It had all happened so fast – he’d been there with the X-Men, trying to stop the Brotherhood from securing the nuclear warheads from a North Korean weapons factory. They had known going in it was a trap, but regardless, the Brotherhood were definitely after those weapons and had to be stopped. To cover more ground, the team split up; Cameron had been teamed up with Kwannon and Colossus to cover the second sub-level of the facility. It wasn’t long before they began on their journey that they were ambushed… and that’s when it happened.

Sabretooth got the drop on them and before Cameron was able to react, the vicious killer grabbed him by the throat and tore his left arm off. He’d probably have lost the right one as well if Colossus hadn’t catapulted Sabretooth across the room at that moment. From then on most of what transpired was a blur; he remembered Kwannon calling his name, trying to help him. He also remembered being dragged into some sort of holding cell and floating in and out of consciousness for what could have been days. The last thing he remembered was waking up in the Xavier Institute’s infirmary before drifting back to sleep.

So what was he doing here, then?

Cameron Dalin was in a dark, medium-sized room that, from the looks of it, was a bedroom. He was laying in a very comfortable queen-size bed with pillows literally surrounding him on all sides. He knew he wasn’t at the mansion anymore – the decor was nothing like any of the rooms there, it was much more modern. He doubted that Hank and Cecilia would have even moved him out of the infirmary anyway.

As the young Puerto Rican man sat up, the realization finally hit him – it wasn’t just a dream, he really was missing an arm. His heart skipped a beat as he slowly looked down and saw the bandaged shoulder on his left side. He wanted to scream; how could Sabretooth do this to him? How was he going to function with just one arm? He began to tremble as he swallowed back a lump in his throat; sure he could lose it, cry, or even just go back to sleep and hope to wake up to a different reality. However, he had to get to the bottom of this all – he had to find out where he was, why he’d been taken from the mansion, and why.

Cameron slowly slid out of bed, balancing himself with his one arm. His legs almost gave out from under him, a sign that it’d been a good while since he’d stood up at all. Dressed in only a pair of black track pants, he started to make his way around the room very carefully, scrutinizing every bit of it thoroughly. The floors were tile but warm; heated coils underneath, most likely. There was a desk, some chairs, a closet, and an open door into what must have been a bathroom. The room had a very sterile feeling, not unlike the sub-basement levels of the Xavier Institute. The walls were made out of some sort of metal, he could tell because of the glint from the moonlight.

A window.

Cameron turned back around and caught sight of the long rectangular window that sat above the bed. He couldn’t see anything but the sky, but he got closer and closer until he realized that wherever he was… it was in the sky. All he could were a myriad of stars and clouds all around.

He took a deep breath and thought for a moment; had he been kidnapped? That would be odd, because kidnappers didn’t normally set their victims up in a decent room with avery comfortable bed. He wasn’t being tortured or interrogated, there wasn’t even anyone else around. Something was up, and while normally he’d have an easier time thinking things out, he was still regaining his mental and physical composure. So much had happened to him and now waking up in this strange place, he didn’t have any time to adjust.

Cameron moved away from the window and the bed and while looking around the room again, his eyes landed on what he deduced to be the room’s main door. He walked over to it and peered through the tall, narrow window in the middle of it. He couldn’t see much, except that there seemed to be a large hallway outside, with several other doors lining the path. No lights, though, and nobody else in sight.

He reached for the door’s handle but to his chagrin, it was locked. He noticed a keypad right next to the handle with two lights above it. Right now the red light was on, obviously indicating the door was locked. He tried pressing a few random number combinations, hoping he’d get lucky, but it was no use; he was stuck. He found himself almost wishing that he had some sort of superhuman ability so he could blast his way out – especially after running around with the X-Men for so long and seeing all that they could do, being a baseline human really kind of sucked.

Cameron was suddenly startled when he noticed a strange shadow on the wall outside the door. It looked like some sort of creature… with wings. He backed away a little bit before the being finally showed itself – a small purple dragon. It looked at Cameron and just stared for a moment while hovering in the air. Cameron had no idea how to react; was this thing going to attack him? He got his answer as the dragon seemed to huff, causing smoke and a a few flames to project from its nostrils, then quickly flew off the same way it had come.

“The door code is five-seven-three-three-zero,” a voice suddenly boomed inside the room. It was a female’s voice, one that he didn’t recognize. “Meet us in the command center when you’re ready.”

“Hello? Hello!” Cameron called out as he looked all around the room. “Where am I? Why did you bring me here? Who are you? And how the heck am I supposed to find you, I don’t even know where I am!”

“You can follow the sound of my voice, Mister Dalin,” the woman replied. “As for where you are… you’re home.”

Interpol in…

NEW BEGINNINGS

By Ryan Krupienski

So far he’d been through several corridors, a recreation room, an exercise facility (with an olympic-size swimming pool), and a kitchen. The place screamed ‘secret hideout’ but more and more it was starting to feel like somebody’s home. In a strange way, Cameron felt more comfortable… he didn’t have the sense of being in danger anymore. He did, however, still want answers.

“Go through the door straight ahead and you’ll be there,” the woman’s voice came again over the intercom.

“About time,” Cameron muttered under his breath. He walked down the last hallway and just as he reached the door, it slid open, revealing a large, circular room that remind him a lot of the X-Men’s War Room. Monitors and computers lined the walls and in the center of a room was a large console with several chairs around it. Standing right next to one of those chairs was the woman he assumed the voice belonged to. She looked to be about in her early thirties, had a very dark mocha complexion, and long, wavy black hair.

“You made it,” the woman said. “I see you didn’t manage to find a shirt, though.”

“Who the hell are you and why am I here?!” Cameron demanded to know, as he more or less started marching right at the woman.

“Calm down, you’ll get your answers. All of them,” she replied, not budging an inch from her spot. “You’ve been through a lot, Cameron, but I’m afraid it’s only just the beginning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cameron asked. “And how do you know my name… why did you bring me here?”

“I know a lot more than your name, young man,” the woman began. “Recruited into the United States military in your teens, then got recruited into the CIA a few years later after wowing your superiors. You later were assigned to your first long-term field mission – infiltrate and spy on Charles Xavier’s Mutant Underground operation. From there you were assigned to infiltrate the X-Men and keep tabs on them. Just a couple of months ago, you attached a device to their servers that’s been slowly downloading every bit of computer data they have.”

“WHOA, hold up!” Cameron yelled out, pointing an angry finger at the woman. “How the hell do you know all that?!”

“It’s our job to know everything,” another voice, male, said from the shadows. Cameron turned his head towards its direction and watched as a man stepped into view.

Cameron immediately recognized the man, whose face was entirely purple on the left side. Also over his left eye was a bright red heart. “You…” he started to say. “You’re from the Avengers…”

“Jack Hart,” the man said. “And I used to be with the Avengers.”

“Okay… wait…” Cameron looked at Jack, confused, then looked back to the woman. “Please just tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m Monica Rambeau, also a former Avenger,” the woman finally revealed. “You’d probably recognize me with my old costume… I was Photon, also known as Captain Marvel for some time.”

“Holy… that’s who you are?” Cameron said, suddenly a little bit star-struck. Photon had been one of his favorite Avengers when he was younger, even moreso than the ‘big guns’ like Captain America and Iron Man. “I don’t understand… why am I here?”

“Ye’re goin’ to get your answers, lad, don’t worry.” The voice was unmistakable but Cameron was still stunned when turned and saw Sean Cassidy standing walking towards him. “I’m so sorry about what happened to ye.”

“Oh, yeah…” Cameron said, his words trailing off as he briefly glanced back down at where his left arm used to be. “At least I’m alive. Sean, what’s going on? And…”

Cameron looked back at Monica, remembering what she’d just said about him spying on the X-Men. Obviously Sean had to know too. “Sean, look, about the whole…”

Sean placed an easy hand on Cameron’s right shoulder. “No worries, lad. You don’t have to explain.”

“I’m sorry for the smoke and mirrors, Cameron, we just wanted to give you a little time to become fully alert before getting into anything. Having to wander around and get the cognitive juices flowing seemed the best way to let you collect yourself,” Monica explained.

“Yeah, well, thanks for the tour,” Cameron said somewhat sarcastically. “And what is this place anyway? You said something about it being ‘home’ before? What does that mean?” Before anyone could answer the young man, however, he suddenly remembered the small purple dragon he saw flying around in the hallway outside his room. “You guys didn’t happen to see a purple dragon thing flying around here, did you?”

“Oh, him,” Monica said with a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s Lockheed.”

“Lockheed?”

“Lockheed,” came yet another voice from near Cameron, a female voice that sounded familiar. The young woman stepped forward and the sight of her just floored Cameron. In some odd way, he was starting to make some sense of things… but only just a little.

“Remember me? Katherine Pryde,” the brunette said, smiling warmly at Cameron. Lockheed was perched neatly on her shoulder, his long tail swaying from side to side. The woman otherwise known as Shadowcat looked at Cameron’s wound and an almost guilty look crossed her face. “I’m really sorry about your arm.”

“Hey, I’m alive, right?” Cameron asked rhetorically. “So..” He looked around the room after the four individuals; at least he knew now who he was dealing with, and that he wasn’t in any danger. However, the question still burned in his mind…

“What exactly am I doing here?”

Monica stepped forward and said, “We’ll answer every question, I promise. However, let me be the first to officially welcome you to Interpol.”

Rhapastan

She’d been trailing her prey for some time now; ever since she disembarked from the S.H.I.E.L.D. transport that dropped her off in the small European nation, she’d never lost sight of her. All the way from the drop point to the abandoned factory she’d followed the other woman to. The Black Widow was supposed to be among the greatest of spies that ever walked the Earth, yet how good could she be if she didn’t even know she was being followed?

The young blonde silently crept along the rooftops as the woman otherwise known to be Natasha Romanoff moved through the shadows on the ground below. They were both here for the same reason – to secure a deadly bio-weapon from the facility’s laboratory. Neither of them knew exactly what it did, just that they were tasked to retrieve it by any means necessary.

The blonde stopped as she watched the woman below slip inside the building through a broken window. She knew exactly where she was headed, and could easily catch up. She didn’t have any doubts about successfully completing her mission, which was not only to secure the weapon… but kill the Black Widow as well.

Her would-be employer had been very specific – she would have to pass a test if she was going to become a part of their organization. She wanted, needed this job desperately. She had no qualms about this mission, as she could and would easily kill this Widow. She wondered if the weapon even existed; perhaps they’d set this all up just to test her skills? Certainly if she could kill the one-time star agent of the KGB and former Avenger, she would prove herself worthy beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They were watching, too; every second of this. They had satellites with cameras that could find anyone, anywhere on the planet at any time. She’d get the job done, she was sure, but to really impress them she’d have to kick things up a notch. She couldn’t afford to disappoint them, not even a little.

The blonde headed towards the door leading to the staircase into the building. She stepped inside and noticed a large space in the middle of the path, which winded down several levels. She wasn’t really one for conventional methods of travel so she immediately jumped the railing and dove down through the air for several stories, easily avoiding contact with the other railings and slowly turning herself right side up. Moments later she landed silently on the ground below, the anti-gravity units that served as the soles of her boots helping to make the landing as flawless as it was.

She stood up and headed for the door leading out of the stairwell and found herself walking into a large room that had definitely seen better days. There were a lot of old, broken down machines and there were broken windows and damage to the walls all around. Either a fight had broken out or someone had set a bomb off inside.

The blonde crept through the dim, open space, staying close to the walls and out of the faint moonlight. There was no sign of the Widow, as she had probably gone below ground. The blonde took off running, not making a single sound, and arrived at a sliding metal door that was already half-opened. She easily shimmied through it sideways and on the other side found that the environment was very different. Instead of the old, dilapidated brick walls outside, the room was draped ceiling to floor in some sort of metal. The ‘broken down factory’ was obviously just a red herring; there was something bigger going on in here.

Across from the door she’d entered through was another sliding door that was presumably an elevator. She pressed the round button next to it and sure enough she was right. She stepped inside and hit the button labeled with the number four, intending to descend to the deepest sub-level. As the elevator approached its destination, she figured there might potentially be some surprise waiting for her on the other side of the doors when they opened… and she always preferred to be the surprise herself.

She jumped up and immediately positioned her body face-down, and spread her legs so that she had a foot in opposing corners of the elevator. She used the magnetized tips of her gloves to help hold herself up on her other end too, though she was sure she’d have been able to do the same thing without the device. Her ‘interviewers’ had insisted on giving her a few gadgets, however.

A bell sounded, indicating the elevator had arrived, and the doors slid open. Immediately she heard the sound of guns being cocked and was surprised; there were guards in the facility, something she hadn’t anticipated. What was even more surprising, however, was the fact that they were still standing, unless the Widow had opted to sneak in without any confrontation. What fun was that, though?

The blonde stayed still as she heard the men outside start to approach the open elevator, and within seconds one of them came inside to inspect. Just as he was about to look up in the blonde’s direction, she dropped her legs and grasped the man’s neck with her ankles, and gave it a quick twist. As the dead man’s body fell to the floor, the blonde swung herself out of the elevator feet-first right into the face of another guard. That man also fell to the ground and as she got to her feet she saw that there were eight more guards surrounding her, all with weapons ready to fire. She knew what came next.

Before any of the guards could advise her to surrender, she jumped in the air and nailed one guard in the face with her foot and another in the same spot with her fist. Those two men stumbled backwards while the remaining six opened fire on the intruder. The blonde easily dodged every bullet, however, and began to dance around the guards with incredible ease.

One by one the men fell, struck in the head and swept to the floor. Each one continued to get up and rejoin the fight, but the woman wouldn’t have had it any other way. She grabbed one guard from behind and put him in a choke-hold, using his body as a human shield, and opened fire with his weapon on the other men. Three were struck with fatal blows to the chest while the bullets barely grazed the others, who were busy returning fire on the blonde. She let go of her captive, who was dead now anyway, and took off in a sprint towards the four remaining guards.

Bullets whizzed past her and not a one even came close to hitting her; it was as if she could predict their trajectory before the shots were even fired. The cluster of guards still standing readied themselves as the woman closed in, and one took his rifle and swiped it at her. She stopped the attack in mid-air and stole the weapon from him, then bashed the butt of it directly into his face. She fired off a few rounds that tore through the other three men’s chests, and within a matter of seconds, she was the only one left standing. She was the only one left alive.

Before she could start on her way further into the facility, a deep, garbled voice manifested in her ear. “A very impressive display. You’re brutal. We like that,” She held a hand up to the earpiece she’d put in earlier as the voice continued, “You’re not done yet, though, Miss Belova. Or would you prefer to simply be called Yelena?”

“I have no preference,” Yelena responded in her thick Russian accent. “I am glad you are enjoying this show. It will be over very soon, and you will have your weapon.”

“Excellent,” the voice responded. “Carry on.”

Yelena began walking down the wide, rounded hallway, eventually coming up to a split in her path. Straight ahead was a wall with diverging routes to her left and right. She took off to the left, knowing it would take her towards the north end of the facility where the weapon was supposed to be. It wouldn’t be long now before she reached her destination, nor would it be long before she encountered her prey.

The titanium-ladden hallway was dimly-lit and barren, but as Yelena made her way further in, she could more clearly make out a door ahead that seemed to lead right into a laboratory. She didn’t hear anything, not any guards or any sounds of fighting. For the moment it was simply dead silence.

Yelena finally reached the door to the laboratory and made her way in, moving from the darkness into the bright white light the room was bathed in. There was definitely a lot going on down there – dozens upon dozens of computers were all around the room, along with several lab tables with various types of equipment on display. In the center of the room, however, was a large tubular device encased in glass that ran up from the ground and into the ceiling. The device had several glass rods around it that were glowing with a neon blue energy.

If this was the bio-weapon that her would-be bosses wanted, she certainly wouldn’t be able to lug it out of here with it being so big; more than likely she’d simply copy the schematics and such, then destroy the entire lab. That would be her last order of business, though…

“You,” came another woman’s voice, her accent also Russian but not as thick as the blonde’s. “Who are you?”

Yelena turned to see the Black Widow standing across from her, only twenty or so feet away. The older woman stared her down, fists clenched, her posture giving hint to the fact that she was more than ready for a fight. “I will ask once more, and then I will not ask again,” the brunette repeated. “Who are you?”

Yelena narrowed her eyes and returned the Widow’s icy gaze. “I am your executioner.”

“The world has changed a lot this past year, more than it has in the last ten,” Monica said as she walked slowly around the meeting room’s table, moving her gaze back and forth between Cameron and the holographic display being projected from the center of the room. “Mutants and superhumans have become more visible – and in some cases more accepted – than ever before. The X-Men, while not exactly America’s new sweethearts, are widely viewed as being the ‘good guys’ now, and the X-Corporation has taken unprecedented steps towards a peaceful co-existence between all human beings. Then we’ve got Genosha, the world’s first sovereign mutant nation.”

The holographic slideshow ran through images of the subjects she’d just discussed, while Monica said, “Pretty wild developments.”

“And more on the way,” Sean added

“Which is why we’re here, Cameron,” Monica continued. “We’re at a critical point in time where things can get really good… or they can get really bad. Because even with all these positive developments, we’ve got the bad guys stepping up their game as well. They’re taking things to a whole new level and even our former teammates aren’t doing too hot in dealing with them. Case in point…”

The holographic display changed to show the faces of two individuals who’d done not-so-good things in recent times. “Noh-Varr and Mystique,” Monica said with an obvious vitriol in her tone. “One tried to take over the world, the other tried to blow it up with an arsenal of nuclear weapons. They both almost succeeded.”

“We’re lucky that neither did,” Sean said. “But there are lasting effects, a mess to clean up as always. Noh-Varr set free so many superhuman criminals who are still at large, and Mystique almost set human-mutant relations back about twenty years with her stunt. Luckily it was the X-Men that stopped her.”

“So they won? They’re all okay?” Cameron asked, assuming he’d get the answers he wanted as no news was usually good news.

“Yes,” Monica assured him. “The X-Men are fine, and Mystique’s in custody. And as for Noh-Varr, he’s presumed dead after the Omphalos station went down with him on it. We’re not counting him out yet, though.”

“Okay, so two people did some really bad things, tried to conquer the world, kill all humans, and so on,” Cameron said. “Why all this, though? Why the secrecy? Why aren’t we out there helping them?”

“Because it doesn’t just revolve around the two incidents I mentioned,” Monica said, and the holographic display changed to show several other images, including a elderly bald-headed woman and an individual cloaked from head to toe in crimson. “The Masters of Evil are back in business – again – which is always a pleasure. And like I said, in the past year… a lot has happened. Including the X-Men being infiltrated by a psychotic telepath who could have ended up starting a war with all she did.”

“Cassandra,” Cameron said with a nod as he looked at the image of the woman. “She’s gone, though. That’s over.”

“The one thing you eventually learn in this line of work is that things are rarely ‘over’,” Monica told him. “Our enemies always find a way back, and start their trouble all over again. Cassandra Nova is in a coma, she’s not dead.”

“Of course her lies are still very much alive,” Katherine chimed in, her arms crossed tightly. She hadn’t been there when Cassandra pulled her stunt, but she hated the woman nonetheless.

“And unfortunately they have to stay that way,” Monica reminded the younger woman, moving her gaze from Kitty to Cameron. “We all know that, obviously the X-Men say the same thing. If the world knew that Nova lied about being Charles Xavier, and also telepathically manipulated members the United Nations, well, what Mystique did wouldn’t even come close to re-lighting the anti-mutant fires.”

“Okay, we’re still going over things that I already know, and that the X-Men and Avengers already know,” Cameron pointed out. “So again, why all the secrecy? I don’t understand.”

“Because this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Monica informed him. “This isn’t the worst of it. And to be perfectly honest? I’m not sure the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, any of them are really able to handle what’s out there. Nova’s infiltration of the X-Men and Noh-Varr’s escape are two of the biggest security failures of the past decade, right up there with al-Qaida flying planes into the World Trade Center. They barely handled those situations.”

“You don’t trust them?” Cameron asked.

“I do,” Monica answered. “The problem is that they aren’t prepared. Not even SHIELD was prepared for Noh-Varr’s escape, and they should have been. They should have had not just a plan B, but a plan C and a plan D. They didn’t, though, and now look at everything he’s done.”

“It’s not our old teammates we don’t trust, Cameron,” Sean interjected. “It’s the world’s governments. Obviously we now know that North Korea had nuclear warheads… and the United States has so many secret programs going on that even we aren’t done discovering them all.”

“But you found me out,” Cameron said, now feeling a bit ashamed of himself. Obviously they all knew, but they weren’t judging him; one less thing for him to worry about, it seemed. “I was part of one of those programs, spying on the Mutant Underground and the X-Men for the CIA…”

“And that’s over with. You can tell your guilty conscience that the US government has nothing,” Monica said. “They weren’t just spying on the X-Men, either. They were keeping tabs on just about every superhuman organization in the world. They’ve got operatives everywhere, even in Genosha.”

“So I still don’t get what all this is about…”

Monica used the small control in her hand to turn on one of the large television monitors in the room. A news report started to play and she muted the sound, but Cameron was shocked to see the headline displayed on the screen – ‘BLACK WOMB EXPOSED’.

“Someone blew the whistle on these guys,” Monica began again, “and this has got the world in a frenzy right now. Mutants are angry at being experimented on, and people are angry at their governments for covering it all up. Every nation from America to Russia to Japan to Iran has had some sort of super-solder project and initially almost every single one was contracted through the Black Womb. Call it the queen bee of shady organzations.”

“Most of these programs branched out and became independent, however Black Womb is still a grave threat,” Sean said. “Our only problem is that we don’t know much about its current activities. They’ve more or less retreated into even deeper hiding.”

“Whoa…” Cameron couldn’t believe what had transpired in his short time being unconscious. “They were totally exposed? Does the world know that these people engineeredAIDS?”

“Whoever it was that did this, they didn’t tell everything,” Monica informed him. “We’re pretty sure they’re going to trickle more and more information out over time. We’ve got to find a way to stop that from happening, because as much as people deserve to know the whole story, it would create chaos the world over.”

“People just don’t like telling the truth…” Cameron quipped. “I’m assuming there’s more, though.”

Monica nodded. “As Sean was saying, a lot of programs branched out from Black Womb. There are several still in operation, and we’re in the process of collecting data on all of them.”

“And the files I had you copy from the Xavier Institute helped a lot,” Katherine said. “Then we have Jack here who helped us obtain a copy of the Avengers’ database.”

“Feels lousy, I know,” Jack finally said, exchanging a knowing look with Cameron. “But it’s necessary.”

“You asked why all the secrecy, and I’ll tell you why,” Monica said. “It’s because the X-Men, the Avengers, all of them… they’ve been compromised so many times, their image is out there, the world knows who they are and what they do. Some people might not see them coming, but these organizations like Black Womb? They will. They’re ready for them. They’re ready for anything.” She grinned a little and added, “Except us.”

“A smaller unit, completely under the radar, with Interpol as our cover,” Sean said. “We’re not going to be adventuring around in uniforms or costumes, we’re not making any public displays or statements. We’re just here to save the world.”

“Well,” Cameron said, looking around at his would-be teammates as the information he’d been told processed through his mind, “this has really been… interesting.”

“Hopefully you mean that as in you’re interested in joining us,” Monica said.

“Do I have a choice?” Cameron retorted.

“We’re not goin’ to force you to do anything, Cameron,” Sean told him, “but we think you’d fit in nicely. Your skills are perfectly suited for this.”

Cameron looked down at his bandaged shoulder and let out a sigh. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that anymore…”

“Don’t worry, we can take care of that,” Monica told him. “So what do you say?”

Cameron thought for a moment while looking around at the others; he knew they could be trusted, and it especially made him feel more comfortable with Sean there, but could he really do it? Could he really leave the life he’d built at the Xavier Institute behind? It didn’t seem like he had a choice – if he went back to the X-Men now, more than likely his cover would be blown. Not to mention that he actually liked the idea of this new operation; not only would it do the world some good, it’d also be a way for him to attone for betraying the X-Men.

“Alright, I’m in,” Cameron told them with a nod.

“Glad to hear it,” Monica said with a smile. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, people. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Hey, they can bring it on. I’m up for it,” Katherine quipped.

“Monica, any word from Natasha yet?” Sean asked.

“Natasha?” Cameron questioned.

“Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow,” Monica revealed, looking at Cameron then back at Sean. “No word yet from her. Hopefully soon. She said she’d contact us as soon as she’s inside…”

The two women rushed at each other, both understanding what needed to be done. Yelena stared into the Widow’s eyes as the two came closer, knowing exactly what move the woman would make first. She knew Natasha Romanoff inside and out, and had no doubts about winning the fight; however, if the Widow was as good as she was expecting her to be, she wouldn’t go down easily.

Yelena and Natasha collided, and the blonde blocked the Widow’s attempt to grab her shoulders. Yelena then punched Natasha square in the jaw, and followed up with a swift kick in the abdomen. The Black Widow fell to the ground, while Yelena landed on her feet and began walking towards her adversary.

“Lucky shot,” Natasha said, feigning an attempt to catch her breath. Just when Yelena got close enough, Natasha jumped up and performed a roundhouse kick, striking the blonde on the side of her head. The blow seemed to surprise Yelena, who was just about to retaliate when the Widow kicked her again, sending the blonde crashing backwards into several machines.

Yelena looked up at Natasha and saw the older woman coming at her again, and decided it was time to start doing what she did best. She quietly unsheathed a small blade from the side of her leg and when Natasha got close enough, Yelena struck out at her. Natasha dodged the blade initially, but Yelena was incredibly fast and not into playing nice, either. The blade finally stabbed the Widow in her thigh, and the brunette let out a brief cry of pain. She backed away and pulled the blade out, and tossed it on the ground.

“Not lucky, just easy,” Yelena taunted her opponent, sweeping her blonde locks out of her face.

“Who sent you?” Natasha demanded through gritted teeth.

Yelena grinned and retorted, “Wouldn’t you like to know, pizda.”

Not taking kindly to the slur, Natasha scowled and prepared for her next attack. However, Yelena didn’t waste anymore time and again lunged at the Widow, Natasha was ready, though, and ducked down while the blonde flew over her. The former Avenger then spun around and nailed Yelena in the back with her fist, and again she fell to the ground. Natasha followed up with several kicks to the downed woman’s body, mostly to her head and abdomen.

Yelena then grabbed Natasha’s foot and twisted it, causing the Widow to tumble to the ground as well. Yelena threw herself on top of Natasha and the two women started to struggle for control over the other. Yelena was moving her hands towards Natasha’s neck while Natasha was holding them back by the blonde’s wrists, and also moving her legs upwards to kick Yelena off of her.

The two women were at something of a stalemate though Yelena had a slight upper hand being on top, but she got a surprise when Natasha headbutt her all of a sudden. The hit disoriented Yelena for several seconds, which gave the Widow an opening to toss the blonde off of her. Natasha back-handed her nemesis and literally threw her to the side, slamming her into one of the nearby lab stations.

Yelena had gotten the fight she’d wanted, and while she wasn’t above a good beat-down every now and then to humble her, it was time to stop playing games. She had a job to do, a mission to complete, and there was no one or nothing that would stand in her way. It was time to finish what she’d come to do.

“You’re talented, I’ll give you that, but you’re a child,” Natasha said as she watched Yelena rise to her feet. “You need to leave this sort of thing to the grown-ups, little girl.”

Yelena didn’t expect anything else to come out of the Widow’s mouth and would have replied with a witty insult, but decided she didn’t want to waste time trading barbs. It was such a cliché sort of thing to do, anyway.

Yelena instead ran at Natasha and before the brunette could react, she felt the blonde’s elbow strike her in the face. She came back with a few jabs in the stomach, then Yelena took her turn again and struck Natasha on the leg right where she’d been stabbed earlier.

The pain caused Natasha to loose her focus for a split-second and that was all Yelena needed to tackle the Widow to the ground. Yelena was again on top and had also managed to get her hands around Natasha’s neck. Natasha grabbed Yelena’s wrists and attempted to break the blonde’s grip, but it was proving to be a fruitless effort as Yelena was much stronger than she looked.

“I was sent here to kill you,” Yelena said, tightening her hold on Natasha’s neck while the two locked eyes in a deadly stare. “I will not fail.”

From the look on her face it was obvious that Natasha was starting to have problems breathing, and Yelena smiled at this. The Black Widow continued to struggled but Yelena did not let up, and very quickly moved her hands into the proper position what came next…

*SNAP*

The sound of Natasha Romanoff’s neck breaking was amplified by the echo it created in the room. Her body went limp, and Yelena released her grip on the woman. Natasha’s head dropped to the floor, and the blonde stood up, never taking her eyes off the dead woman. She continued to look down at the body for several moments, and realized it was truly over. Everything changed now.

“Well done, Miss Belova,” came the familiar deep, garbled voice in Yelena’s ear. “I believe you’re finished now.”

“So I passed your test, then?” Yelena asked.

“You did. The fight did not last as long as we had hoped, but we were impressed.”

“I am glad,” Yelena replied. “I just have one small request.”

“Go ahead.”

“From now on,” Yelena said, her face contorting into a stone-cold expression, “I want to be referred to as the Black Widow.”

“Very well, Black Widow,” the voice told her. “Welcome to Weapon Plus.”