ULTIMATE MELEE
CHAPTER 3
"The coast is clear, Wolverine," said Nightcrawler, stepping out into the hallway. Logan followed him from behind.
"Alright, let's kick some ass," Logan said, breaking out his claws from his arms.
"While we should be cautious," Nightcrawler whispered. "The professor said that this mission is to be carried out in secret, not with violence."
"Hey, you could have easily carried out this kind of mission yourself," Logan said. "The reason Xavier brought me along is to do the dirty work. I'm here to 'take care of' any problems that come along the way."
"Is there any chance that your voluntary attitude for this mission has anything to do with the Black Widow?"
"Natasha? No...that's not what I came here for."
"Then there's only one more possible explanation...Captain America. He knows about you and your past, and lately you've been very curious about it."
"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually suggesting that I should get side-tracked while we're here?"
"No," Nightcrawler said. "Forget about it."
Without another word, they made their throughout the Triskelion and towards the containment chambers.
It was a fairly usual casual evening for Clint Barton. Looking to rest from the excitement of the morning's events, he went over to one of his favorite bars and ordered some hard drinks. Hawkeye never exactly had a drinking problem, but sometimes getting drunk was a good way to unwind.
At least, that's what Tony always told him.
"Getting drunk is the best way to unwind," Tony Stark, who was sitting on the stool next to his, said once again. Tony had just gone through his fifth drink.
Hawkeye stared at the television set in the bar, watching the evening news. He expected something about the morning events to come on, but nothing happened. Nice cover-up on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s part. They obviously weren't stupid enough to let news of that kind of event come out; despite how popular the Ultimates were, nobody would sleep easier knowing there were security problems at the Triskelion.
"It's a shame," Tony Stark told him, while they were discussing it. "Missed my money shot."
Hawkeye sighed quietly. He was sure that Tony was too drunk to think clearly, and remembered that he pretty much stole the glory from the man who was sitting next to him and rubbed it in his face, but it still bothered him nevertheless.
"Well, I need to go use the gents' room," he said, and he left his stool, walking away highly uncoordinated.
It was not too long after Tony left that a man Hawkeye had never seen before sat next to him. He was dressed in just about the most cliché old detective movie clothes you could think of, and a long scarf concealed the lower part of his face.
"Are you Hawkeye?" the man asked, not even looking at him. Or, at least, that's what Hawkeye thought he heard from muffled sounds that came from under the scarf.
"Yes, I am," Hawkeye replied. "Who are you?"
But the man didn't reply. He simply took a cell phone out from his pocket and laid it down in front of Hawkeye.
The man stood up and left before Hawkeye could say anything. If he had been less drunk, Hawkeye would have stood up and ran after the man, but at that moment, Hawkeye just sat there, staring at the cell phone.
After a moment of careful consideration, he picked it up and scanned through its information. Its phone book was empty. Nothing was set up on it; no preferences were made. Identification? None. All he saw was that the phone did have a number, and it was currently in service.
Then the phone rang.
Hawkeye didn't know what was going on. He had no idea who that man was or what this phone was meant for. He didn't know weather this was some magazine trying to get an opportunity to interview him, or if he was holding a small bomb in his hand that was about to go off.
There was only one way to find out. Hesitantly, he answered the call.
Logan retracted his claws.
After all, what else do you do when you have two dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers surrounding you with their weapons aimed?
"Well, well, well, look who it is," Nick Fury said, making his way through the crowd of soldiers, so he could come face-to-face with Logan. "Here I was thinking you X-Men wanted to have nothing to do with us."
Logan, being unable to think of any clever to say, remained silent.
"What are you doing here, Wolverine?" Fury asked.
"Funny," Wolverine said, having come up with a good enough remark, "We were asking you the same thing this morning."
"Oh, so you felt that you still owed me one last visit?"
"Of course. What are friends for?"
"You're in big trouble, Wolverine," Fury said, looking somewhat delighted. "I know you're probably not going to answer, but I ask you this: did you come here alone?"
Logan refused to answer, but someone else did so instead. A short, but speedy S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier came running down the hall. When he stopped, he quick tried to catch his breath, and not bothering to properly address Fury, he told him, "There's been a break-in! In the containment chambers! Banner is gone!"
"What?!" Fury yelled, outraged. "Oh, damn!"
Fury turned to the two dozen soldiers surrounding Logan. "Keep him here. I'll send someone to take care of him."
Then he turned to the messenger. "Send a message out across the Triskelion. All available Ultimates must report to the containment chambers now!"
As soon as turned to run away, Logan quickly drew out his claws and made a huge leap towards the side of the S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers opposite of the one Fury had taken. He slashed his way through those that stood in his way, and began running with all his might away from them.
It all happened very quickly. Taking in the bullets that were landing on his back, Logan rushed towards the nearest glass window and jumped through it, breaking the glass along the way.
As soon as he started falling outside along the wall of the Triskelion building, Nightcrawler immediately showed up next to him, holding the unconscious body of Bruce Banner, and he grabbed Logan.
However, Nightcrawler lost hold of Bruce Banner, and in the process, Banner woke up.
"Hey-," Banner began saying, but his speech quickly turned into angry yelling. "What the &#?!"
Nightcrawler was about to make an attempt to get a hold of Banner again, but he hesitated, seeing that Banner was now ceasing to be human.
Tony Stark made his way out of the bathroom, feeling worse now than when he came in. It was definitely time to leave. Only when he was drunk did he realize that his "the best cure for a hangover is getting drunk some more" philosophy did not work very well.
His phone then rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket, and read on the outside screen: "New Text Message from Nick Fury."
He flipped open the phone and accessed the message, which read:
"Get over the Triskelion ASAP! Somebody's broken out Banner, and while we're not pointing fingers yet...Wolverine is here! – Nick Fury."
Tony groaned. This was not the ideal night for him to deal with something like this.
He began calling out to Hawkeye. "Hey, man, we're needed back at the-"
But Tony looked around, and Hawkeye wasn't inside the bar. He was nowhere to be found.
"Oh no, he doesn't!" Logan yelled as he was falling and watching Banner slowly transforming into the Hulk. He turned his head to face Nightcrawler. "Get me closer to him!" It wasn't the time to be making ideas, but Logan figured out what he should do.
Nightcrawler, reluctantly, but ready to obey orders, teleported both himself and Logan much closer to Banner, merely inches away.
Logan then jammed his claw into Banner's gut.
"Wolverine!" Nightcrawler exclaimed, completely shocked.
"You mother-"Banner began to yell, his somewhat transformed state enabling him to speak, but he then stopped. He fainted into unconsciousness.
Bruce Banner had stopped transforming.
"Let's get the hell out here," Nightcrawler yelled, quickly grabbing both Banner and Logan once again.
Leaving the Triskelion behind, they bamfed away.
The last time Peter Parker had been to the Triskelion, he was kidnapped, his identity was revealed to some of his worst enemies, and he was forced to help those enemies attack the White House.
He was hoping that nothing bad was going to happen this time, but he was not looking forward to coming face to face with the Hulk again.
Peter saw Captain America check a nearby digital clock, and then he pulled cell phone out of a bag nearby. He tossed it over to Peter. "It's time," he said.
Peter dialed in his house's number, and waited for Aunt May to pick up.
However, it was Gwen who picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Gwen, it's me," said Peter.
"Dude!" she yelled in excitement over the phone. "Where the hell are you?!"
Captain America, apparently, having heard Gwen over the phone, shook his head in disapproval at Peter.
"Um...I'm sorry, but I can't tell you, Gwen," Peter said. "But listen, did you tell Aunt May that I'm staying the night at...uh, Kong's house?"
"Yeah, taken care of," Gwen said. "But she still wants to hear from you. Should I put her on the phone?"
"Yes."
A short moment later, he was speaking to Aunt May.
"So yeah...Kong, being an old friend of mine, told me that it's okay that I stay at his house tonight so we can watch the game," Peter told her. "Is that alright?"
"Of course," Aunt May said. "Besides, I rented Jersey Girl for us to watch tonight. I'm sure Gwen won't mind watching it, but I know it's not your kind of movie."
Peter laughed. "Yeah, alright. So I guess I'll see you again tomorrow."
They said good-bye to each other and hung up.
Peter handed the phone back to Captain America.
"Did she sound like she believed you?" Cap asked Peter, while putting the phone back into the bag.
"Yeah, I think she did," Peter said, sounding somewhat disappointed at the idea.
"Hey kid, I told you. We're going to work this situation out. All we need is an evening of your time. Now, you have your costume with you, right?"
"Yeah, it's under my clothes."
"Alright, we'll be arriving at the Triskelion in two minutes."
"Okay, let's recap," the Black Widow said. "Captain America is on his way with the Parker kid, Tony's coming back from a bar, Thor's in Croatia, and Hawkeye is missing?"
"That's the situation," Janet Pym said. She and the Black Widow, along with Hank Pym and Nick Fury were gathered outside of Banner's containment chamber.
"Well, it's pretty obvious what happened here," Hank Pym said, looking at the containment chamber. "That teleporter got him out of here. It's the only possible explanation, considering how the cell is properly in working order. Not to mention the fact that it's closed, and completely sealed."
"Except there's a big difference from this escape and the last one," Janet said. "Tonight, the alarm went off. It detected that Banner was missing."
Black Widow nodded. "Meaning that last time, somebody overrode all the security controls, and blocked out the visual feeds we get of this place."
"Leaving us with one explanation," Fury declared. "It was one of us. Somebody here from the Triskelion unleashed the Hulk. Possibly even one of the Ultimates."
"Nice job," Cyclops said to Nightcrawler and Logan while was buckling up the unconscious Bruce Banner with a seatbelt. "Very nice job indeed..." Then his voice changed from a friend, proud tone, to a disgusted and angry sound. "...you idiots!"
They were now aboard the X-Jet, which had picked up Logan, Banner, and Nightcrawler once they had bamfed their way to New York City.
"Logan, how could you be so reckless?!" Cyclops exclaimed angrily. "Why the hell did you stab Banner in his stomach?!"
"What was I supposed to do?" Logan said back. "Hit him on the head to piss him off even more so he could transform into the Hulk faster than we could blink?"
"I'm afraid I have to be on Logan's side, Cyclops," Nightcrawler said. "We did not exactly have much time to make decisions. We were falling very, very, very quickly."
"I don't care!" Cyclops said. "If that's honestly the first thing that could come to your mind in a situation like that, we should have sent Colossus instead!"
"We got Banner," said Logan calmly, losing interest in Cyclops's arguing. "That's what you wanted, right?"
Cyclops sighed. "How do I know he isn't dying right now?"
"I stabbed him while he was transforming," Logan said. "His somewhat-Hulk state kept him from bleeding."
"So he should be okay?" Cyclops asked, waiting to know if he can be relieved or not.
"Yeah," Logan said. Then he grinned and added, "But he sure felt that one."
"Now would be a good time to take care of it," Fury told Hank quietly as they all left the containment chamber.
Hank Pym went back to his own office and sat down in a chair by his computer.
Making sure nobody was around to watch him, he accessed his private files that could only be viewed by himself.
"Still there," he whispered, relieved, as he saw that a very important file he contained had not yet been discovered.
He just sat there staring at the icon for a second, imaging all the power he could gain through blackmail with that little media clip.
But he had decided he would be an honorable man from now on, and listen to orders. With that, he obeyed Nick Fury's request and began deleting the video file that had consisted of that early morning's surveillance feed from Bruce Banner's containment chamber.
After it was done, he sighed in relief, knowing that his worries were gone. Now nobody else would know who had released the Hulk.
TO BE CONTINUED...