Luke Cage stood in the radiation blasted city square as the New Avengers disembarked from the Quinn Jet. Burton Canyon resembled a war zone and while the fighting had stopped for now Luke guessed that there would be all kinds of problems until a semblance of normality had been re-achieved.

"Do you think all this background radiation will cause me to turn green?" a voice asked from above his head. Luke looked up and saw Spiderman hanging upside down from the bottom of the Quinn Jet. "So our buddy the Beetle is back." he stated jabbing a finger at the offline suit of Beetle Mk 3 Armor. "Abe and Melissa are back to their old tricks again I see."

"Looks like all the Thunderbolts are AWOL." Ms. Marvel stated as she ran her hand over the Beetle armor, "Okay Zemo never really reformed and Moonstone and Fixer are god knows where but Jotsen, Gold and Jenkins behaviour recently does seem…" she shrugged and attempted to push over the armor, "weird. God what is this thing made of, it's built like a tank."

"You just have to put some muscle into it." The Thing grunted as he strode over and pressed against it. The Mk 3 armor didn't budge and the Thing gave up before shooting Luke and the suit of armor angry glares. "I hate gizmo's that don't do what you want."

"Okay enough clowning around." Luke announced, "There are several suits all of them except this one are destroyed. We are going to go out in pairs and inspect them see if we can find Jenkins. The good news is that he is probably out of armor and will be easy to take down. The bad news is that Songbird is still active and is defiantly a threat. Keep your eyes open and if in doubt go for the knock out if the Thunderbolts cause any trouble."

"Besides this you mean." Spiderman announced gesturing to the still burning buildings that stood around them.

"Danny take Spiderman and check out the church. Danvers two wrecked suits were brought down a couple of blocks from here, take Ben and analyze the scene before heading off to Jenkins and Gold's house. Victoria can give you the address before she and Mockingbird go and investigate a stalled suit by the town's supermarket. Wolverine and I will check out the school. The sooner we deal with these punks the sooner I can figure out what the hell they have been up to." Abe turned off the computer screen; he'd reactivated the Mk 3s surveillance gear and hadn't liked what he had seen. He and Melissa were still holed up in the school removing Diana's tangled web of cables and relays. Even with the alien cyborg aiding them it was an almost impossible task and Luke and Logan would be here long before everything was disconnected.

"So what's the plan?" Melissa asked as she slashed through a set of wires with a sonic dagger.

"Get to the house; I packed some emergency kits if we ever needed to escape quickly." Abe instructed, "There are fake cards, some cash and identity masks all we need is a change of clothes."

"And the plan for getting out of the school?" Melissa asked him. Abe looked over at Diana as she reached out and drained the silicon out of a microchip, gold liquid metal running down her arms. "We engineer a hostage scenario."

The pair of the Avengers reached the school quickly; it was clear from the mess that Jenkins suits had encountered something stronger then them. One showed signs of friendly fire and Luke hopped that maybe it's pilot had escaped the blast. Turning away from the school to investigate a burnt patch of ground littered with shrapnel he flinched when he heard an explosion and a pink light obliterated the wall of the computer building. Turning he saw Melissa her eyes burning as a pink corona surrounded her, levitate out of the building. Behind her Abe followed dragging a woman by the wrist, his captive, a nurse by the looks of her, straining to escape. Upon seeing Luke Abe brought her into the classic hostage position, one hand clutched around her waist and the other pressing a curved survival knife to her throat. Luke blinked as Logan got ready to spring into action, Abe was wearing his flight suit but Melissa was dressed in civilian clothes, he didn't quite understand what was going on but he knew enough.

"Logan stand down." he ordered waving for the mutant to stop creeping forward. "Jenkins release your captive and we'll talk about what happened."

"Stop talking to me like I'm a child." Abe snapped spittle flying from his mouth onto his hostage. "I didn't want to do this I was forced to."

"By who?" Luke asked.

"An alien biological computer." Abe answered hoping that Luke would understand. That hope was shattered with Cage's next comment.

"Yea right, of course you were. Release the hostage and I'll make sure you get help for your delusional behaviour."

"The only delusional person around here is you." Melissa yelled before spotting Logan crawl forward. "Try it mutie and your head says sayonara from your body."

"Calm down." Abe yelled, "I'm releasing the hostage." he added removing his arm from her waist. The hostage immediately kicked him and ran towards Luke before wrapping her arms around him.

"It's okay Miss." Luke announced as Abe stuck the knife in the ground and held his hands above his head. "You did the right thing Abe but you're still going back to the Raft."

"You're wrong on both accounts." Abe replied, "I'm not going back and I didn't do the right thing. I'm sorry Luke." Wolverine took a sniff of air and snarled, "Luke I know that sent, it's different but it clearly is Sa…" The rest of Logan's words were lost as Melissa swooped down on him and smacked him with a sonic baseball bat, the blow sending Logan flying out of town. Luke looked down at the woman and saw tendrils snake from her back and strike at him sending electricity coursing down his spine. "What the hell is this thing?" he snarled as he threw Diana backwards.

"Alien bio-organic computer." Abe deadpanned as Diana morphed her hand and fired a volley of incendiary shots at Luke before Melissa intervened and ran a beam of sonic energy from each hand through Cage's head. The former Power Man collapsed with a thud and the Thunderbolts breathed a sigh of relief.

"What the hell was that?" Abe asked as he and Melissa headed off towards the town centre, Diana in hot pursuit.

"Sonic knockout beam." Melissa replied, "It's a bit brutal but it did the job, the only side effect is temporary memory loss. He should come round in a few hours by which time we will either be in the Raft or on the road far from here."

"Well there is no denying it now, we're felons once again." Abe added as Melissa gave him a sonic propelled boost over the wall of the high school and into the war torn streets of Burton Canyon. Fifteen minutes later the Thunderbolts had relocated to the house that Melissa and Abe shared and they hurriedly begun to pack up shop. Stalking down to the basement Abe looked at the new set of armor he had been building. Originally designed for the government, the suit on the same level of technology as the Beetle Mk 2 suit or would be if he ever finished it. Now that he was going on the run that day looked even more remote then it had when he had started it.

"Abe." Melissa yelled from upstairs with a voice that caused the entire house to shake. "We have company." Abe quickly flicked on the security screen installed in the room and saw what Melissa meant. Camped outside the house were Ms. Marvel and the Thing, both of them looking unsure whether to knock or simply level the house. "We can't take them both." he answered, "If we had more time then we can be out of here."

"What about the remaining suit of armor?" Diana asked as she trotted into the basement. "What if it was to reactivate and start attacking them?"

"It's an idea." Melissa replied, her voice sounding only in Abe's head, "But I don't like the attack part. All we need to do is draw them away."

"Go for it." Abe ordered, "Send the suit east a couple of clicks to the suburbs and activate the non lethal counter measures only. It should buy us a few minutes." Diana smiled and extended a tendril into the computer, binary number sequences scrolling across her eyes before retracting the digit. "It's done but I still have concerns about our escape."

"Oh brother." Melissa replied, once again speaking with a direct sound beam. "What is the problem now?" Diana either had been included in the last sound beam or had somehow intercepted the broadcast because she turned to look for the speaker before turning back to Abe. "It's about you're transport, it will be too easily traced, the watchers outside will already have made a not of the random number and letter pattern on the front."

"She's right." Melissa stated this time speaking directly as she walked through the garage door. "Hate to admit it but the evil computer makes another very good point."

"I've got that covered." Abe announced. Seconds later a thunderous buzzing sound filled the air and the Beetle Mk 3 armor arrived hovering over the house before firing a few blaster rounds at the Avengers. Before the Heros could retaliate the suit flew off before hovering about a kilometre away and firing again. "Luke we are under fire from Jenkins. Luke, Luke." Ms Marvel called. "Avengers this is Danvers the Beetle just flew past and is headed east towards the badlands. Bobbi take Victoria and secure the house, everyone else hunt down that suit and extract Jenkins from it. Danvers out." Seconds later she was flying off in pursuit of the Mk 3 suit with the Thing lumbering along behind her.

"Well that give's us some breathing room." Melissa sighed. "What did you say about the ride out of here?"

"I have a second car registered to a false persona in a private garage just down the road." Abe admitted, "Just in case something like this happened."

"Not that I'm not revelling in your foresight." Melissa stated her voice beginning to oscillate as she talked. "But where did you get the money from? Did you start crapping gold coins out of that armoured butt of yours?"

"The Thunderbolt Emergency Fund." Abe answered, "I took money out just in case we needed it, which we do."

"But Zemo and Fixer drained the reserve when we decided to be bona-fide Heros." Melissa stated. "Or did they?"

"They took the fall for it." Abe explained, "But I stole the money. I saw what was happening, that you, Erik and I were beginning to enjoy the lifestyle and I knew that Zemo would never allow us to live in peace."

"So you stole the money, you stole from me and then lied to my face when we were blaming Zemo and Fixer." Melissa screeched, the room buckling with sonic energy. "Is there anything else you decided to keep hidden from me?" she hissed at Abe and Diana slipped out of the door and headed back upstairs into the house. The sounds of conflict followed her and Diana decided to get out of the 'hot zone', she was new to the whole team thing but even she knew that it wasn't going well. As she neared the front door she detected a dull thump and bent down placing her hand on the floor feeling the vibrations from downstairs run up her arm. Melissa and Abe were still fighting so they weren't the cause of the sound. Returning to a standing position Diana turned to see the door disintegrate in-front of her as a blonde woman dressed in blue and white swung through the door and kicked her in the face, the blow twisting her head to a painful angle. With a sickening twist Diana snapped her neck back to its normal position and ducked under a staff swing as the home intruder swung a metal pole at her. The third blow however, connected with her chest with such force that she doubled over in pain before a forth blow made contact hitting her in the neck. Diana felt the pressure and collapsed, closing her eyes as the blow hit her shutdown node causing her body to sit and reboot, in five minutes she would be up and running again but that was five minutes too long.

Abe was angry, Melissa was pushing all his buttons, what he had done was in the past so long ago that they had been completely different people. For some reason Melissa thought otherwise and had turned the whole thing into a grand betrayal. He had seen Diana sneak out a couple of minutes ago so when he heard footsteps on the stairs he dismissed it as her. Melissa didn't and turned in time to see Mockingbird step over the threshold ready for action.

"Surrender and you can continue with your marital tiff." the blonde avenger announced, "I won't judge if you do."

"We are not married." Melissa screeched springing into action before landing on Mockingbird's outthrust staff in an attempt to disarm her. Abe went to reach for the long handed spanner on the work bench when something cold rested on his neck. Dropping the spanner Abe crouched down and put his hand's behind his back, hovering over him was Osborne's one time squeeze Victoria Hand. "It's so nice of you to surrender before me." Hand purred. Abe smiled before pushing himself up with his hands, his legs kicking her weapon away. The move he had used had been a little something Melissa had taught him in exchange for flying lessons and it had left Hand stunned, Abe went in for a quick sleeper punch but his opponent had enough sense to drop and dodge grabbing the dropped spanner and slam the tool into his groin. Abe stumbled backwards and saw that Mockingbird was still struggling with Melissa over the battle stave. He guessed Diana was neutralized already or she would have come and investigated the disturbance from the basement. Hanging onto the workbench he grabbed one of the wing blades from his newest set of armor and slashed out, the sharpened tip slicing through the spanner, the weighted haft clanging on the floor followed by a massive thump as Melissa was thrown across the room to lie at Abe's feet.

"She's a lot stronger then everyone says." Melissa stated as Abe helped her back onto her feet before handing her the wing blade. "Looks like we're not going to get out of here without a fight."

"You take the hero." Abe suggested, "I'll take the accountant." he added reaching behind for a gauntlet on the same work top. Aggressively he lunged forward as Victoria reached for her rifle, raising the gun just in time as Abe made contact with the weapon, electricity arching from the glove across the barrel, the intensity of the blast melting the barrel. Victoria didn't wait for Abe's next attack and slugged him in the nose, dropping her weapon before continuing her counter attack with a throw knocking Abe into a rack of power tools. Rising to his feet Abe lashed out again this time using his exposed hand, the blow connecting with Victoria's jaw before being kicked back as his opponent removed a syringe and advanced on him. With a lunge she was on him as he blocked her attack, Abe felt the needle in Victoria's hand and pressed her hand down into her thigh. Moments later the syringe feel to the floor as Abe caught Victoria and laid her on the floor. Melissa and Mockingbird were still fighting and it was clear from the clash of wrestling moves vs. trained martial art skills that eventually Mockingbird would triumph simply by having a more economical fighting style. Rushing to the workbench Abe grabbed the second gauntlet and slipped it on before loading a spanner into the launcher mechanism and took aim.

"Melissa yield." he yelled and Melissa not even looking round dropped to the floor as Mockingbird swung her staff, the blow sweeping over her head. Abe fired and the spanner accelerated towards Mockingbird's head before striking her on the left temple. Swinging round the Avenger glowered at him not noticing the sonic binds crawling up her legs. Taking a single constricted step Mockingbird plummeted face first into the concrete floor, her nose broken by the floor. Straining she tried to rise as Melissa grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face into the floor again, the second blow knocking her out. "Talk about a girl fight." she wheezed as Abe pulled her off Mockingbird. "Thanks for the help."

"So I'm forgiven?" Abe asked as he removed the gauntlet he was wearing.

"Don't push it." Melissa replied as Diana arrived at the doorway looking groggy and down-trodden. "Okay I'm not happy about any of this but I trust you we need to get out of here and now."

"And I just thought of a decoy that might just help us." Abe said looking at the pair of downed Avengers.

Iron Fist and Spiderman stood at the free-way entrance, from what they had heard the Beetle armor was down after only a few minutes. Still the fact that Luke, Logan, Bobbi and Victoria hadn't called in was a little unnerving. Looking around he saw a massive Ford Taurus thunder towards them and he held out a hand for the driver to stop. As the vehicle slowed he walked over as the driver wound down the window to reveal a striking African-American Woman, her bald head wrapped in a bandanna while her hazel eyes sparkled in the setting sun.

"Licence Ma'am." Danny asked. "And Id for everyone inside."

"Sure thing." the woman replied handing him a set of ID cards. Her voice had a Connecticut accent and judging from her confident tone she was in no way phased by the stop by a well known hero. "Okay Ms. Cox you check out." Danny announced, "Can you ask Mr Jensen to drop his window so I can check his ID." Cox nodded and her passenger wound down the window to reveal a lean man with long brown hair and several days' worth of stubble staring back with big blue eyes. Jensen was born in Florida judging from his licence and as soon as he answered Danny's questions he showed it with his accent. Danny caught the glimpse of a goth girl sitting in the back typing on an I-Phone and checked the last ID to see the woman's face on the plastic card, the image shown as Jensen's sister.

"Okay you're clear." Danny mumbled, "We're just checking cars to make sure two dangerous fugitives don't escape the town."

"Well I hope you catch them." Cox replied and started her engine before driving away. The next car along in the row came barrelling along and Danny saw two silhouettes inside the Pontiac's front seats. Staring at the registration number he saw that it matched the car registered to Jenkins and motioned for Spiderman to spring into action. With a quick spray of webbing on the road the Pontiac stalled, now trapped in the adhesive. Opening the door Danny saw that the driver and passenger weren't who he thought they were. In the driver's seat was Bobbi while Victoria was in the passenger seat. Both of the women were seat-belted in and both were sleeping although the bruises they both supported suggested they had been in a fight. Stuck to Bobbi's head was a posit note and Danny removed it from the now snoring Mockingbird. Reading it aloud he remained cool and composed even at the end. "Dear Avengers. We are taking an extended vacation and won't be back for some time. While we won't send a postcard rest assured we will contact you later. For now have a great summer and keep those guys at the Raft in check. Love the Thunderbolts. P.S. you can keep the car just clean up the puddle of puke Victoria left in the foot well."

Spiderman swung over and stared at the sleeping Avengers. "And there's me without my camera." he lamented as Danny removed Mockingbird from the driver's seat before going back to traffic duty.

"They brought it." Jensen told Cox as she continued to drive west.

"Of course." Cox replied, "And now we're free."

Epilouge

Bar with no Name, New York

Marion sat by the bar looking down at the shot of Jack that she had brought long enough ago for the whisky to get warm. For some reason she didn't feel like drinking tonight and the usual crowd of scum seemed a little lacklustre. It didn't help the fact that three government suits, two men and a woman, were pocking round. The bartender looked round and tapped her on the shoulder before pointing to the back room. Wearily she got up and walked over, she didn't feel like messing around today and who ever wanted to see her was in for a rough night. Closing the door behind her she saw her contact standing in the corner, his face hidden in shadow.

"You are Ms. Marion Pouncey also know as Poundcakes?" he asked, his foreign accent doing nothing to raise Marion's enthusiasm.

"Yeah that's me but I prefer Tremor these days. Poundcakes made me sound fat so I changed the name and slimmed down."

"I have an opportunity for you. I presume you are familiar with a woman called Melissa Gold?"

"Little Missy, I used to know that bitch, now I just feel like slamming her head under my boot. Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to kill her." her contact announced, "Her and the other Thunderbolts are enemies of mine. Are you interested in my offer?"

"Work with you." Tremor stated, "It would be my pleasure, you have such a high calibre in the Underworld."

"Good." the man said stepping out of the shadows to reveal a man dressed in purple leather with even his face covered by a mask decorated with a crown while a sheathed sword hung on his belt. "Welcome to the Masters of Evil." he hissed as he opened a bottle of wine, pouring two flutes of the blood red liquid before handing a glass to Tremor. "To the death of the Thunderbolts." he added raising his glass in a toast, "Long may they suffer at the hands of Zemo."

Thunderbolts #5

The Thunderbolts are forced into action as the theft of potential bio-weapons locks down the town they are staying in. Desperate to escape unnoticed and with a deadly thief on the loose how will the Thunderbolts stay hidden and save the day before something sinister occurs.