Training Training and Training

As we began to walk off, I tried to figure out how to approach Ares.

When we got close to the base, I'd figured it out. Just be direct as fuck about it.

"Hey, can you guys give us a moment with Ares?" I asked Steve and Bucky just before the entrance.

Steve looked between Jen and I, then nodded. "Sure. We'll meet you there."

Bucky gave us a look, then followed Steve inside.

"Do you mind if we talk over there?" Jen asked Ares, pointing at a secluded section of land away from the base, near where he'd been training his recruits.

The god of war looked between us. "Why?"

"We kinda wanted to ask you a question," I said.

"...Hn," with that grunt, Ares turned and walked off towards the field. "Well, make it interesting."

"Huh," Jen looked at me, green eyes crinkling with skepticism. "You sure about this?"

"No. But Nat said to ask. And she's never steered me wrong," I said. "You still want to-"

"I'm with you until the end," Jen said with a smile.

I stared at her for a second. Then I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her in, kissing her.

Jen grinned against my lips, then took over the kiss for a bit.

"Hey!" Ares called back. "What are you doing!?"

I pulled away quickly, if reluctantly. "Sorry! Coming, coming!"

Jen laughed, following quickly.

Ares was glaring at us as we joined him. "I swear, if you idiots wanted me here to watch you kiss, I'm going to beat you to a pulp."

"That's uh, not why we wanted to talk to you," I said with some embarrassment. I couldn't help it, man.

I took a deep breath and released it. "Recently, there have been a lot of bad guys in the world. I doubt I need to explain who. Right now, as I am, I've managed to do a lot of good with these powers. But I can't just stand idle. I need to keep finding ways to push the envelope. I've been training with Black Widow."

"A good decision," Ares nodded gravely. "She is a warrior of some renown."

"More than that. She's the best teacher I've had," I said with a smile. "But recently I asked her for advice about improving myself in my alien forms. You mentioned my recent war. Do you know what I went up against?"

Ares scoffed. "Of course not. I am the god of war, but that doesn't mean I know everything about all wars everywhere."

"Wait, how does that work then?" Jen asked, befuddled.

He looked a little reluctant to explain it. Finally, he let out a sound like a mountain cracking apart for a few seconds. "I call it the fog of war. I may not know the details. But like all soldiers, I know war when it is happening. On Olympus, I could simply look down on Earth and follow my instincts to track the battle. Here, I get mostly the gist of things. It's clearest when the battle is over. I am not a god who can simply sense things. Even Athena is not that omniscient."

That… kinda made sense. Ares was connected to war, sure, but mostly to soldiers. The guys who were boots on the ground. The only generals Ares was tied to were probably like Steve. Leaders who fought alongside their men.

So he could sense war, but only the way a soldier could. Knowing it was there, knowing their own place in it, but not really seeing the bigger part of it. Too bad. Could have been a way to cheat and find HYDRA.

"Well, during that war of mine, I got tested in a few ways. Ended up passing. But I want to get stronger. And Black Widow said she couldn't help me. But she knew someone who could."

"Me," Ares said, proving he wasn't as dumb as people thought. He crossed his arms. "You want me to train you."

"Not just him," Jen said.

"Hn," Ares looked between us. "Why should I?"

Damnit. That was a good point. What did we have to offer besides things the guy already had?

"Hey, I have no idea why we're even asking you," Jen said. "Nat said it, and Mahmoud apparently agrees, but all I've seen is that you're pretty good with a sword."

"He's also a millennia-old god of war who has experience training warriors," I said simply.

"Isn't Thor a god of war? Along with the other stuff, I mean." Jen asked.

"No, he is not," Ares spat out, annoyed. "Honestly, explain to me, Mahmoud Schahed. Why should I spend any time training you?"

"...Because I'm asking nicely?" I said helplessly.

"...Are you joking?" Ares said with a look on his face like he had swallowed hydra blood.

"Dude, I just- Okay, let me think," I rubbed the back of my neck. "Earlier, when we were going after the hydra. You gave me good advice. Advice I was already thinking about, but that was reaffirmed when you said it as well. That made me think you could be a great teacher for me."

"I would be," a hint of pride entered his voice.

"Yeah. But as for why you should do it. I mean, what do you want from me, Ares? I doubt I have much to offer you."

"Oh? Not wealth, power, lands?" he said sarcastically.

I scowled, annoyed now. Damnit, why was this so hard?

"You don't need those things. You aren't some greedy asshole who wants money. You have a shit-ton of power already. And what lands can I offer that you can't just buy for yourself?" I sighed. "Ares, I just want to help people. There's a war coming soon. Not just against hydra-"

"Capitalized, sweetie," Jen said gently.

"Yeah, I mean, HYDRA. But also against that!" I pointed upwards. "There's a whole lot of shit I need to be ready for! Galactus, Thanos, the Beyonders, Dormammu, Mephisto! Demons, aliens, gods! I can't sit on my laurels, ever, when I know the shit that's coming! But I got beat by Ulik the fucking troll! In my strongest form! How can I know that I'm going to be strong enough if I don't have a teacher, a sparring partner, that can help my alien forms? Nat can help my human form get stronger. But I need someone who can help me with superhuman-"

"Enough," Ares growled. I shut up. He glared at me. "You talk far too much."

"It's part of my charm."

He grunted, sounding like mountains breaking apart once more. Then he looked at Jen. "And you?"

"I want to learn how to kick butt. Don't really have a preference except that the last time I let this dummy go off on his own, he got kidnapped," Jen gave me a soft smile. "So I'm protecting him."

"I'm not a lost puppy," I grunted.

"Just as cute," she chuckled.

"...Gods, I might end up regretting this," Ares rose to his feet, uncrossing his arms. "Very well… I would like to see then. If I'd be wasting my time."

"Wasting your time?" Jen asked, cocking her hip. "Weren't you training those soldiers earlier?"

"I was pushing them to run faster," Ares smirked. "That's different… Fight me."

"...Ah, shit," I whispered.

"As I said. I don't want to spend my time teaching spoiled brats who will give up the second things get tough."

"We're here because shits going to get tough," I growled, clenching a fist and raising the Omnitrix.

Ares seemed to loom over us. He smiled, teeth flashing on a face set in shadows. "That's a good start. But show me your resolve with actions. Not words."

I got ready to press the Omnitrix, while Ares clenched his fists.

"Wait!" Jen said, waving her arms. "We're like, five feet from a military base. Shouldn't we find somewhere a lot less, you know… breakable?"

Ares smiled. "Yes. Which is why I'm taking you there."

He literally disappeared into a blur of motion. Then he was a foot in front of us. I went to press down on the Omnitrix while Jen tried to punch him. Ares pressed a palm on each of our stomachs.

"Don't vomit," he said evilly.

I felt an impact like a gunshot to my stomach, and suddenly I was flying back like I'd been launched by a catapult.

"OH FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" I screamed, arms and legs waving while the sky and ground spun around and around me.

"That asshole!" I heard Jen somewhere nearby.

I managed to smack the Omnitrix through the skilled technique of panicked flailing, transforming midflight.

"Diamond-fuck! Ow, ow, damnit, son of a-FUCK"

I hit the ground, bounced upwards, then hit it again, grinding into the ground facefirst. I swallowed some dirt along the way. When it was over, I rolled to my back and stared at the sky. "...Did someone get the name of that asshole?"

"Ares!" the man himself landed nearby, cratering the ground and rushing forward, sword first. He smashed me into the ground, then kicked me away with immense force. "NOW GET THE FUCK UP AND FIGHT!"

I blame Nat for all of this.

I got to my feet in a flash of blue-green crystals as Ares hefted his sword.

"You could have-" I started to quip.

He flash-stepped again, reappearing in front of me with his sword raised. I brought up a crystal arm to block it, the metal of his blade slicing into my arm in a spray of crystals. He pulled his sword out of my arm and punched me in the face faster than I could believe, my jaw cracking at the impact.

Holy- how fucking fast was he!

I didn't have to contemplate it further. I shifted my left arm into a blade, hardening it as much as I could, then slashed out at Ares. He blocked the slash, but I I kept moving in on him, turning my arm from a blade into an arm holding a sword to get some extra dexterity.

"Good," Ares apparently noticed. "But this blade of yours must be stronger," his sword started chipping into my sword, crystals flying about. "Flow, boy. Your every attack must be both a death blow and preparation for the next strike. Faster now!"

"Raagh!" I aimed for his heart. He parried it, then the next blow, and the next, forcing me to keep following him.

"Will you let me guide you like this?" he chided. "Let me force you to my rhythm?"

To prove his point, he took a bigger step back just when I swung down at him, my sword smashing into the ground, then came forward to slam the hilt of his sword into my forehead.

"Be better than that, boy!" Ares barked while I tried to get the stars out of my vision.

A green missile came out of the skies, coming down on Ares. The god of war side-stepped at the last second and swung his sword like he was a batter going for a home run.

"Guh!" Jen shouted when a sword slammed into her stomach, turning her surprise dive into a bouncing trail across the desert. She didn't get cut, but she damn sure felt it.

"A good effort," Ares complimented. "But a flying attack when you can't fly is foolishness. Your path is predictable, and you have no way to adjust if your opponent dodges. Stick to the ground, girl."

I screamed in rage and raised my hands. Crystals shot out of my arms like bullets.

Ares pulled some anime bullshit and started slicing the crystals out of the air with insane speed, running towards me at the same time. I waited until he was about five feet away, then slammed my palms into the ground.

"Back off, you Kirito wanna-be!" I shouted at the approaching war deity.

"I prefer Goemon Ishikawa," Ares barked back. He stopped coming at me when a series of crystals shot up out of the ground in front of me, each as sharp as I could possibly make them.

"Do you need both hands to do that?" Ares asked, jumping back over and over. "You could have shot me with one hand and established that defense with the other."

"Are you fighting us, or lecturing us?!" Jen shouted, jumping at Ares. I noticed she stayed to the ground, punching and kicking at him.

"If you wish me to be silent, simply fight better," he said with a smirk.

Jen grit her teeth and poured on her speed, trading her strength for just tagging him as much as she could.

"No," Ares let a punch hit him in the chest, then punched her in the stomach. "Even if you can't hit me, trading it for a multitude of attacks is a wasted effort. Every blow must be a death blow. Every blow must lead to the next. Every blow is accuracy and speed. I demand perfection, Jennifer Walters."

"Ya?" Jen spun around with immense speed and punched at Ares. He went to block it, only for Jen to halt the attack and switch to a knee strike, sending him back a step. "How's that!?"

"Better," he said. "But not good."

Jen roared, her green eyes glowing with gamma radiation. She went for him with all the power she had, Ares forcing her to use every she had. From my vantage point, it looked like two Dragonball Z fighters sparring at high speed. Jen was almost glowing. And Ares was laughing happily.

"Good, GOOD! Unleash your full power! Strike me down with all your hate!

"YOU ARENT FUCKING PALPATINE YOU ASS!" I screamed. Then I dropped my arms. And the meteor came down.

While the two had been distracted, I had been bringing together every crystal I'd made, using my mental control over them to float them upwards. Then I made them grow. Large as I could, making sure they wouldn't cast a shadow over the battling duo. Then, once it was big enough to cause real damage, I brought it down. It was around forty feet around, moving as fast as I could make it go, aided by gravity. Jen stared up at it, and quickly ran away.

Ares… laughed. "YES! BRING ME ALL YOU HAVE!"

He stood his ground and raised his fist to his hips, undaunted by the crystal meteor. I chuckled.

"Man, if Thor is half this badass, I'm glad we never fought."

Ares hit the meteor with all his strength as he disappeared under it's huge bulk.

Jen landed next to me. "...He's fine, isn't he?"

My meteor exploded. Ares went through it with a triumphant roar, blue-green crystals flying about. Then he laughed again. "That was fun. But," he looked at us with hard eyes. "Not enough to impress me."

"Oh, believe me, I'm beyond impressing you at this point," I said with a grimace. I created a sword again.

This time, I put all my focus into it. I poured all I had into this sword. As sharp as I could make it, durable as possible, every bit I could push into it, forming the crystals into tight and strong formations. When I was done, it had to be just about the strongest blade I'd ever made in Diamondhead form.

Jen picked up a boulder from the floor and tossed it. I pulled together the shattered crystals from the mountain Ares had left and forced them to fly at him. Ares deflected them with his sword as we ran towards him.

I'd never tried to control crystals as I moved. The split of my focus made my diamond brain hurt, but I kept it up as I slashed out at Ares. He ducked the slash, deflected another crystal flying down at him, then blocked Jen's punch on his arm, grunting in pain at her strength. He slashed out at me with his sword, forcing me to block, then kicked my stomach before spinning to slice Jen across her face, her durable skin only slightly giving way to the blow, though she was still sent back a step.

I pushed my abilities further, sending every crystal I had at him while my own body recovered from his blows. Jen jumped back to attack him as blood ran down her cheek. Ares still had that damn smile on his face.

Jen's skin was shining with gamma radiation, her face set into determined rage, fists lashing out as she smashed her right punch into Ares' chin, his own fist embedded in her belly. She was sweating as she tried to bring down the man before us.

Ares was as crisp as the moment we'd met him. He swiped a crystal out of the air and stabbed it deep into my chest, making me scream as I fought through the pain. I managed to get my first hit on him by forcing the crystal he'd grabbed to grow spikes, stabbing them through his palm and spilling blood on us both.

He never flinched. Instead he headbutted me, then took the crystal stuck in his hand to stab Jen in the thigh. Then he kicked us away with a vicious sweep of his feet, sending us onto our backs.

As I tried to recover from having my silicate brain rung once again, he looked down at his hand. Blood ran down his arm to his elbow, and covered the crystal in his palm, one of the spikes stabbing through his hand entirely.

"Hm… The last time a mortal injured me was Diomedes. He surprised me then, too," he stabbed his sword into his hand and used it as a level to force the crystal out with a nasty 'squilk' sound.

"You about to run to Olympus again?" I said, rising to my feet. "...Actually, why the hell did you do that back then!? You're such a fucking badass!"

I think that comment from me surprised him more than getting stabbed in the hand. Ares stared at me with wide eyes like no one had ever considered it weird he'd ran his ass off mid-battle during the battle of Troy. But seriously! The dude reacted to a meteor drop with a laugh, a stab in the hand with mild curiosity, and a punch from She-Hulk with a proud grin. How the hell did he get chased off in the Iliad?

It was a crazy story. Basically, during the battle of Troy, a dude named Diomedes was kicking tremendous amounts of ass, and had been blessed by Athena to do it. At one point, he was about to kill Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite. She pops in to save him, only to learn Diomedes is the kinda guy to be very indiscriminate about the sex of the person at the end of his wrath. He hits her like a truck while shouting the Greek equivalent of 'get back in the kitchen', forcing her to run for it with Apollo's help. Yeah. Diomedes was crazy enough to attack gods and shout sexist comments at them while he was at. Just did not care about them.

Apollo and Aphrodite told Ares to go fight Diomedes. The war god appears. And Diomedes stabs him in the stomach immediately. Ares yells his head off and runs home, leaving Diomedes to become the only human to wound two Olympian gods.

I actually managed to stand up while Ares contemplated my question. He seemed disinclined to continue the fight.

"Yeah," Jen got up as well. "I mean, no offense, but half the stories of you fighting describe you as a superpowered maniac without any skills who cries everytime he gets cut," Jen spat to the side. "But you're none of that."

"Is it such a stretch that history would twist my story?" Ares said. "That I would be different from mythology?" he hesitated. "...I wasn't that different. I was not a good man. But that day," he hefted his sword onto his shoulder and gave us a conspiratorial grin. "Well, Aphrodite said she would never allow me into her bed if I didn't go kill 'that absolute fucking lunatic'. I went down to do just that. He stared at me, then had the audacity to rush forward like a mad man and stab me in the stomach!"

Ares chuckled. "A man willing to attack the god of war? Someone with that sort of insane resolve! How could I kill him when he was doing what even the bravest men of the war wouldn't!?"

"Of course, I also felt like he was right to tell Aphrodite to leave the battlefield," Ares shook his head. "War is for soldiers, warriors, like the three of us. Not for those who discarded their warlike nature for beauty, love, and lust."

He sighed, looking nostalgic. Then he gave us a hard look. "Now. We've had a long enough break. Prepare yourself. For your teamwork must be much more polished to cause me to sweat."

"Oh, you want teamwork?" I grinned while tapping the omnitrix.

My crystal form shifted from blue-green to inky black. I smiled, teeth flashing, licking my lips with a tongue that was eighteen inches long. Green veins stood out against an oily black. Fake muscles bulged. I stood tall and called out my name.

"Blight!"

Jen grinned as our hands met. I laughed as my body flowed into her. We joined as one, the flowing oily black mixing across her. We clenched our fists and roared.

"WE ARE BLIGHT!"

Jen had grown several inches, covered in my symbiotic form. I melded together with her, enhancing her as far as I could, and felt our minds press together.

"Oh?" Ares chuckled. "Not quite I meant."

"You weren't specific," we said. Then we ran forward with super-speed. Ares' eyes widened in time for our fist to slam into his stomach, sending him flying back. We reached a hand out and sent out a web, attaching it to his foot as he flew back, then spun around in a circle, letting go after a few spins. "Fly!"

Ares was sent off towards a mountain like he'd been shot out of a railgun. Jen grinned separate from me.

"Holy shit! This feels awesome!"

"Yeah, it does," I said with a mental grin. Then I blinked. "Huh… are we closer than we were last time?"

We'd practiced this before, in training. But this felt different. The only way to describe it was like we'd been in separate rooms before, talking to each other through a closed door. Now it was like we were pressed back to back

"Because you stopped hiding anything from me, you dope," Jen said with a gentle smile in our mind. "How's it feel to be inside me?"

"Yeesh, keep it in your pants," I joked. "Lets go kick our sensei's butt."

"Spoilsport."

We crouched low, then jumped in the direction of Ares. He'd landed on a rocky mountainside next to some cliffs. The god of war was back on his feet, and smirked as he saw us coming down towards him. Jen and I thought of what he'd told us earlier.

Stick to the ground if you are unable to control your flight.

In Ares' mind, we'd forgotten that lesson. He raised his sword to bat us out of the air.

But I was a huge Spider-Man fan. And any fan of the webslinger knows he's at his best in the air.

We waited until the last second, trusting each other. Right when Ares was swinging his sword, we let loose a black and green web at an outcropping to his side, pulling us out of the way. We landed feet first, then let loose a tentacle of symbiote. Enhanced by Jen's natural strength, the tentacle hit Ares in the back like a cannon, sending him forward a step. We wrapped it around his waist and pulled him forward.

For some reason, while we tended to go traditional webs when we were jumping around, tentacles felt like the default for combat. Something about how my fanboy brain thought of Venom?

Whatever the case, we got Ares off his feet and slammed him into the cliff face. Our feet slashed into the wall with claws to keep us standing. Holding him there with the tentacle we made, we shapeshifted it to our waist to leave our hands free to punch Ares. He shouted when our right hook hit smashed across his chin. He tried to block the next one, but our combination of speed and strength outstripped him now.

Hook, uppercut, jab, duck, elbow to the throat. We created more tentacles to wrap around his arms and legs, holding him as tight as we could, while more tendrils unleashed blows as well. Black and green whips smashed across Ares' armor and skin. He fought back, biting down on one, ripping another off, then raising his sword and slicing into our body.

"Let's go!"

"Don't let him get his head straight!"

There was a good reason we unleashed everything we had. Jen and I knew that all he needed was an opening. And from the looks of it, Ares knew it too.

He smashed his head into ours, bit down on our neck, and strained his muscles to try and fight us off. We roared as one and bit back, punching him in the stomach with gamma strength enhanced by symbiote powers. He gasped, grit his teeth, and reached for his waist. As soon as I saw what he pulled from under his armor, I sent a warning to Jen, the two of us grabbing his hand as he pulled out a grenade.

Too late. He pulled the pin out with one thumb and held tight to it, wrapping his arms around us. I got ready for this next part to suck.

And you know what. I was still surprised. I hadn't yet been hit by a lotta of noise in klyntar form. It FUCKING hurt.

"SREEEECH!" the noise that left my lips was unholy, my symbiote lips and Jen's lungs mixing together. We had to let go of the cliff, falling to the ground. I came off Jen in a sickening noise, holding desperately to her to try and keep enhancing her further. Jen half-covered in my body, blocked a kick from Ares as he came at us.

"Magnificent!" Ares barked. "You're still fighting!"

We roared as one and swung out a tentacle, smashing Ares down the mountain. Jumping after him, we snatched him out of the air and pulled him in for a punch as we fell towards the desert below. Ares stabbed us in the stomach as we got close, then roared in our was shoved into our mouth. We looked down at it with large white eyes.

"Ah-"

"Fuck."

Ares had shoved a grenade into our mouth. I wrapped myself around and around the grenade as fast as I could, pulling away from Jen's mind-

BOOM!

That explosion made me want to die right then and there. God, I knew that my symbiote form was weak to loud noises, but I'd never appreciated just how insanely horrible the experience was. Like someone had reached into the brain and somehow made me feel their fingers digging into my mind, the sound of the frag worse than the explosion or the shrapnel.

I was left lying on the ground in a senseless pile. The psychic backlash of my pain had entered Jen despite my trying to pull away, leaving her screaming, though she was still on her feet. I saw Ares walking towards me. Jen rolled in front of me and raised her fists wearily.

Ares smiled. He looked oddly proud of her.

But the pain in my head was making me want to die. I needed to change. I needed to become something that could stand up to Ares.

I whispered under my breath. "S...Sand...rass."

The Omnitrix flashed. My body shifted.

And the desert around us exploded upwards. For hundreds of feet around, sand rose upwards to the sky, towering over us. Simultaneously, the grains began to spin, around and around.

Ares shielded his eyes as he stared at me. "...Asgardian."

"Olympian," I said back with a grin. Dressed in the full regalia of my Asgardian form, standing tall, I felt the sand around me crack apart. I felt stronger than I ever had before. Something about this fight…

"Let's see what I canreallydo."