[Third Person Pov]
“You know, it’s a good thing you look more like your father,” the Mandarin sneered, his voice dripping with venom. He pressed his boot harder into Tony Stark’s chest, grinding the reinforced heel downwards. “It makes killing you all the much sweeter.”
“Oh, please,” Tony chuckled nonchalantly, his fingers clamping around the Mandarin’s ankle in a vice-like grip. With a surge of strength, he twisted. “If I were going to die, it would be in a far more glorious setting—something with explosions, maybe a dramatic one-liner, and a killer soundtrack. Not like this.”
In one explosive motion, Tony wrenched the Mandarin’s leg and hurled Wenwu across the ruined street. The older man spun through the air like a discarded ragdoll before landing gracefully on his feet, barely disturbing the dust. A predatory grin split his face.
“We’ll see about that, you arrogant brat.”
The Mandarin raised his arms, and the Ten Rings ignited along his fingers with an ominous hum. One by one, he unleashed them. A howling gale of wind sliced toward Tony, followed by a roaring jet of flame, then a barrage of razor-sharp ice shards. Each elemental assault came faster than the last, a symphony of destruction that lit up the crumbling streets in brilliant, deadly colors.
Tony moved with practiced precision, his body a blur of motion honed by years of training and genius-level improvisation. He vaulted over the wind blast, rolled beneath the fire, and used a shattered concrete as a springboard to avoid the ice. The debris around them became his arsenal—leaping from one fractured slab to another, sliding behind overturned beams for cover, turning the battlefield itself into an extension of his defense.
Wenwu didn’t stop. Nonconventional forces joined the fray. Gravity wells yanked at Tony’s limbs, trying to crush him to the ground. Magnetic pulses warped the metal rebar scattered across the floor, flinging them like deadly spears. Bursts of blinding light and suffocating darkness alternated, disorienting and lethal.
But Tony was always one step ahead. He slipped through a pulse of searing light at point-blank range by shifting at the last possible second, then closed the distance in a heartbeat. His fist rocketed forward, connecting with Wenwu’s jaw in a thunderous crack. The impact sent a visible rush of blood to the surface of the Mandarin’s face.
Tony reached for the arc reactor on Wenwu’s chest—intending to rip it free—but the warlord slapped his hand away with blinding speed and launched his own counterattack.
“How is it possible you reacted at the speed of light?!” Wenwu snarled, eyes wide with fury.
“I didn’t, you dumbass,” Tony scoffed. He ducked under a vicious haymaker, only to block a rising knee aimed at his face with a forearm that rang like iron. “I just dodged the moment your ring activated. There’s a tell—every time.”
Tony shoved the knee downward and swept Wenwu’s legs out from under him in a fluid motion. The Mandarin crashed sideways but caught himself on one hand, immediately retaliating with a sharp, spinning hook kick that forced Tony to raise both arms in defense. The blow sent him skidding backward across the debris-strewn floor.
“I’ve already figured out how your rings work,” Tony said, breathing steady despite the chaos. “Fascinating technology. Or should I say… biology?”
“Boastful words,” Wenwu grumbled, rising to his full height. “But ones I have trouble doubting.” He thrust both hands forward, summoning a billowing storm of fire that roared toward Tony like an inferno given life.
Tony didn’t hesitate. He charged straight through the flames, his casual shirt catching fire and burning away in ragged strips, revealing the battle-hardened torso beneath. The heat singed his skin, but the pain only fueled him. Wenwu was forced to raise his arms defensively as Tony burst through the blaze like a vengeful comet, delivering a powerful Superman punch that lifted the Mandarin off his feet and sent him stumbling backward.
Wenwu cursed in Mandarin, wiping blood from his split lip, as Tony pressed the advantage and continued his explanation between strikes.
“The Ten Rings aren’t your true quirk. From what I’ve deduced, it’s the tattoos. You can store items—weapons, items, even those rings—within your own body, manifesting them as living ink.”
“Not that difficult to figure out,” Wenwu scoffed. He flicked open his charred jacket and reached to his waistband. With a fluid motion, he extracted two ornate Chinese sabers, their blades gleaming with lethal intent. “A gift from my mother. The quirk I mean, not the swords.”
Tony began weaving and bobbing around the whistling blades, his movements almost dance-like. One saber grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood; another sliced across his chest, leaving a shallow but stinging cut. The pain was sharp, but it kept him focused.
“One of the many reasons I was never accepted as a true Stark,” Wenwu sneered, his voice laced with long-buried resentment as he pressed the attack. “They didn’t believe I was as smart as them. They saw only the outsider.”
Tony timed his move perfectly. He kicked one saber out of Wenwu’s grip, caught the spinning blade mid-air, and slashed downward with all his strength. The Mandarin grunted in pain as his shirt tore open, a deep diagonal gash running from shoulder to hip. Blood welled up instantly, spilling down his front in crimson rivulets.
Yet Wenwu only laughed—a low, chilling sound that echoed through the ruins. He didn’t slow down, continuing his assault and their bitter conversation as if the wound were a mere inconvenience.
“But what they failed to understand,” he growled, parrying Tony’s next strike, “is that their so-called gift—their intellect—is artificial! Take their quirks away and they’re as dumb and ordinary as everyone else!”
Their blades clashed again and again, sending showers of sparks cascading into the air. Steel rang against steel in a furious rhythm, each impact vibrating through their arms as two brilliant men fought for dominance in the heart of the shattered road.
“But you and I, kid,” the Mandarin laughed, their swords grinding against each other in a shower of sparks, “our smarts don’t come from some quirk factor. We’re naturally born gifted.”
The blades screeched as Wenwu leaned in closer, his eyes gleaming with a twisted mix of admiration and hatred. “It is one of the reasons I respect you—believe it or not. Everything you are, everything you’ve built… it was all natural. No handouts. No shortcuts.”
He suddenly twisted his hips and delivered a powerful kick to Tony’s midsection, launching him backward. As Tony skidded across the rubble, Wenwu glanced down at the deep gash across his own chest. The wound was already knitting itself back together, flesh and muscle weaving themselves, leaving only a faint pink line behind.
“It’s also why I consider you a far greater threat than your father,” Wenwu continued, his voice steady despite the blood still trickling from his lips. “And why I must eliminate you first. You will only stand in my way.”
Tony rolled to his feet, spinning the captured saber expertly around his wrist before catching it in a firm grip. He dropped into a fighting stance, the blade pointed directly at Wenwu’s heart. “So I guess my theory was right after all. You built the rings yourself—they weren’t just something you found in some ancient tomb.”
He tested the saber’s balance with a quick flourish. “As a craftsman myself, I have to give credit where it’s due. That’s some mighty fine tech you’ve got there.”
“Thank you,” the Mandarin replied with a genuine, if unsettling, smile. “It is my magnum opus.”
The ground beneath Tony suddenly shattered as he launched forward with explosive speed. Tony charged head-on, thrusting the saber in a piercing strike aimed at his uncle's core. Wenwu blocked it at the last instant, holding his own blade sideways so the flat caught the blow. The sheer force of the impact drove him back several feet, cracks forming along the blade.
“However, despite how great your creation is,” Tony said through gritted teeth, pressing the attack, the blade shattered into fragments, “it has one major flaw.”
In a lightning-fast combination, he feinted high, then drove the saber deep into Wenwu’s side before ripping it across in a vicious slice. Blood sprayed across the debris as the blade opened a long, brutal wound.
“It takes way too much energy for you to use them continuously—and all at once,” Tony pressed, eyes locked on his opponent. “It’s too much strain for your body to handle. That’s why you needed the arc reactor, isn’t it?”
“Correct,” Wenwu confirmed, his voice tight as he saw Tony switch his grip and lunge straight for the glowing reactor embedded in his chest.
Wenwu’s hands shot up at the last possible second, catching the descending blade between his palms. He gritted his teeth, muscles bulging as he fought to hold the razor edge away from the reactor. Tony planted his other hand on the pommel and pushed downward with everything he had, slowly forcing the Mandarin to his knees.
“Arghhhh!” Wenwu roared, the sound raw and primal as the blade inched closer and closer to its target.
The moment the sword made contact with the arc reactor’s outer casing, one of Wenwu’s rings flared to life with blinding intensity. In an instant, the saber transformed into brittle glass. The pressure between them caused it to shatter violently, sending razor-sharp fragments exploding outward and stabbing into both men’s palms.
Tony didn’t hesitate. He drove his knee upward into Wenwu’s face with devastating force. A visible shockwave rippled through the air as the Mandarin’s nose shattered, sending a geyser of blood shooting from both nostrils. Wenwu’s body lifted off the ground and flew backward, tumbling roughly across the ruined floor before sliding to a halt on his back.
For a long moment, Wenwu lay there, staring up at the smoke-filled sky, momentarily dazed and wracked with pain. A low, bitter chuckle escaped his bloodied lips.
“He doesn’t even have his suit… and he’s beating me,” he muttered to himself. “He’s good… too good. I hate that I respect that brat.”
All ten rings on his fingers began to glow with an ominous light. Slowly, they lifted off his hands, levitating in front of him and spinning in perfect concentric circles. The more they spun, the larger they grew—expanding until each one was the size of a heavy bangle.
“If I want to kill him,” Wenwu whispered, “I have to go all out.”
He raised both hands toward the sky. The enlarged rings split evenly, sliding smoothly along his forearms and locking into place. Wenwu clenched his fists, and the bands tightened against his skin, pulsing with a menacing bluish-black energy that made the air around him crackle.
Tony raised an eyebrow, watching warily as the Mandarin rose from the ground like an eerie statue, his posture shifting into a perfected martial arts stance. A luminous aura erupted around Wenwu’s body, swirling with raw power.
“Round Two!” He bellowed.
Tony exhaled a long, appreciative sigh, a reluctant grin tugging at his lips. “Fuck… that’s so cool,” he whispered under his breath. “I’m definitely getting those fucking rings.”
The air grew heavy with tension as both men prepared for the next brutal exchange, the ruins around them trembling in anticipation of the escalating battle.