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firelance2361 · 2 months

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What If...The Ronin Took The Ten Rings?

Following up on my recent train of What If…? ideas, here’s a cool design for an idea I had connecting a few different parts of the MCU together.

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[In this universe, after losing his family in the Snap and donning the Ronin persona, Clint Barton’s quest for vengeance as the Ronin led him into the sights of Xu Wenwu and the Ten Rings. While the other members found the Ronin to be a threat to their regime, Wenwu saw in the former Avenger a possible new means to return Shang-Chi and Xialing to him.

Setting up a fake hit job to lure in the Ronin, Wenwu approached Clint with an offer to join him, telling them they can protect the world better than his former allies did.

Clint points out his Ten Rings, recognizing him as the true Mandarin who was responsible for Tony Stark’s capture in Afghanistan. Wenwu laments to him about his family’s death, emphasizing with him over his wife Ying Li’s death. He tells him that he can help him clear the board and remove players like Kingpin and Power Broker from the table. Ronin accepts his offer, becoming Wenwu’s enforcer, but in secret forms ulterior motives to overthrow him.

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Over the course of a year and a half, Ronin works as the Ten Rings best assassin alongside Razorfist and Death Dealer, removing their enemies in places like Madripoor, New York, Hong Kong, etc. He clears through his targets one after the next, leaving nothing but death and bloodshed in his wake.

His warpath drew the attention of people like Wilson Fisk and Sharon Carter, who saw the potential threat of this assassin if he were to rise to power, as well as his former friend Natasha Romanoff who becomes worried for her friend’s safety and mentality as his rampage grows more dangerous.

All the while, as the Ronin rises in the ranks of the Ten Rings, he starts building his own group of followers within it, working towards his ultimate goal of overthrowing the Warrior King.

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During a mission to infiltrate the Power Broker’s operations, he spots her with Xu Xialing discussing the potential prospects of the new batch of Super Solider Serum. Seizing the opportunity, the Robin goes rogue; he knocks out the lights, takes out Sharon and her guards and corners Xialing, engaging her in a duel. While Xialing easily overpowers him and is prepared to kill him in a chokehold, Ronin breaks free by grabbing her by the arm, dislocating it, allowing him to knock her back down.

As he takes her away, Sharon, still groggy, puts in a distress call to Natasha, believing if anyone can stop him, she can. She relays the message to Fisk, who in retaliation sends Maya Lopez after him, knowing this could go south if the Ronin succeeds in his plan.

After locating and tracking down her brother Shang-Chi at his apartment in San Francisco, the duel lasts a bit longer than expected, with Shang-Chi managing to actually pin the former Avenger down for a killing blow, until Nat arrives, telling him that’s Clint Barton. Ronin uses this to his advantage, using Shang-Chi’s pendant as a projectile to activate Nat’s Widow’s Bites, before pushing Shang-Chi right in the line of fire, shocking him unconscious.

Nat tries to stop him, but Ronin throws a smoke bomb at the ground, blinding her. When it clears, he’s gone with Shang-Chi. Knowing where he’s likely going, she races off to try and stop him, unaware that Maya is watching and following her all the while.

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Back at the Ten Rings’ HQ, Wenwu and Razor Fist are looking over the scrolls of Ta-Lo, trying to find the gateway to it, when the guards start clamoring outside as something is happening. Wenwu armors up and steps outside, only to his horror to find both Xialing and Shang-Chi tied up, bloodied, and held hostage by Ronin and his loyalists.

A grief-fueled Ronin then calls out Wenwu for his actions, and that even a man over a thousand years could never understand what it was like to live as a mere mortal like him, one gave everything to the world despite having no powers or special abilities, yet was shunned and received nothing but shame, ridicule, and ultimately death. He challenges the Mandarin to a duel: One match against him for his children’s life, or else they die.

Remembering what the Iron Gang did to Ying Li on these very grounds, Wenwu ultimately accepts, wanting to put the Ronin back in his place for the sake of his family.

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Elsewhere, Nat is trying desperately to reach the fortress in a rainy blur, until she gets stopped by Maya Lopez, still hellbent on avenging her father and killing Clint.

As Nat fights to get there first, both factions of the Ten Rings gather around the palace; Shang-Chi and Xialing, still bound, are forced to watch the duel that will decide their fate and their family’s. Clint and Wenwu, both armored up, draw their weapons, the rain shimmering around the both of them.

The battle begins, the two warriors engage in an all-out melee, Wenwu’s power only being matched by Clint’s swiftness and agility, his sword clashing with the Rings’s in a cacophony of combat. Eventually though, Wenwu’s sheer strength starts to overpower Clint, beating him senseless, but Clint anticipated this, waiting for the moment when Wenwu would get more reckless in his attacks. Meanwhile, back outside, Nat manages to knock off Maya’s leg and stun her with a Widow Bite, apologizing for that before running off to stop Clint.

As Clint gets smashed into the ground, Wenwu raises his fist, readying his Rings to kill him, but in doing so gives Ronin the opening he needed. Clint manages to slip a piece of sharp debris into his glove when he was pinned, so now, using the same trick as he did with Shang-Chi with his deadly accuracy, ricochets his new projectile right into Wenwu’s median nerve, severing it.

Wasting not a second, Clint grabs his sword and stabs Wenwu in the leg, further crippling him. As he continues fighting, Wenwu’s strength begins to give, as the Ronin keeps hitting him at critical points to take him off the edge. Then the game-changer comes as Wenwu tries to blast Clint with the Rings, allowing Clint to knock him down as he calls them back to him. Whirring around, Clint manages to catch the Rings on his own arm mid-flight, before spinning back to finish off Wenwu with a downward slam, knocking everyone back. He continues beating into Wenwu, visions of his family, of his pain, of everything he suffered though, and yet even that was never enough.

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Nat sees the concentric bursts of power from the palace, knowing that either way, something’s wrong. As Wenwu lays bloodied and defeated, Ronin uses his new Rings to take the rest from Wenwu, claiming them for himself. Shang-Chi and Xialing try to break free to save their father, but Ronin uses the Rings to hold them in place and watch. Wenwu looks over at them, accepting that his goal of reuniting his family was somewhat successful in the end, telling them both to avenge their family.

Wenwu accepts his fate, surrendering to the Ronin as Shang-Chi and Xialing are left helpless to watch. Clint then channels the Rings’ power into his blade, preparing to finish off the Mandarin for good.

Nat then barges in, witnessing the unfortunate scene before her. Clint glares at her, the friend she once knew gone, now replaced by a madman. As Ronin unmasks himself, Nat tells him she’s sorry she failed him, that she knows why he’s doing this but that he needs to stop, but Clint isn’t having any of it. As Nat begs for Clint to see reason and asks what will it take for him to listen, he simply tells her the same thing he’s told all his enemies:

“What I want…you can’t give me.”

He stabs Wenwu, as Nat, Shang-Chi, and Xialing watch in horror. Nat leaps in to try and stop him, but Clint just throws the two at her, before ordering his men to take them captive. Razor Fist breaks through and holds Ronin’s loyalists back, allowing them time to escape, but sacrificing himself in the process.

As the three make their escape, they find Maya on the ground still reeling from the Widow Bite. Nat removes it and tells her that if she wants to live, then they all need to go. As the group escape the oncoming convoy of troops after them, The Ronin watches on, not even fazed. He admires this new strength and commands the rest of his troops to submit to him or die, gesturing to Wenwu’s and Razor Fist’s dead bodies. The other troops submit to him, declaring the Ronin as their new leader.

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As both groups report to their higher-ups - Nat, Shang-Chi, and Xialing to the other remaining Avengers; Maya to Wilson Fisk and Sharon Carter - both sides receive a message from Ronin, informing them that Wenwu’s death was just the beginning. He tells them all that a new era has begun, one from which only reckoning will come for all who bar him from his goal.

With that, the Ronin assumes his new throne as the ruler of the Ten Rings, his aim and his empire now secured as one, all while forces beyond watch in preparation.

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Sorry if the bio’s a bit lengthier than most, but I thought it would be an interesting concept for a future What If..? scenario plus a fun way to revisit a more unexplored part of Marvel’s past with the Blip.

Hope you like it!

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