Tony's armor shot upward, pursuing Stane into the industrial district. Abel followed close behind using Levitation, maintaining position without expending excessive energy. The arc reactor on Tony's chest glowed faintly—a blue light powered by a palladium core built months ago in a cave in Afghanistan, assembled from scrap metal and desperation. Abel could see the energy levels were low. The prototype was never designed for sustained combat.
If this fight lasted too long, Tony would be powerless.
That was a problem.
Stane landed hard on a vacant lot surrounded by abandoned warehouses. The iron-gray armor of the Iron Monger settled into a power stance. The suit was massive—easily twice Tony's size, maybe more. Built for raw strength and firepower rather than finesse.
Abel descended slowly, assessing. The armor had clear weak points: the joints. Knees, elbows, shoulders. But armor-grade military steel, the kind reinforced with impact-resistant compounds, wasn't designed to respond the same way human flesh did. Spells intended for biological targets would be partially deflected or absorbed by metal.
He couldn't fight this suit the way he'd fight a person. He had to be strategic. Precise. Efficient.
"Diffindo!" Abel raised his wand and released the spell, watching the white light streak forward.
The cutting curse connected directly with Stane's armored chest. The spell hit true, but instead of slicing through the metal, it left only a shallow dent. The armor redistributed the impact across its surface. Effective, but not devastating.
Stane laughed—a booming, confident sound that echoed across the lot. "Is that all? Kid, I'm wearing six inches of reinforced steel! Your little magic tricks aren't going to—"
But Stane never finished the sentence.
Tony's repulsor-powered punch drove straight into Stane's right arm, and the Gatling gun mounted there jerked sideways. The sudden movement threw off Stane's aim, and the weapon began spraying bullets in wild, unpredictable patterns.
Good. They were already coordinating without even speaking.
Abel shifted immediately, using Levitation to boost himself forward. While Tony kept Stane's attention engaged, Abel could focus on the real target: the mechanical systems that made the armor move.
Another Diffindo spell, this time aimed with surgical precision at the articulation point between thigh and knee on Stane's left leg. The weak point where hydraulic systems and servo components converged.
The spell bit deeper. The armor's joint sparked as the cutting curse severed delicate internal mechanisms. Stane's left leg suddenly moved with less precision, less fluid control. He stumbled.
"What did you do?!" Stane roared, frustration bleeding through the armor's speakers.
Stane recovered quickly, raising his right arm. But this time, instead of the Gatling gun, the armor's launcher fired—a full anti-vehicle rocket, the kind designed to destroy fortified positions. A serious escalation.
Abel reacted fast. He swung his wand downward and poured magic into the ground before him, feeling the weight of it, the strain of shaping earth and concrete on this scale. Transfiguration was power-intensive—it required him to actively reshape matter, to force reality into new configurations.
The ground erupted. A crude barrier of earth and concrete rose up—not beautiful, not elegant, but effective. The rocket hit the barrier and detonated in a massive explosion that rattled the nearby warehouses.
The effort exhausted him more than he wanted to admit. Transfiguration on that scale had cost him significantly. He had maybe three or four more major spells before he'd need to switch to maintenance magic.
Tony called out mid-flight: "Whatever you're doing, keep him distracted!"
Abel got it immediately. He raised his wand and began casting Flaming Serpents—a mid-level offensive spell that created streams of magical fire. They weren't designed to destroy armor, but they created visual obstruction, heat signatures that would confuse Stane's targeting systems.
Fire snakes erupted around Stane, dancing and weaving through the air, forcing him to focus on tracking movement rather than aiming weapons. In that moment of visual confusion, Tony flew behind the Iron Monger's massive frame and started climbing.
Stane felt the movement and reached back, trying to grab Tony, but his movements were slow—the damaged leg throwing off his balance and coordination. Tony got what he needed: a handhold on the armor's back panel. The sighting system's external camera assembly, mounted just above the suit's rear section.
With strength born of desperation, Tony tore the camera unit clean away.
The moment the camera disconnected, Stane's advantage evaporated. Armored suits relied on integrated targeting systems—break the eyes, and you break the precision.
Stane panicked. He swung his arm backward violently, finally catching Tony and hurling him across the lot. Tony bounced hard, the armor's systems absorbing impact, but he came to rest at Abel's feet, coughing.
"Sighting system's gone," Tony gasped, his voice crackling over the suit's speakers. "What's the move?"
Abel waved his wand, and black smoke curled around his figure—not invisibility, but deliberate obscuration. He wanted to conceal his features, his build, anything that could be used to identify him later. For now, he was just a silhouette.
"Stand back," Abel said.
Stane wasn't done.
The Iron Monger suit rose unsteadily on its damaged leg, and his voice came through the speakers with a mixture of defiance and delusion. "I never thought I would like this kind of thing, but I have to admit—this thing really makes me feel alive! It gives me unparalleled strength!"
The Gatling gun on his right arm fired again, the bullets spraying wildly in random patterns without any targeting system to guide them. Abel raised his wand calmly and cast another Protego barrier, the magical shield holding firm against the erratic fire. The bullets sparked off the invisible wall and scattered harmlessly.
"Oh, you destroyed my aiming system, Tony," Stane continued, his voice taking on an edge of bitterness. "But it didn't affect me much. You wanted to suspend the research and sales of Stark's weapons, but you developed the strongest weapon yourself. Your father would definitely be proud of what you've become."
Tony didn't respond to the taunting. He just looked at Abel and asked quietly, "Did you say there was a way? What's your move?"
Abel stepped forward, his voice steady and calm. "Stane, do you know what your biggest mistake was?"
"W-what?" Stane's bravado wavered.
"Exposing your body in front of me."
Stane's uncertainty spiked. He reached for the chest plate controls, trying to close the armor back up, but he was already too late. His hands hadn't even touched the mechanism.
Abel raised his wand, and the red light of Stupefy shot forward with perfect clarity. The spell was faster than Stane could react to, faster than desperation could compensate for. It caught him square in the exposed chest.
Stane's eyes froze in is soceck. His body went completely limp, consciousness fleeing instantly. The Iron Monger suit fell silent, its pilot completely unconscious inside.
The armor crashed to the ground and didn't move again.
Tony stood there for a moment, looking at the unconscious Stane, then at the destroyed Iron Monger suit, then back at Abel. "This... is it actually over?"
"Do you think I should keep fighting him?" Abel asked with a hint of dry humor.
Tony laughed—a real laugh, the kind that came from genuine relief. "Heh... haha. Oh brother, I like your humor."
With Stane defeated, Tony's adrenaline finally began to fade. His entire body had been running on fight-or-flight instinct, pushing past the pain of the throw, the exhaustion of sustained combat. Now that the immediate threat was gone, reality crashed down on him.
Tony suddenly staggered, his leg buckles beneath him. He dropped to one knee, hard.
"Tony!" Abel moved immediately.
Tony's breathing was labored. His armor was smoking from multiple impact points. And most critically, the arc reactor on his chest—the palladium-core device built in that Afghan cave—was barely glowing now. The blue light that had been steady all evening was now dim, flickering, almost pale.
END CHAPTER 22