32ND FINALS: THE WASP VS. SONGBIRD

The Amazon rainforest near Manaus, Brazil, a beautiful sight for anyone, whether it be someone who's lived in the terrain for years, or visiting it for the first time. But on this occasion, much like many of the other locations around the world, it now served as a battleground for the two upcoming participants of the Contest of Champions tournament. And for this match, in particular, the yellow energy ropes now surround and enclose the Amazon ecoregions that were mapped out by the World Wide Fund for Nature, as part of an agreement with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Moments later, two flashes of light occurred and the matches participants, the Wasp and Songbird, finally appeared in a green grassed area. It didn't take long for the two heroines to spot each other, and greeted one another with a glare, until suddenly, another large lighted flashed right above them, causing them to look up and see that it formed a large halo screen in the sky, one that was large enough for the people of Manaus to see the match.

It wasn't long before a Ref-Bot came flying in between the two female competitors, and the announcer soon greeted them via viewing screen. "Ladies, welcome to the Amazon rainforest, right next to the beautiful city of Manaus."

This came as somewhat of a pleasant surprise for the Wasp. "Brazil?" she asked the announcer, and soon looked up at the halo screen and was astounded to see the people of Brazilian people cheering all across the city, while they were watching in the streets or the balconies of buildings. A sight to which made her smile a little. "Well, I always did want to vacation here."

Songbird only let out a disgusted scoff at the Avenger upon hearing her words. "Yeah, I bet you did, rich girl."

The announcer, seeing the tension brewing between the two ladies, saw this as a chance to get the match started. "All righty, let's get this show on the road!" he said with haste, then mentally commanded the Ref Bot to fly high above into the sky to give the female fighters the room that they needed. "BEGIN!"

An anxious Songbird wasted no time in letting out a scream, which caused pink energy to come out, and thus mentally constructed it into a giant fist, which she then commanded to head straight towards Wasp.

Fortunately for the Wasp though, she saw this attack coming and shrunk down to insect size, and once her wings appeared, she flew energy the energy fist, successfully dodging it. After avoiding the attack, the size-altering feisty female flew straight towards Songbird until she ended up right in her face and gave her a sting blast right between her eyes.

For the pink haired Thunderbolt, such a small blast felt like a straight punch to the face, one that was hard enough to make her walk backward into a straight into a tree. After taking a moment to shake off the effects of the sting blast, she looked at the Wasp with an angry death glare. "All right, Pixie! You want to play?" At that moment, the Thunderbolt soon her mental implants connected to her harness pad to set it into her secondary setting: the Sonic Scream. "LET'S PLAY!" Those last two words came out in a furious and powerful shockwave of a scream which ripped through most of the trees in the forest and sent the Wasp flying and flipping backward in mid-air and landing hard on the ground.

After such a hard landing, Wasp held her aching head. "Geez, even if your name is 'Songbird,' I wouldn't want to hear you sing with a voice like that!" Suddenly, Wasp heard Songbird's screaming stop and thus took this as a good time as any to fly back up into the air, and once she saw the Thunderbolt, flew straight towards her and tried to attack her again.

Songbird soon spotted the Wasp coming her way, and knowing that she'll most likely try and give her another sting blast, she mentally changed the mode on her harness back to energy constructs, and with another scream, pink energy surrounded her entire person like armor. And just as Wasp fired another blast, it was deflected by the Thunderbolt's newly constructed armor. Naturally, Wasp is let totally stunned by this, and as she floated there in shock, she gave Songbird the opportunity to mental command her energy armor to flow down her body like water and into her left hand, to which she then gave the stunned Wasp an energy-based backhand, sending the Avenger down hard to the ground. As Songbird watched the Wasp writhed in pain on the ground, she decided to end this quickly by taking her energy consumed left fingertip and attempted to press her small opponent's belt buckle.

However, upon regaining her senses, Wasp saw the finger coming her way and thus wrapped her wings around herself so she can roll to the right side and caused Songbird to press the soil instead. After stopping, Wasp soon got into a kneeling position, and with her wings, took to the air once more. From then on, the Wasp once again flew right into Songbird's face. "Okay, definitely more to you than just an ear-bleeding loud voice."

Now more irritated with her pint-sized opponent than ever, Songbird attempted to try and swat her away like a common housefly.

Wasp, of course, effortlessly avoided it, which aided in her tactic to play on the Thunderbird's anger. "For example, the fact that your way to slow!"

After hearing the Wasp's insult, a new fuming Songbird tried to swat her with her right hand, only to miss and watch the tiny Avenger fly away from her. Not wanting her opponent to get away, Songbird stood up, concentrated, and with another scream, formed a pink spiked ball which shot straight at the Wasp herself.

Wasp then looked over her shoulder to see the energy construct coming her way, and though it scared her a little, she saw it as part of her plan. She looked straight ahead to see a tree, and though she hated to do it, she flew down and allowed the construct to hit and knock the tree out of the ground instead. Afterward, the small, winged Avenger turned and sped back towards Songbird, flew in low, and in the process, grew to human size to throw a leg sweep.

However, Songbird hopped up into the air to avoid the sweep, and while in the air, she let out another scream to form a pink battering ram an attempted to squash the fully grown Wasp while she was on the ground.

Fortunately for Wasp though, she managed to shrink down and fly off, dodging the ram and avoiding being squashed. Once she was in her insect size, Wasp waited for Songbird to hit the ground then flew straight towards her while charging up her hands, intending to fire a blast at her opponent's belt buckle.

Sadly though, Songbird spotted the Wasp coming and was quick enough to use her right hand to catch her. Moments later, she began to squeeze her shrunken enemy, delighting in hearing her screams of agony. "So, I take it you ran out of tricks to get you out of this, Princess?"

To answer that, the Wasp quickly grew back into human size to get out of Songbird's hand, and once free, gave her a double legged mule kick, hitting her in the chest and, remembering her prior training under Captain America, used her as a boost to flip backward and land on her feet, though have a little bit of trouble getting her balance first. Once she got herself stable, Wasp soon got into a fighting stance and looked down at the fallen Songbird. "Oh, I still got a few."

After being humiliated again, a now furious Songbird popped back up, ran to Wasp and threw a right jab, to which Wasp responded by using her right arm to block the punch and push her attacker's fist outward so she and throw and land a left uppercut into Songbird's jaw. Now in control, Wasp later connected with right hook, then threw a left legged front kick in hopes of taking out the Thunderbolt's belt buckle.

However, Songbird proved her skill in hand-to-hand combat by throwing both arms down in an 'X' fashion to block the kick, then spotted Wasp going for a left hook and instinctively held up her left arm to block the blow and capitalized with a right hook, nailing Wasp in the face and sending him tumbling to a nearby tree on the left side. "Nice try, rich girl," said a confident Songbird as she walked towards the dazed Avenger.

After taking a moment to shake off the effects of the last punch, Wasp looked over her shoulder to see Songbird coming her way and threw a right legged back kick, to which the pink haired Thunderbolt stopped by catching her foot. But even with her foot caught, Wasp managed to fight back by using her left leg to jump up then throw a round kick, nailing Songbird in the side of her head and sending her to ground senseless. While in the air, Wasp stopped herself from falling by shrinking down once again and used her wings to keep herself from hitting the ground. "Thanks, it's what to expect when you've been trained by one of the greatest soldiers the world has ever known."

While on the ground, Songbird quickly recovered and with an angry grunt, she concentrated and channeled pink energy into her right arm and with her hand looking like that of a spear-head. And with her grunt turning into a scream, she then made her move by thrusting upward at the Wasp, only to miss the tiny Avenger when she dashed to the right side. But even after missing, Songbird refused to let this stop her and screamed once more, commanding the pink energy to move up from her arm all the way to her back, where they formed into two energy-based wings. The Thunderbolt then jumped up and flapped them to get her airborne, where she looked down at the stunned Wasp. "Did he prepare you for something like this, Tinkerbell?"

The wide-eyed Wasp could only give this nervous answer. "No...can't say that he did."

With a smile on her face upon seeing how unsure and fearful Wasp now was, Songbird screamed once more and shot a pink laser blast from out of her neck collar of her harness.

As for the Wasp, she flew off to avoid the blast hitting her, and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw the screaming Songbird flying after her, forcing the Avenger to lead her on a chase across the Amazon.

Back in the Garden, the audience all cheered for the action, and while the Thunderbolts all yelled and barked orders at Songbird to try harder, the Avengers clapped and voiced their support for the Wasp. However, one Avenger who appeared to be not showing any support was that of Yellowjacket, who just watched the fight with his arms crossed and with a stone cold expression. Moments later, however, he spotted something through the corner of his right eye something strange.

It was on the silver metal props on the stage, where it usually would show one's reflection to whoever would look at it up close. But for Yellowjacket, what he saw was not his reflection, but that of the astral image of Henry 'Hank' Pym, dressed in a white coat with casual clothing underneath, the peace-loving scientist in which Yellowjacket used to be and more importantly, hated. "As I predicted," said Hank with a small smile. "You were wrong about Jan being useless! Further proving how much of a fool you were on letting her go!"

Yellowjacket only responded to Hank with a smug scoff. "This coming from a guy who never made a move on her, to begin with?" With that said, Yellowjacket turned his attention back up to the screen and the match. "Besides, fight's not over yet, and so far, she's just getting lucky. I'd like to see how she does when things REALLY heat up." Upon saying that, Yellowjacket unknowingly said it loud enough for one of his teammates to hear him.

That teammate was Iron Man, who looks at Yellowjacket with a confused and worried expression behind his faceplate. "Who are you talking to, Yellowjacket?"

A shocked Yellowjacket turned to Iron Man upon hearing him and briefly turned back to look at the astral Hank Pym, only to see his own reflection instead, leaving him to let out an annoyed grunt. "No one," he replied, then looked back up to the screen. "I just talk to myself whenever I see action, and I'd like to see just how Jan is going to pull this off without me backing her up."

This left Iron Man quite angry with how Yellowjacket was talking about Wasp but tried to compose himself for the sake of the team. "Trust me; she just may surprise you."

Another hero seeing Yellowjacket's odd behavior was Spidey, who looked completely worried. "Man, why is it that I'm getting creepy vibes from Pym?" thought the Web-Head. "And I mean, Green Goblin level vibes."

Back in Brazil, both Wasp and Songbird were now engaged in an aerial battle as they soared over the Amazon river, shooting their respected energy blasts at one another. During the campaign, and conveniently flying right above Wasp, the winged Songbird decides to try a different approach by ceasing to fire her blasts, then formed an energy tentacle with a blade at the end, and commanded it to strike at the small Avenger.

Fortunately for Wasp, she flew upward, causing the tentacle to hit the water instead, then flew over and arrived right above Songbird, where she noticed an unprotected spot on her lower back and right below her wing constructs. As such, she fired a sting blast at that spot, which caused the pink haired Thunderbolt to yell in pain and fall to the river below.

However, before she could hit the water, Songbird saved herself by screamed and created a large pink bubble around herself while splashed into the water, and miraculously, land near the bank. From there, she stopped screaming and thus made the bubble disappeared and placed her feet on the bank, where she then looked up and sat the Wasp heading towards her. And it was here that Songbird screamed one more, causing a smaller bubble construct to split open and allow the Wasp to fly inside, then sealed itself behind her. With the Avenger now at her mercy, Songbird mentally commands it slam itself into the ground, intending to knock Wasp loopy. With that confidence, Songbird stopped screaming and caused the bubble to disappear, but to her surprise and dismay, the Wasp is nowhere to be found! "What?! Where the hell did she go?!"

As Songbird frantically looked around for her small opponent, the Wasp was revealed to have shrunken down to microscopic size, far too small for anyone to see. And with the Thunderbolt preoccupied in trying to find her, Wasp flew towards Songbird, and along the way, grew back to insect size and fired a sting blast into her eyes, blinding her. But Wasp did not stop there, in that she performed a somersault, and arrived in front of Songbird's belt buckle, and without wasting a single second, the size alerting heroine fired another blast and successfully destroyed the buckle, which caused yellow energy to surround the Thunderbolt and freeze her in place.

Once Wasp returned to human size, the Ref Bot floated down beside her and popped open its screen with the announcer's face shown. "Ladies and gentlemen of beautiful Brazil, as well as the entire world, I give you your winner...The Wasp!"

While Wasp put on a smile for the people she could hear cheering from the Ref Bot's screen, she still felt that this victory was that of a hallow won, and she briefly turned and looked at the frozen Songbird. "Thanks for being my make-shift punching bag to help me deal with losing Hank, Pinky," she thought, then turned her attention back to the Ref Bot's screen, namely the Thunderbolts in their corner. "Here's hoping that whoever I fight next, they'll be a lot easier to take down than you."

WINNER: THE WASP