T'Challa twisted away from Taskmaster's sweep kick, used the mercenary's own momentum against him, and landed a backflip that should have created an opening. It didn't. Taskmaster was already moving, already adapting—caught Steve's shield on his forearm and redirected it with a technique that looked disturbingly like T'Challa's own defensive kata.
This was the problem they'd discovered over the past five minutes of combat: Taskmaster didn't just fight them. He became them.
Peter got a few good hits in—youth and unpredictability gave him an edge—but the mercenary adapted faster than any opponent Peter had faced. Each successful strike taught Taskmaster something new, and by the third exchange, Peter was fighting a mirror image of himself.
The four Jedi weren't faring better. Aayla's Ataru acrobatics, Ahsoka's aggressive Shien strikes, Barriss's patient Soresu defense, Luminara's elegant Form III—Taskmaster absorbed them all. Not just the movements, but the philosophy behind them. He fought like someone who'd studied under four different Masters.
"We need an opening," Aayla said, breathing hard. Sweat matted her lekku to her neck. "He's adapting too fast."
"Tell me something I don't know," Peter muttered, dodging another strike that combined Steve's shield work with T'Challa's claw techniques.
Ahsoka and Barriss attacked together—a coordinated pattern they'd practiced a hundred times. High-low, feint-strike, Force-push-blade-follow-through. It should have worked.
Taskmaster read Ahsoka's overhead strike before she committed to it. His hand shot out, caught her wrist, twisted. Her lightsaber flew free. When Barriss moved to help, he grabbed Ahsoka's shoulder and spun her directly into Barriss's path.
Barriss deactivated her blade a split-second before it would have cut through her friend's torso. "Ahsoka—"
Taskmaster kicked Ahsoka into Barriss. Both Padawans went down in a tangle of robes and limbs.
The mercenary spun to face Peter—saw the web-shooter aimed at his helmet—and turned his head. Not fast enough. The web splattered across his eye-lenses, blinding him.
"Oops!" Taskmaster clawed at the webbing, his filtered voice tight with frustration. "That's just playing dirty, kid."
Aayla charged while he was distracted. "Good work, Peter!"
Taskmaster ignited his lightsaber, swung it in a defensive pattern despite his blindness. "I don't need eyes to fight you, Jedi."
He was right. When Aayla's blade came within a foot of him, his lightsaber was already there—perfectly positioned parry that turned her momentum against her. She barely avoided being thrown.
"Impressive," Taskmaster said. "Most people can't react that fast."
T'Challa stood beside Luminara, frustration building in his chest. "How is he still fighting blind?"
Luminara closed her eyes, reached out through the Force. The battlefield became a tapestry of living energy—the bright presences of Jedi and Avengers, the mechanical coldness of droids, and...
There. In Taskmaster. Not strong, not trained, but present. A flicker of Force-sensitivity that he was using unconsciously to compensate for his covered eyes.
"He has the Force," Luminara said, opening her eyes.
T'Challa's head snapped toward her. "What?"
"Latent. Untrained. But enough to sense his surroundings." Her expression hardened. "We end this now, before he learns to use it deliberately."
T'Challa didn't need to be told twice. He dropped to all fours and charged.
Meanwhile, Taskmaster found his opening. Steve and Peter were pressing him from two sides, Aayla from the third. He let them think they had him cornered, then brought his lightsaber up and burned through the webbing covering his mask. The helmet's phrik coating prevented the blade from melting through, but the heat was uncomfortable.
His vision cleared. Red tactical displays painted his opponents in threat-priority. Seven hostiles, multiple approach vectors, declining ammunition, rising fatigue levels—
T'Challa hit him like a freight train.
"Everyone!" T'Challa's voice cut through the chaos. "On my mark—together!"
The prince drove Taskmaster back with a combination of strikes that forced the mercenary to defend purely on instinct. Steve moved to flank. Aayla positioned for a killing strike. Peter readied another web-mine.
Taskmaster caught the pattern—saw the trap closing—and broke T'Challa's rhythm with a shield bash that sent the prince airborne. T'Challa flipped, landed in a crouch, immediately re-engaged.
But now he was fighting differently. Faster. Using his enhanced physiology not to overpower, but to stay one step ahead of Taskmaster's adaptive reflexes. Every time the mercenary copied a technique, T'Challa had already moved on to the next one.
T'Challa saw it—the opening he'd been creating. Taskmaster committed to a strike pattern, his yellow lightsaber coming in at an angle that left his guard open for exactly one-point-three seconds.
T'Challa's claws snapped out. He caught Taskmaster's lightsaber arm at the wrist, his vibranium claws digging into the mercenary's gauntlet with enough force to lock the weapon in place.
Taskmaster pulled. The blade didn't budge. His tactical AI ran calculations—seventeen different escape vectors, all blocked. For the first time in the fight, his photographic reflexes had no answer.
"Now!" T'Challa shouted.
Steve's shield hit Taskmaster in the helmet with a sound like a church bell. The mercenary staggered, his grip on the lightsaber weakening.
Ahsoka, Barriss, and Aayla hit him simultaneously—a coordinated Force push that launched him backward into the wall. He hit hard, slid down, and Peter's web-bomb stuck to his chest plate.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The device exploded—not with fire, but with expanding polymer strands that cocooned Taskmaster against the wall. His arms were pinned, his legs immobilized. Even his shield arm was locked in place.
"Got him!" Peter pumped his fist. "Did you see that? That was totally a team effort!"
"Good work, kid," a nearby clone called out. Several troopers moved to form a perimeter, weapons trained on the captured mercenary.
Taskmaster tested his bonds. They held. He'd fought Jedi before—dozens of them. Their techniques were in his database now, ready to be deployed. But these three others—the shield-bearer with the impossible fighting spirit, the warrior in the cat-suit with the energy-absorbing armor, the spider-themed kid with the unpredictable creativity—they were something new.
He'd heard of the Avengers. Dismissed them as Republic propaganda, another Jedi trick to boost morale. But experiencing them firsthand...
His photographic reflexes were already cataloguing everything. Steve's shield work—pure tactical excellence refined through decades of combat. T'Challa's style—something ancient and deadly that predated galactic civilization. Peter's movement—chaos theory given form, impossible to predict because the kid himself didn't know what he'd do next.
Taskmaster wanted to fight them again. Needed to. The data was incomplete. There were techniques he hadn't seen, combinations he hadn't tested, limits he hadn't pushed.
"You think this will stop me?" His filtered voice was calm despite his situation. "You should reconsider."
Something in his tone made Luminara's head snap up. "Everyone, back—"
Taskmaster reached for the Force.
He'd always had it, this strange sixth sense that made him better than he should be. He'd never called it the Force—didn't have the training or the philosophy. But he'd watched these Jedi fight. Absorbed their movements. Memorized how they pulled on that invisible energy.
His photographic reflexes triggered. Muscle memory from observing Force techniques activated. And for the first time in his life, Taskmaster consciously touched the Force.
It felt like falling and flying simultaneously.
The webbing around him began to tear. His body lifted off the ground—not by his will, but by the sheer explosive pressure building around him. The Force users in the room froze, caught in the gravity well of Taskmaster's untrained power.
"I can't—move—" Ahsoka strained against the invisible pressure.
"He's pulling on all of us!" Barriss gasped.
Steve, T'Challa, and Peter—untouched by the Force, unaffected by its currents—moved immediately.
"Go!" Steve shouted.
But Taskmaster was already at his limit. Untrained use of the Force was like grabbing a live wire—all power, no control. He felt something tear inside him, felt his conscious grip on that energy slip.
He roared—fury and pain and desperation—and released everything at once.
The Force detonated.
Everyone went flying. Jedi slammed into each other, into walls, into the deck. Clones crashed into cover. The shockwave rattled blast doors and cracked transparisteel viewports.
When Taskmaster's boots hit the ground, the webbing was in tatters around him. His breathing came in ragged gasps. Using the Force like that—crude, untrained, all power and no finesse—felt like running a marathon with broken ribs.
But he was free.
Battle droids were pouring into the hangar—reinforcements, and convenient cover. Taskmaster retrieved his lightsaber with shaking hands, assessed his tactical situation. Seven extremely dangerous opponents, all recovering. Limited ammunition. Physical exhaustion setting in. Victory probability: four percent.
Time to leave.
He ran, using the advancing droids as mobile cover. Behind him, he heard shouts—the Avengers and Jedi recovering, organizing pursuit. But by then, he was gone into Tipoca City's labyrinthine corridors.
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