In his mind's eye, Loki, watching through the Destroyer's senses, felt a flicker of something…. a phantom of brotherly love, a whisper of admiration for Thor's newfound nobility.
He almost gave the order to stop. But then he saw the throne, he felt the power, and the moment of weakness passed.
His ambition was stronger. He gave the final command.
The Destroyer raised its arm. The metal fist swung in a brutal backhand.
The blow struck Thor in the chest, and the world dissolved into a universe of white hot agony.
The sound of his own bones snapping was the last thing he heard as his body was hurled through the air, landing in the mud and dust, broken and still.
The Destroyer stood over him, its head tilting down, preparing for the incinerating blast that would erase him from existence.
In the mud, Thor was dying. Jane, who had run out against all reason, knelt beside him, her face a mask of tears.
"No... please... don't leave," she sobbed.
Miles away, in the crater where it had lain for six days, a change occurred. A low hum emanated from Mjolnir.
A faint blue light began to pulse from the runes etched into its surface.
The enchantment, the law of the All Father, had been fulfilled by an act of sacrifice. If he be worthy...
With a sound that was both a thunderclap and a musical chord, Mjolnir erupted from the crater.
It was a streak of divine lightning, a silver blue comet that tore across the desert sky.
It streaked into the chaos of the town, past the astonished gazes of the Illuminati, and slammed directly into Thor's outstretched hand.
The transformation was instantaneous.
A concussive blast of lightning erupted from Thor's body, healing his broken bones, restarting his heart, and throwing Jane a safe distance away.
The ragged mortal clothes were burned away, replaced by the gleaming silver discs of his armor, his red cape billowing into existence as if woven from the storm itself.
The sky, which had been clear moments before, was now a roiling cauldron of black storm clouds, lit from within by crackling bolts of lightning.
He rose to his feet, no longer a broken man, but a force of nature.
He was not the arrogant prince who had been cast out. He was not the humbled mortal who had learned his lesson.
He was Thor, the God of Thunder, worthy and whole once more, Mjolnir a living extension of his will.
He looked at the Destroyer. His eyes, now crackling with the pure power of the storm with a clear purpose.
"Now," he roared, his voice the sound of the coming thunder, "it is my turn."
And then, four things happened at once.
From the west, a streak of crimson and gold fire descended from the sky, hitting the ground between Thor and the Destroyer with the force of a meteor.
It was Tony Stark in his Mark V armor, landing in his signature three point stance.
"Party's over, buckethead," he announced. "You are in violation of about a thousand planetary defense protocols. Power down, or be powered down."
From the east, black blur erupted from the shadows of a rooftop.
T'Challa landed with the predatory grace of his namesake, his vibranium claws extended.
From the south, the very ground seemed to turn to mud as a colossal wave of water, pulled from some underground aquifer, surged up the main street.
Riding the crest of the wave was Namor, trident in hand, his eyes blazing with an arrogant fury.
The wave swirled around the Destroyer, a high pressure vortex that sought to immobilize it.
And from behind Thor, Wanda Maximoff stepped forward, her hands now glowing with a chaotic red energy.
The air around the Destroyer grew thick and heavy, the very fabric of reality seeming to warp and buckle under the force of her will.
"You are not welcome here," she said, her voice a whisper that carried an impossible weight.
The metal plates on the Destroyer's body glowed white hot, and a wave of pure thermal energy erupted, turning thousands of gallons of water into a superheated cloud of steam in an instant.
The resulting explosion of pressure blew out every window on the street.
As the steam cleared, the Destroyer's sealed helmet clicked open.
The inferno within its core blazed, and a beam of golden energy aimed directly at Tony Stark.
For any normal observer, the blast was instantaneous death. For Tony, T'Challa, and Namor, the world snapped into the syrupy slow crawl of Beta Level Bullet Time.
Tony saw the column of golden death approaching.
His Delta level Boy Eye vision was a total spectrum analysis that broke the beam down into its component energies, identifying its properties and weaknesses.
His Gamma level Cognitive Multitasking was already running a thousand combat simulations, cross referencing the beam's energy type with his suit's defensive capabilities and the powers of his allies.
While the energy beam was still traveling. He held out his hands.
With a thought, he seized every piece of metal on the street. Cars, streetlights, fire hydrants, manhole covers.
The streetlights bent and tore themselves from the concrete. It was a storm of steel and iron, and his Boy Eye vision targeted its joints, its ankles, its neck…. the structural weak points.
The projectiles were launched with hypersonic speed, a relentless barrage designed to unbalance and disorient.
They crumpled and shattered against the Asgardian Uru metal, but the sheer kinetic force drove the automaton back.
While Tony maintained the overwhelming pressure, T'Challa moved. His Beta level Precognition was a storm of instinctual warnings, a perfect danger sense that bordered on prophecy.
He felt where its focus would shift. As the automaton, staggering under Tony's assault, tried to swat him with a massive metallic arm, T'Challa was already in motion, his body flowing around the attack with an impossible grace, his path a perfect line through a chaotic battlefield.
His own Boy Eye vision was a torrent of data, mapping the micro fractures in the armor from Tony's assault, the stress points in the knee and elbow joints.
He closed the distance. His vibranium claws screeched as he raked them across the Destroyer's chest.
The claws, which could slice through any known Earthly material, left only shallow scratches.
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