Fighting Tony and Rhodey
With Hammer leaving the podium, Tony continued with a brief speech before officially ending the Expo for the day.
The audience began dispersing, leaving the stadium in groups, while Liam stood up, feeling something lock onto him. 'Tony must've found me,' Liam thought, glancing back at the Iron Man standing on the podium.
Liam continued walking out of the stadium, blending in with the crowd. As he exited, he heard the sound of Tony's thrusters firing as he took off into the air, followed by the War Machine who took off right after him.
'Let's just get this over with,' Liam decided, breaking away from the crowd and heading to the right. 'I'm not sure if Tony improved his suit as much as he should've and there's really only one way to find out.'
He passed through a small park, eventually stopping near Meadow Lake, where there were almost no civilians around. He stood there, waiting, knowing Tony wouldn't be far behind.
It didn't take long before Liam heard the sound of jet thrusters approaching. Without hesitation, he summoned Incursio to wrap around his body. With his right hand, he reached out, summoning Neontote from thin air. In addition, he also cast an Eldritch Constructs spell, forming a whip in his left hand.
"Ah, flying entities. My favorites," Liam mumbled sarcastically.
Moments later, Tony arrived in his Iron Man suit, accompanied by Rhodey in the War Machine armor. The two hovered side by side in the air, facing Liam.
"Well, isn't this a funny coincidence, Liam Hawthorne," Tony said, his voice filled with sarcasm as he hovered in place.
"I'd like to say that it's been a while, but that wouldn't exactly be true," Liam replied. "At least I don't have to introduce myself this time."
"That's right. Executing defenseless people like that tends to leave a lasting impression," Tony mocked. "I don't know what deal you have with Fury, but killing a defenseless man doesn't make you better than the criminal you're supposedly stopping."
"Oh, naturally, you'd know all about the moral high ground," Liam shot back.
"You don't see the difference between defending civilians and what you did to Ivan?" Tony asked, his voice held some irritation and anger.
"Defending civilians? Interesting choice of words, especially coming from someone who, until recently, armed criminals with weapons that got thousands killed," Liam responded, his tone cold as he deliberately took a step forward. "But then again, like father, like son."
Tony's eyes narrowed beneath his helmet at the mention of his father. Irritated and slightly angered, he spoke over his comms.
"Rhodey, take my eight o'clock. Stay in the air as much as possible. He doesn't seem to have any means of flight, but watch out for his spear throws. We'll have to improvise for anything else."
"Roger that," Rhodey replied, taking position to Tony's left.
Tony raised a repulsor, aiming it at Liam, while Rhodey activated the War Machine's shoulder machine gun.
"I'm going to need you to take off the armor and drop the spear," Rhodey demanded.
Liam stood still, holding Neontote and his whip in both hands. 'Let's have a go, birdies,' he thought.
Without waiting for them to make the first move, Liam swung his whip. The construct shot towards Tony, who narrowly dodged it with a burst of his thrusters. Tony countered by firing repulsor shots with temperatures over 3632 fahrenheit, which Liam evaded as he sprinted closer.
Meanwhile, Rhodey flew in from above, using the minigun on his back to shoot at Liam.
Liam didn't dodge the bullets, they all ricocheted off his armor anyway. Instead of dodging, he jumped up towards Tony, aiming to grab him and pull him to the ground.
"Divert power to the chest repulsor," Tony commanded JARVIS.
A beam of concentrated energy burst from Tony's chest, hitting Liam midair and sending him flying back to the ground. The impact created cracks in the earth beneath Liam's feet as he landed because of the energy that came from the repulsor shot.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Rhodey fired a barrage of rockets at Liam from above. Liam couldn't dodge because of the wide radius, but neither did he need to, he knew that the level of heat coming from these simple rockets is nowhere near enough to do significant damage.
While the explosions went off, Tony descended, circling Liam as he unleashed a series of repulsor blasts. Liam dodged and deflected most of the shots, using Neontote to cut through some of the energy beams while predicting Tony's predictable pathing.
"His armor's extremely resistant to heat and overall really durable. We need to hit the same spot repeatedly to burn through," Tony instructed Rhodey over the comms. "Target the top left of his chest. I hit it earlier with the chest ray, there's still damage over there.''
"Got it," Rhodey acknowledged, taking aim.
Before Rhodey could act, Liam's whip flew out, wrapping around his leg. With a hard tug, Liam pulled Rhodey from the sky, spinning him a full circle through the air at high speeds before slamming him into the ground.
Tony took the distraction as a chance to strike, firing at Liam's exposed chest. Liam blocked, letting the shots hit Neontote. 'I can't let him keep hitting the same spot.' Liam thought as he weaved between the attacks.
Liam dodged the blasts and slowly got closer to Rhodey who had just stood up again. Despite standing up again, Rhodey was unable to fly because of his damaged repulsors. Instead Rhodey started firing normal bullets again, aimed at the damaged area at Liam's upper chest.
Seeing Liam move closer to Rhodey, Tony prepared to charge. Liam smirked as he knew his bait had worked. When Tony got close, Liam struck, landing a solid punch to the side of Tony's helmet. The blow sent Tony flying off his course with his helmet dented. Tony was just barely able to pull up in time and avoided crashing into the ground.
Rhodey remembered the weapons Hammer had installed and decided to deploy his Hammer Tech bunker buster: the ex wife.
"I've got something for this," Rhodey said, revealing a small missile launcher from his shoulder.
Rhodey fired the missile, but it bounced harmlessly off Liam's armor before extinguishing on the ground.
"Don't bother with Hammer Tech," Tony said over the comms.
"Noted," Rhodey replied, irritated.
Tony formulated a plan. "Rhodey, I need you to hold him. When I give the signal, dodge immediately."
Rhodey acknowledged the order and charged Liam, firing his remaining bullets to distract him. As Rhodey grappled Liam, Tony flew closer to Liam, preparing his unibeam laser.
'Not this trick,' Liam thought, recognizing the move from the movies. Knowing he had to act quickly, Liam overpowered Rhodey, ripping off his helmet and tearing out his arc reactor. Rhodey fell to the ground slowly, while his suit was without power.
Liam turned his attention to Tony, who had just started powering up the unibeam laser. He quickly unsummoned Neontote and raised his right hand. With a burst of dimensional energy, Liam aimed and fired the Bolt of Balthakk, the spell flew to Tony at very high speeds. It struck Tony head-on, shorting out his suit's systems and sending him falling to the ground.
''Bolts of Balthakk really is indeed very good for these type of enemy's.'' Liam nodded, satisfied. 'After the months of training I really dont need to use an incantation or spell circle anymore, so it will look just like I had my own repulsors.'
Liam walked over to the fallen Tony, ripping off his helmet before tearing off the rest of his repulsors. Dragging Tony and Rhodey together, Liam bound them with his whip.
"You're both still too weak," Liam said, his voice steady. "And let me make one thing clear, Stark: I don't work for Fury, SHIELD, or anyone else. I work for myself. That's it."
"What about all the other strange incidents around you?" Tony demanded, his tone angry. "The factory explosion that killed random civilians? The intentional car crash?"
"The first had nothing to do with me," Liam replied firmly. "As for the second, ask Fury. Though I doubt he'd tell you the truth."