T'Challa heard them before he saw them—the distinctive thwip of web-shooters, Steve's barked orders, the synchronized footfalls of clone troopers moving in formation. He risked a glance over his shoulder.
Relief flooded through him. Steve's shield caught the hangar's emergency lighting as he led a mixed unit of clones and Avengers into the fray. Peter swung overhead, red and blue suit stark against the smoke. Rex and his men fanned out with practiced efficiency, already laying down covering fire.
Taskmaster saw them too. The mercenary moved before T'Challa could capitalize—leapt backward, drew a blaster with his left hand while his lightsaber blazed in his right, and opened fire on the newcomers without hesitation.
"Scatter!" Steve's voice cut through the chaos.
The clones dove for cover. Peter swung wide. Steve's shield came up—
And Taskmaster was already moving, deflecting blaster bolts as he spun to meet a new threat. Ahsoka's green and yellow-green blades came in fast and low. The mercenary caught them on his lightsaber, twisted, and drove his shield into her guard with enough force to send her skidding backward.
"Ahsoka!" Peter's web-line caught her mid-stumble, yanking her to safety before she could fall.
Barriss tried to capitalize on Taskmaster's exposed flank, but the mercenary seemed to sense her—or maybe he just had incredible battlefield awareness. His free hand shot out, and Barriss was suddenly airborne, Force-pushed across the hangar. Aayla and Luminara caught her between them, lightsabers blazing as they absorbed the momentum.
Taskmaster surveyed his new situation. Four Jedi. Multiple clone troopers taking positions behind cover. Three individuals in non-standard armor, none of whom registered in the Force. He could feel his photographic reflexes cataloguing every stance, every micro-movement, filing them away for later use.
His red eye-lenses settled on one of the newcomers—the one in the blue cowl, carrying what appeared to be an energy shield on a disc harness. There was something else about that one. A flicker of energy in his chest that read almost like the Force but... wrong. Artificial. Technological.
Interesting.
But first, the immediate threat. Taskmaster pivoted, fired three controlled bursts at the nearest cluster of clones. Two went down before Luminara's blade intercepted the third bolt.
"Fall back!" Rex's voice boomed. "Jedi and Avengers take point—we'll provide fire support!"
The clones withdrew in a disciplined retreat, covering each other's movements. Taskmaster let them go. They weren't his real targets anyway.
Luminara Unduli stepped forward, her lightsaber held in the classic Soresu opening stance—blade vertical, defensive, patient.
Taskmaster smiled behind his mask. "Ah, Form III. An old friend."
He shifted his grip on his lightsaber, both hands on the hilt now, blade angled down and to the right. Not quite Ataru, not quite Djem So. Something in between, adapted from a dozen different styles he'd observed.
He struck.
The yellow blade met green with a sharp crack of energy. Luminara's arm trembled from the impact, but she flowed with it, let the Force guide her backward into a graceful flip that created distance.
Aayla Secura was there the moment Luminara's feet touched down. Twin blue blades carved complementary arcs through the air, forcing Taskmaster to shift from Form III counters to something more aggressive. He gave ground, parrying high and low, when—
T'Challa hit him from the side.
The prince's claws raked across Taskmaster's shield, seeking the vulnerable joint at the elbow. Taskmaster swore, twisted to defend against both threats simultaneously, found himself actually struggling to process the two completely different fighting styles. Aayla's Ataru acrobatics combined with Makashi precision, constantly shifting angles. T'Challa's Wakandan close-quarters technique, brutal and efficient.
Taskmaster caught T'Challa's wrist, used the Force to enhance his strength, and hurled the prince directly at Aayla.
They went down in a tangle of limbs and lekku.
Before Taskmaster could catch his breath, an invisible hand seized him and threw him twenty feet backward. He tucked, rolled, came up—
—and Captain America's fist nearly took his head off.
Steve didn't give him a second to recover. He pressed forward with a combination of punches and kicks that forced Taskmaster into pure defense. The mercenary tried to create space with his lightsaber, but Steve's shield absorbed every strike, the vibranium ringing like a bell. Steve's technique was textbook—military combatives refined through decades of experience. Every movement economical, every strike designed to incapacitate.
A particularly vicious hook caught Taskmaster's helmet, snapping his head sideways. Stars burst behind his eyes. He barely got his guard up before Steve closed again, ducked under his lightsaber, and drove a boot into the back of his knee. Taskmaster stumbled, felt Steve's shield rim whistling toward his skull—
He rolled, came up, put distance between them. His breathing came hard through his helmet's filters. Steve stood ten feet away, shield raised, not even winded.
"Rumlow was right about you," Taskmaster said.
Steve's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. Anger. Memory.
Taskmaster's hand moved to his belt. The flash-bang left his palm a microsecond before Steve's instincts registered the threat. Steve turned, shielded his eyes—
The mercenary's lightsaber came in low and vicious, aimed for the gap in Steve's armor at the ribs. But Steve's shield was already there, moving on muscle memory and enhanced reflexes. The blade skittered off vibranium, and Steve flowed into a counter—swept Taskmaster's legs, followed him down with the shield's edge aimed at his throat.
Taskmaster rolled at the last possible instant. The shield cracked the deck where his head had been.
Steve's shield flew—a perfect flat spin that should have taken Taskmaster in the back of the skull. The mercenary ducked, heard the whistle of vibranium over his head, then—
Electricity coursed through his body.
Taskmaster had planted a taser disc on the underside of the shield when Steve threw it. The soldier dropped to one knee, muscles locked, shield clattering from nerveless fingers. Taskmaster could see him fighting it, trying to move, to defend, to—
The mercenary moved in for the kill.
His lightsaber came up, blade angled for a thrust between Steve's shoulder blades, and—
Steve's hand shot out, caught Taskmaster's wrist, and used the mercenary's momentum to flip him overhead in a perfect tomoe nage throw. Taskmaster hit the deck hard enough to taste blood, but he kept his grip on the lightsaber. When he looked up, Steve was standing again, electricity still arcing across his uniform, shield back in hand.
Taskmaster analyzed the movements—recognized them. He'd seen Aayla use that throw variation thirty seconds ago. He'd watched T'Challa use that exact wrist-lock earlier.
His photographic reflexes integrated the new data.
When he stood, his stance was different. He flowed through a combination that made Steve's eyes widen in recognition—Aayla's spinning blade-work merged with T'Challa's devastating power strikes.
"Who taught you that?" Steve demanded.
Taskmaster's filtered laugh echoed across the hangar. "They did. Your friends. And every Jedi I've fought." He shifted his weight, moved into another stance. "The beauty of what I do, Captain, is that everyone teaches me. Every opponent makes me better."
"You're stealing their techniques—"
"I'm learning," Taskmaster corrected. His photographic reflexes fired, warning him of incoming—
Spider-Man's boot would have connected with his face if Taskmaster hadn't raised his shield at the last possible moment. The impact sent Peter bouncing away, and when Taskmaster looked at his shield, he found it covered in webbing.
"Oh, that's annoying," he muttered.
He ignited his lightsaber, burned the webbing away, and immediately had to defend against Peter's follow-up. The teenager came in fast—faster than Taskmaster expected—with a spinning kick that would've made any martial artist proud. Taskmaster parried, thrust, forced Peter into a backflip that landed him on the hangar wall.
Web-lines shot out. Taskmaster cut through the first two, dodged the third, but the fourth caught his sword arm. He felt himself being yanked forward—used the momentum, leaped, and intercepted Peter's aerial attack with a perfect imitation of T'Challa's spinning kick.
Steve went flying.
Wait. That wasn't Peter. Taskmaster's photographic reflexes had triggered automatically when he saw the incoming attack, and he'd responded to Steve without thinking. The super-soldier hit the deck and rolled back to his feet, but Taskmaster was already dealing with Peter again.
The teenager's webbing wrapped around Taskmaster's torso, and he was yanked off his feet. Peter swung down, drove both boots into the mercenary's masked face with a satisfying crunch. They hit the ground together, and Peter immediately started cocooning Taskmaster's limbs in webbing.
Taskmaster had kept his forearms angled during the binding. The webbing trapped his arms, not his hands. His lightsaber ignited, and he spun in place, severing the restraints in one smooth motion.
He came up facing Peter and T'Challa.
The prince's stance was a textbook Wakandan guard. Peter's was pure street-fighter mixed with acrobatics. Taskmaster's photographic reflexes drank in every detail.
"Did anyone tell you that copying other people's moves is cheating?" Peter asked, circling.
Taskmaster caught the teenager's wrist when he tried a jab, twisted it with casual expertise, and swept Peter's legs. "I call it winning."
He followed Peter down, drove a knee into the kid's ribs, then grabbed him and executed a perfect judo throw that sent the teenager tumbling across the hangar.
"You have potential, kid," Taskmaster called out. He turned to face the others—Steve back on his feet, T'Challa coiled and ready, Ahsoka and Aayla flanking, Luminara and Barriss moving to cut off his retreat. "But you're not there yet."
His red eye-lenses swept across them all, cataloguing, memorizing, learning.
"So," he said, lightsaber humming, "who's next?"