[Third Person Pov]
Tony and Kane's battle began immediately, without ceremony or warning, as if both of them had silently agreed there was no point in wasting time. The air itself seemed to tighten the moment Kane stepped forward.
Howard Stark instinctively placed a steadying hand on Maria Stark's shoulder when he noticed the tension creeping into her posture. Her fingers had curled tightly against her arms, her eyes wide and unblinking as she watched her son face a man she knew was monstrously powerful. She trusted Tony, she always did, but trust did not erase fear.
On the battlefield, a kaleidoscope of colors erupted around Kane, the light bending and refracting as his quirk activated. It was beautiful in a terrifying way. The distortion spread outward in rippling waves, warping the air, bending the light, and then Tony felt it.
An invisible, crushing pressure slammed into him from above. The ground beneath his feet fractured instantly, spiderweb cracks exploding outward as his body was forced downward. His knees buckled despite his strength, his teeth gritting together hard enough to ache.
"Holy shit," Tony hissed through clenched teeth as one knee slammed against the cracked floor. The impact echoed sharply through the gym. His muscles trembled violently as he resisted, his cheeks flushing red from the sheer exertion required just to keep himself from being flattened completely.
Above him, Kane stood perfectly relaxed, hands in his pockets, smiling. "Come on, nephew," Kane said casually, his voice smooth and amused, as though this were nothing more than a friendly conversation. "Put on your full suit. I don't want to injure you now. Little Maria will get mad at me after all."
Tony's pride flared immediately at the teasing. Despite the overwhelming force pressing him down, Tony planted both hands against the fractured ground and pushed. His arms trembled violently, veins rising along his forearms as his liquid metal suit rippled and shifted over his skin, reinforcing his body. His cheeks puffed slightly as he forced air into his lungs, steadying himself. Slowly, painfully, he rose. He lifted himself back onto his feet. And then he smirked, that same arrogant, infuriating Stark smirk.
"Against you?" Tony said, his voice strained but dripping with cocky confidence. "That'd be overkill."
Kane chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Do you really think it's a smart idea trying to provoke me?"
Tony didn't hesitate. "Heh. I was serious. To defeat you, I could do it with simply my ring finger."
As if responding to his will, the liquid metal covering Tony's body shifted, flowing like living mercury. It gathered along his right hand, concentrating around his ring finger. The metal hardened, forming a sleek band that glowed with brilliant white-blue energy. A pulse of light expanded outward, and a barrier formed around Tony. The crushing pressure vanished instantly.
Tony let out a long breath of relief as the invisible weight lifted off his body. He rolled his shoulders and straightened fully, cracking his neck from side to side. Kane said nothing. His smile never left. He simply extended one hand toward Tony and clenched.
Tony's eyes widened. The force did not come from above this time. It came from everywhere. The pressure collapsed inward from all directions simultaneously, converging on Tony's barrier like an imploding star. The glowing shield flickered violently, cracks of light forming across its surface before it shattered completely with a sharp, crystalline burst.
Tony barely had time to react. He thrust his hand forward, summoning a hard-light construct shield just as the pressure slammed into him. The impact sent him skidding backward across the fractured floor, his boots grinding against the ground as sparks flew.
Kane tilted his head slightly, observing Tony's reaction carefully. "Just because you're aware of what my quirk is, don't assume you know how it works. I'm guessing since you heard I can generate pressure, you assumed it only pushes downward."
He raised two fingers, moving them through the air with precise, deliberate motions, like a conductor directing an orchestra. "Left." The air distorted. Tony moved instantly, stepping aside just before an invisible force crushed the ground where he had stood, the concrete collapsing inward.
"Right." Tony twisted his body, narrowly avoiding the invisible attack.
"Up." Tony leaned back as pressure slammed from beneath him, almost uppercutting him.
"Down." Tony leapt backward, flipping cleanly through the air.
"Diagonally." Invisible force tore through the space he had occupied milliseconds before.
Kane's smile widened slightly, but then it faltered, because Tony wasn't struggling anymore. He was moving smoothly now, effortlessly, casually. Tony's expression had shifted into one of sharp focus beneath his confident grin. He could feel it now, the subtle disturbances in the air, the microscopic shifts in pressure before each attack manifested.
His eyes fed him constant sensory data, and his instincts did the rest. He dipped his head, stepped aside, twisted, flowed. Every movement precise. Every dodge perfect.
Then Tony attacked.
His ring gave off a bright shine, forming a sleek bow of glowing hard light. He drew the string back, energy gathering and condensing into a brilliant arrow. He released. The arrow tore through the air like a comet.
Kane didn't move. The pressure around him thickened, condensing into an invisible barrier. The arrow struck it and shattered into fragments of fading light.
Tony grinned wider. More constructs formed instantly. Boots reinforced with propulsion systems wrapped around his legs. Gauntlets thickened around his fists, glowing with contained power. Weapons materialized around him—glaives, daggers, warhammers—each formed from solidified energy.
Tony launched forward and closed the distance instantly. His glaive swung toward Kane's neck. Kane tilted his head slightly, and the weapon shattered mid-swing, crushed by invisible force. Tony followed up immediately with a punch. Kane met it head-on. A shockwave erupted from the collision, cracking the floor further beneath their feet.
Kane laughed, not mockingly, but excitedly. He shattered another construct with a pulse of pressure and stepped forward, fully engaging Tony in close-quarters combat. His movements were precise, controlled, and utterly fearless.
Around them, the battlefield was being torn apart. The spectators watched in stunned silence before their composure broke.
"Woah… he's actually battling Professor Carbonell head on!"
"Since when have you seen Teach smile like that during a mock battle?!"
"Shit—they're destroying the gym!"
They weren't exaggerating. The floor had been reduced to a web of cracks and shattered concrete. Deep craters marked where pressure attacks had struck. Tony's constructs exploded into showers of fading light whenever Kane destroyed them, while Kane's invisible attacks warped and crushed everything they touched.
And at the center of it all, Tony Stark and Kane Carbonell smiled.
Tony raised both hands and his ring responded almost instantly, red ominous light gleam and sparkled before solidifying into a vast military arsenal that hovered behind him like a mechanized halo of war. Cannons, missile pods, rotary guns, rail emitters, and hard-light artillery platforms formed in precise formation, each humming with restrained power.
The air crackled with energy as targeting systems locked onto Kane from every conceivable angle, and without hesitation, they fired. Energy beams erupted in chaotic bursts, streaking across the battlefield in a dazzling storm of light.
Some beams were thin and precise while others were thick and devastating, each one capable of tearing through reinforced steel. The gymnasium filled with blinding flashes as the weapons discharged in relentless succession, the combined firepower easily capable of leveling a small city block.
Kane didn't dodge. He simply raised his hands and the kaleidoscope aura surrounding him intensified, coiling around his arms like invisible armor. When the first beam reached him, Kane casually swatted his hand outward and the beam bent mid-flight, veering off course as if it had struck an unseen wall before slamming harmlessly into the far end of the gym. He swatted again and again, his movements relaxed yet impossibly precise, redirecting every blast Tony fired with effortless contempt.
Then Kane bent his knees slightly and unleashed a concentrated force beneath his feet, launching himself forward like a missile. The ground cratered beneath him as he tore through the air at blinding speed, his fist drawn back as pressure condensed around it, glittering like a collapsing star.
His eyes locked onto Tony with predatory focus, but instead of summoning a shield or armor, Tony created a giant whoopee cushion directly in front of him. It materialized instantly, enormous, bright red, and unmistakable. Kane's punch landed squarely in its center.
PHHHHHTTTT
The sound exploded throughout the gym, loud and thunderous, reverberating off every surface due to the massive interior space.
Kane froze.
The entire gym froze.
Maria Stark covered her face in embarrassment while Howard Stark dragged a hand down his face in disbelief.
"Bahahaha!!" Melissa burst into laughter, doubling over and clutching her stomach as tears streamed down her face. Her laughter spread rapidly, infecting everyone present until the entire gym erupted into uncontrollable laughter.
Kane stood still for a moment longer before he began laughing as well. "Hahahaha!! You are something else, boy!" he said genuinely, but his grin soon sharpened as he raised his hand and clenched his fist. "Perhaps this will make you take me more seriously." A colossal pressure erupted outward, instantly shattering Tony's construct and sending him flying backward across the floor. Tony crashed and skidded across the cracked ground before standing up and rolling his shoulder casually.
"Ooof, I almost felt that," Tony said with a grin. Suddenly, more versions of Tony began appearing around him. One became two, two became five, and soon dozens of identical Tonys filled the battlefield, each one wearing the same confident grin. "But sorry," they all said in perfect unison, "I don't do serious. I hope you don't mind I brought more people into our body."
"Not at all!" Kane exclaimed as he immediately launched into motion, unleashing devastating pressure attacks that shattered the nearest Tony constructs into fragments of fading light. He moved brutally and efficiently, destroying each copy without hesitation while trying to determine which one was real. Yet more Tonys continued appearing, surrounding him from every direction, each one smiling arrogantly.
"Come on, Unc," one Tony said mockingly.
"Can't you tell which one of us is your real nephew?" Said another
"I'll give you a hint, it's the incredibly handsome one between us."
"I've never been one to guess," Kane replied calmly. "So I'll just get rid of all of them." He raised his fist and brought it down with overwhelming force. The pressure collapsed inward in a perfect radius, forming a massive crater that encompassed every Tony present.
All of them shattered instantly, dissolving into fragments of light.
Kane stood alone in the crater before freezing as he felt something sharp pressed against his neck from behind. He slowly turned his head and saw the real Tony standing there, holding a hard-light katana against his throat.
"Wrong answer," Tony said with a grin. "You should have noticed that none of them held even a tenth of my charm."
Kane blinked before bursting into laughter. "Hahahaha!! You are one hell of a kid! I didn't even realize I was fighting fakes. When did you switch with them? I never even noticed!"
Tony's grin widened. "Since the very beginning. I never personally attacked you once. All you've been fighting were my holograms and hard-light constructs." His body flickered and began to glitch. "In fact… the me talking to you is also a hologram."
The construct dissolved completely as Tony's voice spoke again from behind the observation area. "The real me has been cuddling with my girlfriend while you were busy fighting."
Everyone turned and saw Tony standing there with his arms wrapped around Momo from behind, holding her close while she blushed intensely at the public display of affection.
Tony looked completely victorious while the entire gym stared at him, some in awe, some in disbelief, some in admiration, and even some in pure jealousy.
In fact many shared the exact same thought.
'Bastard!! I want a super cute shy foreign girl to cuddle with too!'
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