AVENGERS EVOLUTION

in

"The Chessboard Is Set - Avengers Assemble Part One"

Note: All characters and locations mentioned here are property of Marvel Comics Inc, I claim no ownership to them whatsoever.

PART NINE

Deep within the Canadian Wilderness

April 2005

Wolverine lay on the ground in a heap, the large piece of the old man's face still clutched within his gloved hand. He tilted his head to the side when he heard a sound come from the bushes, he watched as a wildcat emerged from the shadows – the same wildcat he'd chased away earlier. It could sense Wolverine and his weakened condition, and was back to get some revenge – and not to mention some mutant take-out.

Wolverine couldn't even get up, his mutant ability to rapidly heal was taking it's time fighting off the effects of the venom – even his vision was blurry.

The wildcat approached the weakened X-Man, claws at the ready – it was going to take a killing slash at Wolverine's chest – when suddenly a loud shrill caught the creature off guard and he bolted off like a scared cat.

A severe blast of wind hit Wolverine square in the face as he could see a huge object slowly descend from the sky, the backlash it was giving off was blowing leaves and branches away, causing a small sandstorm as it came down to hover up ahead. He watched two helmeted figures repel down from the halicopter, and began to check on his physical condition. Wolverine started to recognize the symbol on the sleeve of the man's jacket – the symbol of SHIELD.

Before Wolverine could utter the strength to mutter a word – the whole world for him went black as he passed out.

Inside HYDRA Castle

April 1942

Blue Diamond stood open the motionless body of Jack Frost, his body slowly melting away, Miss America can do nothing but watch in utter horror.

He got down to one knee, about to deliver insult to injury – or at least make sure the man was truly dead. - he raised his fist about to drive it into the dead man's skull – until Captain America rushed over and grabbed his arm.

"That's enough, Diamond." He shouted. "As team leader, I'm ordering you to stand down!"

Blue Diamond looked back him."You're ordering me?"

Captain America stood his ground. "Either stand down or I will take you down."

Blue Diamond had heard enough, he yanked his arm out of Cap's grasp and threw a right cross to his jaw - sending him reeling into Logan.

Whizzer tried to rush over to intercept it, but the Thin Man wrapped his arm around his ankle, and with a mighty throw sent Whizzer flying into a nearby wall. Miss America tried to stop him, but he became super thin and wrapped his long elastic fingers around her neck and tightened his grip.

Logan helped Cap up as he felt his jaw, trying to move his lower jaw back into place. He saw Thin Man choking the life out of Miss America, and saw the Whizzer lying against the wall.

"What the hell is going on?" Cap demanded.

"What does it look like?" Thin Man said sarcastically. "Human Torch was right, Jack was a traitor - but he wasn't the only one."

Logan began to piece it all together. "Let me guess," he said to Thin Man. "It was you and Diamond-Boy over there."

This little remark began to make Diamond's blood boil, but a look from Thin Man kept his temper in check.

"That's right, we made a deal with Skull - if we brought you alive, we'd be paid handsomely."

"Or dead." continued Blue Diamond. "He wasn't too picky."

Cap began to make sense of it all. "So the three of you were going to be rewarded a king's ransom, but you got greedy and decided to get rid of Jack Frost."

Thin Man shook his head. "Not really - we just simply didnt like him."

Logan tried to make a move on Thin Man, but he tightened his already tight grip on Miss America's throat, her face was becoming redder by the second. "Stay back!" he demanded. "I dont want to kill her."

Blue Diamond charged at Captain America, with diamond-hard fists flying. Cap managed to block each blow with his shield, but the impacts of his punches were equal to those of blows from a sledgehammer.

Thin Man backed away, his grasp still on Miss America's throat, she struggled to break free - if she didn't then she would surely die. Suddenly Thin Man screamed in pain, his grip was loosened around her throat, causing her to drop into Logan's arms and gasping for air. They both looked back at the prone form of the Thin Man, and watched in shock as the Whizzer pulled his arm out of his back. But when Whizzer did that, there wasn't even a scratch on Thin Man at all.

"How ..," Miss America gasped, ".. how did you do that ..?"

The Whizzer shrugged. "I don't know. I just knew you were in danger. I guess I vibrated so fast, that my fist past right through him. And when I slowed, must have been too much for him."

"Well we'd better help Cap," replied Logan. "Cause his shield isn't going to withstand Diamond's punches for much longer."

All three of them rushed Diamond at once, but he swatted them aside like flies - they hit the floor with a loud thud. Cap decided that this was the right time to use his shield offensively rather than defensively, grabbing it with both ends and wailing away on Blue Diamond, causing him to stagger back in frustration. He smacked the shield away, causing it to skitter to the floor, and knock Cap onto his rear..

As Blue Diamond was about to deliver the final blow, Cap looked surprised to see something behind Blue Diamond. "Bucky! You're alive!"

Blue Diamond chuckled. "Yeah! Like I'm really gonna fall for that one."

"I got a better idea," replied a voice from behind. "Why dont you just fall!"

He turned around, only to get a fact full of fire extinguisher in the face, sending him rolling back- crashing into the icy the Human Torch.

After Cap watched Blue Diamond try his best to regain his senses, he looked up to see Bucky standing above him - offerring him a hand up.

"Bucky," Cap gasped. "What happened?"

Bucky smiled. "Blue Diamond should have hit me while he was in Diamond form - I've known HYDRA troopers to hit harder than he does."

Blue Diamond slowly got up to his feet. "I'm gonna kill ya, ya little runt." And he charged the patriotic pair with a look of pure fury in his eyes. Cap had heard just about enough, with the same intensity he charged at the man with his fist raised. His fist impacted with Blue Diamond's chest, like the irresistable force meeting the immovable object, any normal man's hand would shatter upon impact, but the super soldier serum that flowed through Cap's veins gave him the strength and power of at least 10 men. The blow sent both men flying, and as Blue Diamond slowly got back up from the floor - he noticed that there was a large crack in his chest.

After seeing this made Blue Diamond even angrier, he was about to charge again to attempt again. Logan noticed the Captain's shield lying on the floor some distance away, he grabbed it and hurled it towards Diamond's position.

As Diamond moved to avoid the shield, he couldnt help but laugh. "Hah! Ya missed!"

But Logan couldnt help but smile."That'd be true - if I'd be aiming at you."

Diamond stopped laughing, as he started to hear a cracking sound. He turned to see that the shield had buried itself within the small ice mountain which housed the Torch, the ice mountain shattered and the Torch was now free and still alive.

"FLAME ON!" He shouted, steam began shooting from his body as the moisture began to vaporize, until finally it burst into a hot flame.

Blue Diamond faced his fiery foe, as he was blasted with flames of super nova status. Through the flames, Diamond was glowing brightly, he couldnt help but laugh evilly at Torch's failed attempt.

"You fool!" He shouted. "I'm composed completely of diamond, I'm totally invulnerable to intense heat!"

But Torch smiled. "That may be so - but you cant maintain your diamond form forever!"

Diamond knew Torch was telling the truth, even he couldnt maintain his diamond form for long periods of time. Suddenly his hands changed back to flesh, and burst into flames. As the rest of his body became engulfed with flames,he ran down the corridor and leapt through a nearby window - falling to a fiery death.

Cap rushed over to Torch, who had immediately snuffed out his own flames and dropped to his knees. "I'm alright ..." he assured him. "I'm .. just weak ... That blast .. took a lot out of me .."

The Whizzer rushed over to help Cap bring Torch up to his feet. The Thin Man was just a mess, his limbs were stretched all over the place, both Logan and Miss America used them to tie him up.

"We need to hurry now," explained Cap. He looked at Miss America. "I want you to take Torch back to the rendezvous point, the US Armed Forces should be arriving very soon. Bucky will go with you."

But Bucky shook his head. "No, Cap - I'm stickin with you!"

"Bucky, I dont want you ending up like Jack Frost." But Bucky wasnt budging, so finally Cap gave in. While Miss America rushed out with Torch in tow, Cap, the Whizzer, Bucky, and Logan rushed down the corridor, hoping to find the Red Skull

The four walked into the large chamber which housed the Nazi Sleeper robot, the room was completely empty, there weren't any technicians or anything. They snuck into the dark chamber where Cap noticed a pair of armed guards nearby conversing with eachother. Giving hand signals to Whizzer, he zipped off as super speed, and in a matter of minutes he returned - the armed guards had been beaten into unconsciousness without even uttering a sound.

Cap and the others went to check on the out-cold guards, while all the way keeping an eye out for the Red Skull - who was nowhere to be found.

"I don't see Skull anywhere." Logan muttered to Cap, who lifted up one of the guards to eye level. "Maybe he's in his private chambers or somethin."

"This guard knows," admitted Cap, and he shook him frantically. "WHERE IS RED SKULL!" He quietly screamed in German.

The man, obviously having no idea which way was up, replied something in German, which roughly translated into english was "Mama, but I don't want to go to school". Cap threw him aside with the other unconscious guard, and began looking around.

Logan watched as the Captain searched the shadows, he thought he saw the Sleeper move slightly. Peering at it closer, Logan could see it standing motionless as a statue. Suddenly he heard something with his superbly acute hearing, and quickly turning he knew that the Sleeper really moved. It turned to Captain America, who had absolutely no idea it was alive, and a panel on the outside of its right arm opened up - revealing a chain gun. If Logan didn't act quickly, the Sleeper would make short work of the patriotic superhero.

"Captain America!" He shouted. "Look out!"

The Captain turned to see as the Sleeper aimed at him, just as the chain gun opened fire.

An Unknown Location

April 2005

"CAP! NOOOOO!"

Wolverine woke up in a frenzy, his face was covered in sweat. He found himself lying in what seemed to be a hospital bed, but the room he was in seemed to be too covert to be a hospital room. Also noticing that his mask was not on his face, he began to fear the worst.

Then he heard a familiar voice speak up from the shadows. "Ah! About time you woke up!"

Out of the shadows emerged Colonel Nick Fury, his face showed little of his lack of sleep. He continued his reply. "We wondered why your mutant healing factor was taking so long to kick in - must have been something in the venom to counteract it."

Still trying to shake the cobwebs that still lingered in his head, Wolverine asked:"Where the hell am I?"

"In SHIELD HQ ..." He paused for a few moments, expecting to get some response from Wolverine - he didnt get what he was waiting for. "Y'know, a 'thank you' would suffice."

Wolverine slowly climbed out of bed, he was wearing a green hospital gown. He quickly yanked the IV tube out of his wrist, and grumbled away. "I never asked for your help."

"Well, we could have left you to die in that god forsaken Canadian wilderness, maybe allowed you to become some wildcat's 'take-out' - but ..." and he added this jokingly, ".. you had those puppy dog eyes."

Wolverine didnt even look in Fury's direction, looking around for something important. "What happened to my uniform?"

"It's ok." Fury told him. "It's just being fixed up. In the meantime you can wear a SHIELD jumpsuit, you'll find it in the closet." He quickly added. "I had our experts analyze that stuff we found in your hand..."

"I know what you mean, it's skin - I swiped it off a guy's face. Marked him up real good."

Fury shook his head. "That's just it, Logan. It wasn't skin - it was part of some kind of latex mask."

Once Logan found the jumpsuit, he quickly took off his hospital gown and climbed into the jumpsuit. At least Fury's little cronies had the common decency to leave him with his underwear on. "So it wasnt a hallucination ..." he muttered. "The Red Skull really is alive."

Fury appeared to be not surprised. "I should have known - that Sleeper we recently found has his trademark all over it."

Logan turned to glance at Fury. "You found a Sleeper? I thought they were all destroyed!"

"Apparently this one was completely intact. It's a possibility that this one may have been built recently, but we're hoping to assemble a team to examine it." Fury paused for a minute before continuing. "I should point out that while you were unconscious, we took a sample of your blood."

"WHAT!" growled Logan, his adamantium claws tore right through the knuckles of the gloves.

"We needed your mutant healing factor within your blood." He explained. "SHIELD scientists figured out it could help out!" The sharp adamantium blades were close enough for his liking.

Wolverine glared at him, claws shining brightly. "Help out? FOR WHAT?."

"To take care of the after effects from Project Rebirth. We may be able to bring him back!"

SNIKT! Wolverine retracted his claws, allowing Fury to breathe a sigh of relief. From what he told Wolverine, it sounded like they'd finally be able to bring him back. "Ok, Fury," he snarled. "Start talkin!"

To be continued