100- Avengers (6)

Thor was about two meters tall, dressed in Asgardian armor that did nothing to conceal his bulging muscles. Mason’s Divine Sense fed back a sensation of absolute power coming from Thor, along with that potent divinity of Thunder. It was far more pronounced than it was in Loki.

The hammer, Mjollnir, also registered as special to Mason’s Divine Sense, containing a potent divinity as well. Thor’s Divinity.

The God of Thunder examined the ‘battlefield’ carefully, seeing Steve fighting with Loki’s ally, having been joined by Tony. Creel proved himself to be tougher than he looked, holding up under the assault of the two.

Then, his gaze turned to Loki and Mason, and he sneered, “Using Asgardian magic to alter a human, does your depravity know no bounds, brother of mine?”

With a low, raucous laugh, Thor suddenly threw his hammer at the metal man. Mjolnir almost sounded like a thunderclap as it flew, before slamming into the metal man.

But the man did not get sent flying as expected. Instead, he grabbed onto the hammer firmly, stopping it before his chest. And more worryingly, the man’s skin started changing color. His steel-like skin gained a slightly duller color, the exact color of Mjolnir.

And Mason finally realized who this was.

Creel burst out into laughter as Thor retrieved his hammer, as it did nothing to stop the transformation. As his entire body turned into Uru, he said, “You fool, had you known you were facing the Absorbing Man, would you have”

With a laugh, he jumped, and with a twirl of his ball and chain, slammed it towards Tony.

Tony, who had seen how powerful the ball was when it was made of metal already, thrust himself to the side urgently, while Steve took his place, blocking the descending ball with his shield.

The impact this time was even greater than before. Although Steve held up perfectly well under the blow, and so did the shield, a powerful shockwave was created from the point of impact. It was so powerful that it drove a deep gully into the plaza before slamming into the side of the museum, blowing a hole in the wall.

Understanding that a greater threat had appeared, Mason let go of Loki without a second thought, and as the Absorbing Man was about to land, he leapt, avoiding the second shockwave, and increased the gravity around Absorbing Man to the maximum he could.

As a general rule of thumb, the heavier something was, the more it would be affected by gravity, but the Absorbing Man had apparently grown strong enough to shrug it off. He still looked at Mason with a grin and pointed a finger at Mason, firing a lightning bolt at him.

The lightning bolt was simply too fast for Mason to dodge, not to mention he was in mid-air, so he only had the time to coat himself in Chi before he was hit.

““Mason!””

His momentum was overwhelmed in an instant, his body sent flying as the electricity coursed through his body. The pain was immense, but Mason’s Spirit was strong enough to coast through it.

And it was in this moment that Mason’s obsession showed. Instead of bracing further for the strike, he reached out with his Divine Sense instead, observing the lightning in an attempt to understand it.

And he somewhat did, because of how intense it was. It was nothing but a shallow understanding, nothing that could really be used, but Mason managed to get something.

Landing on his feet, his left arm charred with soot, Mason moved his Divine Sense back to Loki. It had been squared on the God of Mischief even when he got attacked by Absorbing Man, because Mason believed Loki to be a far greater danger overall. Maybe not as powerful a fighter, but the slightest interference could cost someone’s life.

Besides, precognition was good, but pure, absolute speed could circumvent it, because it did not matter how he moved if something reached him in an instant. And Mason might have gotten strong, but he was not quite close to dodging lightning. Reacting to it had already been impressive enough.

And physically, Creel had gotten much stronger, but not that much faster. Or rather, he was capable of going fast, but he did not have the reflexes for it, so he kept to simpler movements.

So Divine Sense would be useless on both ends because of the two extremes, unnecessary because of extreme slowness and extreme speed, meaning it was better to keep it on Loki.

But the moment Mason made the choice, he felt Loki teleport away. And Mason was helpless to stop him, even with precognition, as his Chi did nothing to Loki’s innate magic.

After a moment, Tony landed right next to Mason, his mask opening as he asked worryingly, “Kid, you’re okay?”

Mason was not touched by the attention, and if anything, a little annoyed, as he replied sharply, “I’m fine, focus on the fight, Tony.”

Readers may note the source: this text was copied without permission, while NovelPhoenix carries the chapter published by its author.

Tony was shocked by the response, but Mason rushed back at the Absorbing Man, leaving him behind.

Tony had read Fury’s reports about the Avengers Initiative, and so he had seen that Mason was part of it. He thought he had accepted it, that Mason could defend himself and was capable of deciding for himself, but now Tony realized he could not help but still look at him like a child who should be cared for.

Shutting his mask back on, Tony joined the fight again too.

Meanwhile, Steve and Thor were fighting Absorbing Man. Steve had been mostly forced onto the defensive, but he would occasionally deliver Chi-empowered strikes to the Absorbing Man. They did very little, unfortunately.

Thor, on the other hand, appeared to be deeply offended by what the Absorbing Man had done, and was exchanging blow for blow against him. But as powerful as Thor was, his flesh was not as resilient as his hammer’s enchanted Uru, so while he failed to injure the Absorbing Man, he was feeling the other man’s every blow.

Calculating his timing precisely, Mason waited for the exact moment the Absorbing Man struck Steve’s shield to attack himself.

Arriving from above, Mason delivered a palm strike to the crown of Absorbing Man’s head, connecting his Chi with Absorbing Man’s to transfer his strike inward.

But even that proved to be useless as Absorbing Man ignored the blow, unsuccessfully attempting to swat away Mason. His transformation was not only on the exterior, but every part of him had been transformed into enchanted Uru.

As Mason landed, Absorbing Man snarled, “Ah, to hell with you all! That bastard gives me no orders!”

Absorbing Man flexed, and lightning started arcing around his body, rapidly gaining in both intensity and quantity. Seeing this, Thor held a hand in his direction, shouting, “Hold him down, mortals, and I shall strike him down!”

Tony flew down from the sky, snarkily replying, “Cool your pants, diva, I got this.”

He landed in front of Mason and Steve, right in time to block the lightning storm the Absorbing Man unleashed.

The arcing lightning was drawn to Tony, with all of them falling down on him. Yet he remained entirely nonplussed, even telling Mason, “I have sweet Elena to thank for this. It was her idea to improve the suit’s receptors and transformers. Watch this.”

Both forearms of Tony’s armor opened up, shooting out two lasers right onto Absorbing Man. The lasers were deadly enough normally already, but with the overcharge, they became even more potent. Not quite enough to pierce through Uru, but certainly enough to heat up that spot.

Then, as the lightning ceased, Tony fired an overwhelming Unibeam that swallowed Absorbing Man’s figure entirely.

The beam lasted for a couple of seconds before Tony finally ran out of power.

But as everyone’s vision cleared, the Absorbing Man’s figure was revealed, still standing, seemingly unharmed.

And sure enough, he uncrossed his arms, grinning at Tony, “That tickled. My turn.”

But before he could move, Thor said, “To me, Mjolnir!”

Thor reached out with his hand, and much to the shock of everyone present, Absorbing Man was uncontrollably drawn to Thor. He tried to resist, but it amounted to nothing as Thor grabbed him by his head and, with a heave, threw him into the sky with such force that he quickly disappeared from their sight.

Watching the metal man that had given them so much trouble disappear into the night sky, Tony commented, “You don’t think he’ll fall on someone’s house, do you?”

Steve and Mason said nothing, although Mason was pretty sure the Absorbing Man had the ability to transform into gases as well. No matter how dim Creel was, surely he would transform into air before smashing into the ground.

Thor beckoned the real Mjolnir over and looked down at the three heroes before grinning, dropping a hand on Mason’s shoulder with a laugh, “The Defier! I like you, you’re just like me. It takes balls of Uru to face that demon head-on, or to put those arrogant Xian in their place. You had me pumping my fist for you!”

Mason smiled, feeling like he had found a kindred spirit. “It certainly was an interesting time. Are you here for your brother?”

Thor nodded gravely, looking at Tony and Steve this time. “Aye. I thought him dead, but he has risen again, driven by his hatred of Midgardians. I thank you for your aid, but I must stop him now.”

Thor was about to fly away, so Tony said, “And you want to find him on your own? How much ground can you cover in a day? Why don’t you come with us? We have cameras all over the world.”

Thor looked like he was about to refuse, so Mason added helpfully, “Yes, and Doctor Foster certainly should be able to find the Tesseract soon.”

This immediately caused Thor to react, “Foster? Jane Foster?”

It was not very hard to convince Thor to return to the Helicarrier with them after that. They had failed to capture Loki, but they did get Titania, although they did not expect much from her.

In a warehouse somewhere in Ohio, Loki appeared underground after his teleportation, clutching his staff with furrowed brows.

One of the humans he had subjugated, Erik Selvig, walked over with a fawning smile, greeting, “Loki, how happy I am to see you. I am making wonderful progress on the Tesseract, there’s so much I missed because of SHIELD’s caution!”

Loki’s frown did not let up, staring at the fawning human with slight distaste. He dismissed him with a gesture before sitting down, still clutching the spear.

Loki… was puzzled. His plans were going relatively well. The loss of the spear’s gem was unfortunate, as it ruined his plans of causing infighting against Midgard’s defenders, but that was more of a precautionary measure to start with anyway.

So why was he feeling this anger and frustration?

Looking around at the humans he controlled, he felt nothing but bored. What was the point of being a king if the people had no choice but to agree with him? And most of all, what was the point of being the king of a world like Midgard? Only his bull-headed brother could fall in love with a shitty place like this.

…well, they did have one fun thing or two, but to rule over them? That would be a disgusting waste of his time.

It was not that Loki no longer wanted to see his mission to the end. Bringing those Midgardians down would be a fitting revenge against Thor and his fa- Odin, and Loki did owe that purple nutsack for saving him from the void.

Loki was not usually one to care about repaying those, but when he was facing a madman like Thanos, saying no was not really an option. Besides, considering the mission was only to get that spatial artefact from Midgardians, he only needed to open a portal.

What bothered Loki was the candor he had put into this mission. And how he had reacted to that spear breaking.

Why would he care about it? It was nothing more than a weapon offered by a daughter of Thanos to help in his conquest, a way to control these humans…

That cunt, she had been controlling him, hadn’t she?

That bitch! Who did she think she was? She was not born when Loki had already been scheming and controlling fools.

She wanted a portal to Earth to get the Tesseract? She’d get her portal. She could come in with her army. But that mind-bending bitch was not going to be met with a world brought to its knees. Oh, he was going to enjoy this.

Lowly as Midgardians might be, they did have impressive monsters. And his brother. No, Loki wanted a clean kill.

Loki grinned as scheme after scheme unfolded in his mind. The real game had started. But first, he needed to reinforce his control over these mortals, or they risked waking up.

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Author’s Note: I originally intended to do something similar to chapter 50 where I would put the entire Avengers incident in one chapter to celebrate the 100th chapter, but I’ve now realized it is just too large to allow me to do this. Just Chapters 99 and 100 are already nearly the same size as chapter 50, and this is only the very beginning. I’m not writing a chapter worth 20 normal ones lol, not even for the 100th chapter.