[ Kandahar, Afghanistan ]
The flames surged without mercy, a tidal wave of heat consuming everything it touched. The Mandarin could've focused his power—turned it into something surgical. He chose not to. Chaos suited him better. The inferno swept wide, engulfing buildings and bodies alike, reducing the heart of the city to ash with the careless cruelty of a god.
His laughter echoed above the screams. "Hahahahaha..." Not amused—manic. Triumphant.
Civilians burned before they could run. There were no warning shots, no hesitation. Just fire and finality. The cries were swallowed by the roar of collapsing structures and the wails of those already too late to save.
"This is the United States military! Surrender and raise your hands!"
"On your knees now!"
From the smoke, panicked voices rose—soldiers and local police demanding surrender from the airborne threat, barking orders into radios with trembling hands. But none of it meant anything.
"Surrender?" The word landed differently now. With the pilot's memories stitched into his mind, Mandarin understood the English language—and the audacity.
He floated above the wreckage, untouched by the flames. His expression twisted with contempt—shadowed eyes and a sneer of absolute arrogance. Surrender? The very word amused him.
"This land is mine," he announced coldly, his voice sharp as steel. "You should kneel and beg for mercy. Perhaps I'll grant you the honor of dying last." His hands were clasped behind his back, posture regal, like a monarch surveying his ruined throne room.
The local police watched in stunned silence. Just as they were about to move in, they witnessed something far more terrifying than fire—the retreat of the American forces. The supposed elite, the invincible foreign troops, turned and bolted like frightened animals. Some even dropped their weapons mid-flight.
These weren't ordinary guns. These were cutting-edge armaments. The kind of equipment that could earn a man promotion just for touching it. But no one was thinking about rank anymore. When the strongest run, everyone else follows.
"Ka haghoy tsakhty... no mozh delta tsa kawo? Os manda waha!" ("If they're fleeing... what are we doing here? RUN now!")
The Kandahar police didn't need more convincing. Whatever pride or bravado they carried vanished instantly. They knew the streets. They had escape routes. And they used them without hesitation.
But knowledge of the alleys didn't mean survival. Unlike the U.S. forces, they'd received no briefing—no orders to bait or delay. Their retreat came too late, too uncertain. And the Mandarin didn't forgive hesitation.
More than a dozen local police officers sprinted for their lives, desperate to escape the hellscape behind them. But something was wrong.
"Sa rawaan de—?!" (What's happening—?!)
Their feet touched the ground, their limbs pumped with adrenaline—and yet, they moved backward. By the time they sensed the unnatural drag, it was too late. Gravity wasn't just pulling them—it was reeling them in like fish on a hook.
"Allah, mrasta mo wakra!" (Allah, help us!) one screamed as his body slammed straight into a bolt of lightning cascading from the Mandarin's hand.
Those too slow to grasp the shift panicked in silence, while the sharper ones screamed and pleaded, forced to watch themselves pulled toward a fate they couldn't outrun—colliding straight into a storm of lightning waiting to consume them.
The air crackled with energy. The sound of bone snapping and flesh searing echoed across the block. One after another, Kandahar's officers became blackened husks. Gravity dragged them to judgment, and lightning delivered the sentence.
Mandarin's eyes flicked to the American soldiers still fleeing. His smile turned vicious.
"Run, little invaders. The hunt begins again."
The predator stirred again, the thrill of the hunt overtaking his senses as he launched after them like a phantom of vengeance.
But two streets in, he stopped. Something was off. The scattered and chaotic retreat had changed. Now the soldiers had formed ranks—tight, disciplined clusters surrounding the space around him with unnerving coordination.
He scoffed at the illusion of strategy. "Can ants crush an elephant?" he sneered, arrogant and unshaken. He mistook formation for desperation. That pride cost him.
A Barrett sniper rifle fired from less than thirty meters away—an ambush timed with ruthless precision. The bullet screamed through the air at 800 meters per second, far too fast for a proper defense. His shield began to rise—too late.
He twisted his head sharply on instinct, the bullet grazing across his face. It didn't kill him, but it left a scar—and blood trickled. that, to him, was worse. The scar vanished in seconds, healed by unnatural power, but the insult lingered.
His expression darkened. "You dare..." he growled.
"Open fire! Open fire!" The army general's voice cracked from the command line, spurring the trap into motion.
Snipers hidden across rooftops pulled their triggers in synchronized bursts. And from the ends of the street, two M1A2 tanks rumbled forward—cannons ready, targeting the Mandarin at point-blank range, unleashing firepower meant to break nations.
The tank's main cannon struck with far greater force than the bullets American soldiers had used earlier. Mandarin, despite accessing the pilot's memories, still underestimated modern warfare—and paid for it. The impact blasted through his partially made energy shield, leaving him reeling.
Daisy, anticipating his arrogance, had positioned two Black Hawk helicopters above the combat zone. They swept over Mandarin's position, dropped concussion grenades in coordinated bursts, and vanished from the scene before retaliation was possible.
As the air turned thick with smoke and shockwaves, Mandarin's defenses held against the artillery fire—but then came something he hadn't trained for.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!
Dozens of bombs detonated around him, sending shockwaves through the air, followed by a flood of smoke, dust, and bright white flashes.
Mandarin staggered midair. His vision blurred under the onslaught of strobing lights.
Then came the sound—a piercing, pulsating shriek. High-frequency sonic weapons activated on all sides, targeting the space around him. The air itself vibrated.
He growled, clutching his head.
"What... is this?!"
His senses were overwhelmed. He couldn't see. Couldn't focus. For a moment, the outside world disappeared for him.
"Direct hit! Agent Johnson, your tactic worked brilliantly!" General Edward in the command room grinned like a man who had already claimed victory, basking in a success that wasn't his.
General Green grinned like a boy on Christmas morning. "Beautiful! Concussion, flares, sonic pressure—he's blind and deaf!"
Daisy take the compliment with a polished smile, but she didn't believe a word from their mouths.
In truth, she admired her own foresight more than their approval. They'd simply been lucky enough to follow her lead.
Against an enemy like Mandarin, brute force was inefficient. But he still had a brain, a nervous system—human vulnerabilities. The rings shielded his body against missiles, but couldn't mute sound or erase light. Precision—not power—was the real weapon.
While the command center congratulated itself, Mandarin was in chaos. The blinding lights and sonic assault scrambled his perception, and the flow of "qi" in his body faltered. In that moment of imbalance, American firepower surged again—precise, relentless, and unrelenting.
The bullets came.
A storm of gunfire erupted from surrounding buildings, armored vehicles, and infantry squads—hundreds of rounds in seconds.
He was struck in the shoulder. The thigh. The side. His cloak tore, his skin shredded.
"Unacceptable—" he gasped.
He took hit after hit. And unlike Wolverine, his body didn't mend with near-instant speed. As the soldiers poured everything into him, Mandarin realized the grim truth—if he didn't fight back now, he wouldn't have a body left to heal. The advantage had shifted, and he was bleeding time.
He dropped from the sky in a crouch, murmuring something inaudible. A black pulse flickered from the ring on his right thumb—the one with power of matter reorganization. Within seconds, four stone giants rose from the ground, flanking him on all sides like ancient sentinels.
Inside the command center, the monitors flickered with the live feed. Someone muttered: "Are we watching a movie?"
"Is that real?" a staff officer whispered.
Even the Generals stared, stunned.
Soldiers on the ground hesitated too—stone behemoths weren't part of standard military protocol.
"Keep firing. They're rocks, not gods," Daisy said calmly, her tone flat. She couldn't give direct orders, so she planted the thought where it would grow fastest—in the general's ear.
She turned to General Edward. "You need to give the order. Now."
He nodded, snapped out of his daze. "All units, concentrate fire—light those rock bastards up!"
But by the time the order filtered down the chain of command, Mandarin had already conjured a full circle of stone defenders—more than a dozen, each standing between him and any line of sight.
BOOM!
The tanks fired again. One rock giant exploded into debris, crumbling like dried mud under the shell's impact.
Another fell seconds later, crushed under modern artillery.
To ancient minds, those stone beasts would've been unstoppable. But these were not ancient times. After all this was modern warfare. No matter how mystical they seemed, stone couldn't withstand steel.
Every round shattered a giant, crushing ancient fantasy beneath real steel.
But the delay had served its purpose. Mandarin had stabilized.
His posture shifted.
His focus sharpened.
And when he stood, there was no trace of weakness left in him.
Being wounded by what he saw as a swarm of ants was a humiliation he wouldn't tolerate.
And Daisy knew it the moment she saw his posture shift—not from defense, but intent. He was angry. And worse, focused.
Faced with an onslaught of hundreds of soldiers, the Mandarin finally got serious—unleashing the power of his right hand.
The rings on that hand were far more lethal than those on the left. The left held gravity manipulation on the thumb, fire blasts on the index finger, lightning storms on the middle finger, a mental amplifier on the ring finger, and ice projection on the little finger.
Three of them delivered energy-based attacks—dangerous, but in a modern world, replaceable by high-tech weaponry.
The right hand was a different story: it has reality-bending powers, material reorganization on the thumb, shockwaves from the index finger, wind control from the middle, atomic slicing from the ring finger, and a dark force field on the little finger.
Once the Mandarin began wielding his right hand, the battlefield changed. Casualties surged instantly.
Spotting the M1A2 main battle tanks as the primary threat.
He raised his right index finger.
He struck.
A ripple burst forward—a concussive shock wave.
The nearest M1A2 tank crumpled, its turret twisted like foil. The soldiers inside didn't even have time to scream.
His shockwave ability mirrored Daisy's own, though his came from the ring.
Another wave—BOOM—and the second tank flipped onto its side, metal groaning and splitting apart.
Flames rose. Black smoke coiled.
The tanks were now reduced to smoking wreckage.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]