This was impossible!
Utterly, completely impossible!
Deadpool knew the speed of his own blades. Slicing bullets mid-flight, deflecting automatic gunfire—these were party tricks. He could complete a killing arc in milliseconds, relying on a terrifying, borderline precognitive intuition and hyper-kinetic vision to dance around his opponents.
Coupled with his regenerative healing factor, which allowed for a recklessness no normal fighter could afford, Deadpool's mastery of close-quarters combat was a thing of brutal, efficient artistry. He'd spent years showing off his "impenetrable, watertight swordplay" to other mercenaries, often while they were disarmed and bleeding.
In all that time, no one had ever simply… stopped them.
"My blades… you can track my speed?" Deadpool muttered, the white lenses of his mask wide with disbelief.
"I admit your blades are fast," Aaron replied, his voice calm despite the strain of holding two adamantium edges between his fingers. "But what if I activate the special ability—Kato's Eagle Talons?"
He was confident. His reaction times, already superhuman, were amplified by the Primal Furnace's enhancements. And his hands—the furnace had praised their flexibility. Just as no one could withstand their… attentive ministrations, they could also perform feats of impossible dexterity, like clamping down on supersonic blades in a posture that defied human anatomy. That flexibility, married to a strength that dwarfed Deadpool's, created a unique advantage.
"If you can break free, I lose," Aaron stated.
Deadpool's voice climbed an octave in indignation. "You're the CEO of Oscorp! You're supposed to be a suit who throws money at problems! Why are you stealing the gigs of us poverty-line mercenaries? Do your shareholders know you fight like a bargain-bin Taskmaster?"
He subconsciously yanked at the hilts, testing.
Maybe it was a fluke? A lucky catch?
He refused to believe anyone was that monstrous.
He pulled. He braced a foot against Aaron's rock-solid torso and hauled like a mule on a plow. Nothing. The blades might as well have been welded to Aaron's fingertips.
"One hand… grabbed both my katanas!" Deadpool screeched. "The other hand is still holding a girlfriend! Is there no justice in this world? You must be karma's favorite bastard!"
He paused, a thought striking him. "Wait a minute… So you're that guy! The one from the rumors! 'Even holding a beauty with one hand and bearing the weight of the abyss, I, Aaron, remain undefeated!'"
Seeing brute force wouldn't work, Deadpool's tactics shifted. If he couldn't pull, he'd push. He planted his right foot more firmly against Aaron's abdomen, intending to use it as leverage to wrench the blades free in a different direction.
The audacity, Aaron thought, almost amused. To think you can use my body as a stepping stone.
No, he corrected himself. It wasn't audacity; it was the utter fearlessness bestowed by an unkillable constitution.
Aaron was acutely aware of the scope of Deadpool's healing factor—a bug-like ability that could reassemble him from a puddle, far surpassing his own regenerative powers. Deadpool acted without fear of consequence because, for him, there rarely were any lasting ones. He knew this provocation would invite violence, and he did it anyway.
As Deadpool pushed off, Aaron's right leg lashed out—a piston of reinforced muscle and bone. It connected with Deadpool's shin with a sickening CRACK.
"YOWZA! I just wanted leverage, not a leg remodel!" Deadpool howled, but his grip on the katana hilts didn't falter.
Aaron's brow furrowed. He targeted the other leg. Another swift, brutal kick. Another crisp snap of fracturing bone.
"OH, COME ON! Where's the proportionality? I only wanted one of your arms! You've turned my legs into wishbones! I'm suing! I want medical expenses! A million dollars, or I'm not getting up! This is a legally binding sit-in!"
Deadpool immediately launched into a performance of injury compensation theatrics. While others feigned harm, his was devastatingly real. In the field of insurance fraud, he was a savant.
"You care more about the blades than your own limbs?" Aaron was incredulous. Even with both legs dangling uselessly, Deadpool clung to the hilts, his lower body dragging on the pavement as he squirmed and shouted.
"These are my babies! I've already lost my gams! I can't lose my katanas too!" His voice was a mix of genuine anguish and theatrical despair. "A swordsman and his blade are one! The man is where the sword is; if the sword breaks, the man perishes!"
"Oh, are we in a martial arts epic now?" Aaron deadpanned. He'd heard tales of Deadpool's shamelessness, his flamboyant disregard for all norms. Meeting him in person, he realized the stories had been understated. A man without shame or fear of pain was, in many ways, unconquerable.
Kid, you've reached the pinnacle of nuisance.
In this stalemate, most opponents would be at a loss.
But Aaron was not most opponents.
Placing Felicia safely aside, he maintained his four-fingered grip on the crossed blades. Then, he began to spin.
It started slowly, then accelerated into a blinding whirl. Deadpool, still desperately clutching the hilts, became a ragged, red-and-black pendulum.
"WHEEEEE! This is the good stuff! Faster! FASTER! Oh no, I'm gonna—STOP! You're too good! Oh~~ I can't hold on…!"
"AH—I'M THERE! I'M PEAKING! SO MUCH FUN!"
Aaron took a deep, steadying breath. His patience, already thin, had evaporated. Pale blue electricity crackled in his eyes, arcing down his arms, across the metal of the katanas, and into Deadpool's convulsing body.
One hundred thousand volts of focused current turned the mercenary into a twitching, smoking piece of overcooked meat, his costume scorched, his hair standing straight up beneath the mask. The smell of ozone and burnt spandex filled the air.
(Which hair?)
Yet, the grip held. Through the char and the spasms, Deadpool's fingers remained locked on the hilts.
Fine, Aaron thought. The hard way.
He shifted his stance, yanked the blades (and by extension, Deadpool) into the air, and executed a perfect, brutal imitation of the infamous 'Loki Slam.' He whipped Deadpool from left to right, hammering his body into the unforgiving asphalt with planet-cracking force.
THWUMP. CRUNCH. THWUMP.
Deadpool certainly lacked the Frost Giant durability of the Asgardian god. After several repetitions, his lower body was less a pair of legs and more a bag of gravel wrapped in ruined fabric. Yet, a wheezing, vibrant energy still emanated from him.
"OHHH~! The agony! My everything is pulp! But my spirit is UNBROKEN!" he cried out, his voice a grotesque parody of heroic resolve. "Fiend! You cannot break my will!"
The spectacle was so viscerally disturbing that Felicia turned away, hands pressed over her ears.
"Don't look," Aaron said, his voice softening momentarily for her benefit. "This bastard has an immortal healing factor. This misery is an afternoon snack for him. Hitting him harder probably just gets him more excited."
He turned his glare back to the pulverized but clinging mercenary. "You want the blade more than life, is that it?"
"I'll grant your wish."
Annoyance had crystallized into cold resolve. Deadpool's utter, invulnerable shamelessness was a unique challenge. It was forcing him to escalate.
"If you're so tough," Deadpool gasped, voice bubbling slightly, "then grab my blade and break it!"
He had faith in his weapon. Forged from true adamantium, it was virtually indestructible. He admitted Aaron was stronger—millions of times stronger—but he believed the edge could still part Aaron's flesh. Otherwise, why had Aaron been dodging so carefully?
Aaron's thoughts mirrored the taunt. His own healing was potent, and pain was manageable, but a direct adamantium cut was an unnecessary risk. There was no need for a direct contest of materials.
A mysterious smile touched Aaron's lips. You think I'm out of options? Watch closely.
"I'm laying my cards on the table," Aaron said, his voice dropping to a low, resonant pitch that seemed to vibrate in the air itself. He focused not on breaking the blade, but on the connection between himself, the metal, and the Primal Furnace's core function. "I'm a cheater."
He channeled intent through his fingertips, not with force, but with a command that bypassed physics. It was a directive aimed at the very molecular essence of the material.
"Smelt it."
A silent, profound change occurred at the points of contact. The legendary, unbreakable adamantium did not bend, nor did it snap. Instead, at the precise spots where Aaron's fingers met the razor edges, the metal simply… lost cohesion. It didn't melt in a conventional sense with heat and light. It dissolved, flowing away like sand in a tide, reverting into a stream of inert, base particles that scattered into the wind as gray dust.
Where there had been two deadly complete katana blades, now there were only two neatly severed stumps of metal protruding from the hilts in Deadpool's hands.
The sudden lack of resistance sent Deadpool tumbling backward. He stared, utterly dumbfounded, at the truncated weapons in his grip. The white lenses of his mask were circles of pure, uncomprehending shock.
The bustling street fell silent for a long, stretched second.
From behind the mask came a whisper, hollow with awe and the dawning realization of a new, terrifying variable in his chaotic world:
"…What… the actual… everlasting… fuck?"
***********
Dun Dun Dun!!!!
Clock's ticking.