else and so on. Registration might even be rebranded, but this will be the status quo."

"This was a big blow for many but you have to understand that this is not over. This was just the first step for something bigger. You think I envy Stark? He has to explain why so many men and women died on his watch. While you guys were fighting each other, someone knocked on the door and took the house down. Their infrastructure is in danger."

They still have the fifty-state initiative" said Iron Fist. "There are still a lot of teams out there in the event that this new enemy attacks."

"Their roster is full of wide-eyed figure heads who are greener than the Hulk. Most of those states will never see the level of combat that New York heroes have, so if this enemy decides to strike there are no reserves to call upon. And these people just demonstrated that they can infiltrate the impenetrable prison 42. We might be able to call on New Asgard but there's no guarantee they would get involved"

Peter stepped forward and agreed with Nick's statement. In his travel's he had seen teams make public appearances like celebrities and the kind of scuffles they got into were nothing like New York's. thinking back on it was as though the city of New York had a certain allure to fester crime. Despite the fact that there were so many heroes in the city it didn't seem to deter petty criminals or supervillains from cropping up. There was always something happening and no matter how hard you worked there always seemed to be another plot brewing.

Nick looked at the new Spider-Man, taking in the design and recognizing his existence with a simple "Peter."

"It's the end of an era ladies and gentlemen. And I'm going to need some able bodies to prepare for the storm that's coming.

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Iron Man stood in the office of the President of the United States. He held his head up in spite of the fact that he just had to deliver such devastating news about prison 42.

"Stark! Do you have any idea what you've done? The number of families that have lost people on your watch? Wives! Children! My administration can't take any more of your hot shot antics!"

Tony declined to speak up and instead took the president's words.

"We allowed you to be the face of this movement, let you kiss all of the babies you wanted and god knows how many more women!"

The President took a pause and allowed himself to breath slowly as he sat behind his desk. Each breath entered and exited his lungs by way of his mouth. "That's it Stark. You're done, your replacement is on his way. You will brief him on the everything and get the hell out of the way. You are stripped of your registration credentials and you are banned from using that Iron Man suit. If you so much as put it on to go for a milk run, I'll have you locked up so fast you would think we recruited Quicksilver!"

"Mister President!" said Tony threw himself at the president's desk, accidentally bringing his weight down on the old wood. Parts of it splintered before he pulled away. "Sorry, Mister President. I want the opportunity to fix this. Please allow me to figure out what went wrong. Whoever caused the explosion would have to have intimate knowledge of how it worked."

The president looked at the two new dents in his desk and then back up to Tony with a sour expression. "You're not listening to me. I don't want you anywhere near this. I still have to explain not only why a secure facility self-destructed but how the powered prisoners in that facility didn't survive."

As the President finished what he was saying, the door to his office opened and a man walked in. He wore a green three-piece power suit, tailored to him. His hair was brown and had waves than ridge potato chips. On his wrists were gold cufflinks with the initials "NO" on them.

"You wanted to see me Mister President?" said Norman Osborn.