If you're enjoying the story and want to support my work (and get early access to advanced chapters), head over to Patreon and search for banmido.
Thank you for reading. It truly means a lot.
____
New Asgard's once-proud courtyard was a ruin of shattered columns, scorched banners, and cracked golden tiling. Smoke curled from distant buildings as thunderous blows struck loudly.
Kate Bishop stood amid the wreckage, chest rising, eyes locked forward. Her cheek was bruised, lips cut. She spat blood on the stone floor and raised her bow.
Across from her, the man who dared call himself Hawkeye smiled like a butcher. The suit was almost convincing. Purple, clean lines, tactical design. But it was in the eyes. Or rather, the lack of anything behind them.
"You're nothing like him," Kate said coldly.
Bullseye tilted his head, still grinning. "Never said I was. But they needed a Hawkeye. One who especially didn't care about the rules."
"You're a poor man's cosplay. A dollar-store Clint with a body count." (How ironic lol)
He chuckled. "Funny. You're breaking my poor heart."
The wind shifted. Kate loosed an arrow without warning.
Bullseye ducked under it, twisting mid-step, and fired back with one of her own.
She deflected it with the edge of her bow and vaulted behind a crumbled statue.
Two more arrows flew, striking stone and detonating in showers of sparks. Kate slid behind cover, yanked three arrows from her quiver without looking, and rolled out into the open. She fired a triple shot.
High arc, low graze, centerline.
Bullseye dropped into a crouch. The high shot grazed his hood. The low bounced off his shin armor. The center arrow exploded behind him, throwing him forward. He landed in a roll and came up grinning.
Kate clicked her tongue. "You're faster than you look."
"You're better than I expected. Clint would've loved to see this."
They moved at once, two blurs dancing between wreckage and fallen stone. Arrows clashed mid-air. Bolts collided and exploded. Both archers fired while sprinting, while rolling, while climbing broken statues to gain vantage.
Kate ducked behind a pillar, breathing hard. She counted seven arrows left. Bullseye wasn't slowing. He didn't need finesse. He had cruelty. Brutality. But she had something he didn't.
Restraint.
She pivoted and fired a flashbang arrow. The burst lit the courtyard in white. He cursed, momentarily blinded.
Kate rushed him, baton in one hand, bow in the other. She struck twice, three times, forcing him back. He caught the fourth swing and threw her over his shoulder. She hit the dirt hard.
He aimed a knife at her chest but Kate rolled, and kicked his knee. His leg buckled, and she flipped him onto his back. Her arrow was notched, inches from his face.
"Don't say it," she warned.
He chuckled again. "You fight like him. But you talk too much."
He jabbed her side with a hidden blade that barely missed. She jumped back, seething.
"You're stalling," she said. "Waiting for something?"
Bullseye stood slowly, hand resting on his quiver. "Nah. I'm savoring this. I don't get to duel equals very often."
Kate scoffed. "I'm not your equal. I'm your upgrade."
She fired a shock arrow. He intercepted it with a thrown blade, detonating it mid-air.
Then he rushed her.
They collided again. Bow against blade, fist against armor. She ducked under his swipe, landed a hit to his ribs, then backed off and fired again. He sidestepped. Returned fire. She spun away, drawing two more arrows as she ran.
A minute passed. Then another.
Neither of them landed a clean hit.
They circled each other amid the wreckage of a broken god-city, two ghosts locked in a dance of precision and pain.
"Come on," Bullseye growled. "Show me the trick arrows. The fun ones."
Kate fired a glue arrow that exploded into resinous sludge. He leapt free.
"I liked the fanfiction insult," he added. "You steal that from Kamala?"
Kate fired a sonic disruptor. He grimaced, but kept moving.
"You don't get to say her name," Kate snapped.
Behind her, a repulsor beam seared the sky. Kamala's silhouette blurred in mid-air, dancing with Iron Patriot's barrage.
Bullseye looked skyward briefly.
"Friends fighting friends. Isn't war poetic?"
Kate didn't answer. She aimed higher. An arrow punched through a crumbling column triggered a blast. Debris fell between them. Bullseye vanished behind the smoke.
Kate scanned the area. No movement. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes tracked broken shadow.
Then he struck.
From behind. Blade to her throat. Quick, quiet, deadly.
"You're good," he whispered. "But I've killed the elite of the elite. You think you're getting out of this alive?"
Kate didn't flinch. "I think you talk too much."
A hidden arrowhead in her gauntlet pulsed.
She jabbed his thigh as an electric surge coursed through his leg. He yelped and dropped her.
Kate spun. Punched. And fired an arrow at point-blank range.
This one hit.
Bullseye reeled. Blood ran down his shoulder.
Still he laughed. "Finally."
Kate stood tall, battered, bleeding. "We're just getting started."
Lightning split the sky again.
From afar, Naruto roared.
And somewhere deep in the vault of Asgard, something ancient stirred.
_____________
Kamala Khan hit the courtyard like a comet.
Noor energy flared around her in brilliant violet arcs, the impact cratering stone and sending up a wave of fire-dusted air.
Her heart thudded against her ribs like a war drum. Her fists crackled. Her breath fogged in the wind sweeping down from the fjords, sharp and full of the scent of ozone and ruin.
Across from her, Justin Hammer hovered into view with all the swagger of someone desperately trying to matter.
His Iron Patriot armor gleamed in overdesigned red, white, and blue. Bulkier than Tony's. Louder. And twice as tacky. It whined with every step like it was built from ego and spare parts.
Kamala eyed him warily. "You're Justin Hammer, right? The knockoff Iron Man who went to jail?"
"Allegedly," he said through a modulated speaker. "And I prefer 'patriotically enhanced entrepreneur.'"
She raised an eyebrow. "Fury didn't mention the delusion."
"Fury's jealous. You think Stark was the only genius in the room?"
Kamala flexed her hands, Noor energy building. "No, just the only one who didn't set his own suit on fire."
That did it.
Hammer opened fire.
Repulsor blasts seared through the air. Kamala darted left, conjuring a Noor barrier that flared under the pressure. Dust exploded around her. Her back hit a low wall as she gritted her teeth and deflected a second barrage with a spinning shield of light.
She pushed off, launching herself into the air with a small platform beneath her feet, flipping over Hammer's next volley. She fired back with blades of light, small and fast, not enough to do real damage, but enough to keep him on defense.
Hammer grunted as one hit his chestplate, sizzling against the armor's outer layer.
"That energy stuff, how does it work, exactly? WiFi?"
She landed hard, slid on cracked stone, and didn't answer. Instead, she thrust her palm out and conjured a larger disc, which she used like a battering ram to knock him off-balance.
He staggered midair. Stabilizers hissed.
"I built this suit from the ground up," he said, rising. "Stark just got lucky. Me? I adapted. I survived."
"You marketed flamethrowers to middle school security companies."
"That contract was misunderstood."
Kamala ducked under a shoulder cannon blast. It hit a pillar behind her and showered sparks. She ran, leapt, summoned another platform, and shot into the sky like a skipping stone.
Hammer flew after her. "You think you're some shining symbol? You're a teenager with some borrowed power."
"No," she said, turning midair. "I'm someone who knows what not to be."
She hurled a sphere of concentrated Noor. It struck his left gauntlet and shorted a joint. He spun out but caught himself before crashing.
His armor hissed and locked.
Kamala landed nearby, chest rising and falling.
Hammer landed too, slower now. "I could've built the future. But no, Tony always got the credit. The headlines. The girls. Even in prison, they still compared me to him."
"That's because you're still trying to be him," Kamala said. "And failing."
He launched a burst of micro-missiles. Kamala conjured a dome-shaped shield. The explosions lit the edges in violet fire. She pushed out with all her strength, shattering the construct in a concussive wave of energy.
Hammer was blown back, but not down. His suit sparked, smoking at the edges. He raised his hands again.
She matched him.
They stood in the rubble, breathless, bruised, arms raised as both waited for the other to make the next mistake.
Hammer fired a smoke canister. A thick cloud erupted between them.
Kamala's eyes narrowed. "Really?"
"Gotta keep things dramatic," his voice crackled from somewhere inside the haze.
She moved, fast and low, conjuring a glowing barrier in one hand and a short baton-like construct in the other. A repulsor beam sliced through the smoke and missed her by inches.
She spun and threw the baton. It clipped his shoulder, disrupting his flight momentarily.
"Okay, that was actually good," Hammer muttered.
Kamala surged forward, palm glowing. She struck his side hard, but he twisted with the blow and slammed his armored elbow into her stomach. She gasped and stumbled back.
He followed with a repulsor burst that sent her tumbling through a broken column. She caught herself with a last-minute platform and rebounded, striking his knee with a compacted hammer of light.
He grunted, staggered, but stayed upright. "You hit like a disgruntled yoga instructor."
Kamala raised an eyebrow. "You fly like a drunk mosquito."
They clashed again, her light slamming into steel, his tech clashing against raw energy. Kamala ducked a punch and fired a blast of Noor point-blank into his chestplate. The blast threw them both apart.
She landed roughly, rolled, and came up breathing hard. Her limbs ached, her glow was starting to flicker.
Hammer was slower getting up, but he still got up. His armor was cracked, joints scorched, but his smirk somehow survived.
"Not bad, Ms. Marvel," he said. "But I've still got a few surprises."
"Save it," she snapped. "You're not the main event. You're barely the opening act."
Another clash.
The courtyard shook with the impact.
Hammer twisted mid-air and unleashed a high-speed rotor drone from his backplate. It whirred viciously, circling Kamala before diving at her like a vulture. She barely managed to throw up a shield, the drone's blades scraping against violet light and kicking up sparks.
She pivoted and countered, snapping a construct whip around the drone and yanking it into the ground where it exploded in a small fireball.
"Nice toy," Kamala muttered.
"Prototype," Hammer called back. "Still in beta. Like you."
Kamala lunged, her constructs glowing brighter as adrenaline pushed her forward. Hammer blocked with a reinforced forearm, but she twisted low and struck his exposed side with a Noor spike.
He reeled, staggered, then caught her by the wrist and flung her across the courtyard.
She tumbled but caught herself mid-slide with another platform. Her hands glowed hot now, shaking slightly.
Hammer descended like a missile, aiming a haymaker at her head. She parried it with a shield and kneed him in the chest, sending them both stumbling.
Debris rained down from above as a damaged column gave way.
They looked up just for a second, and then clashed again in a tangle of light and steel.
Every blow now had weight. Desperation. Pride.
And neither one of them had any intention of falling first.
____
If you're enjoying the story and want to support my work (and get early access to advanced chapters), head over to Patreon and search for banmido.
Thank you for reading. It truly means a lot.