Manhattan Battlefield - Continued
And in the next instant, before Tony could even process what had just happened to his arm, the axe changed its direction mid-flight.
The weapon curved through the air impossibly, defying physics and momentum, heading directly for Tony's neck.
Although Hela had explicitly said not to kill unless absolutely necessary, Thor thought in the split-second of the strike, the premise of that order was that Asgardian soldiers weren't in danger.
But he could sense the most concentrated danger from this armored human, more threat than from any other defender on the field. Enough danger that this one man might actually be able to kill a few Asgardian soldiers if left unchecked.
So Thor had decided not to take the risk. Better to directly eliminate the biggest threat early.
But before he could finish the execution strike, before the axe could complete its deadly arc, suddenly a circular shield flew between them.
The star-spangled disc intercepted the blade with a distinctive metallic ring. Although Thor still hit the armored figure, the shield's intervention meant it was no longer a clean, sharp strike that would sever.
Instead, it became just a blunt impact, sending Tony flying backward through the air like a missile.
And in the next moment, intense pain suddenly interrupted all of Tony's coherent thoughts, overwhelming every system, every sense.
"JARVIS! ANESTHETIC! AN...E...S...TATIC!" Tony screamed through gritted teeth, his vision going white with agony.
JARVIS didn't need Tony's explicit instruction—the AI was already ahead of him. He quickly injected the emergency anesthetic that was stored inside the suit along with many other emergency medications like adrenaline boosters, combat stimulants, and anti-shock compounds.
After injecting the powerful anesthetic, flooding Tony's system with enough drugs to knock out a horse, JARVIS also initiated the cryo-freeze process. Super-cooled nanobots swarmed to the severed arm, freezing the bleeding area, cauterizing vessels, preventing Tony from bleeding out in seconds.
And the reserve nanobots in the suit quickly began constructing a new arm, building a temporary prosthetic from available materials.
"JARVIS, activate the nanobots in my body now," Tony commanded through the pain medication haze. "Full integration protocol. Do it."
"Boss, it is highly inadvisable to do this now," JARVIS protested, his synthesized voice carrying what almost sounded like concern. "The internal nanobot system is untested. In the middle of combat, the suit might lose control for several seconds during integration. You could be vulnerable."
"JARVIS, just do what I say!" Tony snapped. "What do you think will happen if I try to fight this monster with just one functional arm? I'll die anyway!"
"If the integration succeeds, I might have a chance," Tony reasoned through the drugs and adrenaline. "Otherwise I'll just die a little earlier than inevitable. No big deal."
There was a pause—JARVIS calculating probabilities, risk assessments, survival chances.
"...Okay, sir," the AI finally agreed. "Initiating full neural integration. Brace yourself."
Suddenly, an electrical signal ran throughout Tony's entire body, billions of nanobots that had been dormant in his bloodstream suddenly activating. Because of the heavy anesthetic already in his system, he didn't feel the pain of the integration—just a strange tingling sensation.
And in the next second, he suddenly felt that he could control his suit just like his own arm and leg, with nothing more than a thought. No interface lag, no command delay. Direct neural control.
It worked, Tony realized with shock. The crazy idea actually worked.
But this wasn't the time for inspection or celebration. Through his enhanced HUD, he saw that Thor was still coming for him directly, axe raised, lightning dancing around him.
"Tony, be careful!" Steve's voice came through the comms.
Tony rolled his eyes inside his helmet. "Do you think I can't SEE him?! Kind of hard to miss the lightning god flying at my face!"
"What the fuck!" Tony shouted, dodging another axe swing. "Why are you chasing me like a mad dog?! There's a whole army here! Pick on someone else!"
But no answer came from Thor. Only another lightning strike, a bolt that came down from the storm clouds above with devastating precision.
Fortunately, Vibranium had natural energy absorption capabilities. Although the material couldn't fully absorb and disperse the massive electrical discharge, it was enough that no noticeable permanent harm was done to the suit's systems.
"JARVIS! Largest blast! Maximum power!" Tony commanded. "Blow that motherfucker's head off!"
"Cap! Cover me! I need five seconds!"
"T'Challa!" Steve called out.
Black Panther responded instantly, understanding the unspoken plan. He quickly moved behind Captain America, crouched, and then threw him with all his Vibranium-enhanced might toward the flying Thor.
Steve became a missile, hurtling through the air at impossible speed.
BOOM!
CRUNCH!
Without his shield to properly brace the impact—Captain America felt like he'd hit a mountain at terminal velocity.
His arm directly broke, bones snapping like dry twigs. If it hadn't been for the Vibranium suit releasing stored kinetic energy at the last moment, and absorbing most of the impact, let alone moving Thor even slightly, Steve might have been directly pasted into chunky salsa.
But the suit's energy absorption worked. The impact interrupted Thor's flight path by just enough—missing Tony by an inch of clearance.
Steve was caught by Tony in mid-air, the Iron Man suit's arms wrapping around him protectively. And Tony's nanobots started flowing toward Cap, covering him with several layers of Vibranium armor.
"Hopefully this will hold up, Captain," Tony said grimly. "Otherwise I'm really sorry about what comes next."
"Go for it, Tony," Steve gasped through the pain. "Do whatever you have to do."
...
Thor, who had crashed into a building behind the battlefield, got up slowly from the rubble, shaking dust and debris from his hair.
"I really need to learn proper flight soon," Thor muttered in an annoyed tone, lifting concrete and steel debris above his head and tossing it aside. "This keep-crashing-into-things approach is getting old."
But his eyes were directly attracted by a blue glow building in the distance. Growing brighter, more intense.
"Take this, you lightning rod!" Tony's voice echoed across the battlefield. "MAXIMUM PULSE!"
Thor could only hurriedly raise his arms to defend, crossing them in front of his face.
The beam hit him directly.
BOOOOOM!
The explosion was catastrophic. The whole city block was raised to the ground, reduced to rubble and vapor, engulfing Tony, Black Panther, Hawkeye, and dozens of soldiers who had been inside the blast zone.
Most of them died instantly—the ones who were too close, even those wearing thick Vibranium armor. The energy was simply too much, too concentrated. Bodies were vaporized, turned to ash and scattered atoms.
Tony and Cap, who had been at the very front edge of the blast, directly lost many layers of their Vibranium armor. The nanobots and plating peeled away like burning paper. But they somehow survived, thrown backward by the shockwave, tumbling across the destroyed street.
"JARVIS! Send me more nanobots! More Arc Reactors!" Tony shouted while flying away from the blast zone, his suit's integrity down to 47% and falling. "I need reinforcements NOW!"
"Is he... is he dead?" Cap asked in an uncertain, hopeful voice.
"He should be," Tony said, though his voice carried doubt. "That was an ultra-dense energy blast. The concentrated beam can directly annihilate matter at the molecular level—rips apart atomic bonds."
"Although it might not have the same destructive power as a nuke over a large area," Tony explained, "in a concentrated, focused application like that? Its effect is countless times stronger. More energy density than anything humanity has ever produced."
"No carbon-based life should survive that, right?" Cap asked. "Right?"
The smoke slowly faded away, dissipating on the wind, revealing a smooth 100-meter crater where the city block used to be. Perfect sphere of destruction, glass-smooth walls where the earth had been superheated and fused.
But everyone's eyes were quickly attracted by a figure standing at the crater's center.
Thor stood with one arm extended, held out in front of him. And on that arm, a smooth metallic surface was now visible—his armor's bracer, scorched but intact. Without any scratch marks.
The rest of his armor showed damage, sections melted or blown away. But the arm he'd used to block had protected his vital areas.
"Mortals," Thor's voice rang out, and for the first time there was genuine anger in it rather than theatrical performance. "You destroyed my armor. My good armor."
Tony's eyes almost popped out of his skull.
Did he hear that correctly? That apocalyptic energy blast, that molecular-annihilation weapon, had only managed to destroy Thor's fucking armor? And only partially at that? Just the arm section?
"Fuck," Tony whispered. "Are you fucking kidding me? We should just wash our necks and wait for death. This is hopeless."
If it had been the original Thor from the main timeline, the version who'd only recently awakened his full power, even if he hadn't died from being hit by such a concentrated blast, he would have been at least half-dead. Severely injured, out of the fight.
But this was not that Thor. There was one major difference in this timeline, one crucial factor.
His sister Hela was alive. Had always been alive.
And Hela's regular pastime, her favorite hobby for millennia, had been beating Thor and Loki into the ground. Always in the name of "training," of course.
Thor had forgotten exactly how many times he'd almost died from that so-called training. Hundreds? Thousands? The near-death experiences blurred together after a while.
Naturally, even without accessing his full divine power, Thor's body had evolved to survive. After getting beaten for his entire life—literally thousands of years of being used as Hela's punching bag—his body had naturally adapted, had become far more durable to take that constant punishment more effectively.
So even without actively channeling his divine power, Thor was probably physically stronger than Captain America. Let alone after he'd fully awakened his lightning powers while fighting Borgin.
There was a huge difference in power level between Asgardians. In the original timeline, Hela after being imprisoned for who-knows-how-long, weakened and diminished, had still effortlessly beaten Thor like a child the moment she was released. Base Thor had been not much different from a normal elite Asgardian soldier.
But this Thor? This version who'd never been separated from his sister, who'd spent millennia training under the Goddess of Death herself?
Instead of being imprisoned and weakened, Hela had trained constantly for all that time. Had grown stronger with age, as Asgardians do. And Thor had been beaten by that Hela, regularly, for his entire life.
Although it was almost impossible for Thor to fully catch up to Hela without some special power-boosting incident—because Asgardians naturally became stronger with age and experience, giving Hela an insurmountable head start—still, current Thor was easily comparable to the original timeline's Hela at her peak.
Or to endgame Thor after he'd fully mastered his powers. Maybe even stronger.
And with Stormbreaker enhanced by runic magic, improved and perfected by the clone's three thousand years of study?
There were not many beings in the universe who could beat him anymore.
Tony stared at the barely-injured god standing in the crater and came to a crystal-clear realization.
They were fucked.
Completely, utterly, hopelessly fucked.