Somewhere over the skies of Japan…
Two planes are soaring through the skies, piloted by two women whose call-signs are Warbird and Diamondback. One of the pilots reports to the other that those weird energy readings they received are right below them. Warbird thanks Diamondback for the information, but that was also what she was afraid of. Carol, Warbird’s real name, hopes it somehow could turn out to be just the weather station, but somehow Rachel – Diamondback’s true ID – doubts that. They’ll have to break below the flight deck for a closer look and more precise scans. She asks Carol to follow her.
Carol does as told, and the two steer their planes toward a huge mountain rising from a snowy landscape. Carol detects weird readings like she’s never seenbefore. But at least, they can know for sure they’re not looking at the weather station! Rachel already thought so and wants to make one more pass around. Suddenly, a red alert comes through the receivers, ordering them to return to base immediately! Carol says the call sounded like all hell is breaking loose out there!
Meanwhile, at the Yokotsuka Air Force Base in Japan...
Sunfire, Lady Deathstrike and the Silver Samurai have teamed-up and attack the Air Force together, killing lots of soldiers in the process. Some soldiers in a jeep drive towards Yuriko and start shooting at her, but they all miss. Deathstrike grins at them and attacks! She jumps toward the jeep and kills all of its soldiers using her claws.
A helicopter flies towards the Silver Samurai and opens fire at him. However, the bullets all bounce off of his armor. The Samurai laughs at this, jumps at the aircraft and slices it apart with his sword! Sunfire then creates a protective ball of fire around himself and lands on a roof. Shiro’s fire melts through it, and the soldiers inside the base immediately open fire on him as well. Unimpressed, Sunfire calmly concentrates his powers and releases an immense blast of fire on the soldiers, killing all of them and destroying the base!
Rachel and Carol arrive. Carol is disgusted and tells Rachel to follow her... but angrily proclaims the burning man is hers! She gets a lock on Sunfire, who was already starting to walk away from the destructions. Carol fires a missile at him... and hits! As the missile explodes, Rachel cheers for Carol. But Sunfire has survived the blast and suddenly stands in front of Rachel’s plane. He shoots his flames at Rachel, causing her entire plane to melt... with Diamondback still in it!
Carol mourns for her fallen friend, but Sunfire wastes no time and starts attacking Carol as well. Carol manages to steer her plane into safety and after a while, Shiro doesn’t even seem to follow her anymore. Carol wonders if Sunfire ran out of juice or something. But, as she flies towards the remains of the base, she finds the Silver Samurai waiting for her, standing on a roof and holding his swords in his hand. Carol spots him too late and can’t land her plane in time. The Samurai smiles, and uses both his swords to slice right through Carol’s plane. Carol now completely loses control, and her plane crashes on the ground below! The Samurai is pleased, and puts his swords back into the scabbards attached on his belt.
Luckily, Carol has survived the crash and crawls her way out of the burning parts of the plane. But unfortunately, Lady Deathstrike sees her. Yuriko holds her all of her claws ready, complimenting that Carol is a tough little girl... meaning she is perfect to test her new toys! Yuriko points her claws at Carol and, from the claws, fires electrical shocks! The shocks hit Carol, who falls on the ground, motionless. Believing her opponent to be dead, Deathstrike rejoins her teammates, who were waiting for her. The villains all look at each other, pleased at their work and teleport away, leaving a completely destroyed Air Force base behind.
Some time later...
The attack of the base is reported everywhere on the TV channels, reporting that 3000 soldiers were killed. Wolverine shuts the computer screen they were watching on off, and wants to compliment the villains on knowing how to make an entrance. Felicia thinks this looks like the secret is out of the bag. MJ sweats, wondering if she’s the only one feeling out of her league. Torch gets angry and flames up, asking Spider-Woman what she’s talking about. They need to fight fire with fire. Logan is with Torch on this, but Felicia doesn’t. She asks Logan if he saw what the villains just did out there. They’ve got their own power now and the power from Mandarin’s rings as well!
Tony reminds his team that the villains also stole Captain America’s shield from under their noses. He wonders what else their foes are capable of doing. Logan tells Stark there’s no way of knowing when the villains will strike next. They have to end this now! Tony believes they couldn’t handle their opponent’s foot soldiers on their own turf. He promises there’s no way he’s leading this team on some suicide mission just because Logan has a vendetta. Logan snikts out his claws, calmly asking Stark who says they need him to lead the team. Felicia angrily slices her claws through Logan’s face, shouting at him how he dares say that.
Wolverine almost loses his cool and slices off one of Felicia’s arms! Spider-Man interferes and shoots a web from his wrists between the two. Peter has had enough of all of them. He takes off his mask, telling everyone they just sat here and did nothing as their friends were murdered by those psychos. He’s not going to let it happen to more heroes! He proudly speeches they’ve been given powers, and with these powers there must also come responsibility. And right now, the Hand is their responsibility. MJ touches Peter’s hands, promising her tiger she’s with him. Tony adds that goes for all of them.
Soon afterward, in the heroes’ jet...
Tony, already in his Iron Man suit, explains they’ve just entered Japanese airspace, so he should be able to teleport them all in a few minutes after he cross-calibrates the frequency the villains used. Logan asks Stark if he’s sure this is really going to work. Tony further explains the villain’s teleportation tech was clearly SHIELD issue. It was originally created out to Stark Industries. And with Sharon Carter’s current “unwillingness” to help them, Tony took the liberty of tracing the source himself.
Felicia, whose arms has regenerated, wonders if this could mean SHIELD’s in bed with the Hand. Tony says that’s doubtful. Carter may be a cold witch, but she’s as straight and narrow as they come. At the back of the plane, MJ asks Peter when he was planning on telling her he could fire webs from his wrists. Peter promises he would have told MJ if he had known about that himself. He’s as freaked out by this as everyone else. He thought the webs were connected to Venom and that creepy black costume he used to have. But now, Peter has no idea what’s going on with his body. MJ kisses Peter on the cheek, promising they’ll figure it out once this is all over.
The Black Cat sees MJ kissing Peter and doesn’t like it. Instead, she kisses Logan on his lips, who doesn’t understand what that was for after what he did to Felicia’s arm. Not giving the kiss much thought, Felicia says it was just for luck. Besides, she realizes she started the fight, so now they’re even. Logan wonders if that means he’ll get luckier if they survive this. Felicia smiles that’s a big “if” Logan is using there, but that is what all the girls tell him. Tony informs his group they’re all locked and ready to go. The Torch wonders why she has to kiss the robot guy.
Shortly afterward, all of the heroes successfully teleport inside the Hand’s base. Peter wonders if that means they’re now in the palm of the hand, but gets smacked on the head for that dumb remark. But, Peter also wonders, if they were able to track the villain’s signal, does that mean they could do the same? Tony doesn’t leave that option out. Peter is surprised Tony didn’t think of that before, but Tony jokes that’s why he wears the armor.
A voice thanks the heroes for saving them the trouble of tracking them down. In return, they promise to kill them quickly. Elektra, Deathstrike, the Samurai and Sunfire all teleport in front of the heroes, with some ninjas as backup. Spider-Man jokes he heard that bold statement before, and the battle begins!
Elsewhere, at a local hospital...
Warbird wakes up in a hospital bed, and calls out to a nurse. When nobody answers the call, she gets up and pulls off the wires that were on her arm. Surprised she just did that, Carol stares at her hand and feels a lot stronger. She pounds on a device nearby, and smashes it apart! Carol smiles this is sweet. She now can even lift up her own bed, meaning it’s payback time now!
