32ND FINALS: NATASHA ROMANOV VS. YELENA BELOVA
The place of battle this time was that of Moscow, Russia, more importantly, in front of the world-famous Kremlin, with a small ring set up for the fighters and with the eager spectators behind the yellow energy ropes to enjoy the action. Sure enough, the two Black Widows, the red-headed Natasha, and the blonde Yelena, both appeared on the ring, causing the native Russian crowd to cheer in excitement.
Yelena took a moment to look around at her homeland, as well enjoying the Thunderbolts fans cheering for her, then turned to Natasha a smug smile. "No place like home, huh Tasha?" she asked in a sarcastic tone, somewhat taunting her sworn enemy. "I suppose Mother Russia is an appropriate place to show you, and the rest of the world, that I'M the one fitting of the Black Widow title!"
Natasha did not answer Yelena, but instead glared at her, disgusted with how her blonde enemy could be so arrogant, even after their last meeting...
...it was in the hanger of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helocarrier, less than two years go, in which Yelena herself, donned in a S.H.I.E.L.D. jumpsuit at that time, sneaked into the hanger via air shaft and was going to steal one of the small hovercrafts after taking top-secret files from the Helocarrier's databanks, and was now being chased by her agents because of it. After looking around for so long, Yelena found a hovercraft and ran towards it on her way to freedom.
Unfortunately for Yelena, however, she is surprised to see Natasha herself, with her arms crossed and leaning her back up against the aircraft's door, waiting for her. "Off to meet your new friends in H.Y.D.R.A., Yelena?"
Naturally, Yelena was shocked to see Natasha right in front of her, despite trying her hardest not to show it. "Come on, Natasha," she told her soon to be former comrade, with a smile slowly appearing as she tried to charm her way out of this confrontation. "Do you really think you're on the winning side by sticking with S.H.I.E.L.D.? H.Y.D.R.A. has every corporation and every politician in their pocket. It's only a matter of time before they gain control of the whole globe. Let me pass, and I'll see if I can put in a good word for you with Baron Von Strucker."
Natasha, however, remained unmoved by her words, as well as disgusted. "Please, don't insult us both by giving empty promises," she said coldly. "Especially given the fact that agents will be in here at any moment...which further proves how much of an amateur you truly are." Natasha could see Yelena's smile turn into an angry scowl but giving such a comment, something in which she wanted in attacking the blonde-haired traitor's pride. "I mean, the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. now knows you're a double agent all because you got careless in stealing our files, it goes to show that a high school janitor would make a better spy than you!"
With her mind now filled with rage, Yelena quickly charged in and threw a right straight punch, aiming for Natasha's nose.
Luckily for Natasha, however, she anticipated this and thus used her left arm to not only block the punch but push it to the left side. This gave the red-headed Black Widow the opening she needed for an attack of her own as she took the tips of her right index and middle fingers and pressed down on a nerve in Yelena's neck, which was a pressure point that was used to neutralize enemies by putting them to sleep as opposed to killing them.
After feeling a sharp pain in her neck, Yelena soon began to feel dizzy, and her vision started to go black. It wasn't long before Yelena's eyes crossed, then slowly closed them as she slumped into Natasha's waiting arms, completely unconscious.
This allowed Natasha herself to gently lay the now sleeping traitor on to the floor. "Thanks for proving my point," said the Black Widow of S.H.I.E.L.D. as she then frisked and search Yelena's body and found and pulled out what she was looking for inside her right bracelet, that being a flash drive to which Yelena used to store the stolen files.
Moments later, the hanger's main door opened up, and in came a handgun carrying Nick Fury, who at that time had hair and a standard blue jumpsuit. Hawkeye was also present, bow and arrow drawn, as well as three armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents carrying laser files. Once they saw Natasha standing with the flash drive and an out cold Yelena at her feet, an astounded Hawkeye is the first to speak. "Whoa Nat, what did we miss?"
"Not much, Clint," Natasha replied, sounding somewhat disappointed. "I was expecting more from her."
Nick, on the other hand, maintained his always serious expression as he placed his gun back in his holster and approached Natasha. "Well, you know what I'm expecting Romanov? You getting that drive back."
With that said, Natasha pulled the drive out of her bracelet and handed it over to her eye patch wearing superior. "Right here, sir."
"Nice work," replied a pleased, but still not smiling Nick as he took the drive, and as he placed it back in his pocket, he turned his attention to Hawkeye. "Burton, you and the men secure Belova and throw her in a holding cell. Romanov, come with me. I got a job for you." With that said, Nick walked over to the door, leaving everyone, except for Natasha herself, completely dumbfounded.
Despite being a little confused himself, Hawkeye still played it off as he turned to Natasha and gave her a small smile. "Whatever job Nick's got for you, hope you're bringing me along for the ride. For a giant flying boat in the sky, things have been pretty boring around here lately."
Natasha turned and gave Hawkeye a sly smile of her own, as well as a wink. "Wouldn't dream of working without you, Clint."
After giving his red-headed partner a nod, a smiling Hawkeye turned and kept his electric arrow pointed at Yelena in case she woke up as the agents began to cuff her.
As for Natasha, she soon walked with Nick over to the door, where he later pressed a computerized dashboard and opened the door. "You did good, Romanov, getting the files stolen by Belova," he said as he and Natasha walked through the doorway. "It's good to know that S.H.I. .'s secrets are out of the hands of a traitor..." As the door closed behind them, Nick looked around to see no one nearby and thus felt comfortable saying this quietly to Natasha's ear. "...but instead in the hands of a traitor that I trust."
Natasha said nothing but did give Nick a nod of acknowledgment. For she knew that she was set to begin her undercover mission to infiltrate H.Y.D.R.A. as a double agent. However, being is how she could not tell anyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D., not even Hawkeye, she couldn't help but feel saddened and alone. Feelings of what she was forced to keep to herself...
...Back in the present, Natasha shook her head to regain focus in her match, more specifically on Yelena, the person thought she had long thought put away but was now free because of Osborn. So many questions kept running through her mind. Could H.Y.D.R.A. still be alive even with Baron Von Strucker locked up? And if so, was Osborn part of it, as well as the rest of his band of fake heroes? Either way, she would have to find out later, for she had an old enemy to deal with. "I beat you before, Belova," said the determined Natasha. "And last time I checked, rather easily. This time won't be any different."
Yelena cocky smile soon turned to that of a bitter scowl when Natasha reminded her of that fateful day she captured her, thus clenched her fists so tightly, popping could be heard. "Oh, but this time, I've got a few new surprises. As I'll show you right here and now!"
Realizing that the tensions between the two females had reached its boiling point, the announcer figured that it was time to start the match. "All right, I'm sure you ladies know the rules," said the announcer, as well as seeing the two Widows still locking eyes with one another and thus can only pray that they were familiar with the rules and will abide by them. As such, he mentally the Ref Bot floated high above them. "BEGIN!" Upon hearing that announcement, a smirking Yelena is the first to start things off by holding up her right arm and shooting a cable out of the bracelet in hopes of tying up Natasha.
Luckily for Natasha though, she easily spotted the cable coming her way and quickly ducked to avoid it. Afterward, the red-headed Widow went on the offensive by firing a cable of her own and aiming for Yelena's ankles in an attempt to trip her.
However, Yelena saw this coming and thus jumped and flipped in a corkscrew motion over to the left side to avoid it. After landing on her feet, and retracting the cable, she held up both of her arms and begun to fire none lethal rubber bullets at Natasha.
Natasha, on the other hand, quickly saw this and thus rolled over to the left, dodging the bullets in the process. After getting stopping in a kneeling position, Natasha got right back up, retracted her cable, then pointing both of her hands forward and began firing rubber bullets of her own, aiming for her blonde opponent.
However, as both Widows fired their respected bullets at one another, each bullet merely collided with one another and fell to the floor, and thus, kept firing and firing until finally, they ran out of ammo. With each of their bracelets now empty, the two Widows of their respected teams soon charged towards one another, jumped up and both threw a flying thrust kick, and in the process, managed to kick each other in their cheeks and fall to the floor. Though they were both stunned by at first, they managed to recover quickly enough to roll away from on another, and as they popped back up on their feet, felt blood dripping from their lips, and each took a moment to wipe block from their mouths.
Moments later, it was Yelena who continued the fight by running in and throwing a left legged front kick, which unfortunately for her, is blocked by Natasha. However, the blonde Thunderbolt does not let this stop her as she then went for a right jab.
Luckily though, Natasha spotted this and countered it by throwing her left arm to perform an inside block to stop the punch. Afterward, the red-headed Widow responded by turning and throwing a spinning right back-fist.
Yelena showed her quick reflexes by ducking underneath the back-fist, and upon standing straight up, she held up her left arm to block an incoming left hook. The blonde Widow then fought back by using her right hand to throw a quick back-fist, which was stopped when Natasha used her free hand to catch the fist before it could hit her face. Strangely, Yelena didn't seem this, mainly because that last attack was a distraction, all so she could pull her left fist back and throw a middle punch, aiming for Natasha's belt-buckle.
The battled hardened Natasha anticipated and stopped by using her left hand to grab Yelena by the wrist and stopping the punch. Now in control, the red-headed Widow grabbed Yelow's other wrist, then spread her arms outward and threw a right legged ax kick, nailing Yelena in the chin and released her so she could stagger backward.
Though knocked loopy for a moment, Yelena instinctively rolled backward and upon popping back up on her feet, spat out blood before getting into a fighting stance.
Once she saw Yelena up and waiting for her to make the next move, Natasha obliged and ran towards her, and upon getting close enough, greeted her blonde haired rival with a right legged round kick.
Meanwhile, back in the Garden, both the Avengers and Thunderbolts, as well as the roaring crowd, were watching the action on the screen. But none were more excited than that of Hawkeye, who watched the match with glee in seeing Natasha handling Yelena with ease. "Yeah, there you go Tasha!" he cried as he saw his partner block a left jab from Yelena and responded with a right uppercut.
Spidey was standing right next to Hawkeye as he rooted for Natasha and though he had no problem with him supporting his former partner, he was still a little nervous with the archer's aggressive competitive nature, and quickly leaned back to avoid getting inadvertently punched in the punched in the face by him as he cheered for the red-headed Widow. "Geez, the nervous Web-Head said quietly. "This guy puts all soccer moms to shame."
The Wasp, who was in shrunken form and flying right next Spidey, and lets out an embarrassed sigh in agreement. "You should see him when he watches football games."
Another Avenger paying close attention to the match was that of Iron Man, who at the same time, was speaking to the new A.I. in his helmet in the form the digital consciousness of the fallen synthezoid, the Vision, as well as his other and most trusted artificial intelligence, J.A.R.V.I.S. "How are we coming of those files, boys?"
From inside Iron Man's helmet, J.A.R.V.I.S. is the first to answer the armored billionaire. "Sadly, not so good, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, sounding disappointed. "It would appear that Mr. Osborn made his firewalls more powerful than originally assumed."
All though Iron Man did not like this news; he was still hopeful of his new 'man on the inside,' which was Vision. "How about you, Vision? Are you able to work past Osborn's firewalls and get what we need?"
"Well, I'm afraid that the answer to that is, as you humans would put it, yes and no." Vision replied, sounding just as unhappy about the situation. "It will take me some time to work past the firewalls protecting Norman Osborn's records, but I am able to get inside S.H.I.E.L.D.'s databanks shut down the booby traps that built into the designated battle stations, even the one in which Ms. Romanov is fighting in."
The Shell-Head knew that this was only half of what he wanted, but for the sake of his teammates, as well as Natasha, it was better than nothing. "Well, don't let me stop you, Vision, shut them off!"
"Right away," Vision replied, feeling as equally determined to save Natasha as Iron Man was, as he felt it was a way to repay him and the rest of the Avengers, for being his 'family' since leaving Ultron.
Back in Russia, the fight between the two Widows was just heating up, until one moment, Yelena used her left arm to block an incoming right back-fist from Natasha, then counter-attacked by shaking in a right-handed knife edge chop underneath her redheaded enemy's armpit, stunning her and caused her to bend down slightly. Now in control, Yelena wasted no time in taking this opening and thus threw a left legged round kick, nailing Natasha in the face and sending her down to the ring floor hard. With her fallen enemy still in her sights, Yelena stood over Natasha, then brought her left leg straight up in an ax kick position, then drove her foot downward, aiming for her redheaded opponent's belt buckle.
Fortunately for Natasha though, she rolled away from Yelena's feet, causing her blonde haired enemy to ram her foot into the floor instead. Once she was at a safe distance, Natasha got back up on her feet, then ran over and went for a right legged round kick.
Yelena, however, saw this and thus leaned back to narrowly avoided the kick. But even after dodging such an attack, she found that she was not entirely out of the woods yet. For she later spotted Natasha spinning and throwing a left legged back kicking, aiming for Yelena's belt buckle, causing the Thunderbolt to use both of her hands to catch Natasha's foot to stop the attack.
However, even with her foot caught, Natasha did not stop her assault. For she later used her standing right leg to jump up and deliver a hard round kick to the side of Yelena's head, sending her down to the floor.
Though loopy, Yelena shook her head to regain focus and noticed what appeared to be a slightly broken tile in the ring just inches away from her. In actuality, however, it was a secretly built-in button devised by S.H.I.E.L.D. engineers would 'accidentally' caused smoke to spew out ring if it was pressed. Similar to that incident that occurred in England during the match-up between the Vision and Surge. Seeing this as a way to regain the upper-hand, Yelena soon put on a performance by screaming, seemingly out of frustration, and thus pounds the broken tile 'in aggravation.' But much to the blonde Widow's surprise, nothing happened. While sitting there stunned as to how this could've happened, especially when Osborn said to her and her teammates that he had 'all the bases covered,' she later spotted Natasha running towards her and performed a baseball slide-like kick, causing Yelena to dash to the left side to avoid it.
Back in the states, the Iron Patriot watched this development from the Thunderbolts corner, and though he didn't see this coming, he didn't seem to be all that surprised or worried, and thus took a brief moment to look at Iron Man from across the platform.
From the Avengers corner, Iron Man noticed the Patriot looking at him and the armored men of their respected teams stared down at one another. "Sorry, Norman," thought the Shell-Head as he looked at the Patriot. "But like it or not, the matches in this little game of yours are going to be fair and square."
The Patriot could only look at Iron Man with somewhat intrigued expression behind his faceplate as if he was not only impressed by the Shell-Head's hacking abilities but also interested on how he made the tournament more challenging. "Well played, Stark...well played."
Suddenly, the Patriot received an incoming video transmission from Maria Hill inside his helmet, and she looked slightly distressed. "Sir, we have a problem," she told him. "It seems our computer databases are being compromised. We have our best techs on it, but it appears that..."
"That the traps inside the battle-zones are shut down," the Patriot calmly interjected. "Oh well, just a minor setback. Whatever Stark is doing, he won't take control of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s computers thanks to the firewalls I personally designed. But to be on the safe side, have your technicians do what they must to protect S.H.I.E.L.D.'s datafiles. As far as losing the traps go, it's no major loss. For I prepared my team for such an emergency."
Back in Russia, Yelena was throwing a left legged round kick at Natasha, who avoided it by ducking and passing underneath her blonde counterpart, ending up behind her. Even in that attack missing, however, Yelena kept calm and thus proceeded to go with 'Plan B,' something in which the Patriot instructed her, as well as the rest of her fellow Thunderbolts, to do if the traps didn't work. In that she secretly turned a dial on her right bracelet, then charged and towards Natasha, whose back was still turned and threw a right hook.
Natasha herself looked over her shoulder to spot this, and as she turned, she held up her right hand to easily block it.
However, before her arm could make contact with Natasha's, Yelena quickly closed her eyes. Suddenly, when the blonde Widow's arm finally touched that of her opponent's, a small gust of powder spewed out of her bracelet and into Natasha's eyes, blinding her. As for Yelena herself, she protected her eyesight well enough thanks to closing her eyes beforehand, but for the crowd, she puts on another 'performance' by bending down and holding her hand over her eyes, pretending to be in pain as if the dust hit her as well.
Needles to say, this 'accident' caught the attention of the stunned Russian spectators, including the Ref-Bot, who hovered down towards Yelena to check on her, with the announcer's worried face appearing on the screen. "Ms. Belova, are you all right?"
"Do I look all right to you?!" Yelena asked in an agitated tone with her eyes still closed to help sell the idea that she was blinded, which for the most part, was quite convincing.
As for Natasha, her suffering was quite real, as her eyes felt like they were on fire after being exposed to the powder and knelt in agony. However, due to her extensive training, she learned to rely on her other four senses, most notably, her hearing. Which proved to be quite useful, for she heard Yelena snapped at the announcer. Now knowing the location of her opponent, Natasha took her left bracelet, aimed at where she heard Yelena voice, and shot a cable, hoping to snare her enemy and prevent her from attacking first.
However, Yelena was just as in-tune with her senses at Natasha was and heard the cable coming her way. With a smirk on her face, the blonde Widow ducked to successfully avoid the cable, which in turn, ended up hitting and cracking the Ref Bot's screen.
As this happened, Natasha's belt buckle soon gave off an electric charge, causing the blinded spy to scream in pain. As if that wasn't bad enough, the buckle cracked on its own, and the yellow energy soon came out covered the red-headed Widow all over, freezing her in place.
Though the Ref Bot's screen was damaged, it still showed a cracked but visible image of what just transpired to viewers around the world, including those back in the stands and more importantly, the Garden. The crowd looked on at Natasha's freezing with utter shock and confusion, but none were more surprised than that of Hawkeye, who looked on at what just happened to his old partner with his eyes open in horror. "TASHA!"
Back in Russia, as the frozen Natasha soon fell to the ring floor, the Ref Bot slowly helped Yelena back to her feet via the thin, collapsible robotic arms, with Yelena herself still pretending to be hurt. Moments later, the announcer's face appeared on the Ref Bot's cracked screen, as he still feels obligated to make this announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm aware that what just happened was...a rather odd accident, Natasha Romanov of the Avengers still hit the Ref Bot, which as established before, is strictly against the rules of the tournament. Therefore, the winner of this match as a result of a disqualification...Yelena Belova!"
As the crowd let out a mixture of cheers and boos, a still 'blinded' Yelena held her hand over her brow...all so she could secretly look down at the fallen Natasha and thought this to herself as she smiled slightly. "Who's the amateur now?"
WINNER: YELENA BELOVA