COMPROMISED

It was a feeling of loss and dread for the Avengers and their fans. For upon witnessing the defeat of the Wasp, who quite frankly was the heart and soul of the team, it felt like a knife slowly piercing into their hearts. Even more so for Ms. Marvel, who always thought of Wasp as her little sister and felt great rage brewing inside of her after seeing her size-altering friend not only lose but was handled disrespectfully by the callous, symbiote wearing Scarlet Spider.

Also, sharing in Ms. Marvel's sorrow was that of Spidey, who now felt that another friend had been lost to this whole mess. One of which had always supported him as both a hero and Avenger the entire way.

Seconds later, the Scarlet Spider appeared on the platform. His return resulted in a mixed reaction, however. While some of the Thunderbolts fans cheered in approval, the rest of the crowd booed. Some in support of the Avengers, while others were not too happy with how short the match was. However, the Scarlet Spider ignored the crowd as he walked back over to the Thunderbolts corner and approached the one person whose opinion was truly important to him.

That person being none other than the Iron Patriot, who stood there with his arms crossed as his symbiote powered son walked over to him. "Well, despite your little outburst, I'm glad to see you managed to win son," said the Patriot, sounding calm at first, but soon leaned in close to the Scarlet Spider so he could tell him this. "But for the sake of our image, you better have more control of both your suit and emotions in the next match. Understood?"

"Yes sir," replied Scarlet Spider, his voice consumed in both shame and fear upon hearing his father's deadpan tone. He then turned back to the screen and noticed the image of the Semi-Final brackets, and saw that his name had been moved next to 'Spider-Man,' revealing his next opponent. Something that made the Scarlet Spider look straight ahead at the Web-Head himself, and growl in rage.

In the Avengers corner, the already troubled Spidey also looked at the screen and saw who he would be facing in the Semi-Finals. All which caused him to look straight ahead to see the Scarlet Spider seething with anger, all which led him to let out a sad sigh. "Great," he thought to himself. "After losing one friend, I also have to fight another one who wants to rip my head off. It's times like this that make me wish that 'infinite crappy luck' was one of the other things I got from that spider bite."

Meanwhile, the announcer took the stage once again to keep the tournament going. "All right folks, we now move on to that has brother against brother...or rather, brother against sister! As our next match has two Avengers facing each other, namely hard-hitting Luke Cage and the high flying Ms. Marvel!"

With the crowd cheering in approval, Luke took a moment to turn to Ms. Marvel, who was stretching her arms out. "No offense," said the Hero for Hire, causing Ms. Marvel to turn and look at him. "But I've never been too comfortable hitting a woman. So if it's all the same to you, I'm just gonna pretend you're a man."

Though Ms. Marvel was annoyed by this by this 'because you're a girl' comment, she still understood that this was somewhat uncomfortable for the Power Man, and gave him a quick nod. "Whatever helps you get through this match, Cage," she told Luke, then gave him a determined glare. "But don't think that this means I'll go easy on you!"

"Fair enough," Luke replied with a smirk, then both he and Ms. Marvel proceeded to the teleportation pads so they could begin their fight.

However, Iron Man watches his two teammates walk off with a worried expression behind his faceplate. For while it was true that whoever won would score a point for the Avengers, it also meant that the loser would end up as a prisoner in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helocarrior. It was a scenario in which he hated, and what was worse, he couldn't do anything about it, all which led him to let out a shaky sigh. "Just try not to kill each other, you two."

Spidey was also worried for Luke and Ms. Marvel as he watched them step on to their pads, then vanish out of sight just seconds later. Afterward, the Web-Head turned his attention back to the Iron Patriot and narrowed his eyes at the Thunderbolts' leader in anger. "I'll bet Jonah's next ridiculously low paycheck that you're enjoying the Avengers go down bit by bit, Gobby!" he thought bitterly, then lets out a breath to relax as he remembered the one real bright side of all this insanity. "But, at least Gwen is safe."

Meanwhile, back in the studio seats, Victoria and the Gwen duplicate continued to watch the tournament proceedings, with Victoria being invested but the clone unnaturally pleasant.

Victoria noticed the duplicate's strangely calm behavior, especially when she saw her boyfriend act so aggressively in his match. "Well...I have to admit, I was a little worried to see Harry go overboard. But I'm glad that he was quick to regain himself." Victoria told the duplicate, trying to sound as shocked as the crowd, but at the same time, wanting to see how 'Gwen' would react.

"Yeah, he had me scared too," the Gwen duplicate replied, with her optimistic, almost lifeless smile still present. "But I knew Harry would pull through in the end."

Victoria grew even more suspicious of 'Gwen's behavior, but not wanting to let the duplicate know that, she gave him a gentle smile of her own. "Well, in that case, he's lucky to have someone as faithful as you as his boyfriend," said Victoria, trying to appear as pleasant as possible.

Moments later, the door opened, and in came a female, blonde-haired server with two glasses of water on a silver tray, with a soda can for Gwen and the other a bottle of water for Victoria. "Your drinks, ladies."

"Just put them right there," said Victoria, pointing on a small table between her and the Gwen duplicate.

The server gave Victoria a polite nod and placed the tray on the table as instructed but later accidentally dropped it and the drinks on the floor. However, Victoria's water bottle still had its cap on the top, and the Gwen's duplicate was also closed, meaning that none of their drinks were spilled all over the carpet. Both ladies picked up her drinks, and while Victoria placed her water on the table so she could chastise the server for how clumsy she was, the duplicate picked up her drink and proceeded to open it.

Something which caught Victoria's attention. "Whoa, Gwen," said the wide-eyed and cautious Victoria. "You might want to wait a few minutes before you..."

Before Victoria could finish her warning, the Gwen duplicate already opened the can, and as expected, soda spewed all over like a geyser and got all over the duplicate's closed. As this happened, it caused the duplicate to short out and fall to the floor, where it began to shake violently as if it were having a seizure. It didn't take long for the nanites that composed the duplicate's very being to fall apart and become nothing but smoking pebbles.

Naturally, this came as a surprise for Victoria and saw that the horrified server was about to scream. With expert timing, Victoria swooped in and placed her right hand over the frightened server's mouth to prevent her from screaming and alert anyone nearby, being some of the fans near the box or any of the staff outside. "Shut it!" she whispered in her ear. "Just turn around, walk away, and pretend you didn't see anything!" She then pushed the server away, causing the frightened girl to run out of the room in fear. Afterwards, Victoria rubbed her neck, which was a habit she did whenever she was in deep thought, and was suddenly alarmed when she felt stinging sensation in her neck, as if she was pricked by a dart. Moments later, the agent remembered that she fell asleep just a few minutes then and soon put two and two together and deduced that she must've been tranquilized, and someone switched out the real Gwen with the duplicate while she was out. "Just beautiful," Veronica thought irritably, dreading the tongue lashing that she'll receive from the Iron Patriot once he hears about this. She then pulled out her cellphone from out of her pocket and pressed the button, which dialed the numbers of nearby S.H.I.E.L.D. undercover agents in the building. "Attention all stations, this is Hand! We've been compromised!"