ULTIMATE MELEE
CHAPTER 8

Xavier looked more relaxed than before, but his breathing grew heavier.

"Professor, are you sure you're alright?" Kitty asked.

"...Yes....they're...gone..." Xavier managed to say.

Xavier could see in his mind that the ordeal was over. His telepathy had been violently mixed up during the battle due to the hectic signals coming from the minds of those that had manipulated by the phone calls, and he could barely keep track of anything that was going on.

His powers returned to him only to find that it was all over. Except for one thing.

"Kitty..." the professor gasped.

"What is it?!" Kitty answered, worried about the professor's well being.

"Get him...Hawkeye...has...escaped..."

Nick Fury was sitting in the desk of his office, keeping updated on the status of the Ultimates through his laptop, when his phone rang.

He looked at it hesitantly. Since the other day when he couldn't recall anything that happened after a phone call, he didn't trust phones very much again.

But surely something like that could happen twice to him, he thought.

His hand reached for the phone, and he almost touched it before he quickly withdrew his hand and backed away from it.

"#&$ it," he whispered to himself. "If anybody needs to talk to me, there's other ways of doing it."

Two minutes later, Dr. Pym burst through his office doors and rushed into the office.

"Have you seen what's going on?!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah..." Fury said, with much worry and disappointment in his voice. "Even with those mind-control blockers, they've all been taken down."

"We might still stand a chance!" Hank said excitedly, with the biggest smile on his face that Nick had ever seen. "Take a look at this." He ran around to Nick's side of the desk, and standing next to Nick, he began typing something into the computer.

"Could there really be anything more important going on right now than this battle?" Nick asked, annoyed that Hank would interrupt something like that.

"Oh, believe me Nick, this may very well become a part of the battle," Hank replied, with a sense of urgency in his voice.

What came up on the screen on Nick's laptop was a map of the northeastern region of the U.S., and the current positions of the Ultimates. Almost all of the Ultimates were gathered at the Xavier mansion, and the dots that displayed their names overlapped each other.

But instead of zooming into the region of the X-Men's headquarters to get a more accurate look at the positions of the Ultimates, Hank zoomed out, showing the entire northwestern hemisphere of the world.

Hank pointed toward the western Atlantic Ocean, where a dot was displayed, labeled "Thor."

"He's supposed to be in Europe," Nick said, surprised, but not shocked.

"But he's not," Hank said, with triumphant laughter. "He's coming here. Thor's coming to help us."

Hawkeye slammed open the front doors of the mansion and ran out, sprinting faster than he had ever had before, clutching his bow in his right hand, and a sack of arrows already tied around his waist. He had to wake up the other Ultimates.

"Stop right there!" the young mutant Hawkeye recognized as Kitty Pryde, yelled right after she came out of one of the mansion's walls.

Hawkeye pulled out an arrow and prepared to shoot at Kitty.

"That won't help you," Kitty warned, running towards him.

Hawkeye, as fast as he could, aimed and fired the bow.

To his horror, it went right through her, and she showed no signs of being hurt by it. This girl was hollow.

This meant trouble.

As she leapt at him, Hawkeye expected her to go right through him, but she caught him off-guard as she slammed him right to the ground, holding him down by his wrists.

But Hawkeye, being a full-grown man and a much stronger person, simply used his legs to flip her over, and before she knew it, he was on top of her, holding her down by her wrists.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" he yelled at her. He let go of one of her wrists and used that free hand to grab her by the throat.

"...Please...let go..." she gagged.

"Hawkeye, stop!" he heard a familiar voice say. He didn't turn to look who it was, but suddenly, the Wasp flew right in front of him, and the shock of seeing her tiny form right in front of his face made him let go of Kitty.

Kitty gasped as she could breathe once more. She didn't attempt to go after Hawkeye again.

"Listen," Wasp said, facing Hawkeye with an urgent expression. "We have to wake up everybody. And I mean everybody; the X-Men and The Ultimates. There's something going on that's far more important than our little rivalry right now."

The helicopter landed on the roof of the Fisk Tower. There wasn't much flat space at the top to park on, but they had to make it work. There was no way two mutants, two assassins, a man dressed in a purple robe, and Spider-Man were about to walk into the building through the main entrance on the ground, for everyone on the streets to see.

Peter stepped out of the helicopter, and more men in purple robes immediately surrounded him, particularly some who were much bigger and stronger than Erasmus was. The bright sun, which was now fully out and lighting up the city of New York, did little comfort to Peter, who knew what he was facing in the building he was now standing on.

Geldoff and Iceman also exited the helicopter. Geldoff, who had just woken up, only remembering that he had just previously been shot, was bursting with confusion. "What is going on?" he asked.

"All will be explained to you soon, young boy," Erasmus, who had just come out of the helicopter after the Punisher and followed by Elektra, said.

Peter looked around. Men in robes were everywhere, completely blocking Peter's way of going anywhere except towards the roof entrance into the building.

Luckily, his mask hid the disappointment he had on his face. What he wished for was to jump off the roof, but there was no possibly way for him to make a safe landing anywhere without his powers.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. Of course! How could he have forgotten?

"Come, kid," Erasmus said, walking towards the door and looking over his shoulder at Peter. Everybody, including Bobby and Geldoff, were following; Peter was the only one straying behind. "We don't have all day."

"Oh, Erasmus, guess what?" Peter said in an amused tone. His confidence had returned. "I think that when you put that trance on me, you forgot to fit something into your calculations."

Peter turned around away from Erasmus and the direction of the roof entrance and towards a blockade of purple-robed guards that were blocking the edge of the roof.

With both hands, Peter suddenly blasted out web from his web shooters, which were specially made by himself, and did not come as part of the powers that were currently disabled.

The webs caught onto several of the guards, and with a violent jerk of his arms, Peter pushed them all away, clearing a path for himself, which he, running faster than he ever had before, rushed through.

"NO!" Peter could hear Erasmus scream. "GET HIM!"

Peter, dodging the bullets that the Punisher had shot, jumped off the roof and fired his web blasters off towards another building. They caught on and Peter began swinging away.

For the first time since Captain America had found him the previous evening, Peter was now free to go wherever he wanted.

But most importantly, he had escaped.

"Okay, let's recap: The reason the Hulk has been saying all of these names is because he's the Prophet, and Drake, Parker, and Geldoff are the pieces of the Trinity, which is supposed to unlock some great power? And now these strangers, who have been hypnotizing everybody to do things they would never do otherwise, have kidnapped all three of them?."

"That would be right, Mr. Stark," Professor Xavier confirmed.

All of the X-Men and Ultimates, and also a tamed and controlled Bruce Banner, fully healed by medication Beast had made, and their bullets removed, sat it the professor's office, discussing the events of the past two days. From the moment they had been brought into the mansion and had been treated, a truce was declared between the two teams, to not fight and argue, but instead, to finally spill out the answers to the mystery that had been set before them, and to work together to find a solution to these problems set before them. And they had to act quickly.

"A lot of trouble could have been avoided if you had just told us what really happened yesterday morning," Captain America said, staring at the face of Nick Fury, who was included in on the conversation through a display screen set up in Xavier's office.

"I must once again ask that you all forgive me," Fury said. "I really had no idea what was happening back then, and as stupid as I might have been, I thought the best solution to the problem was to clean it all up and pretend nothing had happened. You know, keep it quiet."

"And we really can't blame you for it," the professor said. "You did what was best for S.H.I.E.L.D., and you were not aware of the dangers that were yet to come. I must also apologize for blaming it all on you and acting so rashly."

"What needs to be forgotten," Tony Stark, who was wearing his Iron Man suit inside the office, said in voice full of wisdom, "are the differences we have faced previous. What needs to be done is for us to work together and focus on the task at hand. We have friends in danger and the world in potential jeopardy. What are we going to do about it all?"

"What else do you expect?" the Wasp, in fully-grown form, said. "I told you that the Kingpin is involved with all this, making the Fisk Tower a good place to set up headquarters for these guys. That's probably where they are. We need to march down there and open up a can of whoop-ass."

Mostly everybody laughed, but they knew that this was true.

"I agree," Cyclops said. "The best thing to do right now would be to take a direct approach. They don't know that we have this information. They shouldn't be expecting us."

"There is no other option," Xavier declared. "Time is running out. If we're going to do something, it has to be done immediately. X-Men, prepare the jet."

Erasmus, walking in a brisk pace, entered the Leader's chamber.

The chamber that had been built on the top-secret "Floor Negative One" of the Fisk Tower was a room unlike any other. Walking into it, you'd swear you were in an Indiana Jones-style adventure movie.

Only torches that were on the light brown walls of the room, giving you the impression that you were entering a tomb, lighted the room.

Towards the center of the room was a circular platform, composed of gold, which rose two feet off the ground. On the top of the surface of the platform were four circular "slots," which were basically holes in the surface that sank several inches into the ground, and were big enough in diameter for somebody to comfortably stand in. Three of the holes were connected by sapphires, which in the end, drew out a triangle, with the three slots serving as the corners. The fourth and final slot was in the inside center of the triangle.

The Leader was currently standing in the fourth slot. He was dressed in black robes and was holding the manuscript that had revealed the entire prophecy to his organization, and had started their entire plan for gaining the Trinity powers.

As the Leader saw Erasmus come in, he hid the manuscript, which was protected by a glass case, into his robes.

"My lord," Erasmus addressed. "We have dispatched our men, along with the Punisher, in search of Peter Parker. He should be captured soon."

"And what of Elektra?" the Leader inquired.

"She has the left building after finding about her employer's current lack of participation in our project," Erasmus answered. "She isn't expected to come back."

"And the two young men?"

"Iceman and Geldoff have been locked away in a room that, which I assure you, is heavily guarded and lacking a way out other than going through the guards, which those two boys have no way of doing."

"This better not fail," the Leader said strictly. "We have already met with unneeded complications to the plan, and if Parker is not captured, I will punish all those responsible to the failure of the plan. As I have told you, Erasmus, it needs to be completed by the end of the day, or all is lost. So do not fail me."

"Yes, my lord," Erasmus said mercifully, getting down on one knee and bowing. "Forgive me. I will work to the best of my ability to make sure that the Trinity powers are unlocked here in this chamber today."

"I would hope you do so, for your own sake," the Leader said, looking down on him with a threatening expression. "Now, leave at once and keep track of all further operations."

"At once, my lord," Erasmus said, getting up and leaving the chamber.

Once Erasmus was gone, the Leader pulled out the manuscript once more and examined it.

If this plan fails, he thought, they could always go with what was written on the other side of the manuscript, which he had not yet translated to the others.

TO BE CONTINUED...