The Ashen Keeper

Chapter 56

He wears an armored shoulder guard and a Spartan helmet. He carries a war hammer in one hand and a battle axe in the other. Hulk pounds his chest and roars, further energizing an already frenzied crowd.

Meanwhile, the sight of Hulk makes Thor's arms drop to his sides along with his jaw dropping to the ground. He then started to laugh.

"That my buddy over there!"

Loki on the other hand was ghost white as he was the raging monster. Gone is all his joy. She saw him attempted to leave his box before being stopped by the grandmaster. He plopped him down in the front row, right against the glass. Loki casually tries to hide his face in his hand.

Unlike his younger brother however, Thor was beaming with joy.

"Hey! We know each other. He's a friend from work."

"Where have you been? Everybody thought you were dead. So much has happened since I last saw you. Teacher took my hammer. Like, yesterday, so that's still pretty fresh."

He then pointed his mace at Loki and them all at the same time.

"Loki! Loki's alive. Can you believe it? He's up there. Look! There's also Ms. Keeper and the red one."

"How do you know this ...big guy.", asked Quill looking very concerned.

"He is green and angry. Must be Gamora's brother.", replied Mantis to which Drax agreed. Gamora only rolled her eyes muttering idiots. Rocket was looking for a similarity between the two while Nebula looks like she was seriously pondering something.

"Banner, I never thought I would say this, but I'm happy to see you." Hulk was still eyeballing Thor while the capacity crowd chants insanely for "HULK! HULK! HULK!".

Cheering alongside them was Wanda and Loki whose smile might nearly split their face. They need not worry about Thor for they know that their teacher will step in if Thor was about to die. Their trust in her was endearing to her but she wished they would be a tad bit more serious.

"No Banner! Only hulk!" hulk declared as he charges at Thor. The way she sees it, people prefer Banner over Hulk. To her, they were one and the same but that did not seem to be the case for most people. She sympathized with the good doctor.

Thor dodges the first few attacks, but then Hulk shatters his shield and sends Thor flying. Thor draws a sword and stabs it into the ground to slow his momentum. Draws the other sword and faces off against Hulk.

"Banner, we're friends. This is crazy. I don't want to hurt you!" His words just served to anger Hulk even more. Hulk kicks Thor, sending him slamming him into the wall. Thor counter attacked and succeeded in slamming his hammer on the side of his head.

He then took his helmet off trying to calm his opponent down.

"That's it. The sun's going down. I won't hurt you anymore. No one will." His efforts at calming his opponent down were rewarded with a full-body massage experience. By that she meant that her disciple was grabbed by the leg and was whipped against the floor like a rag doll.

"Yes!" Loki's cheers could be heard all the way from here. When it stopped, Thor got a hold of himself back and started charging at Banner. Their weapons clashed. A battle axe against a war hammer.

Thor was winning the bout! After all, he has had thousands of years of experience. He's getting the better of these exchanges, using Hulk's aggression against him. Thor continually knocks Hulk off his feet while evading all of Hulk's best attacks.

One particular vicious blow disarms Hulk, and Thor breaks Hulk's axe with the war hammer. Thor then bashes Hulk in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

"What's the matter with you? You're embarrassing me! I told them we were friends!"

Growling, Hulk stands up and hits Thor with a straight jab that sends Thor tumbling across the arena. Hulk immediately leaps after him and landed on Thor where he just started pummeling him with his giant fists.

By this time, she was getting ready to save her disciple in case Thor gets knocked out. A small strand of fire came out of her sleeves, but she did not make a move just yet. She wishes to see if the rain of punches could beat out his potential.

She then senses power gathering inside Thor. She could even feel a trace of Odin himself but most of it were his own. His eyes started to glow white with electricity. Like an instinctual defense mechanism, Thor suddenly knocks hulk back with a burst of lightning from his hands.

Bathing in lightning, he simply punched his adversary with his fists coated in lightning. The crowd went bonkers at this. They all started cheering screaming out the word thunder.

Hulk and Thor stagger to their feet. Thor looks at himself, a little surprised. There are still small charges of lightning crackling through his veins.

Meanwhile, Hulk rumbles towards Thor and they're at it again, close-quarters boxing. Thor is winning the exchanges, landing brutal punches to the body of the good doctor.

It was then and there that Thor was zapped with a little electricity. She knew that it was the grandmaster who did this, but she did not stop him. Thor will learn to treasure the brain as much as his own power.

Hulk plants his feet and jumps. He zooms up, rocketing out of the arena, up into the sky. At the apex of his jump Hulk clenches his fist and begins a missile-like descent. Down below, Thor groggily turns over only to see a green giant falling right on him.

Wanda turned her eyes away at this thinking Thor would be squashed like a bug, but she knew better. The body of a 'god' is not so simple to destroy. The blow, however knocked Thor unconscious rendering him being carried out of the ring.

She knew that it was over but her job here was not done yet. She will not see her disciple just yet because now, it was time to meet the grandmaster. Not the grandmaster that goof around his time in the gambling ring but the grandmaster who existed since the dawn of time.

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This is Chapter 56.

As for the timeline, it is somewhere after civil war and before Ragnarök.

And I also have plans to introduce a new villain alongside some plans for the guardians of the galaxy because they seem so wasted and underused in the movies.