Police sirens wailed around the bank in Reno as flashes of light occasionally erupted from inside. The local police knew that the costumed menace holding the hostages inside was deadly and that he had threatened to kill anybody who entered the building but now it appeared as if somebody had done just that and judging from the commotion, they were no friends of the hostage taker. The chief of police looked at his watch, soon the FBI would be involved but hopefully the situation would be resolved long before they were needed at all.
Melissa deflected a laser blast from one of the masked henchman with the arm mounted sonic buckler she had conjured. The main bad guy, Goldbug or somebody who was wearing the same costume was still clutching the bag of money he had extorted out of the cashier whilst shouting orders in German at his henchmen. Somewhere behind her something exploded and Melissa slipped away from her fight to see Chris melting the barrel of another thugs laser rifle, the power cell exploding and causing the man to run screaming out of the bank. Returning to the fight Melissa sent a wave of sonic energy at the thug she was fighting and sent him slamming into a water cooler before knocking him out with a sonic hammer.
"So much for the hired help." Melissa commented, "Do you think he'll surrender now that he's on his own?"
"I have little experience but I would wager no." Chris replied as Goldbug unholstered a pistol and fired, a beam of gold energy vaporizing the counter before stepping forward, his armor gleaming under the lights.
"Last chance Americans." Goldbug buzzed, "Leave now or I will detonate the bombs."
"What bombs?" Melissa asked, "You mean the ones attached to the hostages?"
"Ya and when they blow the poor customers will be entombed in gold before slowly suffocating." Goldbug told her.
"Umm Question." Chris said raising his hand, "If you can turn things into gold why are you robbing banks?" Goldbug cocked his head before raising his pistol and firing, beams of energy lancing across the room causing Melissa and Chris to dive behind a pair of desks to avoid being vaporized.
"You never ask them why." Melissa told Chris, "It just makes them cranky." she added as Goldbug vaulted the desk and headed for the front door. Moving swiftly Abe headed on an intercept course before tackling the felon and sending him sprawling to the ground sending the pistol and money bag sliding across the bank floor. Hurriedly he slipped a pair of handcuffs on the felon before leaning him against one of the few remaining desks. "What's you're name?" Abe growled.
"You will get no more words from my lips." Goldbug replied before dropping the detonator concealed in his hand. The device dropped and bounced twice before the bombs were activated exploding in a shower of gold paint and smoke. Everyone in the bank was covered by the blast but despite Goldbug's threats nobody was suffocating.
"So you were full of bull." Melissa snapped pushing past Abe and summoning a sonic dagger which she levelled at Goldbug's throat. "Name scumbag or I slip and this goes through you're throat."
"Henri Gould." Goldbug whimpered, "Please I'm just a banker."
"Well Henri Gould you are under arrest, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you are entitled to a lawyer and if you require the state will provide you one. But I figure that last part is moot, you probably have an entire legal team at you're disposal."
"And when I am acquitted I will find you and make you wish we had never met." Goldbug screamed at her.
"Oh hush you." Melissa told him before rabbit punching him in the face as the hostages took their chance and fled leaving the Thunderbolts alone in the bank with the defeated criminals.
"Do you reckon that they'll give me back my ATM card now?" Chris asked as the police barged in guns levelled at the hero's heads.
"No first we have to deal with the Media Circus." Abe told him, "Let's hope these clowns don't hog the spotlight." he added as the police recognized the uniforms of the 'Highway Patrol' and trained their weapons on Goldbug and his two henchmen instead. Replacing his helmet Abe smiled at Melissa and Chris before striding out into the Nevada sunshine, his teammates following him into the sound of sirens, camera shutters and cheers.
Abe sat on the bed typing on his laptop as the sound of showering came from the bathroom joined onto the room. He sighed, another villain foiled, another rat bag motel and as he listened to the water stop, another argument with Melissa. Looking back at the images his armor had taken of Goldbug during the villain's attempted heist he typed in another piece of data as Melissa emerged from the bathroom her hair wrapped in a towel and her body covered in a bra and some bikini briefs and nothing else.
"What are you working on? She asked flopping onto the bed next to him.
"I'm documenting everything we know about Goldbug, he did make a threat to come after us again." Abe told her, "I want to know what he is capable of next time we face him."
"If we face him." Melissa corrected, "He won't get out before his sentence is served, he is a loser and if he does follow threat on his threat we will beat him again."
"It's not that simple." Abe replied, "Henri Gould worked at Echidna Capital Management, a public banking front for HYDRA. In addition to that connection records show that Gould is in charge of a secret Swiss bank-account for Baron Strucker. He may be a neophyte in physical combat but he still is a deadly foe if he chose to come after us."
"So we deal with it when it happens. Ad-Hoc plans and improvisation is what we do best."
"And we saw how well that turned out in California." Abe snapped, "We can't just charge in we need to plan our next move."
"I knew you were going to bring Diana into this." Melissa spat, "How long are you going to use her as a guilt coupon? I have defended what I did so many times that now I actually believe that you are a complete idiot. Diana was never going to hold the Scorpion Goddess. She chose to sacrifice herself and when I heard her screams I knew exactly what I had to do."
"She still could have been saved if we had an actual plan other then kill the tree."
"Well today you're planning almost let Goldbug escape." Melissa hissed, "Chris and I were almost killed by him and you were busy documenting his technology and moves instead of just punching him out."
"I was dealing with the bombs; as soon as I knew that they were fake I made my move." Abe replied, "As for the whole punching thing I think you took care of that yourself."
"What do you mean?" Melissa growled.
"You threatened to kill Gould after he had surrendered, when he was bound and helpless." Abe replied, "All it takes is for one person to listen to his testimony and work out that Skylark and Songbird have similar powers, that they travel with an armoured mercenary whose armor looks similar to the suit worn by MACH V to figure out who we really are and send SHIELD, the Avengers and god knows who else after us. That and I saw you're face, you were enjoying torturing him, you liked the power you felt when you killed Diana and you wanted to feel it again."
"I forgot that you were part of the murder club." Melissa stated, her voice cold, "How you have a thing for killers. I was never going to measure up to Diana, to Erik and Karla because I never killed anyone, well how do you feel about me now?" she asked slapping the computer away and wrapping her legs around Abe's body as she pinned him to the bed.
"Honestly." Abe replied looking into Melissa's eyes. "I'm worried about you. I know that you are going through something, that you felt something powerful put what you did was a mercy killing, the feeling you got when Diana died is nothing compared to when you murder someone in cold blood. Honestly I think you would never forgive yourself is you went through with it."
Melissa sat back and placed a hand over her mouth and looked into Abe's eyes. "I'm sorry Abe it's just that ever since it happened I saw what my powers could really do. I remember Dorcas and his offer and while I never thought about accepting it, ever since Diana died I have imagined what I could do if I wasn't held back. There is a part of me that as soon as spilled Rosa and Diana's blood that has been crying out for more and I felt it surface during the fight with Goldbug and just now, I looked at you and thought how easy it would be to snap you're neck."
"Then you will have to fight it." Abe told her pushing her off him, "The Melissa I know would never let anything take over her body and use her to slay others no matter what the reason is." Melissa smiled and stroked Abe's face before kissing him on the cheek. "You are so good to me." she purred, "Why?" she asked as a knock on the door sounded.
"I'll tell you later." Abe replied, "Its open." he yelled. Seconds later the door opened and Chris walked in. "Did you see what was on the TV?" he asked as he went and turned the screen on.
"I'm just going to throw something on." Melissa told Abe before retreating to the bathroom as Chris flicked through the channels. "Here we go." he announced. Abe looked at the TV and saw a quartet of faces he recognized, silently he preyed that it was a hoax but moments later the interviewers voice broke shattered hopes.
"So Dr. Black what happened after you left the battle of Chicago?" the oriental woman asked the tall scowling dark skinned man that Abe recognized as Dr. Noah Black AKA Centurius.
"Due to the combination of faulty instruments and the chaotic magic left behind by the Juggernaut our tower along with all of us was thrown through time and space. We had to be very careful not to damage the space-time continuum as you can obviously imagine."
"Satana." a pot bellied man called, "Could you're magic have prevented this from happening."
"Unlikely the power behind the spell was very strong and I was unaware of what was happening until it was too late." the scantily clad red-haired woman told the press. Abe knew that both Satana and Centurius were lying but was curious about why they had returned now? Had FACT had anything to do with the return and if so what was the oversight committee's plans for the formally escaped Thunderbolts."
"Dr. Zabo." a third journalist called his British accent suggesting that he was a member of the international circuit. "How does it feel to be pardoned by the President? What are you're plans know that you and you're teammates are no longer wanted criminals."
"It was a honour." the timid spectacled man said quietly, Abe knew that Zabo was different from his alter ego Mr. Hyde but he considered both of them criminals. "Rest assured that we plan…" He petered out as the forth man coughed getting the media's attention.
"Boomerang here mates." the blonde man announced, "We are not going to throw our new found freedom away. That's why we are retiring from villainy. The brass has even brought us a suite in the Avengers Casino to thank us for helping out with the whole Shazard business."
"What's so important on the TV it couldn't wait?" Melissa asked emerging from the bathroom. Abe pointed at the screen as footage of the four felons shaking President Obama's hand was shown, the sound of Melissa grinding her teeth audible over the journalist's commentary."
"Where are the others and more importantly how the fuck did that happen?" she asked.
"Well they are heading to Vegas tomorrow." Abe announced, "I suggest that we be there to find out."
An entire nights driving split between the three Thunderbolts brought them to the oasis of sin that was Las Vegas shortly before dawn, not that the majority of the population were sleeping, vice and gambling seemed to be a twenty four hour a day business. Parking the worn out camper van that Abe had purchased from a very shady looking car-sales man in the casinos sar-park the Thunderbolts checked in, the plan was to regroup at nine ready for the 'Time-Bolts' arrival at ten. After five hours on the road none of them noticed the pair of armoured figures perched on the adjacent roof also eagerly awaiting the return of time's most wanted fugitives.
The smell of black coffee was intoxicating, more so then the continuous yawns of the three figures sat around the casino table, watching the die-hard gamblers already testing their luck on whatever their vice of choice was. Personally Melissa felt sick surrounded by so much greed and corruption although she felt that she couldn't rule out the service station omelette she had eaten last night as the cause of her discomfert either.
"So the plan will be executed in three stages." Abe told the others. "First we find out which suite they are in and do some passive surveillance. For this Melissa will pose as a member of the room-service team assigned to our 'teammates' and get a feel for the room. Once that's done she can use her powers to eavesdrop on thei conversations in the hopes of discovering their plans. Stage two will be the 'release' of Goldbug into the Casino, we can't use the original but luckily my armor took enough information to create a hard light decoy. Once released we will fight the villain until the Thunderbolts intervene, if they aid us we will thank them and do some subtle questioning if they help Goldbug we beat them and take them in for interrogation. After we have the info we activate Stage Three which will be to establish a dialogue, see if there is any information about FACT that we can learn from them."
"That seems like a lot of work." Chris huffed, "We don't have long anyway isn't one of them a super genius or something, what if they get wise to our plans or even figure out who you really are?"
"I have a contingency plan." Abe announced, "For now we find out what suite they are in and who is assigned to their rooms. They should be arriving soon and from here we should get a good view of the spectacle when they arrive." Chris turned to look out the window before scanning the roof-top of the building opposite, apparently a peregrine falcon lived in the area, using the rooftops as vantage points to stalk the pigeons that infested the Strip. Not seeing anything he looked away before catching the glint of something reflecting sunlight off the surface, it looked uncannily like a sniper scope.
"Something is wrong." Melissa stated suddenly, "I'm picking up voices; Zabo, Myers, Black and Satana, it's almost as if they are here already."
"A car just pulled up outside, Rolls Royce Phantom with blacked out windows. Crap the basterds leaked a fake schedule and we fell for it like everyone else." Abe swore as four figures wearing suits stepped out of the car and Satana blew the driver a kiss. "This doesn't change anything, we stick to the plan apart from the schedule change everything is still on track." he added as the Thunderbolts down below walked to the atrium.
"Look out there's a sniper." Chris bellowed as he pointed out the window. As everyone else in the restaurant hit the deck the Thunderbolts watched as the figure on the roof took the shot, the projectile fired embedding in Dr Zabo's arm as the target and his teammates looked across the rooftops for the shooter.
"Huh it was only a tranquilizer dart." Chris stated as security arrived to usher the Thunderbolts to safety. "Why would they tranquilize him?"
"Oh God." Melissa swore, "Abe we need to suit up now."
"Why?" Chris asked as he searched to find the sniper again.
Abe was about to reply when a massive roar ripped through the building before being joined by screams of panic and less then stellar gunfire from the security escort.
"Because," Abe stated, "Dr Zabo is also Mr. Hyde and someone just let him loose in the Casino."
Thunderbolts #17
The Road to Redemption never ran straight and the Time-Bolts are about to learn this the hard way as they face-off with former team mates and allies who have their own dark secrets. Plus an old adversary makes an explosive entry in an effort to make everything worse for both sets of Thunderbolts.
In addition I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday and a prosperous 2013.
Impurest Cheese
The New Thunderbolts will return in the New Year.