32ND FINALS: QUAKE VS. IRON PATRIOT

Back in Madison Square Garden, the competition, if not 'secret war' between the Avengers and Thunderbolts continued to intensify, and the crowd grew more and more excited with anticipation for the next match. Something in which the announcer took full advantage of when he took center stage once more. "All right, folks, whose ready for some more superpower action?!" he asked the crowd and received a substantial roaring ovation as an answer. "All right then, let's keep things moving along with our next match-up! In which we have the Avengers 'groundbreaking' heroine Quake, going up against the Thunderbolts armored leader, the Iron Patriot!"

As the crowd cheering so loud it almost the entire stadium to shake, the two fighters of their respected teams warmed up for their match. For the Avengers, Quake is sen performing a few stretches, knowing that since she was going up the opposing team's leader, she no doubt had a fight on her hands.

Hawkeye only knew Quake for only a brief amount of time, but there was still a small part of him that still had some pride in S.H.I.E.L.D. and thus decided to tell her his as he would tell any other agent about to go on a mission, including the recently captured Natasha. "Watch your back, Johnson."

Upon hearing the archer's voice, Quake looked over her shoulder to answer him. She remembered hearing that while he was short-tempered and was not the world's greatest listener, he was still dedicated and possessed a heart of gold. All in which made her give the arrow shooting former agent a small smile. "Wouldn't be much of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent if I didn't, Burton."

The next to speak up is Cap, who is still in his usual calm but still concerned demeanor. "I'm afraid Hawkeye has a point there, Quake," said the Super Soldier. "Tony may have defused Osborn's traps, but he, as well as the rest of his band of goons, are far from predictable. Which means that they're still dangerous."

When it came to addressing Cap, one of the few men, besides Nick Fury, that she respected, Quake's small smile soon disappeared and her happy expression transformed into a more serious one. "Don't worry Captain, like all government agents, I've been trained never to underestimate the enemy," she later turned her attention to the Patriot, who by this time projected holographic screens from the chest plate of his armor for the reason of running a diagnostic on his suit before proceeding with the match. "Including people like that psychopath over there!"

Also staring at the Patriot was that of Spidey, who clinched his fist in anger and using all his willpower not to run over and tackle his old foe for all the pain and suffering he was causing not just him and his team, but for Harry for giving him that suit and Gwen, who was now a hostage. "When it comes to Gobby, I hope you are."

Meanwhile, in the Thunderbolts' corner, the Patriot saw on the holoscreens that everything in the suit was in order, and thus mentally deactivated the screens via his helmet so he can be on his way. "All right then, let's get this show on the road."

One of the Thunderbolts, Citizen V, seemed to look at the Patriot with a somewhat skeptic posture. "I hope you realize that you are up against a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Osborn," said Citizen V with a condescending tone. "Not a threat for someone like me, but might be more a challenge to someone like you, whose main rivals have been either other businesses or teenagers running around in a Halloween costume."

Citizen V's words did not sit well with the Patriot, but none more so than the Scarlet Spider, who angrily walked up to the masked swordsman, and his suit beginning to have small tentacles grow as a response to his stress rising. "For your information, my father has been known to eat people like you for breakfast! So I'd show him respect if I were you!"

Patriot saw his son's suit beginning acting hostile due to his son's ill-temper, and thus decided to step in before the symbiote took full control and created an embarrassing situation for him. "Easy son," he told the Spider in a more calming tone, which seemed to be succeeding he saw the tentacles retract back into the suit. "Besides, if Citizen V, or anyone else here, have doubts about my leadership and status, then I'll prove it by making an example out of that runaway agent over there."

Citizen V could only give the Patriot a smug smile behind his mask as he gave his armored teammate this reply. "Good luck."

The Patriot did not even bother to dignify his fellow Thunderbolt's remark with an answer, and thus turned around an walked over to the teleportation pad, where Quake is seen standing on the other one. Once both combatants were on the pads, they started to glow and were soon transported to another part of the world to begin their battle.

As Iron Man watched both Quake and the Patriot vanish out of sight, the Shellhead suddenly felt something small cling and stick to his left gauntlet. Something little, like a peanut attached to silly putty. As he looked down at his left hand, he saw that it was a small circular object with the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol on it, causing the Shellhead to smile behind his faceplate, for he knew where it came from. "Right on time, Fury," he said quietly, then turned his attention to Spidey, who at this point went back to looking worried for Gwen Stacy, still being watched over by Victoria Hand. "Hey, kid!"

Hearing Iron Man address him was enough to shock Spidey back from the worried state that he was in and quickly turned to face his armored idol with a nervous demeanor. "Uh, y-yes, Mr. Stark?"

Before taking to the stunned Web-Head, Iron Man took this moment to shake his head, once again annoyed with someone addressing him by the, in his mind, dreaded title: 'Mr. Stark'. "When this is all over with, need to try and break you out of that habit," he told the still wide-eyed Web-Slinger. "But listen, how would you feel if I told you that I have a plan to save your blonde-haired friend over there and that you're a big part of it?

This was the news that brought Spidey true, real relief for the first time in hours. And after the hopeful Spidey took one last look at Gwen, he turned back to Iron Man with a more determined expression. "I'd say what do I have to do?"

Meanwhile, in the deserts of Southern Nevada, there stood a gateway saying 'Authorized Personnel Only' which belonged to the widely known Air Force Base known as Area 51. Suddenly, two flashes of light sparked before the gate and shown to be the newly arrived Quake and Iron Patriot.

After the two fighters arrived, a Ref Bot soon shot over the gate and came right in between the two combatants. "Now then," said the cautious announcer. "Are you both ready?"

While Quake nodded her head in compliance, the Patriot, however, seemed to be preoccupied in pressing the buttons inside his gauntlets. "Of course," he told the announcer calmly, as well as coldly, without even looking at him. "I've just recalibrated the settings in my armor to a safer setting, so I assure you and the rest of the world that I have full intentions of winning this match without causing serious harm to my opponent."

Quake, on the other hand, did not look so convinced at the Patriot's 'reassurance' and thus continued to look at him with disdain. "Yeah, I'll bet."

After receiving his answers, the announcer mentally commanded the Ref Bot to fly up into the air to give the Patriot and Quake the room needed to fight. "Well then, let's not waste any more time! BEGIN!"

With the word given, the Patriot is quick to attack first as he pointed both of his open hands out at Quake and fired two repulsor blasts, with her belt buckle being the target.

Fortunately for Quake though, she saw this attack coming and saved herself by dashing and rolling to the right side, narrowly dodging the blasts. Once she stopped in a kneeling position, she responded by channeling her willpower into her hands and admitted large energy waves at the Patriot, with the intention of shaking him so severely, his armor, as well as the buckle built into it, would fall apart.

The Patriot, on the other hand, saw this and proved to be just as ready to avoid attacks by powering up his jet boots and taking to the sky and succeeded in dodging the waves. As he hovered in the air, the Patriot looked down at Quake with an unimpressed expression behind his faceplate. "Yes, I've done my research on you, Agent Johnson," he told her snidely as he pointed both of his open palms down at her. "So if you want to beat mean, you'll have to do better than that!" With that said, the Patriot fired two repulsor blasts at the battled-tested Quake below.

Luckily for Quake though, she was wise not to let herself be a target for long as she stopped her waves then back-flipped and successfully dodged the blasts. After landing on her feet, Quake looked back up at the hovering Patriot with a look of disgust. "Ask, and you shall receive!" she told him in defiance, then right her right hand, she concentrated and tried a new attack maneuver that she had been working on for quite some time and had been meaning to give it a try. In that, she admitted enough force to where she felt that her hand and the ground beneath her were one and the same. Seconds later, she threw her hand up, and in the process, attracted what appeared to be twenty to thirty chunks of hand-sized rocks from the ground, causing them to fly into the air and straight towards the Patriot himself.

The Patriot, however, utilized the built-in mental receptive circuitry inside his helmet to mentally activate a force-field to surround his entire person, which in turn caused the rocks to burst upon making contact, but in the process, causing the dirt and dust to build up and create a small cloud to block his sight.

With the armored leader of the Thunderbolts now blinded, thanks to the cloud, Quake channeled her energy in both of her hands, bent down and placed the on the ground and by her feet. Through much concentration, and being one with the earth once more, she raised her hands upward, and in turn, caused a tall, tower-like boulder to rise from the ground beneath her and raised her into the air just above the Patriot.

As for the Patriot himself, he waited for the rocks to stop hitting his force-field and once they did, he deactivated is energy-based barrier and held out both of his hands where he later fired two repulsor blast which not only dissipated the fog but also hits and destroyed the bolder which Quake had made, something that left the armored Thunderbolt dumbfounded. "What?! How did that...?" As the Patriot looked around, he then looked up and saw what made his eyes grow wide with shock.

And what the Patriot saw was Quake herself falling down towards him, and just before he could get a chance to blast her out of the sky, she latched on to the Thunderbolt by grabbing hold of his left shoulder pad with her left hand, then pulled her right fist back and channeled energy into it. As her clenched right fist began vibrating, the battle-hardened agent gave the Patriot a right hook to his faceplate, one which was powerful enough to knock him loopy, even with the helmet's protection.

Thus disoriented, the Patriot began to fall from the sky, with Quake still holding and soon plummeted to the ground hard, causing another cloud of dirt and dust to appear on impact. Now with the upper hand, Quake sat and pinned down the dazed Patriot, then looked down to see the Thunderbolt's buckle, which prompted her to point her left palm at it, intending to project another wave blast to destroy the buckle and win the match.

However, the fallen Patriot had one other attribute besides his armor to get him out of his predicament, the Greene that was still flowing in his system, and thus it helped him recover from his dazed state rather quickly. Afterward, he noticed Quake on top of him and was just about to fire her wave blast, thus prompting him to grab her left wrist and pushed it outward. The Patriot then counterattacked by mentally commanding his armor to activate the built-in blast which was located in the star symbol on his chest-plate.

Now seeing that she was in trouble, Quake quickly jumped backward and off of the Patriot just as he fired an energy beam from out of his chest-plate and into the sky above. After distancing herself from her fallen opponent, Quake soon got into a fighting stance as she watched the Patriot use small thrusters built into his back that hovered him off the ground and back on his feet. It was here that Quake pointed her hands down, admitted waves at the ground, then trusted her arms forward to create a 'ground wave' at the newly recovered leader of the Thunderbolts.

Seeing this attack coming, the Patriot used his jet boots to dash over to the left side to avoid the way, then fired a repulsor blast out of his left hand at Quake while she appeared to leave herself open for attack.

Fortunately for Quake though, she spotted this attack coming through the corner of her eye, and thus pointed her still charged hands downward and right in front of her, and as she pulled them up, she created a solid rocky wall to act as a shield. It wasn't long before the blast hit the wall, and while it did its job in protecting Quake, it caused the wall to shatter and with enough force to send Quake flying a few feet then land hard on her back. As she laid there, grunting in pain and with the sun beaming down her face, Quake received another surprise when she noticed a shadow looming over her, and as she looked up, she saw that it was the Patriot coming down at her with his right fist cocked back. Once she realized she was in danger, the veteran S.H.I.E.L.D. agent quickly rolled to the right side and successfully avoided get pummeled into the ground by Patriot, who in turn ended up punching the ground and making a small crater in the ground upon landing.

The Patriot growled in aggravation after missing Quake, and as he stood up and saw Quake herself back up on her feet and charging her hands, he soon held up both of his hands, ready to fire repulser blasts at the agent, aiming for her belt buckle so he can put this match to an end.

Meanwhile, back in the Garden, the Avengers watched the match intently, and all grew worried as their teammate Quake, and the Patriot now appeared to be at a stalemate. But none more so than Cap, for as he seemed to be watching the match calmly, he was secretly concerned with how the Patriot was giving her so much difficulty. "Keep your guard up, soldier."

As the rest of the Avengers, not to mention the crowd and the Thunderbolts, kept their eyes glued to the large screen, Iron Man secretly made his way towards Spidey and Wasp and presented them with the small disc-like object that was latched on to him. "Well, since everybody's too focused on the match, I guess now is as good as time as any to get you two started on that rescue mission."

Spidey answered by giving Iron Man a nod of acknowledgment, while a confused Wasp looked at the Shellhead with no clue as to what he was referring to. "Rescue mission?"

Back in Nevada, both Quake and the Patriot still stood while still holding up their arms, each waiting for one another to make the first move. But finally, it is the Patriot who continued the match by firing two repulser blast at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

Luckily for Quake though, she was able to avoid the attack by leaning all the way back, allowing the blasts to pass right above her. As she popped back up on her feet, she spotted the Patriot dashing towards her and throwing a left hook. Thus to save herself, Quake channeled her energy into her left fist, and once it began vibrating, she held it up to successfully block the incoming blow. Afterward, she attempted to fight back by repeating the vibrating effect on her right fist and went for a right uppercut.

The Patriot, on the other hand, took a step back to avoid the punch, then spotted Quake going for a spinning left back-fist and thus counted by holding up his right gauntlet and mentally commanded a small hand sized energy shield around his right arm and blocked Quake's vibrating back-fist.

Even with her attack stopped, Quake did not want to give the Patriot an opening to take her down and soon responded with a left sidekick to his face-plate, forcing him to stagger back three feet. With the Patriot in a daze, Quake dashed forward and threw a left handed middle punch, aiming for the Patriot's buckle.

Unfortunately, the Patriot recovered quick enough to see this attack coming his way, and thus threw his left palm downward to block it. Moments later, he saw Quake pull her left hand away, only so she could throw a right roundhouse kick, prompting him to use his right hand to catch her foot by the ankle and push her away.

After staggering backward, Quake turned and just barely landing on her feet with her back turned on the Patriot. But even in after having her two attacks deflected, the S.H.I.E.L.D. still refused to give up on her assault. As such, once she heard the thrusters in Patriot's armor kick on, and the Patriot himself flew up and landed right behind her, Quake decided to catch him off guard by channeling her energy into her feet. A split second later, she jumped up and flipped forward, using both of her feet to kick the Patriot in the chin so hard, it caused his faceplate to pop up and reveal the face of Norman Osborn. Once she landed on her feet, Quake turned to see Norman's face exposed, then charged int and delivered a hard right left jab to his mouth, which successfully knocked him down to the ground. Now in full control of the match, Quake took a moment to pop her knuckles after delivering such a hard blow, all the while, looking down at Norman, who's mouth was now bleeding, in pure disgust. "So much for the all scary 'Green Goblin,'" she told him bitterly as she pointed her left hand at his exposed buckle. "Even with all that armor, you can't even take on one S.H.I.E.L.D., much less a team of heroes!"

Before answering, Norman took a moment to spit out blood. "Maybe," he told her calmly, not showing the slightest bit of nervousness, even though he was seemingly at a disadvantage.

Little did Quake know, however, that when her right roundhouse kick was blocked, the Patriot secretly placed a small circular device on her ankle, and just as she charged up her energy to fire more energy waves, the device powered on and actually drove the waves back into Quake's body, causing her to shake violently and scream in pain as she dropped to her knees.

As for Norman, he only smirked confidently as he pulled his face-plate back down and completed his Iron Patriot guise once more. "But like a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I know how to be sneaky," Now with a full advantage, the Patriot stood back up, walked over to the now disoriented Quake then used his left hand to grab her by her left shoulder and picked her up off the ground. "What Fury saw in you, I'll never know," he told her with contempt, then allowed an evil smile spread across his lips and behind his faceplate. "But I do know that he'll see me do this!" The Patriot then took his right fist and through a straight jab into Quake's belt buck, then dropped her to the ground as the yellow energy consumed her body and froze her completely.

Once the Ref Bot saw Quake hit the ground, it flew down and hovered right next to the now victorious Patriot, and faced him so the people watching around the world could see him. "Here is your winner," said the announcer's voice via the intercom system. "The Iron Patriot!"

The Patriot himself placed his hands on his hips and gave the Ref Bot, and thus the people in the Garden and all around the globe, a friendly nod to help sell his 'hero bit.' Moments later, he took a moment to look down at the frozen and defeated Quake. "Don't worry, dear," he thought. "When this is all over, I'll see to it that you're converted like the rest of your fellow agents, and thus make you perform much better than you did today! And after I make all of S.H.I.E.L.D more obedient, I'll move on to the Avengers, and any other hero in this country, all so they can help me put this country, this whole world, where it needs to be in order to be it better...under my thumb!"

WINNER: THE IRON PATRIOT