THE FINALS

In the Helocarrier's central lab, two goggled and white coat wearing engineers, one a white female with short brunette hair and the other with a bald head and black goatee, had just finished doing the repair work of the Iron Patriot armor, as well as adding few more 'accessories' to Norman's specifications.

Norman was there as well, watching the engineers work on his armor, all with his arms crossed and impatiently tapping his left index finger on his right bicep as he felt he could've finished his suit's bodywork much faster than these two amateurs.

Finally, the two engineers ceased in their repair work, and the brunette turned to the waiting Norman and lifted her goggles up to her brow to give him proper eye contact. "Repair work completed, sir."

"It's about time," Norman told her in aggravation in his voice, then looked straight ahead at his armor. "Open." With that voice command, the entire front section of the armor soon opened, allowing Norman to step forward, then turn and place his back up against the inside the armor. Once he got in a comfortable position, he gave this one voice command in a stern tone. "Close." Seconds later, the front portion of the armor covered Norman's body piece by piece. Moments later, he was encased in his red, white, and blue armor, thus completing his guise as the Thunderbolts' leader and last surviving member, the Iron Patriot. "Now then," he said, sounding determined. "To the transporter room. It's time to end this game finally!"

"Yes sir," replied both engineers in unison, then both stepped aside to allow the Patriot to pass.

Sure enough, the Patriot, along with the engineers, walked towards the door and out of the room.

However, once the Patriot and the engineers entered the hallway, they unknowingly passed by the newly freed Tony Stark, who was still disguised as the agent from his cell and trying to act innocent by drinking a water fountain. Once the Patriot and his engineers were gone, Tony looked straight ahead and saw the sliding doors to the lab and decided to abandon his original plan of heading over to the Patriot's quarters and instead go to the lab itself. He figured that route was faster in getting to the Helocarrier's databanks, and the armored Thunderbolt's personal computer had a security network so advanced, it would've taken him at least an hour to break, time in which he did not have. With this in mind, Tony walked over, passed through the sliding doors and into the lab itself, then approached a nearby computer. From here, Tony took a brief moment to see that no one else was in the lab, then took out his small camera-like device, clicked on its small button twice. This resulted in his disguise disappearing and allowed him to regain his original black-haired and goatee appearance. This also caused a small disk drive to pop out, and minutes later, the billionaire placed in the computer's slot.

And it was this action that caused the computer screen to power on and show two large icons. The one on the left showed the digital head of the Vision, and the other showed Nick Fury and his Secret Warriors in the safehouse in New York. "Fury, you getting me?" asked Tony, who still cautiously looked around to keep an eye out for any agents that might walk in.

"Loud and clear, Stark," Nick replied calmly on the other end.

With that answer, Tony then turned his attention to the Vision's digital head. "How are we looking, Vision?"

"Well, it would appear that I have, as you humans would say, good news and bad news," The Vision replied, sounding uneasy. "The good news is, I should be able to bypass the system that operates the holding cells containing the Avengers and should have them free shortly…"

Back in the safehouse, the Vision's digitized head was seen by Nick Fury and his Secret Warriors. While Misty and Sharon found the sythezoid's avatar a little off-putting, Nick remained stone-faced, for in his long career, he's seen worse.

Nevertheless, the Vision continued in explaining the situation. "However, the bad news is that deactivating the nanites that are controlling the agents may take longer."

Though this wasn't the news he wanted to hear, Nick still nodded in acknowledgment. "Just keep doing what you can, Vision," said the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director. "And Stark, until the rest of the Avengers are free, the best thing you can do is sit tight. We'll be up there soon."

With Misty and Sharon standing ready with their sidearms in their mission to storm the Helocarrier, Beast did not seem to be so anxious to enter the fray, namely that he was still too busy in looking after the comatose May and Steve. "I'm sorry, Nick, but I'm afraid I'll have to sit this one out. Mrs. Parker and Captain Rogers are still in need of my care."

Suddenly, before Nick could give the furry X-Man his reply, he, along with everyone in the room, receives another shock…this time in the form of Steve Rogers, now fully awake but still using a table to stay on his feet. He wasn't quite at full strength yet, but being a soldier at heart, there was no way he was going to let that stop him in doing his job in stopping Osborn, as well as payback Zemo, whom he's since deduced poisoned him with his blade during their match. "Correction, Dr. McCoy," said Steve, who started to feel more and more of his strength returning due to both the Super Soldier serum in his veins and the desire to save his friends on the Helocarrier. "Mrs. Parker needs your care. I, on the other hand, need to save both the world and my friends, from a pair of lunatics!"

Meanwhile, back in the Garden, the Iron Patrionettes have just finished their routine, with the crowd applauding in approval. Behind the stage, the small circular device that served as the Avengers secret transport in and out of the arena flew into the building through the air vent and arrived on the left side and behind the curtain. A split second later, it ejected the miniaturized and patched up Spidey, who then enlarged back to human size before his feet could hit the floor.

The Web-Head could feel his nerves beginning to get to him, giving the severity of the situation and his importance to winning this match, but he quickly shook it off to recollect himself. "Come on, Spidey, keep your head in the game," he thought. "No way you're backing out now. Not with everyone depending on you. From the Avengers, namely Cap and Wasp, who have been the ones who've had the most faith in you. To Gwen and Aunt May, who for all you know might hate your guts right now, but their safety is still important…as well as the people in the city, if not the whole world! Their lives are all at risk as long as Osborn still at the helm at S.H.I.E.L.D."

As the Iron Patrionettes made their exit, the announcer soon ran from the right side of the stage to address the crowd. As he did this, the Iron Patriot himself suddenly appeared via one of the teleportation pads, causing a mixture of cheering from the Thunderbolt fans, as well as booing from the Avengers fans.

Spidey also witnessed the Patriot's arrival, which of course, caused him to give his upcoming opponent an angry death stare, as well as clinching his fists so hard, popping of his knuckles could be heard. "And as always, it's up to bring him down!"

Once the announcer took center stage, he noticed Spidey through the corner of his eye, and with both combatants accounted for; he turned to the crowd. "All right, folks, this is it! The final match-up of the tournament! Are you ready to see who will be crowned the Champion of Champions?!" This question earned the announcer a roar from the amped-up audience. "All right, then can we please have the web-slinging Spider-Man and armored hero Iron Patriot come up and start the final match?"

Spidey first took a deep breath, or at least as deep as his stitched-up chest would allow, to calm his nerves, then gave the announcer a nod and walked out of the curtain and proceeded over to the other teleportation pad. As he finally made it to the pad, the Web-Head could not hear the mixed reaction from the audience, as he still kept his sights on the Patriot.

As for the Patriot himself, he stared back at Spidey but seemed intrigued by the Wall-Crawler's newfound intensity, presumably after what happened to Gwen and Harry. "Well, I hope you don't think I tend to go easy on you, Web-Head," said the Patriot in a snarking tone, smirking behind his faceplate as it knew it would get his young opponent even more riled up. "Because as of now, the kid gloves are off."

"Osborn," Spidey replied angrily, his narrowed eyes still on the armored Thunderbolt. "I was about to tell you the thing!"

With both combatants now on the pads, they both vanished and were transported to their unknown fight zone. All so the final match-up to determine the tournament's champion, as well as the fates of each superhero team…could finally begin.