Chapter 48
"Who the fuck is Thor?!"
The Master, perhaps now only able to be known by the moniker he'd conquered from the weapon he wielded, was the first to respond - rearing his strong arm and, with a loud grunt, heaving it with all of his strength. Mercury's head snapped back to the hammer, already halfway towards him; he leapt out of the way, but even that instinctual reaction took too long, the hammer slamming into his shoulder and sending him tumbling through the air, as it sailed straight on by. Cinder watched with wide eyes as the hammer slowed to a halt, mid-air, and then reverse course, careening right back to 'Thor's' hand. Her attention was then stolen by a zhoom! coming from her side, and she turned to see Aldric gripping tightly another weapon from another world, and though she couldn't see it, his eyes were wide and his jaw clenched, his mind racing, because they, in a word, were not prepared for something like this.
While technically not him, because this man had the hammer, that meant he had all of the powers of Marvel's Thor, and while good for him, that was exceedingly bad for Aldric and the Legion. They had an assassin, a half-Maiden, and a Master who both feared and lacked full control over his powers, going up against Thor. This was a character who could box the Incredible Hulk, who had been thrown through suns, and fought literal Gods, big 'G' and all, and won!
Worse was that he was pretty sure he didn't have much that could hurt this man - not without breaking into some of the higher-end nuclear deterrents, which was a genie he couldn't put back into the bottle, especially not around Cinder. Even worse, and perhaps worst of all, however, was that either way he looked at it, this man holding Mjolnir was in and of itself a bad thing - he'd either summoned the 'Unworthy' Mjolnir, which meant that literally anyone could walk up and pick it up should he die, and the problem would repeat itself, or he'd summoned the actual Mjolnir, and his swinging the fucking thing around meant he was worthy of it.
And here Aldric and co. were, trying to kill him. What'd that say?
The masked Master and Maiden exchanged glances, the latter seeming to realize from the former's countenance that the situation had gone from bad to dire. She nodded once, eyes narrowing from behind her masquerade mask, before she turned back to Thor, her own saber appearing in her hand and igniting with the sound of a plasma torch sparking to life. The red light from her blade, and the blue from Aldric's, met in between the two to create a purple glow that reflected in the young Master's circular shield, and the elder Master's winged helmet.
There was a single long, arduous moment of a nothingness, a silence, a calm before the storm and the brief moment before every battle where the entire universe seemed to hold its breath. It ended with the passing of an eternity, the blink of an eye, and a clap of thunder.
"Scatter!" Aldric shouted, as he ducked behind his shield, Cinder leapt to the side, Mercury dove away, and lightning dropped from the sky and struck the master.
The lightning arced down from the Master's head, to his arm, to the hammer in his hand, before he thrust the mighty weapon forward, and the lightning he'd summoned blasted forth, charging through the air and right into Aldric's shield. It collided with the discus and rebounded with a sound reminiscent of an electric guitar. Despite it being functionally impossible, the lightning felt as though it had some kind of physical force to it, and Aldric found himself being pushed back, inch by inch, but Cinder took advantage of the Master's distraction, charging him, her bright red blade held low and angled up. As Aldric tried pushing against the lightning, struggling to take each step, Cinder reached the Master, and stabbed upwards.
In the blink of an eye, the lightning was cut off and the Master heaved the hammer in a downward arc, almost appearing as a blacksmith tempering a blade, as his hammer collided with Cinder's sword. Sparks flew and Cinder spun around, recovering her footing and attempting to cleave the Master in two with an upward slice - only to have him bat aside her serrated lightsaber with another zap and another shower of sparks. Cinder took the weapon in two hands and pressed the attack, swinging up and down, left and right, at angles that looked impossible for a human to make, and every time the Master responded in kind, his entire body moving with every swing of the hammer. It appeared all Cinder could do just to hold his attention - as neither she nor he moved an inch in any direction.
So, to act as a force multiplier, Aldric charged in, teeth bared behind his helmet. He leapt into the fray and chopped at the Master with the side of his shield; the Master took the blow to his cheek and stumbled back a step, having to move quickly as Cinder stabbed at his ribs. His upward swing to defend her blade, however, left him open to an attack from Aldric, who whipped it from side to side, to try and burn off his legs. The Master, however, used the momentum of the hammer to pull himself out of Aldric's range and to briefly stun the two. He raised his hammer for another attack, but Mercury came sprinting back in, slamming his cybernetic foot into the Master's back and sending him stumbling right back to Aldric and Cinder.
The Master recovered quickly enough from this, swinging his hammer in a wide arc and forcing Aldric and Cinder to back off or take the hit. He regained his footing, only to lose it again when Mercury followed up his first attack with a second, even more powerful kick to the back of his knees. Strong as he was due to the hammer's magic, the Master couldn't disobey simple physics - and having one of his knees bent and his balance thrown off was enough to send him stumbling to the ground. He, however, took this in stride, and instead of throwing his hands out to catch his fall, he brought the hammer down on the rocky ground, slamming it into the earth and causing it to quake, crack, and splinter as he formed a great crater around him.
The Legion had to struggle to keep their footing, as the hammer buried itself several inches in the heaving ground. The Master's head snapped up, hidden eyes locking onto Cinder, mouth curled up and teeth bared in rage. He tore the hammer from the ground, flinging it in Aldric's direction and forcing him to crouch below his shield to avoid being pelted by it. The Master then reared his hammer and prepared to throw - only for Mercury to leap onto his back, grabbing his strong arm with both hands and repeatedly slamming his heels into the man's back, each impact preceding the sound of a gunshot and a grunt of effort and pain from him and the Master, respectively.
Before Cinder could charge or Aldric could straighten up, the Master bodily hauled Mercury over his head, slamming him onto the ground with a loud 'oof' and knocking the wind out of the assassin's son. This jarred his arm from the young man's grip, and, now freed, he swung the hammer down in a powerful arc, aimed right for Mercury's head. Mercury, however, found himself pulled by an otherworldly force and was slid out of the way of the hammer, which again buried itself in the ground, deeper than the first time. Mercury shot a quick glance Aldric's way, and saw him reactivating his lightsaber and lowering his hand, having pulled him out with his semblance. The two shared a nod as Mercury leapt back to his feet and the three of them charged as one.
Aldric and Cinder hit the Master from the front, the latter swinging her lightsaber from the left, the former, from the right. The Master deflected one of them but found the other locked to the hammer's haft. Cinder used the man's own strength, the hammer's weight, and both of their momentum against him, and forced the hammer back to the ground, holding it there as Aldric slammed his own blade onto the hammer and joined her. The both of them using all of their might to keep the hammer immobilized, Mercury hopped into the air and roundhoused the Master in the side of the head, whipping it towards Aldric, who then pounded it back to Mercury with a punch from his shield. Mercury grabbed the Master with both hands and slammed his metal knee into the back of the man's helmeted head, before pushing him to Cinder, who removed one hand from her lightsaber in order to latch it onto the Master. She roared out as her hand and her eye were both lit aglow, trying to fry him.
The Master's grunts of pain lasted for all of two seconds before another lightning bolt surged down from the heavens, slamming into him and sending the Legion flying back, scattering them to the winds and leaving him unaccosted. He got to his feet with slow, purposeful steps, each breath coming in great, angry heaves, as he looked from Cinder, to Aldric, and then over his shoulder to Mercury.
"My -" But he was interrupted by the sensation of something coiling around his throat and blocking his windpipe.
The Master clenched his throat, trying to pull the invisible garrot wire away, only to find nothing there. Cinder looked from him, to Aldric, who was on his knees, bracing himself against the ground with one hand, and holding the other one aloft, lightsaber cold and held in his hand only by two fingers, while the other three were extended and pointed right at the Master.
"Go!" Aldric grunted, chest clenched tight. "Go!"
Cinder didn't need anymore prompting, she grabbed her still-lit blade and charged the Master. He tried to make the choice to ignore Aldric's attempts to choke him, but again Mercury leapt on his back - now using his cybernetic limbs to lock his strong arm in place. Immobilized and partially disarmed, all the Master could do was raise his free hand in a vain attempt to defend himself, as Cinder reached him and jabbed her serrated red blade forward in a precise stab. The tip of the blade rammed into the man's hand -
And stopped fast.
The tip of her blade rammed into the palm of the Master's hand and dug into it, grinding against it with the sound of plasma grinding against steel, but lacking the sight of red carving through skin or the smell of fire roasting flesh. Cinder braced both feet behind her and pressed harder - pushing the back of the Master's hand to his chest as he fell back a step. She slowly began to push closer and closer to the Master's hand, the tip flattening out, the plasma spraying out in all directions like a star, the blade growing shorter, the hilt grew closer, and her pushing harder - but none of this changed: The man remained unharmed, unburned, and untouched.
The Master, breathing heavily, slowly leveled his gaze on the half-Maiden, his expression growing furious and livid, face wrinkling and turning red.
"- turn!" He croaked, before once again bodily hauling Mercury over his head - only this time, instead of slamming him onto the ground, he twisted his arm around and rammed his flank onto Cinder's bright red blade.
Then the air was filled with what had been missing just a moment before: The sound of flesh sizzling, the smell of it burning, and the chorus of a man's screams of pain. But instead of coming from the Master, it came from the assassin's son, as the blade dug halfway into his flank, before the Master tore him off of it and threw him off to the side. Now with his arm free, he brought it around again and slammed the hammer into Cinder, who barely ripped her blade away from the man's hand to intercept the attack. It absorbed some of the force, but couldn't have taken all of it, and she still went flying. Now with one enemy briefly incapacitated and the other having had a chunk boiled off of his body, the Master turned to Aldric, still desperately trying to keep his windpipe closed and praying he'd lose consciousness before the inevitable.
Considering the lights flashing in the sky, and the thunder accompanying them, Aldric was pretty fucking sure that wouldn't happen.
He dove out of the way of another blast of lightning, having to let go of the Master's throat as a result.
Now fully uninhibited, the Master dashed over to Aldric, making it to him just as he landed on the ground. Aldric had to roll out of the way of the hammer, but couldn't dodge the shower of rocks and debris that was thrown at him when it was torn out of the ground. Aldric's new armor took most of the attacks for him, but as he felt some of the heavier rocks land on him and not fall off, he was starting to realize that, as good as it was, it had a major weakness he'd never considered: It was moldable. Compressible. It could absorb vibrations and deflect physical force all day long, it could take all the punches from the Hulk that it wanted, but it was functionally, only a suit of magical chain mail. It wasn't firm like his shield - if something had more weight or more momentum than he did, nothing on earth would stop it from flattening against him, and nothing proved this faster than when, on his second roll, when he rolled onto his back, the Master was above him - and the hammer was coming down.
It smashed into his chest.
The armor did its job: Aldric didn't feel the impact.
But the hammer's wielder had him beat in physical strength, the hammer itself had him beet in sheer mass, and Aldric's back was pressed against the ground.
Everything was stacked against him in this, and when that hammer hit, the armor absorbed the initial impact, but the hammer kept going, pressed down by forces of gravity and muscle. For the first inch, Aldric didn't feel anything but a pressure against his chest. For the second inch, Aldric's head snapped up, wide eyes locked onto the helmeted, masked face of the Master above him.
Then he felt the first rib snap, skipping right over fracturing and going straight into just snapping like a twig. After the first, then came a second, and a third, and then the worst pain in his life, as he felt his sternum break into pieces. The air was instantly pushed from his lungs and Aldric was barely even able to gurgle in pain, his chest caving in as though he'd come out of a Dragonball Z fight. This lasted for the longest two seconds of his life, before the Master brought the hammer back up, the only reason he wasn't as flat as a pancake being that he intended for a second strike.
Aldric didn't give it to him, using his semblance to call his shield back to his arm and then cowering beneath it, but that was only his backup plan - his first option came from him planting his foot so far into the Master's groin that his grandchildren could've felt it. He used his semblance to make the impact as hard as he could, and then used it again to throw the Master off of his feet and send him tumbling back to his rear.
Coughing, wheezing, gasping for air, his entire chest feeling like it was made of twigs and playdough, Aldric rolled over onto his hands and knees and then pushed himself to his feet, sensing Cinder rushing past him. He made a blind grab for her, to try and stop her, but missed - and thus had to watch as she reengaged the Master.
She slashed at him with a vicious two-handed swing, it hit his chest as he struggled back to his feet, but merely grinded across it, scorching his armor but doing little else. The Master thrust forward, pounding his hammer into Cinder's chest and forcing her back several steps. He scrambled to his feet, but found himself blasted by a bolt of lightning. It had just as much effect as the lightsaber, perhaps even less so - because he stopped, tilted his head, then turned around to face Cinder, his scrunched up, incredulous expression saying 'Did you really expect that to work?', before promptly showing her what a real lightning blast looked like, and shot her with a bolt from his hammer.
She threw up her blade, using it to catch the lightning, though Aldric wasn't aware if this was an ingenious understanding of plasma physics, or just a really lucky 'oh shit!' move. Either way, the magical lightning slammed into the stick of plasma and didn't move an inch further, but that didn't stop her from falling back a step, soon appearing as though she were pushing against a wall, struggling against a torrential wave. Teeth gritted, feet dug into the ground, and both hands bracing the blade, Cinder found herself being pushed back. She growled, and but a moment later, the fiery aura of a butterfly's wing sparked to life around her left eye. She used this power to shove forward, breaking the stream of lightning and stunning the Master.
Cinder then bolted forward, one moment ten feet away from the Master, the next mere inches away from him, her blade fading away and finding itself on her hip, as a new, glass dagger appeared in a reverse grip in her hands. Aldric frowned, his hazy mind not able to come up with a reason for why she'd be abandoning the lightsaber, until she stabbed upwards - and the blade not of burning fire but of cutting glass, and Aldric sensed it cut into the gaps in the man's armor, and then continue forward, slicing through his armor and cutting into his flesh, blood soon following, flowing out of the wound, down Cinder's glass blade and onto her gloved hand.
Okay... Aldric grunted, you know what? That's right... Fucker does get stabbed a lot. He hauled his broken body to his feet, clipping the hilt of his lightsaber to his belt, then cupping his now free hand. Time to dust off the old glove. He thought, as a single image appeared in his mind, and his Power Glove responded, creating a tomahawk.
He charged back into the fray as the Master smashed his elbow into the side of Cinder's head, and then hit her chest with the hammer with a vicious back-swing. She went sailing towards Aldric, who hopped up, dug his feet into the ground, and caught Cinder with his shield-arm. He spun into her momentum, spinning her around then throwing her at the Master. She adapted quickly enough, spawning a second dagger and bellowing loudly as she flew back into battle. The first dagger came down on Mjolnir, shattering into hundreds of pieces and causing his arm to droop, just enough so that her up-swing sliced open a gash in his strong arm.
The Master growled and again made to backhand Cinder, but she was pushed out of the way by Aldric's semblance, appearing to slide across the ground as though pulled by wires. The Master over-extended himself, hammer dragging along the ground as he stumbled forward. He failed to regain his footing or his balance when Aldric reached him, and as such he found a tomahawk buried several inches into his shoulder, so deep that it was stuck fast, Aldric having to repeatedly jerk it out with the sucking sound of air entering a particularly deep and bloody wound.
The Master, however, wouldn't let this go unavenged - and as Aldric struggled to rip and tear the blade out of his back, the older Master came up with a powerful, lightning-infused left hook. He buried it into Aldric's chest, his armor took most of it, but that didn't eliminate the pain of his broken ribs shifting as the fist pressed into them and pushed them into places they weren't meant to go, nor did it remove the fact that vibranium, as were all metals, was conductive - and since Aldric had covered himself in it, this blow hurt more than it may have in any other situation.
With a blast of electricity and a small shockwave, Aldric stumbled back several feet, coughing and wheezing, blood spraying out with each breath. Cinder charged in, burying a blade into the Master's back, but she received a similar fate - the Master spinning around and smacking her with the side of his hammer. Aldric actually saw Cinder's aura flicker at this, as she landed - but what he saw next was what surprised him, as Mercury, one arm pressed firmly against his nearly bisected stomach, leapt over her tumbling body and sprinted into the fray. He fell to his knees and slid under a wide, lumbering swing from the Master, and then hopped back up, delivering three swift roundhouses, before spinning into a back-kick that landed on the man's stomach. This final kick detonated in a minor explosion, which he used to soar out of the way of the next attack, flipping over backwards and landing, already coiled up like a spring.
Aldric stumbled over to Cinder as Mercury kept the Master busy. The hammer-wielding titan seemed unable to handle Mercury's speed, but that didn't eliminate Mercury's grievous injury; truly, the only reason Mercury was even standing was because two miracles had combined into one: The wound had been cauterized by Cinder's blade, and it somehow hadn't carved into his spinal cord. Mercury ducked under another swing from the Master, before reaching up, grabbing the back of the man's head, and jerking it down, ramming his knee into the Master's nose twice before finishing it off with another roundhouse. The Master stumbled off to the side, but his recovery had him slam the hammer into the ground, spin on it like an axle, and once he was facing Mercury, he tore it back out and began twirling it by the lanyard. Mercury fell back a step, arms held up and knees bent in a defensive stance, but that didn't even remotely prepare him for the Master's attack, which came when he brought the revolving hammer down onto the ground and sent a shower of rocks at Mercury, all of them blasting towards him at muzzle velocities.
Mercury cursed and jumped out of the way, but in the second it took him to do so he'd already been pelted by a dozen jagged, high-speed stones, and compounded with the damage he'd already taken earlier, he had no aura to take the impacts for him - he was left appearing as though he'd played chicken with a machine gun, blood now freely flowing down his arms and the still fleshy parts of his legs, and more than a few holes in his chest joining the missing chunk in his abdomen.
Aldric reached Cinder and helped her to her feet, the both of them gasping for air as they exchanged a glance, then turned to the battle raging between Mercury and the Master.
"Can't beat him senseless... Can't burn him... Can't electrocute or freeze him... Can cut him, but we have to get close to do it." Aldric wheezed, his helmet feeling a lot hotter than it had been moments ago.
"We need to get the hammer away from him."
"I shrink it, it arguably becomes deadlier. I grow it, and he still lifts it, we're even more worse off as he'll have a magical mallet. We get it away from him, he summons it right back." Aldric countered, as Mercury continued dodging flying rocks, barely keeping ahead of them.
Cinder nodded, frowning through a wave of pain as she pressed her hand against her own ribs, hissing. "Your axe is still in his shoulder, and he's barely noticing."
"He's Thor. Fucking god of thunder. Of course an axe in his back won't slow him down. Not noticeably." Aldric realized as the rocks slowed down, what Mercury was doing: He was forcing the Master to make a small crater around him, until it was so deep that the rocks he'd shoot out would just hit the edge of the crater, or until he'd just ran out of them entirely, or, finally, just got bored.
The lattermost seemed to be what happened, as the Master stood to his feet, catching the hammer by the haft and eying down the heavily breathing Mercury. Mercury slid to a halt and returned his arm to his side, wincing in pain, now growing pale from the blood leaking out of his body, one of his wounds so deep and so grievous that Aldric could see the meat, and below that even a spot or two of his bone.
"What fuels the hammer?" Cinder asked, abruptly.
Aldric blinked, but then realized what she was getting at: If the hammer was inherently magical, maybe she could absorb its power, and steal it from the Master. Now, as much as that would solve the immediate problem, that also carried the long term consequence of Aldric eventually having to deal with Lady Thor, and nothing was worth that.
So Aldric shook his head, "believe it or not, I wasn't the biggest Thor fan. I saw the movies, but unless he showed up in the big crossovers, I didn't read his stuff." He huffed, as the Master began approaching Mercury, with a leisurely pace. "I know it's something called 'Odinforce', and I know that it's distinct from magic." He didn't know either of those things, because something else tickled his mind that Odinforce was where Thor got his power, not the hammer. "Your better bet would be to drink from the source." But even that terrified Aldric, as that meant she'd have Master powers to amplify her Maiden abilities, both what she had and what she would get.
Of course, the alternative was death.
Just something he'd have to deal with, he rationalized.
Cinder nodded, "could you distract him?"
"Not without help... And we need to relieve Mercury about now-ish." He said, as Mercury fell back onto the defensive, ducking and dodging the lumbering swings and kicking only when he had the chance to. "There were people way stronger than us who fought Thor and still lost, and my little telekinesis trick won't work again." Which also eliminated the possibility of creating a blood clot and killing him the American way: With clogged arteries.
"So it would need the both of us."
"And we're each half dead." Aldric said, ribs grinding against eachother, as Mercury slipped up, and it cost him a hammer strike to his knee - pulverizing his leg in a shower of sparks. "But put those two halves together, and that means we're fully dead, and that means he can't kill us - now come on!" He ripped his bolter off of his belt and as he and Cinder charged, he fired.
The bullets slammed into the Master's back and exploded, the penetration of the rounds doing more damage than their explosions, telling Aldric that his budding idea of trying to burn him from the inside out with his lightsaber wouldn't work: The only way to reliably injure this man was to either overpower him, which neither of them could do, or to cut him, which was risky as all get out. So Aldric continued to fire until he reached the Master, before clipping the gun to his hip and dropping to his knees - sliding across the rocky ground as the Master's hammer swung right over him. The Master recovered fast, however - completing his swing and turning it into a rearing of the hammer for a titanic downward strike, like that of a mallet on an anvil. Aldric's response was to bring his shield to bear as he slid to a halt, and the man brought the hammer down.
And here, Aldric confirmed the differences between the suit and the shield. Where the suit deformed and yielded like chain mail, the shield was firm and unyielding, which meant once it absorbed the impact, physics dictated it had only one place to go: Right back at him. The hammer slammed onto the shield with the thunderous, deafening sound of a bell being struck. Aldric felt the shield press into his forearm as the man's superior strength worked against him, but that lasted for only a moment - as the energy and the force of the impact was caught by the vibranium and directed back outwards. The hammer recoiled violently and the man was sent flying as, expanding outwards in a mighty dome, was a visible shockwave, kicking up dust, loose rocks and debris, and even the Master himself as it blasted outwards, the only noise audible being that of a deeply ringing bell.
When the shockwave finally died down, everything inside of ten meters that hadn't been nailed down or prepared for the strike had been thrown to the winds, leaving a wide clearing that bore few to no scars of the battle raging. Aldric almost stood to his feet, before he sensed Cinder sprinting right towards him, and he realized what she wanted. She hopped up onto the shield, and the moment he felt her foot touch down, he thrust forward, launching her faster than a rocket towards the Master. Still stunned and seeing stars from having his attack reflected as it had been, the Master hadn't had any time at all to recover or prepare for the flying Fall Maiden - whose hand was outstretched, a swirling red vortex cupped inside of it and a beetle-like bug of Grimm appearance wriggled in her palm.
She landed on the Master with an appearance of a predatory feline pouncing on his prey, and instantly a viscuous, fibrous, oily-black substance shot out from the bug and latched onto the man's face. Aldric scrambled towards the two, clawing at the ground with all four limbs as he tried to gain his footing and some traction, before giving up entirely and flinging himself at them with his semblance - soon landing on the man's hammer-arm and roughly planting his shield on it, pinning it to the ground as Cinder growled, one eye ablaze with magical power, the oily fibers snaked under the man's helmet, and the man himself scowled at the both of them.
But something was wrong.
For a moment, nothing happened, but after that moment passed, Cinder's frown of determination and anger slowly melted away to one of confusion and indignation. Aldric felt the muscles in the man's strong arm clenching, and he had to struggle with all of his might to keep him from moving, and he chanced a look at the hammer, seeing the triquetra on its side, but before he could focus on it, the Master's scowl turned to a slowly building bellow, his struggle growing, as though his only plan to win this struggle was the Goku plan: Shout really loud.
"Wh - what -" Cinder managed to breathe, before the man smashed her in the face with a left hook.
Now that she was no longer straddling him, pinning his legs to the ground, he reached over with his left arm and roughly grabbed the back of Aldric's head, the younger Master feeling the roots of his hair threatening to give out. The Master yanked hard, tearing Aldric off of his strong-arm, and then wrapping his legs around Aldric's neck in an MMA leglock. Aldric felt his lungs instantly start begging for oxygen he couldn't supply, and with his shield no longer in his possession, he did the first thing that came to mind: And bit. He bit so hard that he actually tore through the man's pants and drew blood from his calf, though he paid for it in feeling one of his teeth crack and his jaw flare up in pain. The Master grunted in pain and released Aldric, who tumbled away - and instantly realized his mistake.
As Aldric hauled himself to his feet, the Master did the same - hammer clenched tightly in his right hand, held forward, threateningly, and the scorched red white and blue shield settling into place on his left, held closer to his chest, defensively, and the visible portion of his face twisted into anger. But Aldric wasn't focused on the shield itself, but rather the fact that it was now on the man's arm. Had he been seeing things, or did he see it float there?
Regardless of what he'd seen, the Master now had Mjolnir and Old Glory, and he showed this off by intimidatingly banging Mjolnir onto the shield twice, each one with another powerful shockwave. Aldric let out a long, exhausted breath of air, shaking his head. He sensed Cinder several meters behind him, eyes unfocused as she tried to get back to her hands and knees, Mercury was even further than her - having been picked up by the first shockwave and now firmly unconscious, resting against a bolder. Aldric was half dead, could feel his ribs poking into his lungs, and now the goddamn Master, who through sheer factor of being older than Aldric was, as far as he understood, supposed to be stronger than him, was armed with the strongest weapon and the greatest shield in comic history.
Aldric gulped, but fell into a defensive stance regardless, his mind going to those two pouches on his belt he desperately didn't want to dig into.
But was starting to realize he may have to.
This man had proven himself worthy at least of the comparison. He'd shrugged off lightsabers, gigantic bullets, knives, swords, tomahawks, arrows, and now had resisted Cinder's Maiden-killer. He had one more idea he wanted to try, but he'd have to buy time for one of the others to wake up - because he couldn't try it with this man's attention on him, and if this idea didn't work, he'd have to go nuclear. He would absolutely have to, there would be no other option.
Aldric cracked his neck, let out a quick breath of air, and then charged the Master. The Master, likely believing himself to be holding all of the advantages, let Aldric come to him. The younger Master leapt into the air with his left arm reared, roaring out in defiance before he thrust that fist forward, it colliding with the Master's stolen shield with a much weaker toll. Aldric had to yank himself down to the ground with his semblance to avoid the Master's horizontal swing, and then had to leap out of the way to avoid his vertical followup. Aldric formed a hardlight knife in his hand and slashed at the Master's leg as he tumbled around him, before jumping to his feet and trailing that knife up the man's back. The Master barked out in pain, and it only grew worse as Aldric reached the apex of his jump, and locked his free hand around the tomahawk sticking out of the Master's shoulder. Aldric planted both feet on the man's back and then ripped the hatchet out of the man with a wet shluck, before kicking off of him.
The Master got the last laugh, however - managing to ping Aldric's leg with his hammer as he spun around in a rage. Aldric was sent spinning wildly off course, hitting the ground with a grunt of pain and tumbling to a halt. Aldric was almost again on the receiving end of another chest-crushing blow, but he rolled out of the way of that, resulting in the hammer burying itself into the ground. This also had the unfortunate side effect of causing an earthquake, this one so violent that Aldric couldn't get to his feet in time to avoid being punted by the Master. The impact itself didn't hurt at all - the sweet, sweet vibranium suit took the brunt of it - but rather the man's boot digging into Aldric's loose ribs was what caused him to scream out in pain.
I should really... Aldric thought, as his back hit a particularly sharp boulder, and it crumbled underneath him. Really rethink my whole... He groaned, unsteadily getting to his feet. Moratorium on senzu beans... Knife held in a reverse grip in one hand, and tomahawk held in the other, Aldric raised them both, the former in a defensive stance, the latter offensively, as the Master strode towards him, arms swinging with each step. Solve every problem I've had, really. He thought, using his semblance to force his ribs back into place before they shredded his chest wall any further.
Aldric and the Master reengaged. The Master swung his hammer at the mandalorian helmet on Aldric's head, Aldric used his knife and planted it on the hammer's haft, locking it in place as he brought the tomahawk down on the shield. Taking a sheet from Ruby and Qrow's books, Aldric didn't strike the center of the shield so much as he hooked the blade around its edge, and as he began to lose the test of strength against the Master, he wrenched the hatched downwards - pulling the shield aside and opening up the man's chest to attack. Aldric then let the hammer slide off of his knife and nimbly dodged it coming down next to him; he used his semblance to flip his knife grip around to a more traditional one and then stabbed upwards, cutting through the Master's armor and sliding it in between his ribs.
The Master promptly slammed his head onto Aldric's, stunning the younger of the two and causing him to stumble back. But as the Master turned his attention to the knife in his chest, Aldric forced himself back into the fray - throwing himself at the Master, pounding his face with a left hook and hacking at his strong arm with a chop of the tomahawk. The Master responded by digging the side of Aldric's shield into his flank, causing him to stumble to the side, where the Master dug his hammer into Aldric's damaged ribs. Tears welling up in his eyes and his teeth gritting, Aldric kneed the Master in the gut, causing him to double over - opening his back to a chop from the hatchet. The Master jerked himself back upright, smashing the back of his head into Aldric's jaw and causing him to stumble back, which let him one-two-punch him with a jab from the shield and an upward swing from the hammer.
Aldric regained his footing and caught another shield punch, the edge of his scorched defending disc settling into his mechanical hand. The Master then thrust his hammer at Aldric's head, but Aldric used his semblance to redirect it, the hammer just dragging along his nose with an otherworldly humming sound that Aldric could hear in his skull. He then caught the man's wrist with his organic arm, and now the two were caught in another test of strength, Aldric only able to keep him from winning with the undivided attention of his semblance. The both of them were covered in blood, equal parts theirs and their enemy's, the muscles in their arms bulging, chests clenched tightly, teeth bared, and their arms shaking from the effort as they struggled against eachother.
Now, unable to kick him without risking his balance, and unable to try something clever with his semblance without letting the Master's arms go, Aldric had only one method of attacking him. The Master thought of something similar, and the both of them reared their heads at the same time, before bringing them on home, helmet colliding with helmet with an iron bang. Once, twice, three times they headbutted eachother - Aldric's vision beginning to blur at the edges, but the Master's helmet beginning to dent! That alone got a lopsided grin out of the young Master, but that didn't solve the problem of how he'd keep going like this - eventually he'd knock himself out or give him a horrendous concussion.
Fortunately, that didn't end up being a problem: Cinder came in, kicking the Master in the side of the head and sending him sliding across the ground after a brief explosion. She and Aldric retreated back several steps, the both of them breathing heavily, as the Master labored back to his feet, and struggled to remove the weapons from his back and chest.
Aldric stooped down low, his entire body feeling like a bruise, and scooped the shield off of the ground, sliding it back onto his fleshy arm where it belonged. "So... Well run dry?" He rasped.
"I don't know." Cinder huffed, voice muffled by her own disguise. "I... There was nothing like there was with the Fall Maiden. No wellspring to drink from."
Aldric's eyes snapped over to the hammer in the man's hands. "Could be the hammer's siphoning it off. Lacking literally everything that gives it its powers, it's using him to fuel it." He swallowed, "or maybe he had to dump everything into it, and he doesn't have anymore... Or Mjolnir and the Norse Thor really did exist, and he just found it." At this point, he was open to anything. "Got any other ideas?" He huffed, as the Master dropped Aldric's blood-covered knife to the ground, and began reaching for the tomahawk jutting out of his back.
Cinder shook her head, "we know how to damage him... But we are not doing enough." But, she didn't add, they couldn't run, either - they needed the relic.
"I've got one last idea." Aldric said, attracting her attention. "Plus side... It's way more powerful than a lightsaber, and I don't need to be close to him to use it."
Cinder frowned, "down side?"
"I literally have no idea if it will work or what will happen to me afterwards, if it does. May die, may just fall out, somewhere in between..."
"I don't..." Cinder frowned, gaze shifting to Mercury, then back to him. "Can you avoid it?"
"Not without pulling on something even fucking worse." Aldric responded. "I just need you to distract him, until I give the signal." He said, handing Cinder the shield.
Cinder gulped, and nodded, accepting the shield. "I can do that." She said, affixing the shield to her left arm, giving it a brief, appraising look, as the tomahawk was torn out of the Master's back. "It's lighter than I thought it would be."
"You want to be technical, it's made of light."
"Shut up, Aldric." Cinder groaned, "what's the signal?"
"You'll know, lady."
She rolled her eyes before launching herself back into the fray.
Alright... Aldric thought, cupping both hands next to his hip. Plasma. Really dense... Plasma. Holy fuck I hope this works... He thought, his body becoming enshrouded in the silver fire of his magic.
Cinder reached the Master and used her shield to intercept a vicious hammer blow. One eye aglow with magical power, she pushed the hammer away and hit him in the gut with a straight right. She ducked under a sloppy swing from the Master's hammer and chopped at the injuries on his strong-arm, her impact resonating with a gout of fire, and managing to stun him enough such that he dropped the hammer, hand spasming. Cinder followed this up by broadsiding him with the flat of the shield, creating enough space between them that she had the chance to grab at the hammer.
Unfortunately for her, her hand slid right off the grip - it so slick with the Master's blood that she had no traction. With no time to try to take it again, she ducked behind the shield in time for the Master to ram his fist into the scorched star on its center. Cinder was pushed briefly to her knees, but was able to completely avoid the man's followup attack, and counter with several quick strikes on the freely bleeding points on his body. She had cocked her fist, wreathed in flame, for an attack on his face, but gasped and abandoned that idea when she heard the hammer dig itself out of the ground and come flying towards her. She hopped to the side and avoided Mjolnir, which settled back in the Master's hand; he spun into the momentum it made and then threw it at her with all his might.
It crossed the distance between the two in a second and slammed onto the shield with another explosive shockwave; Cinder was sent skidding across the ground as it hung their, pushing against her shield. She braced both legs behind her and pushed both hands against the shield, struggling against the might and momentum of the hammer, but unable to win out - it eventually carrying her with it and sending her flying. She, the shield, and the hammer hit the ground, it began to shake and the Master charged towards her.
Cinder struggled to get back to her feet. She was barely able to crawl out of the way of another attack, and had to roll onto her back and cower behind the shield to protect against a third. It was then, however, she realized that the ground was still shaking despite the hammer having been stolen out of it. Then, chancing a peek from beneath the shield, she saw Aldric in the distance - hands cupped to his side, a basketball-sized orb of bright blue energy shining out from within them, all of the silver fire that marked his calling upon his ill-controlled powers funneling into the mass in his hands. Before she could even question it to herself, she saw the muscles in his neck bulge, saw his teeth bare themselves, and saw his legs brace behind him, and realized whatever he was doing, was about to come. So, with all of her strength, she blasted twin gouts of fire from her feet, and rocketed away from the Master.
He looked poised to follow, but was interrupted, his attention caught by the loud, almost titanic roar coming from behind him. He turned to face Aldric, who was pouring everything he had into this. All of his power, all of his magic, he forced all of it into the glowing mass in his hands - and when that wasn't enough, he called on more. The fire surrounding him began to fade away, his pupils began to dilate, eyes going from gunmetal gray to two deep, onyx orbs, and the mass in his hands grew blindingly bright.
"Maximum..." Aldric thrust his hands forward, as the Master shielded himself with his hammer. "EFFORT!" Aldric screamed, so loudly that his voice cracked and his throat went hoarse.
Exploding out from his cupped hands was a beam of energy, larger than he was, managing to reach almost to the clouds in the night sky. It lit up the quarry in which they fought, as though it weren't even night at all, proving so bright that Cinder briefly had to shield her eyes from it. The Master didn't, however - he trusted his hammer, and the powers it granted, to protect him.
The titanic beam of plasma energy slammed into him with a physical force, roaring like a thousand hurricanes, burning like the unbridled heat of a young star, and pushing him back several feet. He immediately grunted and groaned with the effort of resisting it, but found that this was different to the lightsaber's he'd shrugged off before. To compare their power to this would be tantamount to compare a match to an atom bomb. Aldric was harnessing something that had the capability to destroy planets, and he was pouring energy into it that could transcend universes and cross time and space. What was the power of a comic book demigod to something that intertwined the skill and precision of science, and the limitless infinities of magic?
Under this relentless assault, the Master didn't last but ten seconds before he stumbled once, and that opening, that one chink in his armor opened up another, and another, and another, and he was soon awash by the plasma, being burned and beaten by the fourth state of matter. Aldric didn't let up until all of the energy he'd poured into it blasted out, and for a solid thirty seconds he shot this man with one among the strongest, non-reality warping attacks he was aware of. This was a nuclear option.
And it worked.
When the attack finally faded away, it left in its wake a massive, circular crater around Aldric, and a huge fissure in the earth extending until the horizon towards which it had been fired. Mjolnir was on the ground, its metal end glowing white hot, the Master laying beside it, unmoving. Aldric was in barely better a state - back hunched, both arms limp, breathing heavily, swaying back and forth, eyes partly glazed over, a tight pressure in his chest. His jaw and his left arm hurt like hell, and -
Aldric blinked, jaw slowly going limp.
"Oh so that's what happens." He slurred, before falling face first onto the ground.
Cinder gasped, calling out, "Aldric!" As he hit the ground.
She rushed over to him.
Completely unaware of the Master stirring to life.
"Aldric!" She called out again, dropping his shield and kneeling beside him, pressing her fingers to his neck and feeling no pulse. "No..." She looked down at his chest, then her hands. "No." She cupped both of her hands together and pressed them to his chest, as the Master got to his feet, hand closing around the haft of his hammer.
He paused, however, on the third utterance of his name. "Aldric!" She called out, pumping up and down on his chest. "You can't - you're not done yet!"
This pause only lasted for a moment, before he tore Mjolnir from the ground and began lumbering over to her, each step a heavy stomp on the ground, his arms swinging limply from side to side. Cinder now noticed him approaching, and redoubled her efforts, trying desperately to restart Aldric's heart. But all that she did was in vain, as the Master reached her first. She scrambled for Aldric's shield, but was hit in the flank by the hammer and sent flying before she could. She was like everyone present: So close to dead that she could almost see the metaphorical Reaper waiting for her. It was all she could do to get up to her hands and knees and brace for another attack.
Which never came.
Confused, she turned her head towards the Master, just in time to see him kneel down and pry the red helmet from Aldric's head. She heard him gasp and saw him stumble back a step, limply dropping the mask and his hammer at the sight of Aldric's bruised face, the blood leaking from his mouth and nose. She then witnessed as both of his mangled, scorched hands reached up to his head, and his breath quickened, soon almost hyperventilating as he dropped to his knees. He tore off the helmet, revealing a head of long, shaggy, dark hair and two blue-gray eyes, both filled with a primal sort of fear and anxiety that Cinder couldn't properly identify.
The Master reached for the hammer and snatched it off of the ground. Thunder picked up again as lightning gathered in the stormclouds above. Cinder finally reached a sitting position as the lightning shot down from the heavens and hit the hammer, which itself was tapped to Aldric by an increasingly frantic-looking Master. He said something she couldn't here after feeling for a pulse, and then zapped Aldric again with another bolt of lightning. He only stopped when, after the eighth lightning strike, an openly smoldering Aldric appeared to begin breathing.
Cinder, now on her feet, took advantage of this lull in the violence, of this break in the battle, to approach the two, to limp towards them.
"You stay..." The man began, his voice lacking the reverberating, otherworldly quality it had when he'd adorned the helmet. "The fuck away." He got to his feet, appearing just as unsteady has her, but a fire in his eyes hinting at a reserve of energy he appeared to only have just now found.
Cinder paused, straightening her stance and trying to meet that fire, but well aware that even if they were both exhausted, both nearly dead, with that damn hammer of his, he'd be the one to win the fight. She needed to stall, to come up with something.
"Did you just revive him?" She gasped, shifting her gaze down from one Master to the other, barely breathing, one. "Why?!"
The Master, seemingly having forgotten she was even there, recoiled his head, then turned it towards her when she spoke. His frown returned, but it was clear he barely had the energy to do whatever he'd done to Aldric, let alone to get back up and fight. They both were in the same boat, and both were doing the same thing: Taking this lull to build back up whatever they could, and gain any information they could find.
"If this is him..." He gasped, turning back to Aldric, "we're near Vale... Then you..." The man growled. "You're the one she goes on about."
Cinder blinked.
Then, as she looked into the man's eyes, pieces started falling into place. She'd seen the fire in them before, had seen flecks of gray in their blue before. She'd seen this man's hair color elsewhere, and even could recognize his facial structure, aged and rounded as it was.
"You're from his plane." She said, slowly. "A survivor... Rescued by another of us." A beat, "his father."
He didn't even register the comments, his fury merely growing. "Never told us who else had survived the crash. Only that others had... She'd said she had people in Vale... Another terran, a Maiden loyal to her..." Cinder could see in his eyes the turmoil, could see him trying to work everything out with what few pieces he had been given, not unlike his son, but at a much slower speed than he. He turned to look at Aldric, expression softening briefly, before steeling again when he returned his gaze to Cinder. "Way she talks about you. You know what it is she wants. How she thinks."
"I do." Cinder nodded. "And you intend to ask me the why of it."
But he shook his head, "I know why she does it. You ask her about it and she won't fucking shut up." He growled, "'cycle' this... 'Necessary' that... She's a fucking madwoman and you know damn well and good I'm right."
Cinder shook her head, "many who find themselves at the precipice of an unpopular opinion are, Mister Aldric. But I care not for her ideals or her philosophies, I care for what she can grant me."
"Says that a lot too." The Master grunted, turning his gaze back to his son. "You haven't told him, haven't you?"
Cinder shook her head, "he knows what we fight for, and he chooses to continue regardless." She said, "for much the same reason I do... But that doesn't answer why you betrayed her. You are powerful, but I confirmed what your son suspected. All of your strength rests in that weapon. You could have had so much more, and yet you put it all in your paltry earning and ran, thinking it worthy to fight her."
Aldric Sr. shook his head, running a callused, scorched hand through the sweat-slick hair. "Yeah, she's strong. But I knew from day damn one that I had to get out of there." He gave her a disgusted look. "Do you know the things she's done? She wants to do? Of course you do - you hunted her down on your fucking own." He said, as though it were an insult. "But him..." His frown fell to one of sorrow. "What did you do to him to make him fight for her?"
"As I said, Mister Aldric. He chose to."
Aldric's father shook his head, and pushed himself to his feet with a tired groan. "I don't think he did. You couldn't have told him, or else he would refuse to fight for you. For her. He fucking wouldn't." He pulled the hammer off of the ground. "Maybe - maybe he helped you because you saved him, but he wouldn't have stayed. So... I want you to tell me what the fuck you did to him, or so help me god." He pointed it at her, threateningly.
Cinder was unmoved. She forced her expression to become neutral. "I think you underestimate him." She said, coolly. "Just as you underestimate her. Your weapon... It is mighty. It is powerful. But it pales, as do you, in comparison to what she is capable of."
"And yet I'm here, and she's not." Said the father, confrontationally. "Now... I'll let you leave, alive, which is more than can be said for your friend there." He nodded in Mercury's direction, prompting Cinder's facade to briefly cracked, as she realized Mercury hadn't even twitched ever since he'd disengaged the Master. "But I want you to tell me what you did to him. How I can undo it."
Cinder turned the crack in her facade to a smile. "What makes you truly think he isn't happy?" She nodded past him, "look at that. That attack... I think it left the bonds of Remnant, shooting out to space. You have seen her, and as you demonstrate you have spoken to her... Perhaps more than any other Masters. So you know that is but a taste of what he can do... And he knows it too. He is powerful, but only seldom does he truly access that power... Or do you think those flames are simply there to differentiate Master and Maiden?" She asked, "from what I've seen, since the day he learned to use this power he's only grown more and more fond of its use.
"He stays both because he believes what it is we do, and because he wants to see the height of his power. He craves that challenge, that satisfaction, that struggle, and he finds them every day here." She said, noticing the Master tightening his grip on Mjolnir's haft. "So I instead will counter: You lay down your arms and surrender, and I will let you live... Perhaps even bargain with our once-mutual master for your life beyond the obtaining of these relics." A beat, "To return another day. To see him - to get a chance to make him see your way. Merely put the hammer down." She pressed, noticing Aldric begin to stir.
His father, however, was too enraged to notice. "Let me list off the shit you and yours have done to us. You stole us from our world, crashed our goddamn airplane, killed scores of us, gave us powers we didn't want for a mission we have no reason to follow. You open up a portal to our home - only to force us to spark a war between us and you, which caused MORE of us to die by nuclear fire, Grimm attack, or people killing people!" He roared, voice growing louder with each word. "And to top it all off, you want us to steal God's toys so you can do something so heinous I can't even fucking describe it, because of some fucked up moral philosophy?!
"You want me to put the hammer down?!" He screamed, charging Cinder, "fine!"
Cinder fell to the defensive, ducking behind Aldric's shield and using it to deflect the attack from Aldric's father. Aldric Sr. threw himself into the offensive, every swing of the hammer powered by rage and anger, becoming slow and predictable as a result, as Aldric himself awoke.
His vision was hazy at first, the entire world felt cold, like the dead of winter, and he was both exhausted and starving. But those feelings were put to the side as his mind started working again, he realized where he was, and he heard the sounds of a groan, Aldric turned to his side, and saw a heavily wounded Master throwing everything he had left at Cinder, who herself was barely keeping up.
God... Damn it. Now, maybe she was trying to rope a dope, but Aldric could tell the both of them were at death's door, and if he had to bet on who'd last longer: An anime villain or a comic book superhero, he'd put his money on the latter. God damn it. The bad news was that the time was up - they'd exhausted all of their options, and the Master was still kicking, still angry, still trying to kill all three of them. The good news was that Aldric could tell that the Master was at death's door, just like he and Cinder were. All it would take would be one more blast, one more push. God damn it.
Unfortunately, he was tapped. All out of energy, he could feel it - there was nothing left in the proverbial tank. All of his power was gone in the wake of the blast wave, he'd used it all. All he had left was his belt, and he may even not be able to use that, because of how tired he was.
But... He thought again, seeing through hazy eyes Cinder cower behind the shield and weather a series of blows from the hammer. I have to... If he didn't, the Master would overwhelm her, she'd die, and then so would he. He couldn't let everything he'd done, everything he'd built, he couldn't let it all be for nothing at the moment of truth. He had to win, here. He couldn't lose.
So that meant it was time to escalate. This guy wanted to play with a hammer?
Well, Aldric didn't have a hammer, but he did have a gun.
A big fucking gun.
While his organic arm wouldn't obey his commands, his cybernetic replacement still had the strength within it to lift itself and dig into Aldric's belt. He opened up the pouch that contained the nuclear options he felt comfortable walking around with, and out came a small vial which, when crushed, had expand from within it a large, solid metal gun. Green lights alongside both sides of its split, rail-like barrels lit up, and a single canister in its center glowed with the energy contained inside.
Aldric's hand found the trigger, as Cinder launched her offensive. He watched her execute a perfectly timed one-two punch, first chopping the Master in the throat with the shield, then creating a long blade in her free hand, which she viciously chopped at his strong-arm with. With him stunned by the throat attack, and his arm wide open, Cinder had the time she needed to specifically aim for the injuries she and Aldric had created, the weakest parts on the man's arm.
Which made it all the easier for her to sever the limb at the wrist. Four rapid, vicious swings, like a lumberjack chopping at a tree, was what it first split flesh and was stopped by bone. The second split his radius with a horrendous crack, the third, his ulna, and the final swing cleaved his arm off entirely, all with a spray of blood. The older Master stumbled back, gasping and choking on the pain of his limb being cut away, and the younger Master waited, seeing his enemy's armor begin to first glow, but then fade, as would smoke from a fire.
When Aldric saw terran clothes begin to fully replace the once regal armor, he pulled the trigger.
It took one second to fully charge - a large green orb of violently spasming plasma collecting at the end of the BFG. The moment it was ready, the plasma shot away, and Cinder again used her powers to herself avoid what she knew would be a coming storm. The Master saw the green glow grow closer, and turned to face it, just in time for the mass of plasma to slam into him. He was enveloped in it, screaming in a pain he'd never felt before, as it burned at him, tore at him, flayed flesh from bone and burned both to ash. The glow grew brighter as more time passed, but this brief eternity passed in but the blink of an eye - and after its momentum failed, the orb of plasma burst in a mighty explosion. Aldric shielded his eyes, though still saw the vibrant green glow of the detonation.
When the light faded, he opened them again, and unlike before, where had been the Master on the ground, unconscious, all there was now to mark his existence was the hammer he'd claimed as his own, and the charred, scorched marks on the earth on which he'd stood.