Thor's eyes flared with divine radiance as he raised his head, trying to etch Martin's face into his memory. Then, his gaze fell to the hammer lying on the ground, Mjolnir, and slowly, a wild, unrestrained laugh broke across his face.
He knew this weapon better than anyone. He had waged countless battles alongside it for over a millennium.
"You'll pay dearly for your arrogance, foolish mortal," he said with a sneer as he strode forward and wrapped his thick fingers around the handle.
In an instant, the skies darkened. Thunderheads amassed overhead, and bolts of lightning screamed toward the earth.
Agent Coulson and the others recoiled, stunned by the sudden atmospheric chaos.
"There's an abnormal surge of electrical energy, and multiple power signatures that evade our scans," Optimus Prime reported swiftly, sensors glowing with data streams.
Rain came crashing down in sheets, thunder roared like a war drum, and Thor stood amidst it all, drenched in stormlight, laughing madly like he held dominion over all Nine Realms. With a roar, he pulled, yet—
Mjolnir didn't budge.
The wind died. The rain ceased. The storm dissipated as if it had never been. And the mighty God of Thunder stood frozen in disbelief.
"No! Father—why?!" Thor's voice cracked with frustration. He roared again, pouring every ounce of godly strength into the attempt. Still… nothing.
Defeated, he slumped to his knees, despair washing over him like a wave. He had believed, truly, that lifting the hammer would restore his godhood. That the power would return.
But now, he didn't even have the right to try.
Just a mortal. No longer the God of Thunder.
"Quite the magic trick, Thunderer," Megatron snarled from the shadows, his voice oily with malice. "Your weather illusions are impressive. I, however, lack such parlor tricks."
Thor didn't respond. His blank stare said everything.
Martin stepped forward, shaking his head. "My turn."
With that, he reached for Mjolnir, and yanked.
Nothing.
Coulson visibly relaxed. "Mr. Martin, it seems the hammer doesn't belong to you either."
"No," Martin replied, calm and confident. "I'll show you. It is mine."
He placed a hand on his chest, specifically, on a circular arc-device embedded in his armor. Instantly, it began a complex transformation, mechanical parts shifting and assembling with seamless precision.
In moments, a new armor emerged, encasing Martin in a suit etched with cryptic runes and radiating immense, sovereign power.
The Apex Armor.
Its aura alone sent tremors through those nearby. Even the seasoned agents and warriors instinctively stepped back, overwhelmed by the sheer pressure rolling off the armor. Across the world, powerful beings simultaneously looked up, sensing the disturbance.
The suffocating force blanketing the Earth came from one source: the Apex Armor. A walking embodiment of destructive divinity.
"I've heard the one who lifts this hammer becomes king of Asgard," Martin said, voice amplified through the war helm. "I wonder… does Odin keep his word?"
He stepped forward, BOOM!, and the earth cratered beneath his foot. Not from weight, but from incompatibility. The world itself seemed unworthy to hold what he had become. The dirt caved in, not crushed, but submissive.
It was as if cosmic law bent around him.
Thor, closest to him, shuddered in awe and fear. That presence, it radiated extinction-level power.
"Who… are you?" Thor gasped. "Are you… the Sorcerer Supreme?"
In his worldview, only one on Earth possessed such vast power.
"No," Martin said. "I'm not the Sorcerer Supreme. Don't know him, actually. I'm just… a human, one with a keen interest in becoming Asgard's next king."
He turned his helmeted gaze directly to Thor—deep, piercing, and unflinching.
And then, with raw, unfiltered power, he activated the Apex Armor, one of the most formidable defensive constructs ever forged in the vast multiverse of Transformers.
The moment it came online, every microscopic fluctuation in energy output was magnified exponentially, compounding in an endless cascade.
What began as faint ripples of force escalated into a roaring tempest, unyielding and absolute.
The Earth itself recoiled. Fault lines ruptured beneath Martin's feet, splitting outward for miles, as though the planet were on the verge of shattering.
Snarling under the force, Martin jerked Mjolnir again, and this time, it moved.
BOOM!
A deafening crack of thunder erupted as he yanked it free, raising it high.
Mjolnir's sacred energy detonated around him, arcing skyward in blinding bursts. The power of the storm recognized the weapon, if not the wielder, and answered. Lightning converged, bowing to Martin's will.
He hadn't earned the hammer's blessing. He had simply overpowered it, his Apex Armor existing at a level far beyond what Mjolnir was calibrated to resist.
It was brute force, blasphemously effective.
Wreathed in lightning, Martin stood tall, one arm raised with Mjolnir in hand. Thunder cracked around him, bending to his presence. With the Apex Armor's regal weight and searing aura, he now looked more like a god of thunder than Thor himself.
Thor watched, broken. Still kneeling. Still defeated.
Already shattered once, his spirit now crumbled as he beheld Martin wielding his hammer, his power, without mercy and without permission.
"Why…?" he whispered.
And in his eyes, there was only the reflection of that overwhelming figure—Martin, high above, crowned in stormlight and defiance.
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