The morgue was cold and still. The light was dim, keeping it dark enough to have a cryptic look but bright enough to still cast looming shadows. Silence kept a firm grip on the room, not even the occasional hum of a machine being heard.

The zipper on the black bodybag slowly began to move, traveling further and further down the chain before it was fully open. A head popped out of the bag, slowly hoisting their body out as heat pooled back into their system.

He was alive.

Francis had picked up many tricks when he was trying to survive in Ultra City. When Ultron had upgraded his drones to have heat and heartbeat sensors, he had to get smart. Over time, the archer had taught himself to slow his own heartbeat to a rate undetectable by machines (hence his 'flatline' back in the hospital room). While he slowed his own beating heart, Francis also managed to learn how to lower his body temperature. Both were difficult things to pull off and required much concentration. Yet, in the end, it was all worth it when he was able to escape the deadly Ultrabots. The Scavengers couldn't afford to lose him.

The boy looked down at his right wrist, reaching down and pressing an invisible button. The small camotech gauntlet he wore came out of cloaking mode. He switched another button and the large 'gash' on his stomach disappeared, black fabric replacing it. His true attire revealed itself, consisting of his signature black and white jacket, black cargo pants, black t-shirt and black combat boots. Francis couldn't help but give kudos to Tony Stark for inventing new camotech that could make the most drastic illusions seem real. It made it much easier to sneak into facilities like these.

Francis's mind went back to the briefing Tony had given him before he left for this mission. When Tony had first told him that dead bodies were disappearing from the local hospital morgue for reanimation, he had almost spit out the water he had been drinking. Never, in all his years of fighting evil, had he heard of someone tying to do their own personalized Frankenstein experiments. While the idea baffled him, he could still come up with reasons on why people would want to do it.

And none of those reasons were particularly good.

Shaking his head, Francis looked up, ridding himself of his thoughts. He had a job to do. The teenager began to walk to another part of the morgue, where more corpses were kept. Francis couldn't help but feel a little irritated that he couldn't have his bow or quiver with him. According to Tony since the weapons were large it would be harder for the camotech to conceal them, so they had to be left behind. Francis took a deep breath. It was a good thing he felt confident in his hand-to-hand combat skills. Francis knew that a mission can go awry at any moment.

Pushing open a door, the archer slipped into a room, focusing back on the mission. His task was simple. All he had to do was catch someone in the act of taking bodies (or trying to) and interrogate them, not that strenuous of a mission compared to other things he'd done.

Francis's eyes adjusted automatically to the darkness of the room he had entered. The walls seemed to be a pale grey color while the floor was all dusty checkered tile. Broken hospital machines were strewn across the room, their usefulness expired. He searched for any signs of movement in the dark, but the area was still. The teenager inspected the entire room and didn't see a single thing deemed suspicious. Francis eventually turned around to walk back out of the room, getting ready to search somewhere else.

And then he saw a black figure pass by through the small glass panel in the door. The boy's eyes widened.

Francis ran full blast at the door, throwing it open. A person stood before him in the hall, garbed in all black. They immediately noticed him and took off down the hall, the Next Avenger sprinting after him. They were admittedly fast, but not fast enough.

Francis tackled him to the ground, the two crashing onto the tile. After wrestling for a bit, the archer managed to pin the figure to the ground.

"Who are you?" He asked the person, identifying them as a male.

The man didn't respond. He only stared blankly at Francis through his black mask.

The platinum blonde rolled his eyes. Why did people always have to make interrogations so difficult? "Look, buddy, you don't need an associates degree to answer this qu-"

"You're not dead?"

The question surprised Francis at first. Why would the man ask a thing like that?

It was then that he realized what the man was talking about. They had come for his 'dead' body. The archer was only supposed to fake his death as a way to get into the hospital morgue undercover. He wasn't expecting to actually have these mysterious people seek out his body to reanimate.

Out of all of them, why his?

"Do I look dead to you?" Francis answered after a while, his classic sass hanging onto every word. He needed to stay focused.

The man, however, seemed to ignore his sassy tone. He only began to squirm in the archer's grip, panic taking a hold of him. "No! No! This can't be, it wasn't supposed to happen! He's going to get mad at me! He's-"

"Who?" Francis quickly cut him off. "Who's 'he'? Who are you talking about it?"

The man froze. Fear took a hold of him as his entire body began to shiver. "I've already said too much."

"No," Francis responded. "Keep talking. Who do you work for?"

The man only furiously shook his head. The archer could tell he wasn't going to get anything else out of him unless he really prodded at him.

Francis was going to continue his interrogation. He opened his mouth to speak, the words tumbling off his lips silenced as he heard the noise behind him.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, stopping right behind them. The acher stopped his speech and turned around, seeing two people standing behind him. From just one look, Francis could tell they were not on his side. They were both dressed in all black like the man he was interrogating, except they were without masks. There was a man and a woman, both with yellowish-colored skin and greasy black hair.

'They did hear about the invention of the shower, right?' Francis thought to himself.

Then, the people raised their heads, and Francis got a good view of their faces.

And their eyes.

Their pitch black eyes.

"Well that's not creepy at all," Francis muttered to himself. Even in freaky moments like this, he was thankful his sarcasm never failed him.

The man he had been interrogating took advantage of the distraction. He shoved Francis off of him and took off down the hallway. The archer cursed to himself under his breath as the man got away.

Remember when he thought that this shouldn't be a hard mission? Yeah, forget that.

Francis quickly stood up, keeping himself facing towards the creepy-eyed duo. He didn't know what they were capable of doing, so he couldn't afford to be too risky. He just needed to stay calm and be alert. He'd been in situations like these lots of times before and he always managed to get out of them.

The man cracked his knuckles while the woman pulled out a pair of sais.

Francis kept his gaze on them, waiting for them to make a move. He examined every tiny detail of them, from the way they clenched their fists to the way they stood. These people really sparked his curiosity. All of their movements and posture were strange. Their faces looked as if they were etched out of stone. None of what they did seemed natural.

And then realization hit him. How did he not figure it out sooner? The creepy eyes, yellow skin and unhealthy hair were all key signs. They didn't seem to act natural because they were supernatural. They were reanimated corpses.

"Well," Francis said out loud, "This is interesting."

Probably bothered by his inability to stop talking, his opponents finally made a move. The woman ran at him, sai out and ready for a hit. Francis swiftly turned and grabbed her extended arm, throwing her into a wall. The man then ran at him and threw a punch. Francis parried it and kneed him in the gut. However, the man recovered quickly and managed to get a powerful punch to Francis's shoulder in, throwing him off balance. He hit the ground with a thud.

The archer groaned slightly and looked at the man. "Wow, you're stronger than you look."

Francis quickly flipped off the ground. He wasn't going to let them surprise him again and catch him off guard.

The woman, who had recuperated, ran at Francis again with her sais out. She tried to slash him with one but he quickly ducked, the blade almost grazing his cheek. The archer gave a kick to her knee, causing her leg to buckle. She fell to the ground.

The man tried to throw another punch. Francis caught it in his hand and delivered a punch of his own to the guy's face.

The onyx-eyed boy turned around just in time to see the female get off the ground and throw her sais. He quickly ducked. It was then that for the first time he heard one of the zombie-goons (as he had dubbed them) make a sound. Francis turned around to see both sai blades embedded in the male zombie-goon's chest. He fell against the wall and slowly slid to the ground, a stream of black liquid left in his path.

Francis turned away from him to face the female zombie-goon. She had her knees bent, looking as if she were ready to pounce. Before she could even execute a move, the former Scavenger delivered a roundhouse kick to her head. She joined her partner on the ground.

Francis took a step back and examined his work. The two reanimated corpses lay there on the ground. Also, the man in black who had possible information on who was doing this had gotten away. To top all that off, the archer was now sporting a big bruise on his shoulder.

Francis sighed.

"Well, that was great."

_ _

A/N: Hello, my lovely readers! Yes, Francis is not dead! I would never kill him, he's such a babe and a total cinnamon roll. I want to tell you that I apologize if this chapter was choppy and kind of rough around the edges. I promise things will smooth out.

I wanted to go ahead and give you guys a tiny little background info on this book:

- It takes place a year after Ultron's defeat.

- Francis, James, Torunn and Azari are all 17 while Pym is 13.

- There will be some romantic pairings.

There you have it! Just some basic stuff to help set the story some. Thank you for reading, I will see you next time!

~ Reagan