Chapter 1
THE FINALS: SPIDER-MAN VS. IRON PATRIOT, PT. 1
The Colosseum in Rome, Italy, a fitting location of the final match of the Contest of Champions tournament, but with a new ‘modifications’ thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D. On top of the Colosseum was that of a large forcefield lid. Inside the Colosseum, a large metal floor is placed above the hypogeum, with two teleportation pads on in the center. And if that wasn’t enough, thousands of roman spectators fill the rows of the stadium behind specially made forcefield generators, all eager for the arrival of both the two and final combatants.
Sure enough, both Spidey and the Iron Patriot soon appeared on the pads, which caused the spectators to roar in approval, almost bring the spirit of the Ancient Rome when the romans from that time period would cheer and watch two gladiators fight to the death.
For Spidey, this was both surreal and unnerving. On one hand he was happy to be in Rome in its most famous landmarks. But on the other, he was here to fight one of his most dangerous enemies masquerading as a hero, a notion that made him want to vomit in his mask.
Finally, the Ref Bot hovered in between Spidey and the Patriot, with the announcer’s smiling face in full view. “Gentlemen, welcome to Rome, and the final match of the tournament. But, before we begin…” the announcer then mentally commanded the Ref Bot turn to the Patriot and at the moment, a small compartment opened in the bot’s base and out popped what looked like a robot hand with it’s palm open. “Iron Patriot, if you would be so kind as to hand over your elimination buckle?"
The Patriot gave the announcer a nod and complied by using his right hand to grab the buckle attached to the front of his waistline, then turned it counter clockwise to disconnect it from its hinges and placed it on top of the Ref Bot’s waiting hand.
Spidey couldn’t help but be a little worried by these sudden changes in events. “Okay,” thought the Web-Head, “I guess they want to keep things fair by taking Norman’s buckle away, seeing is how I had to remove mine back in Japan, but Normie’s still wearing armor with God knows how many built-in weapons. Well, on the bright side, I got not only got my web-shooters, but also my spider-powers to help me stand some chance, I guess things can’t get any worse.”
Once the Ref Bot retracted its robot hand and put the buckle back inside itself, the announcer went back to speaking. “Thank you, Iron Patriot, now we can begin the final match to determine which of you two is the true champion! And we shall do so by seeing which of you will be…the last man standing!” Before continuing, the announcer mentally commanded the Ref Bot to project a large holographic screen up for the audience to see, which turned out to be that of a digital clock starting at ten. “Meaning that the object is to knock your opponent down to the ground. Once down, we will start the clock and you will have ten seconds to get back up on your feet. If the fallen fighter does not get up by the end of the countdown, then the last person still standing on his feet will be the winner and champion!”
Upon hearing this explanation, Spidey let out a disheartened sigh. “And there I go again, jinxing myself.”
After explaining the rules, the Ref Bot stopped projecting the clock on the screen and reverted its screen back to the serious face of the announcer to address both opponents. “However, I must stress that things are dangerous enough as it is,” said the announcer, then mentally commanded the Ref Bot to turn to the Patriot. “And that for each your personal safety, if you have any excess weapons-“
The Patriot let out an annoyed grunt upon hearing the announcer’s ‘nagging’ about the combatants’ safety. “Yes, yes, I know,” he interjected, trying to sound modest, then process to press a few buttons on both of his gauntlets in front of the announcer, showing him that he was lessoning his armor’s power. “And don’t worry, I’m setting my power setting stun.”
Spidey suspected that the Patriot was just pushing buttons so he can keep his the announcer and the audience happy, all the while planning on using all of his suit’s power to put him don for good. Nevertheless though, while the Ref Bot was focused on the Patriot, the Wall-Crawler took this moment to shoot webbing over his knuckles, ‘taping up’ before engaging in what could be the toughest fight of his life.
As the announcer watched the Patriot finish making his adjustments to his armor, he mentally commanded the Ref Bot turn to Spidey and saw him in finish in wrapping both of his hands with webbing and took this as an indication that the Web-Slinger was ready to begin. “All right then,” said the announcer, much like the matches before, commanded the Ref Bot to fly up into the air to say the one thing that everyone, from the spectators in the Colosseum, to everyone watching around the world, were waiting to hear. “BEGIN!!!!”
The Patriot wasted no time in starting things off as he pointed his open right hand at Spidey and fired a toned down repulser blast at the Web-Head.
But thanks to his spider-sense, Spidey turned and saw the attack coming his way and avoided it by leaning all the way back, allowing the blast to pass over him and nearly touching the stitches on his chest. Once the blast ended up hitting the forcefield and dissipated on impact, the Wall-Crawler performed a back handspring, and upon landing on his feet, pointed his left hand at the Patriot and shot a web-line at the armored Thunderbolt.
However, the Patriot anticipated this and thus held up his left hand to catch the web-line and yanked it back, pulling the Web-Slinger towards him. As he did this, he tightly clinched his right fist and once Spidey was close enough, threw straight punch, aiming for his young enemy’s abdomen and intending the knock the wind out of him.
But just as Spidey was just inches away from his armored opponent, he managed to save himself by placing both of his hands on top of the Patriot’s fist and used it as a boost by pushing himself up and flipped over the Thunderbolt’s head. The Wall-Crawler then ended up landing in a crouching position and just a few feet behind the Patriot.
Even in missing his target, the Patriot still refused to give Spidey the opportunity to counter-attack. As such, he quickly spun around, held up both of his hands and charged them up to fire two more concussive blasts at the crouching Web-Head.
Luckily for Spidey though, he is alerted of this by his spider-sense, and thus turned and got into a kneeling position as he faced the Patriot. Moments later, he pointed both of his hands at him and shot two web-balls, both of which hit and completely covered the Patriot’s gauntlets before he could fire his repulser blasts. Now in control, Spidey jumped up into the air, held his right hand down at the still surprised Patriot, fired a web-line and made a direct hit on the Thunderbolt’s faceplate, blinding him. Moments later, Spidey made his move by web-zip towards the blinded Patriot, then curled his legs into his chest and planted both of his feet into his old enemy’s chest-plate, forcing him down to the ground on his back and pinning him down. From here, Spidey’s plan was to pull off the Patriot’s faceplate to expose his face long enough for him to punch him out and allow the announcer to count him out and win the match. Unfortunately, before the Web-Head could execute this plan, he felt his spider-sense tingle once more, thus prompting him to jump and flip forward to avoid a sneak attack in the form of the Patriot’s star-shaped uni-beam out of his chest plate.
The downed Patriot did not hear Spidey scream painfully, a strong indicator that his blast did not hit him, he also didn’t feel the Web-Head’s weight on him anymore and thus was no longer keeping him down. This allowed him to point his webbed-up hands downward and fired two repulsor blasts into the ground, which not only destroyed the webbing but also propelled him into the air and back up to his feet.
As for Spidey, he turned and looked over his shoulder to see that the Patriot was now back up. As such, he spun around, then ran and jumped up towards the Thunderbolt, hoping to nail him in the back with a right legged flying kick and force him back down to the ground.
However, the Patriot proved that he has a few surprises of his own, in that before the tournament, he read up on Spidey’s S.H.I.E.L.D. file and remembered reading a column regarding the young hero’s powers, more specifically, his spider-sense. As such, when it came to make his armors, the Patriot decided to add a feature into the suit what would help him fight ‘fire with fire’ when it came time to fighting the Web-Head. In that in the back of the Thunderbolt’s collar was a min-camera, which spotted Spidey jumping towards him from behind and thus alerted the Patriot by activating a tingling sensation into the back of his helmet, simulating a danger sense of his own. As such, the Patriot used his left hand to pull the webbing from his faceplate, then quickly turned and held up his right arm to block Spidey’s kick, and with his armor’s strength, pushed the young Web-Head back a few feet.
Though Spidey saved himself by back-flipping in mid-air and landing safely landing on his feet, he could believe that the Patriot was able to repel him as quick as he did.
As for the Patriot, he looked at the bewildered Spidey with a smirk behind his faceplate. “Let me guess, you’re just now realizing that a fight against me wasn’t going to be as easy as you thought.”
This remark caused Spidey to narrow his eyes angrily at the Patriot. “I never said that beating you was going to be easy!”
“Nor is it possible!” the Patriot retorted, then powers on his jet boots and sped towards Spidey to run him down.
As for Spidey himself, he just stood there in a readied position, waiting for the Patriot to approach him so he can give him the well-deserved beating for what he done though out this whole, agonizing day.