"Seriously, though, I mean...who the hell actually says stuff like that?"

Melissa Gold nodded in vague recognition of her companion's statement. Her eyes were focused on the Long Island Ice Tea that sat on the table in front of her, the glass half empty.

"My drink is halfway gone," she muttered in a barely audible voice.

"Missy, what are you mumbling about?" The man across from her asked sharply. He pointed an accusing finger at her as the smirk across his lips accented his tone. "You're such a pessimist, Jesus Christ."

"Don't start, Donny," she replied, her gaze still peering into the brown liquid, "I'm not in the mood."

"That's the problem," he shouted, slamming his fist down the table, "you're never in the mood...for anything!"

"I'm sorry if my problems inconvenience you, Donny," Melissa quietly, yet forcefully, said in response to his outburst, "but you're just going to have to deal with it."

"Damn it, look, I'm sorry, okay? It's just...it's hard, seeing you like this. It's been over a month, baby. It's time to let what happened go."

"I know," she said, finally forcing a smile to her face, "and I do appreciate everything you've done for me. I don't know what I would've done without you these past few weeks."

Melissa sighed as Donald Gill placed his hand on top of hers. With his platinum blonde hair, she liked to think that he looked strikingly similar to Brad Pitt. The bruises all over his body didn't help, unless, of course, you thought she was referring to Pitt in Fight Club.

"I, well, I...you know...I love you," he choked out, obviously not used to those words escaping his mouth.

"I know, Donny," she replied softly, her attention returning to the drink before her. "So what's on for tonight?"

"I say we have a few more drinks, go back to the apartment, and shoot up until we can't see straight anymore," he declared with an upward movement of his arms, his voice raising along with his hands. Melissa laughed at her boyfriend's exaggerated movements, not noticing the limping figure that moved through the bar toward her.

"Melissa..." the stranger rasped out as he approached the table, causing the startled woman to drop her glass to the floor with a crash. The man smelled horrible, his body covered in a large coat that reeked of garbage. Rags and bandages were wrapped around his face, with a hood pulled up over the top of his head. Two piercing eyes glowed from the darkness under the hood, prompting Melissa to jump backwards out of her seat. Donny stood up immediately after, grabbing the strange man by his coat.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, man?" he yelled at the bandaged man, shaking him by the lapels of his jacket, "Do you know who we are?"

"Yes," the stranger stated chillingly, tufts of energy seeping through the holes in his coat and the spaces in his bandages. His arms shoved forward, pushing Donny away with enough force to send him flying against the far wall of the bar. Melissa stood in shock as the man writhed and twisted before her.

"Help...me..." the man gasped out as his clothing ripped away, his mass doubling with every breath he took. His screams pierced the air, scattering the patrons of the bar toward the nearest exits.

"Oh my god," Melissa said softly, recognition of the man finally coming to her, "Erik?"

Either not hearing the woman's question or simply in too much pain to acknowledge it, the stranger threw back his shoulders, the act causing him to double in size yet again. His head cracked against the ceiling of the establishment, and it appeared as if he would simply keep growing through the roof. Without warning, however, the energized being stopped his screams and fell, shrinking back to his normal size as he descended.

"Missy, get away from that guy!" Donny shouted as he staggered toward her. Melissa crouched down to where the now-unconscious man had fell, proceeding to peel back the bandages from his face.

"It's okay, Donny," she said as she pulled away the last piece of fabric from the man's visage, "it's an old friend."

"Lemme guess," Gill stated with a sigh as his girlfriend rubbed a hand over the face of Erik Josten, "Goliath..."

Deep within the prison called the Vault, Abe Jenkins squirmed in the cold metal chair underneath him. He'd been incarcerated at the place for one year, three months, twenty-seven days - "fifteen hours, and twenty-one minutes."

"Excuse me?" Henry Gyrich asked, lifting an eyebrow inquisitively. The file that rested in the Government Agent's hands was thick, almost to the point of bulging out the sides. Abe's name was displayed on the file folder, typed in the mismatched typewriter print so lovingly used by the prison.

"Just thinking out loud," Jenkins replied, keeping his eyes focused on the red-haired agent. "Can I get these cuffs off now?"

Gyrich smirked as he took a seat behind the large, oval desk. Abe was seated directly in front of the desk, chained and shackled to the steel chair. "I think you know the answer to that already, Mr. Jenkins."

"No harm in asking."

"Cigarette, Abner?" Gyrich asked, extending the small carcinogenic with his left hand.

"Not like I could take it, even if I wanted it," Jenkins replied, lifting his shackled hands as far as they'd go.

"Of course, my mistake." Gyrich placed the cigarette in his mouth, sparking his Zippo for the needed flame. Slowly exhaling the puff of smoke, the official opened the file folder and began to read aloud. "Abner Jenkins, aka the Beetle, aka MACH-1. Incarcerated for murder in the first degree, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted grand theft, and attempted grand larceny. Quite the record you've racked up here, I must say."

"What's this about?" Abe asked, frustration building up within him.

"I've got an offer for you, Abner. The Commission for Superhuman Activities has developed an idea, one that has the possibility of aiding our efforts to prosecute and jail the numerous super-villains that have been running rampant as of late. We're in need of an agent, someone with knowledge of the inner workings of the criminal underground. Through careful research, we've determined you to be the best operative available."

"Why me?"

"During your time with the Thunderbolts, you showed a true desire to turn your criminal ways around. This act of redemption has shown that you are possibly the only criminal in the Vault that would agree to becoming, in essence, a snitch."

"What are the terms?"

"You work for us for the time span of a full year, providing evidence for no less than six incarcerations of known villains. You do this, and we shall grant you a full pardon. You'll be a free man, with a clean slate upon which to start your new life."

Abe laughed slightly before spitting a large mouthful of saliva at Gyrich. "I'm already hated enough, why the hell would I want to mark myself for death?"

"Does the name Dimitri Bukharin mean anything to you, Mr. Jenkins?" Gyrich asked. After a moment of silence, he continued. "Bukharin was a Russian operative once known as the Crimson Dynamo, a villain with armor built from a variation of Stark's Iron Man prototype. After a lengthy stint in this identity, he later abandoned the KGB and joined a resistant movement under the name Airstrike. Upon the collapse of USSR, Bukharin was left without a cause. He entered the United States, only to find himself in conflict with the Hulk. He was defeated, captured, and incarcerated in this very installation."

"Okay...and?"

"We have his armor, Abe. We want you to have it. We want you to become Airstrike."

"Go to Hell."

Henry sighed as he reclined back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the oak desk. "You know, I can't imagine how hard it must be for you in here. Over three hundred of the most dangerous super powered criminals in the United States reside here...did you know that? That many psychotics under one roof, housed in the same building...as you."

"Your point?"

"Some know, of course, about your attempts to reform. Your claims of now being a 'hero'. This, so I hear, is almost like a form of treason to your kind, am I right? Well, what do you think would happen if this little tid-bit of information, your connection to the Thunderbolts, managed to worm it's way into the ear of every felon you reside with?"

Abe scowled. The bastard had him, and he knew it.

Gyrich grinned, a smile worthy of the Devil himself.

"Then I guess I'm your man..."

"Man, I can't believe we had to cart our asses all the way down here to the Village. Gill's lost his mind, I'm telling you."

"Mark, I've been saying that for years. Donny seriously needs to give up his mask, I think."

Two men ascended the staircase of the Greenwich Village apartment building, cigarette smoke circling their heads like halos. The two men, Mark Scarlotti and Fred Meyers respectively, were roommates and the best of friends. Even though that was hard to see, at times.

Fred knocked twice on the door to apartment 32, then waited patiently for someone to answer.

"I have to say, mate...our boy taking in that traitorous bitch doesn't really make me feel welcome here."

"I know, I know," Mark replied, smoothing his hand over the gel-hardened black hair that sat atop his head. A moment later, the door flung open, revealing a very frustrated Donny Gill.

"Guys, thank god you're here!" he exclaimed, shuffling both of the men into the lush apartment. "I hated to call you down here on such short notice, but we didn't know what else to do..."

"C'mon now, Donny," Fred said with a smile, "what else are friends for? Now what is this you need help with..." His voice trailed off in mid-sentence as the three men entered the large bedroom. Melissa sat on the edge of the bed, holding a wet rag to the forehead of a man both Fred and Mark immediately recognized.

"Shit, Donny!" Mark exclaimed, grabbing the younger man by his shirt to pull him away. "You know we're not too fond of you shacking up with the turncoat, but now you call us down here to help you out with another one of these hero wannabes? Jesus, man...we're your friends, but you're asking quite a bit, you know?"

"Trust me, Mark, I know," Donny said, brushing away the hands that still clung to his shirt, "but I kind of had no other choice. Missy was busting my ass over the guy."

"How's it hangin', Mimi girl?" Fred asked, walking deeper into the room as his friend conversed with Gill. Melissa shot him an icy look as she removed the cloth from Josten's forehead.

"Donny said you'd help us," she stated coldly, "so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."

"Give us the benefit o' the doubt?" Fred chuckled, kneeling down in front of the young woman.

"You know, it would cause Mark and meself no displeasure if we simply executed you and your injured friend here. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what my partner's over there discussing with your erstwhile boyfriend. Donny's a bit slow in the head, so we'll cut him some slack."

"I..." Melissa started to say, only to have her opinion hushed by the Australian's finger pressed against her lips.

"He'd probably take it pretty hard, though. He seems to be pretty crazy about you, as far as I can tell. That's why you're going to get to speak your peace, love. If you're still breathing when you're done...well, I guess that's at our discretion."

"Fred."

Mark re-entered the room, followed by the slightly shaken Donny. Meyers stood, throwing a wink in Melissa's direction. Melissa stood as well, scowling at the three men.

"I was just having a chat with the Mimi," Fred said with a grin. Mark, ignoring his partner's statement, grabbed the nearest chair and pulled it toward the bed. He flipped it around backwards, promptly taking a seat beside Josten's fevered body. He sat in silence for several minutes, much to Donny's impatience.

"C'mon, man!" he exclaimed; only to find a quieting hand raised by Fred. Gill settled back down, taking Melissa in his arms tenderly.

"It's funny," Mark spoke, finally breaking his silence, "I knew this guy back when he was called the Smuggler. He had a real bad problem with depression, if I remember correctly. He'd just been beaten by Spider-Man, and he just so happened to be put in the same jail cell as me. I'd been beat by Power Man and Iron Fist, and hearing that just sent Erik over the edge. He hated Luke Cage, the guy took his code name or something."

"Is there a point to this trip down memory lane?" Melissa asked, growing just as impatient as her boyfriend.

"Just trying to rationalize it to myself, babe," Mark replied in a level voice, "trying to convince myself that we really should help him. You two burned a lot of bridges when you went legit, you know that, right?"

"I'm reminded at every opportunity," she replied, shooting a wicked look at Fred, who simply nodded his head in happy confirmation.

"But we also know that working for Zemo is a brain-fuck waiting to happen," Mark continued, his arms folded neatly over the back of the backwards chair, "and only God knows what he did to you while he was running his little world domination gig."

"So what's your answer?" Melissa asked, pushing away Donny's embrace. She walked to the bed, her eyes focusing on her sick friend.

"Fred?" Mark inquired, craning his neck back toward his partner.

"I'll back your move, mate."

"Then you've got our help, Mimi," Mark replied, placing a hand on Erik's forehead, "for now."

The machine guns on Abe's wrists flared to life, propelling bullets at his targets faster than the human eye could register. The recoil from the firing mechanism caused his arms to ache, but if it affected him at all, nobody could tell. The jets on the soles of his feet sent him screaming into the air, his speed clocked at over 70 miles per hour by the scientists and engineers that were crowded into the large room's observation booth. Targets popped up at all angles, only to be cut down seconds later by the armor's firepower. Abe smiled to himself as he went to work, realizing just how much he'd missed his work.

"Okay," a voice from the speakers buzzed as Abe grounded his flight, "that's enough, Jenkins. I take it the armor is sufficient?"

"Yeah, works fine," Abe spoke, his voice amplified by the speakers housed in his helmet. He looked to his right, noticing the room's entrance sliding open to reveal a pleased Henry Gyrich.

"You did well on the test run, Jenkins," the agent stated as he walked through the demolition zone, "though I would have liked to have seen you implement a few more of the weapon systems. That baby comes loaded, trust me."

"I have a question," Abe inquired, removing the helmet from its resting place, "how is anybody going to believe that I'm Bukharin? You can tell by my voice that I'm not Russian."
"There's a voice scrambler built into the helmet's speaker system," Gyrich related, firing up a cigarette as he spoke, "it'll disguise your voice enough to keep that question from being asked."

"Tell me, Gyrich," Abe asked as he took a cigarette from his employer's offering hand, "I heard some things while in prison. I heard that when the new Vault was destroyed, you were fired and went rogue. What happened there?"

"The new prison was destroyed in a terrorist strike," Henry stated with a stern frown, "and lots of people like yourself lost their lives. I was reinstated after the party responsible was dealt with. Luckily for you, not all of the prisoners had been transferred to the new instillation yet."

"Lucky me..."

"So, Mr. Jenkins, what do you say? You ready for this?"

"The name's not Jenkins anymore," Abe said as he tossed down the cigarette and placed the helmet back on his head, "it's Airstrike."

"Loot, my minions," the man with the giant eight-ball on his head shouted as the bank vault exploded inward, "loot to your heart's content!"

The costumed man's flunkies poured into the vault, four of them in total, while the mastermind continued to rant to himself. The bank had been closed for hours, and it had been no difficult task to knock out the lone security guard that had been left to protect the facility. Eightball twirled his electronic pool stick in his right hand as he balanced a stack of money in the other.

"Money, is the oh-so-wonderful root of all my evil."

The four stooges laughed aloud to their boss's statement, though never stopping their diligent work. Money from the vault was tossed into large shopping carts, per Eightball's orders. He couldn't think of an easier way to liberate the cash from the bank, and had patted himself on the back for such an ingenious idea.

"Hey, Boss," flunky number two spoke up, wiping sweat from his oversized brow, "I think we..."

Eightball turned as his flunky's voice suddenly stopped short, only to see the man fall into an increasingly large puddle of blood. Just as unexpectedly, the other three henchmen, one by one, flew backwards. Small holes were present in their foreheads...gunshot wounds.

"Who dares!" Eightball screamed, twirling his pool stick into a defensive stance. He scanned the darkened room through the hole in his round helmet, looking for any trace of his attacker.

Suddenly, the man appeared before him. He was dressed completely in black, a long coat covering most of his features. A fedora hat, also black, covered the top of his head, while his face was masked by the painted visage of a skull. Eightball raised his staff, only to see the stranger life a large gun in return. A light cracking sound was heard, and the next thing the villain knew, he was on the ground with blood running from the hole in his chest.

"Take the money, take it all, just let me go..." Eightball muttered in a panic, trying to locate his staff, which he had dropped after being shot. The man in the skull paint stood over him, pulling the trigger on his gun twice. The two bullets exploded through Eightball's helmet, killing him instantly.

The skull smiled. "Justice is served."

"Hammer's gonna have our jangles cut off, boys," Fred stated as he tossed the heavy suitcase onto Donny's couch. Mark nodded in agreement as he too clicked open a case. The two began removing components of equipment out of the luggage, along with special suits of armor.

Donny remained silent as he slipped the white gloves onto his hands. The three of them, along with Melissa, had developed the best plan they could under the strenuous time limit they'd been placed under. It was apparent that Erik Josten was very ill, almost as if his very powers were eating away at him. Crimson energy leaked out of his pores as his fever raged on...it truly made Donny thankful that his abilities came not from himself, but from an outside power source.

"So let's go over this one last time," Mark began, placing his foot inside the first of his purple boots, "for posterity's sake, and so Donny doesn't forget something important. Justin Hammer's away on a business trip at the moment, and us being his employees gives us an easy way to get into his offices without much trouble. We all know that Mr. Hammer likes to keep very detailed records about as many super powered people as possible, so in all likelihood, there's info about Josten in his files."

"An' if we get the info, maybe we can find out what's killing him, right?" Fred chimed in jovially, pulling the skullcap of his costume over his hair. "We ready to rock some ass?"

"Get ready to write some numbers down, Freddie," Donny said, smiling beneath his facemask, "'cause tonight, we are three wild and deadly guys!"

Melissa stood in the doorway to the bedroom, staring at the three costumed men in the living room. "You guys be careful, call me as soon as you find out anything."

Fred smirked and cracked his fingers, "The Killer B's, back in action yet again, eh mates?" The silver, curved weapons attached to his chest hummed to life with the depression of a small button in his glove. "Blacklash?"

Mark cracked the electrically charged whip against the carpet, singing it slightly, "Ready when you are, Boomerang."

Donny was grinning from ear to ear underneath his mask, the waves of cold pulsating from his body causing moisture to build up on the windows. "And, Blizzard makes three. Let's get it on."

NEXT ISSUE: The secret behind Atlas' illness is revealed, along with the mastermind behind it! The new Airstrike endures a trial by fire! Baron Zemo makes his triumphant return! All this and much, much more in Remnants and Revenants Part Two!

LIGHTNING STRIKES

"Just what the hell is going on??"

As sure as my name is Chris Munn, I know that fans of Mike Exner III's excellent run on this title are asking themselves that very question. The Thunderbolts are disbanded, Mach-1 is back in jail (though, as seen in this issue, only momentarily), and the Scourge is once again making his rounds amongst the villain community. But worry not, all will be explained in due time, my friends...there's just going to be a lot of surprises along the way.

Fans of X3's run on the book are going to discover that the new Thunderbolts are a much different animal under my hand. As evidenced by the book's move to the M2K KNIGHTS Branch, this series will be less about super hero fight scenes, and more about what makes the criminal underbelly of the Marvel Universe tick. I hope everybody sticks with me on it, because I promise it won't disappoint.

Chris Munn
07/08/02

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- This issue picks up roughly one month after the end of Thunderbolts # 12.

Story © 2002, Chris Munn . Most characters presented are property of Marvel Entertainment Group.