CHAPTER 161

COLD CHRONICLES III

Today was a free day in the 'Draul's Home for the Mentally Unstabled' residence which meant that…

CRASH! BOOOM!! 

A car impacted the spot Steve once was and exploded due to the accurately timed shot to its fuel tank. 

Though the resulting explosion did reach the once frozen Enhanced Soldier, he walked out of it without a scratch to show for it. 

The place they were fighting in was a waste land situated in one on Draul's pocket spaces that could be accessed with the door to the gym at the house. In it were different things, ranging from planes to tanks, from RPGs to C4s, filled with all sorts of weapons that could be found on earth in different sizes ranging from kiddies' weapons to something that could only be lifted by supermen, emphasis on the word 'super'. 

Even trees could be found here, along with school busses and other heavy duty trucks. Gym instruments were scattered everywhere for easy access. 

One would wonder what the hell Draul was thinking when he stuffed the spatial pocket with things that would never be found in any other gym room on the planet. 

Case in point, Bucky grabbed a barbell and removed the weighted disk on one end. Tensing his leg muscles, he lifted himself up into the air with a height that was downright impossible for any normal human on the planet, even a super soldier. 

Steve not liking the thought of being a stationary target leapt into the air. 

Getting within striking distance, Bucky swung the one-ended barbell at the incoming Steve, who seemingly anticipating the attack, brought his shield forward to block himself from the strike. 

Steve punched the convex back of the shield the same time that Bucky struck the front of it, causing a sonic boom that shot both soldiers backwards. 

They both landed on their feet without a scratch but Steve made the first move this time. 

Grabbing the back of a tank, Steve flung it towards Bucky whose eyes widened at the incoming armored vehicle. 

Though he cursed the younger soldier, he didn't move from his spot and braced himself to catch the airborne tank. 

Catching the tank with a grunt, Bucky was ready to throw it back at Steve but one look at the ideal American soldier and the curse that he kept it escaped his mouth. 

"Motherfucker."

Steve held onto the back of a school bus and broke into a run towards Bucky the moment the one armed man caught the tank. 

Halfway to Bucky he jumped into the air once more, the school bus lifting into the air, and slammed it on top of the tank, digging Bucky into the ground. 

"That's for the car."

His rebuttal was cut short as the ground started rising in his direction but quick thinking on his part made his throw his shield to the ground to cut the path that the energy wave was travelling which created a sonic wave that flung his shield away but a call from his brought back the oversized frisbee to his hands. 

"Seriously?" Bucky got up from his kneeling position and questioned Steve who stood at a respectable distance away. 

"You started it first…" Steve argued back but Bucky wasn't taking this L. 

"Yea, with a Toyota. Not a fricking tank and a school bus."

"Well… I'm just built different." Steve said with a low voice but Bucky's acute hearing picked it up pretty easily. 

"Come again?"

"I'm built different, Bucky." Steve said, this time aloud, so that the Winter Soldier could hear him. 

"And pray tell what does that mean?" Bucky asked, flexing the fingers of the prosthetic arm. 

"It means I'm just that good." Steve bent down massaging his legs with a little workout while Bucky stretched his arms, both acting as if the previous word exchange didn't light the proverbial gunpowder barrel in flames. 

"I see. I see." Bucky brought his two knuckles together creating a small boom but he did not care and continued doing it, his black arm glowing a dark purple as it built up energy. 

Nothing needed to be said as the two soldiers rushed at each other, arms at the ready. 

The fight that ensued was something that no ordinary super soldier could survive in. 

Strength, speed, durability, endurance, grip, sense acuity… They had long surpassed the bar of what it meant to be human or anything related. 

They never got tired, have never felt fatigue since that day, can never fall sick, had an eyesight better than hawks, could very well see in the dark, had a higher level of resistance to the natural elements and their extremes, could jump higher than anything remotely human… they had broken through the human limit, even the peak human. 

If it had ever come to the hard choice, they would have slaughtered the Asgardians except for Thor had they been properly motivated. 

Although they might not be as strong as Draul, they had every right and the strength needed to stand their own ground against any foe they found themselves against. 

They didn't feel like humans… true, as they were anything but. 

The sonic booms that were produced from Bucky's arm colliding with Steve's shield were strong to the point that the place looked exactly like how a city scene of an apocalyptic movie would be portrayed. 

There was no upper limit to their strength, that was the beauty of the Enhanced Serum that Draul gave them. 

Their cells would continue to absorb energy from any emitting source for as long as they were alive. 

Even their life expectancy was lengthened. If a super soldier could live up to 200 natural years, an enhanced would naturally have theirs extended but by how much was something that nobody knew. Not even Draul. 

Bucky suckered a punch straight into Steve's jaw but unwilling to be the one on the back foot, Steve used the edge of his shield to smack against Bucky's face. 

The both of them staggered two steps backward due to the force behind their strike but were upon each other at the next second. 

Deflecting kicks after kicks and parrying blows for blows, the two continued a trade of equal exchange, unwilling to give the other an inch of respite even as their blows got stronger. 

Steve was the first one that got the upper hand at the moment Bucky punched his shield. Using the small moment interval as an opening, he swiped at the legs of the Winter Soldier and then used the shield to propel Bucky into the air. 

Acting quick on his feet, he grabbed a car and hurtled it at the airborne Bucky. 

The car collided with Bucky and started bringing him down but Steve wasn't done yet and threw his shield at Bucky. The shield sailed past Bucky before turning back and heading towards the back of the soldier, intent on sandwiching him between it and the car. 

Bucky, not being one to take a beating lying down, using the car as a pseudo platform for his feet, pushed himself towards the fast incoming shield. 

He twisted himself midair and caught the shield and threw it back to Steve who had already broken into a sprint the moment he caught a hang on what Bucky intended to do. 

He caught the shield and without wasting a second threw it at the incoming car, the same one he threw at Bucky. 

The shield ripped cleanly through the car before abruptly turning around midair and going back to the waiting hands of Steve. 

"Nice improv by the way." Bucky said after he landed on the ground. "That shield of yours hurts like a bitch."

"I can say the same for that arm of yours." The compliment that went both ways flew in through an ear and out by the other, none of them taking it to heart. 

"Round 3?"

"Round 3."

That was the only prompt any of them needed as they engaged each other once again. 

First thing Bucky did was grab the damn shield and yanked it out Steve's hand but withheld from throwing it away as Steve could just call it back. 

Steve, refusing to be outdone, yanked out the Adamantium blade from his hands and slashed at him only for him to hit his shield. 

He scowled as he saw it, immediately knowing why Bucky went for it the moment he got the chance..

Sure he could call back the shield but the distance between the two was pretty much negligible so it wouldn't be able to pick up enough speed and also the fact that Bucky wouldn't just let the thing go on his own. 

Switching the sword to his other hand, he attacked Bucky again but the Winter Soldier was someone who was a natural in almost every human weapon, using a shield was as easy as using a nunchucks. 

Though Steve didn't have as much mastery with weapons as Bucky did, that didn't mean he was a slouch in the ones he did know how to use. Case in point was him throwing the blade in the air and using the outstretched shield as a platform to perform a backflip and used his legs to kick the handle of the blade with enough force that it flew past the small opening and made a precisely dangerous cut to Bucky's cheeks. 

Bucky dodged the blade, although narrowly, but not enough for it to destroy his focus as he grabbed Steve's feet which was still in the air and slammed him against the ground. 

Steve bounced against the ground and Bucky deemed the elevation enough and batted Steve away with his own shield before nodding to himself in satisfaction. 

The shield flew out of his hand due to the light grip he had on it but at this point he didn't care. 

He got one good hit in with the damned thing that he could rub in Steve's face until their next fight. 

He picked up his sword, the wound almost completely healed up. 

Their regeneration was botched up that normal graze would be held in a few seconds and things that nicked the inner skin would take up to a minute for full recovery. 

Deeper wounds took more time but it was all done in a matter of a few minutes. 

"Okay.. That hurts." Steve said as he took Bucky's hand for support. 

"Now you know what it feels like." Bucky chortled. 

"I do, but I guess you don't know what it's like to be punched by that arm of yours, do you?" Steve sent him a glare as he massaged his jaw. 

"And that, Steve, is something that I'll never get to experience." Bucky sounded way too smug for something like that. "That's enough for today. I think that's a tally of 4 – 2. In my favor obviously."

"Please. It's supposed to be a tie, 3 – 3." Steve denied. 

"Oh pishposh. Did you see that shield smash? That alone got me the match." Bucky didn't see a reason why he had to take the match as his loss. 

"Yeah? What about the tank bash? Followed by a school bus? That shit was IT. And if that shield-car combo connected? That would have been legendary."

They both walked towards a specific place while at the same time arguing about the score tally before they got to their destination. 

It was a door sitting in the middle of the path. 

The door worked on intent as it opened by itself, letting Steve and Bucky pass through unimpeded. 

"So who won this time?" Nat was whipping up some pancakes when they walked in. 

They both grunted, not bothering to answer her which clued her in on the fact they apparently argued about who won which was something they did every time they had an unsupervised match.

You would think that Draul being able to make spatial pockets would stop him from training on a barren planet, but what actually prevented him from doing so was the fact that he would absolutely wreck this place and would be forced to create another… so a barren planet it was. 

"Boys." Nat just shook her head.

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