Ivan Vanko leaned forward in his seat, his fingers steepled as he returned to the topic that had occupied his thoughts since T'Challa's match. "King T'Chaka, what do you think of my proposal?"
The Wakandan king's expression remained carefully neutral, decades of diplomatic training smoothing his features into pleasant inscrutability. He gestured toward where T'Challa sat, the Black Panther suit still gleaming faintly in the arena lights despite the battering it had received.
"This armor has been passed down through Wakanda's royal line for generations," T'Chaka said, his accent lilting with measured precision. "It is a relic, preserved by tradition and careful stewardship."
He spread his hands in a gesture of regret that looked almost genuine. "But we have no vibranium reserves remaining in our nation. The last of our supply was stolen years ago by a bandit named Ulysses Klaue. Otherwise, I would gladly trade such material for resources to develop our country."
Ivan studied the king's face for a long moment, searching for tells. The story about Klaue was true—the arms dealer had indeed stolen a significant quantity of vibranium and sold it across the black market. But whether Wakanda was truly depleted? That remained uncertain.
"A shame," Ivan said finally, leaning back. "I don't require much—just enough to upgrade my armor plating. It seems I'll need to pursue other avenues."
He stood, nodding politely before departing. Behind him, T'Chaka and T'Challa exchanged a brief glance, father and son communicating volumes in silence. The secret would remain protected.
Despite T'Challa's elimination, the Wakandan delegation had no intention of departing early. The tournament had already revealed depths to Earth's extraordinary world that even Wakanda's intelligence networks hadn't fully catalogued. They needed to understand the upper limits of power represented here—the gods and immortals and thousand-year-old warlords. Knowledge was its own form of wealth.
The thirty-minute intermission evaporated like morning mist.
Eddie Brock's voice boomed across the arena, Venom's presence lending inhuman volume to his announcement. "The second round of the Dragon Ball tournament begins now! Please welcome contestants Tony Stark and Thor Odinson!"
Tony's Mark 42 armor gleamed as repulsors ignited, lifting him smoothly onto the arena floor. The secondary adamantium plating caught the light differently than his usual gold-titanium alloy—darker, denser, with an almost liquid quality to its surface. He landed with barely a sound, servos whispering.
Thor vaulted onto the ring in a single leap, Mjolnir swinging casually at his side. The hammer hummed with barely contained energy, eager for the coming battle. The Asgardian's grin was wide and confident, his eyes bright with competitive joy.
Smith Doyle appeared between them, his expression neutral. "The rules remain unchanged from previous matches. The battle begins now!"
He vanished, leaving them alone on the golden platform.
Thor's grin widened as he regarded Tony's armored form. "Give up, tin man. I shudder to imagine how thoroughly cooked you'll become after I strike you with thunder's full might."
The warning was almost friendly. After all, from Thor's perspective, Tony wore what amounted to a metal conductor. Lightning would find every seam, every joint, every gap in that armor. Better the mortal surrender now than suffer unnecessary agony.
Tony's faceplate reflected the arena lights as he cocked his head. "Says the theater actor who stole my mother's drapes for a cape. Don't think defeating one magician makes you invincible, Fabio. You're the one who should quit while you're ahead."
The insult landed with surgical precision. Not only had Tony mocked Thor's appearance, he'd managed to include Karl Mordo in the verbal assault. In the spectator section, several people winced.
Thor's jovial expression flickered. His jaw tightened, and without further preamble, he hurled Mjolnir.
The hammer rocketed forward, trailing arcs of blue electricity. It struck Tony square in the chest with a sound like a church bell being struck by a wrecking ball. The impact launched Tony backward, his armored form tumbling across the arena floor in a shower of sparks.
But he didn't leave the ring.
More importantly, when Tony rolled to his feet, the armor showed no significant damage. A few scorch marks marred the surface where Mjolnir had connected, but the plating held. No dents. No cracks. No catastrophic structural failure like Xu Wenwu's ten rings had inflicted on the Mark 21.
Tony's HUD flickered as JARVIS ran diagnostics. "Armor integrity at ninety-eight percent, sir. Secondary adamantium performing within expected parameters."
"Good," Tony muttered. "Let's see how the god handles round two."
Thor recalled Mjolnir, the hammer flying back to his hand with a sound like distant thunder. He advanced toward Tony, spinning the weapon in practiced arcs, building momentum for a devastating strike that would send the armored Avenger flying from the ring entirely.
In Thor's estimation, this was already over. Tony had taken a direct hit from Mjolnir—even if the suit hadn't immediately failed, it must have suffered internal damage. Xu Wenwu's rings had dismantled the previous armor piece by piece. His own divine weapon should accomplish far more.
The mortal just didn't know he was beaten yet.
Tony's repulsors blazed before he'd fully regained his footing. Twin beams of concentrated energy lanced out from his palms, catching Thor mid-stride.
The blasts struck the Asgardian's unprotected torso, and for a moment, surprise flashed across Thor's face. Then the kinetic force registered, driving him backward several steps. Mjolnir's spin broke, the charging attack interrupted.
Tony pressed his advantage immediately. Repulsors flared, lifting him into the air. He closed the distance in a heartbeat and drove his armored boot into Thor's chest with every ounce of the suit's enhanced strength.
Thor flew backward, arms windmilling. His grip on Mjolnir loosened, and the hammer tumbled from his grasp, clattering across the arena floor.
The crowd gasped. The God of Thunder, disarmed.
Thor hit the ground hard enough to crack the gold-titanium surface. For a moment, he lay stunned, chest heaving. Then his right arm extended, fingers splayed.
Mjolnir answered the call.
The hammer launched from where it had fallen, streaking through the air like a missile. It slapped into Thor's palm with a meaty thwack, and the Asgardian surged to his feet, all pretense of casual confidence gone.
He raised Mjolnir high, and the sky responded.
Lightning crackled along the hammer's surface, building in intensity until the weapon glowed white-hot. Arcs of electricity danced between the head and Thor's armor, growing brighter with each passing second. The air filled with the sharp scent of ozone.
Thor leveled Mjolnir at Tony like a gun.
Lightning erupted in twin columns of devastating power. One bolt targeted Tony's faceplate, seeking the vulnerable sensors and optics. The other slammed into the arc reactor housing in his chest, drawn to the energy signature like iron to a lodestone. Electricity cascaded across the Mark 42's surface, brilliant and terrible, making Tony's armor a beacon of crackling blue-white fury.
Tony's HUD went haywire, warnings flashing across every display. The world became a cage of lightning, every nerve ending screaming protest even through the armor's insulation. Heat washed over him in waves, and he raised one arm defensively, trying to shield himself from the onslaught.
The bombardment continued for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
Thor finally lowered Mjolnir, breathing hard from the expenditure. Smoke rose from Tony's armor in wisps, and the Asgardian allowed himself a satisfied nod. Surely that had been enough.
"Sir," JARVIS said, his tone carrying a note of something that might have been confusion if an AI could experience such things, "the arc reactor energy levels have reached four hundred percent of standard capacity."
Tony blinked inside his helmet. "How could that be?"
Understanding dawned like sunrise. Thor's lightning hadn't damaged the arc reactor—it had charged it. The electrical energy had poured directly into his power systems, filling them beyond their normal operating parameters. He was quite literally overflowing with power.
"Let's return the favor," Tony said.
His chest-mounted unibeam fired at the same instant as both palm repulsors, creating a triple helix of concentrated energy. The blasts caught Thor completely off-guard, lifting him from his feet and hurling him backward across the arena.
Thor skidded to a stop mere inches from the ring's edge, his boots scraping twin furrows in the gold-titanium surface. He looked down at the drop-off behind him, then up at Tony's armored form, and something shifted in his expression.
Playfulness vanished, replaced by the focused intensity of a warrior who'd just realized his opponent was dangerous.
Thor raised Mjolnir and launched himself skyward, flight carrying him toward Tony in a rising arc.
Tony's repulsors answered, lifting him to meet the challenge. They collided in midair with a sound like colliding freight trains.
Thor swung Mjolnir in a wide arc, the hammer's head trailing lightning. Tony twisted aside, the weapon missing his faceplate by inches, and grabbed Thor's arm. His repulsors flared to maximum, dragging both of them higher into the sky as the unibeam in his chest fired again and again, each blast point-blank against Thor's torso.
They spun through the air in a deadly dance, trading blows that would have killed ordinary humans instantly. Thor's fist connected with Tony's helmet, and Tony's head snapped back from the impact. Stars exploded across his vision, but he held on, refusing to release his grip.
Tony drove his forehead into Thor's face.
The Asgardian's head rocked backward, momentarily stunned. Then Thor snarled and returned the favor, his own headbutt delivered with divine strength. The impact separated them, both men tumbling through the air before regaining control.
They fell together, crashing onto the arena floor hard enough to crater the surface. Gold-titanium buckled beneath them, stress fractures radiating outward from the impact points.
Both combatants rolled to their feet simultaneously and launched at each other again. This time when they met, Thor caught Tony's hands in his own, and they locked together in a test of pure strength.
Thor's muscles bulged as he poured power into the contest. He'd expected Tony's armor to crumple, the metal deforming under divine might. Instead, the secondary adamantium held firm, servos whining as they matched Thor's force pound for pound.
"Isn't this the same trick you used against Xu Wenwu?" Thor grunted, pushing harder.
He refused to believe the gap between himself and the Ten Rings leader was so vast that a simple armor change could bridge it. This had to be the same suit, just repainted.
Tony's unibeam charged, the glow visible even through Thor's peripheral vision. "Of course it's not the same one. Otherwise I wouldn't have lost that match."
The blast fired at point-blank range, catching Thor square in the chest. The Asgardian flew backward, his grip torn free, and hit the arena floor rolling.
He came up already moving, Mjolnir extended for a recall. The hammer flew to his hand, and Thor's eyes gleamed with sudden inspiration. If he couldn't defeat the armor through conventional means, he'd use Mjolnir's unique properties.
Thor charged forward, closing the distance before Tony could reorient. He grabbed the armored Avenger and lifted him bodily, then slammed Tony into the ground with enough force to create another crater.
Before Tony could recover, Thor reached out with his free hand. Mjolnir answered the summons, flying from where it had fallen. Thor positioned the hammer carefully, preparing to pin it across Tony's chest.
With Mjolnir's enchantment, Tony would be unable to lift it. Couldn't move. Couldn't escape. After ten seconds, automatic defeat.
But Tony's tactical systems were already calculating escape vectors. The instant Thor released him to position the hammer, repulsors fired at full thrust. Tony shot sideways across the arena floor, escaping the trap by milliseconds.
He didn't stop moving. Momentum carried him toward Thor, and Tony's armored fist connected with the Asgardian's jaw with a sound like a hammer striking an anvil.
The punch should have shattered mountains. Against Thor, it produced a dull thud and absolutely no visible damage.
Thor's answering swing with Mjolnir caught Tony in the ribs. Even secondary adamantium couldn't fully absorb that impact. Tony flew sideways, tumbling across the arena floor until he fetched up against one of the vibranium barriers.
His HUD flashed warnings—armor integrity down to eighty-three percent, structural stress in the left torso plating, minor servo damage in the right shoulder.
Tony's shoulder cannons deployed with mechanical precision, targeting solutions appearing on his HUD. Six micro-missiles launched in rapid succession, trailing smoke as they arced toward Thor.
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