Obadiah charged.
No subtlety. No strategy. Seven hundred pounds of iron-grey armor crossing the distance between them in two strides, fist drawn back, the servos in his arm screaming with power. A battering ram in human shape.
Abel didn't move.
He raised his wand and flicked it sideways, a sharp, precise gesture. The rubble from the Bombarda Maxima impact, chunks of concrete, shattered steel beams, fragments of wall, rose from the ground in a swarm. Fifty pieces, a hundred, each one accelerating under the pull of his magic until they formed a storm of spinning debris between him and the charging Iron Monger.
He released them all at once.
The barrage hit Obadiah like a horizontal avalanche. Concrete fragments shattered against the armor's chest plate, against the helmet, against the joints. Obadiah punched through the two largest chunks without breaking stride, his fists sending concrete spraying in all directions, and plowed forward through the smaller fragments like a tank through underbrush.
Tough. The armor absorbs blunt force like it's nothing. But he can't see through the debris cloud, and he can't protect everything at once.
Abel was already casting.
One of the larger concrete fragments, spinning toward Obadiah's legs, shifted mid-flight. The stone flowed like water, reshaping itself in a fraction of a second. Where there had been a jagged chunk of wall, there was now a set of thick iron chains that whipped around both of Obadiah's shins and locked tight.
The Iron Monger stumbled. His forward momentum carried him into an uncontrolled lurch, one leg locked to the other, his balance broken. For half a second, he teetered on the edge of falling.
Then the thrusters fired. Raw power compensated for lost balance, and Obadiah ripped the chains apart with a flex of his legs. The metal screamed and snapped, falling to the floor in twisted pieces.
But Abel had used that half-second.
He'd repositioned. Ten meters to the left, wand already aimed, another spell loaded.
Obadiah turned to face him. The faceplate was closed, but Abel could hear the smile in his voice.
"Little tricks. Is that all you have? Why not go for the knees again, like last time?" A low, mocking laugh. "Or have you figured out that the upgraded Iron Monger is beyond your ability?"
Abel studied him. Not the armor, not the weapons, not the reactor. The behavior. Obadiah was talking too much. He'd been talking too much since the moment he broke through Tony's roof. Playing with his food, monologuing, savoring the moment instead of executing.
That wasn't rage. That was performance.
He's stalling. He had Tony pinned and didn't kill him. He's chasing but not closing. Why? What's his actual objective here?
The question filed itself away. Right now, the answer didn't matter. What mattered was putting him down.
And I'm not what I was six months ago.
Abel looked at a piece of concrete near his foot. Fist-sized. Unremarkable. He pointed his wand at it.
"Waddiwasi."
The stone launched like a rifle round, crossing the space between them in a blur. A small projectile, thumb-sized, moving at a speed that would make a sniper jealous.
Obadiah didn't flinch. Why would he? The Iron Monger could shrug off actual bullets. A rock was nothing.
White light bloomed from Abel's wand.
"Engorgio."
The stone grew. Not gradually, not slowly. It erupted in size, swelling from a pebble to a boulder in the space of a heartbeat. By the time it crossed the last two meters, it was the size of Obadiah himself, still traveling at bullet speed, and it hit him dead center.
The impact was catastrophic.
The Iron Monger was lifted off his feet and driven backward, the boulder pressing into his chest plate with the force of a speeding car. He hit the ground hard, skidded across the floor trailing sparks and concrete dust, and came to a stop with the enlarged stone pinning him flat.
For two seconds, nothing moved.
Then the stone shifted. Obadiah's armored hands found its edges, his thrusters fired, and with a grinding roar of metal and stone, he heaved the boulder up and hurled it directly at Abel.
Abel's wand snapped forward.
The boulder stopped in midair. Then it changed. The stone surface rippled, cracked, and reshaped itself into a dozen thick chains that spiraled outward like tentacles. They whipped toward Obadiah with predatory speed, wrapping around his arms, his torso, his legs, coiling tight with the sound of metal scraping against metal.
"You can't hold me!" Obadiah roared.
He wasn't wrong. The chains groaned, stretched, and snapped one by one as the Iron Monger's brute strength overpowered the Transfiguration. But each chain that broke cost him a second. Each second was a second Abel used to think.
He breaks everything I throw at him. Brute force beats Transfigured constructs. Fine. Stop trying to restrain him. Start trying to hurt him.
"Obadiah," Abel said, his voice carrying a calm that bordered on insulting. "Are you afraid? Because I've been warming up."
"Warming up?" The last chain snapped. Obadiah's faceplate turned toward him. "You arrogant little—"
Abel pointed his wand at the floor beneath Obadiah's feet.
The ground erupted.
A stone pillar, thick as a tree trunk, Transfigured directly from the mansion's concrete foundation, shot upward with violent force. It caught Obadiah under the jaw and drove him straight up, through the ceiling above, through plaster and wiring and insulation, slamming him into the structural beam of the floor above with a sound like a bell being struck by a hammer.
The ceiling exploded. Debris rained down. Abel raised a Protego without even looking up, the invisible shield deflecting fragments that would have crushed him.
Above, Obadiah's thrusters screamed to life. All six fired at maximum output, and the Iron Monger tore free of the wreckage and dove straight down, fist-first, aiming for Abel like a human missile.
"Protego."
The shield caught the impact. Abel felt it through his entire body, the force traveling down through the barrier and into the floor beneath his feet. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from where he stood. His knees bent under the strain, his teeth clenched, and for one second the world was nothing but pressure and noise.
The shield held.
Obadiah bounced off the barrier and Abel was already casting. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Invisible force seized the Iron Monger mid-rebound and slammed him into the ground. The floor cracked. Obadiah's armor gouged a trench in the concrete. Before he could fire his thrusters, Abel lifted him again and drove him down a second time. Then a third.
On the fourth impact, the thrusters fired at full power. The energy output was enormous, raw force against magical force, and Abel felt his levitation spell straining. The wand vibrated in his hand. His grip tightened.
He's stronger than I expected. The thrusters are generating enough force to overpower the levitation. One more second and he breaks free.
Obadiah broke free.
The Iron Monger rocketed upward, reversed in midair, and came at Abel in a straight-line charge. Fast. Faster than before, fueled by fury and six thrusters at max burn.
Abel's left hand rose. The Sling Ring sparked.
If I open a portal at exactly the right angle, his arm goes through and I close it. Clean amputation. Fight over.
The sparks began to form a circle.
Then, from behind him, a sound. Repulsors. A familiar whine, deeper and more powerful than the Mark V. The wall at Abel's back exploded outward, and a figure in gold-and-red armor burst through, moving at combat speed, intercepting Obadiah's charge head-on.
The collision shook the building.
Tony Stark, in the Mark VII, caught Obadiah's fist in his palm and drove a repulsor blast point-blank into the Iron Monger's faceplate with his free hand. The detonation sent both of them crashing through the wall and out into the open air beyond.
Abel lowered his wand.
Through the hole in the wall, he could see them: two armored figures grappling in midair above the Pacific, repulsor fire and thruster exhaust painting the night sky in streaks of gold and blue-white. The Mark VII was sleeker, faster, more agile. The Iron Monger was heavier, stronger, more durable. They matched each other blow for blow, neither gaining ground.
He made it. Sixty seconds. Not bad, Stark.
Abel stepped through the hole and stood on the cliff edge, wand at his side, watching the aerial battle unfold. The ocean crashed against the rocks below, salt spray catching the firelight from the burning mansion above.
He wasn't done. Tony had the suit, but the fight wasn't over. If Obadiah got the upper hand, Abel would be there.
But for now, he watched. And he waited.
And he thought about the question that still didn't have an answer.
Why didn't Obadiah kill Tony when he had the chance?
END CHAPTER 41