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Mercurial
As he ran anxiously around the city, Barry was silently amazed at how easily he was settling into his current dynamic with Pietro. He'd spent so long having to fight Thawne/Wells and Zoom- his brief alliance with 'Jay' didn't count as Jay had been apparently powerless at that point- that it was almost strange to find himself racing alongside another person with superspeed. With his suit's radio adjusted to the necessary frequency to keep in touch with the other Avengers- along with a warning to turn off the transmitter when he was just talking to those people immediately next to him if he didn't want things to get confusing- he and Pietro were nipping in and out of the surrounding buildings, getting everyone they could find out of the upper levels and moved to the nearest large open area, leaving the lower levels to evacuate themselves from their homes before fleeing the city.
Barry had to give these people credit; from what he'd read, this whole country had some issues with the Avengers, but they were at least reacting to Pietro's warnings quickly enough. Barry had been given a quick warning in Sokovian that he could yell out when he entered each flat to explain the situation as promptly as possible, but he was sure that he was still attracting a few stares from his mangled pronunciation of it, and Wanda's telepathic instructions were probably helping them get the job done. Thor and the Hulk were dealing with Ultron's main lab while Iron Man and the Vision looked for Ultron, which allowed the Avengers to disperse the rest of their resources fairly evenly as they prepared for the evacuation.
When the drones appeared, Barry only had a moment to curse their luck before he quickly leapt into action, Pietro close behind him as the two of them charged into the wave of drones in front of them. Barry doubted that this kind of strategy would work on whatever Ultron had used to create his latest body, but for the moment, while these drones were powerful, they weren't strong enough for him to need to resort to the Mach Punch so far. He'd used the occasional lightning blast if he was faced with a large quantity of drones in a cluster rather than a semi-straight line, but for the moment, they still had enough control of the situation that he didn't want to risk forcing Ultron's hand by showing too much skill too soon. While Pietro had to focus on taking out the drones, Barry was able to spare a few seconds on some occasions to hit a higher speed and take a quick assessment of the battlefield to be sure that the other Avengers were coping with their assigned tasks, but apart from knocking a few drones off-balance when they came close to the cars Captain America was helping to cross a bridge, even those Avengers with skills rather than powers seemed to be coping with the whole situation rather well.
What's Ultron actually planning? Barry asked himself, knocking one drone off-balance just as it fired its latest energy blast so that the attack would hit one of its fellows rather than its original target. Unleashing a robot drone army would be difficult, but there's only so many he can let loose before he runs out of manufacturing materials…
As the city shook below him, Barry wondered if he was dealing with an earthquake or some kind of subterranean drone, but that thought was cut short when he ran to the edge of the city and realised that he was looking down as the ground beyond the city's limits literally broke away and vanished below them, to say nothing of bridges cracking on either side of him.
He'd faced large-scale disasters before, but there was still a marked difference about Mark Mardon causing a tidal wave and Ultron going to all the effort of creating whatever he'd need to do this (and he wasn't just thinking about the fact that this wasn't a problem he could stop by running to create some kind of counter-wave like Caitlin had suggested before his first time-jump).
"Ultron lifted the entire city?" Barry looked at Pietro incredulously.
"It looks that way," Pietro mused, looking back at Barry. "Did anyone do this in your world?"
"Not really," Barry confirmed, looking grimly at the rapidly-receding ground. "I mean, Oliver's first major enemy tried to destroy his city with a machine that generated artificial earthquakes, but that didn't involve lifting it up like this…"
Inwardly, his mind was racing as he considered the implications of what he was witnessing here. Geophysics wasn't something he'd covered extensively, but after the near-tidal wave he'd witnessed on his first time-travel experience, he'd done some research on potential large-scale disasters to get an idea for what his foes might try later, and right now this situation, coupled with Ultron's comments when he was a prisoner, was reminding him of some of the things he'd read about possible consequences of meteor strikes on modern Earth.
OK, something this big rising up at this rate… assuming Ultron's got some way to keep everything in one piece until he's ready for it to break…
Barry didn't remember the exact figures he'd read, and he had no way of working out how heavy this makeshift meteor was even if he did, but that didn't change the fact that this wasn't good.
"Do you see?" Ultron's voice suddenly boomed out, as though he was using a loudspeaker. "The beauty of it, the inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."
"Well," Barry glanced over at Pietro once they were both sure Ultron had finished speaking, "that guy's completely insane."
"Quite," Pietro nodded, before glancing over Barry's shoulder and abruptly charging past him. Turning around, even Barry's enhanced reflexes were only in time to see a series of drones go flying apart as Pietro crashed through them, prompting him to simply shrug and charge down another street to follow his new ally's example.
"Incoming already came, Stark," Captain America's voice suddenly came over the radio, likely responding to a more private transmission from Iron Man as the sound of something breaking accompanied the radio. "Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. The rest of us have one job; tear these things apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed, walk it off."
Barry decided not to over-analyse that particular statement and just focus on the important part of that statement; right now, they had a mass of robot drones under the control of a genocidal psychopath on their way to the city, and the best any of them could do was take down as many as possible until their experts were able to stop Ultron's weapon. Glancing over at Pietro, the two shared a nod before they charged towards the drones, Pietro smashing through them through sheer speed while Barry launched the occasional lightning-bolt to take out a few more. With the immediate wave dealt with, the two speedsters dashed through the city, taking out the occasional drone 'pocket' before they could join their fellows in larger numbers, Barry keeping an eye out for the other Avengers as he ran. He noticed Thor and Steve working together by using the hammer to throw Steve's shield with even greater force than usual, and glimpsed the Hulk tearing several drones apart with his bare hands, but Barry kept on running, only coming to a halt when a drone struck him in the side and sent him into the nearest wall.
"You really think you're accomplishing anything here?" the drone said in Ultron's voice.
"My first week using this suit, I faced a guy who could clone himself," Barry countered, flexing his arms as he got back to his feet while glaring at the drone. "I get that you're building these things, but you're going to run out eventually."
He didn't give Ultron the chance to respond to that, charging through the drone with such force that he saw the head flying up into the sky before he focused his attention back on the road in front of him, soon catching up with Pietro as the other speedster paused at a crossroads.
"Good?" the white-haired young man asked.
"Just Ultron being Ultron," Barry clarified, shaking his head. "What is it about evil robots that they like talking through their minions?"
"Alright," Clint's voice suddenly reported over the radio before Pietro could answer the question himself. "We're all clear here."
"We are not clear!" Steve yelled, evidently still fighting drones wherever he was in the city. "We are very not clear!"
"Alright, coming to you," the archer said, before Pietro blurred and Wanda was suddenly standing beside the two speedsters, the young woman immediately deflecting the next wave of approaching drones gathered in front of them and the Sokovian police.
"How are you?" Barry glanced at the young woman.
"I… needed a moment," the telekinetic replied, actually sounding sheepish at that confession before she shot Barry a reassuring smile. "But Barton helped."
"He did?" Pietro asked. "How?"
"He reminded me that we are all lost right now," Wanda replied, wincing as a more intense blast struck her shield even as she kept it up. "What matters is how we cope with it."
"Fair point," Barry smiled. "If it helps, we all get overwhelmed sometimes; I still wonder what I did in my life to reach a point where encountering a telepathic intelligent gorilla is just an odd day rather than the strangest day I've ever had."
"Gorilla?" Pietro asked, only to break out from behind the shield and tear through the approaching drones when the latest barrage forced Wanda to her knees. Deciding that this wasn't the time to share stories, Barry quickly rubbed his hands together and launched another lightning-bolt at their enemies, the attack apparently absorbing energy from the shield as the resulting lightning was crackling red as well as his familiar gold energy.
"The next wave's gonna hit any minute," Steve's voice suddenly sounded over the team radio link, which at least suggested that the first wave of drones was out of it now. "What have you got, Stark?"
"Well, nothing great," Iron Man responded solemnly. "Maybe a way to blow up the city. That'll keep it from impacting the surface if you guys can get clear."
"I asked for a solution, not an escape plan," Steve countered.
"Impact radius is getting bigger every second," Iron Man reaffirmed. "We're going to have to make a choice."
"What choice?" Wanda looked over at Barry as the radio connection ended.
"Let Ultron's plan finish so this thing will destroy the world when it drops or blow it up now so we can limit the damage it'll do when it goes down," Barry said grimly.
"Ah," the Sokovian woman said.
"Even when we're on it?" Pietro asked.
All Barry could bring himself to do in response was look silently back at Pietro, not wanting to actually tell the first genuinely good fellow speedster he'd ever met that they would have to die to save the world.
"Cap, these people are going nowhere," Natasha said; Barry wasn't sure if the Widow was aware that she was still on an active radio frequency, but he supposed he couldn't criticise her ignorance when he hadn't known that either. "If Stark finds a way to blow this rock-"
"Not 'til everyone's safe," Steve cut her off firmly.
"Everyone up here versus everyone down there?" Natasha countered. "There's no math there."
"I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it," Steve said firmly.
"I didn't say we should leave," the apparent ex-assassin said; at this point, Barry wasn't sure if she was even aware that the radio was still on or not. "There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"
Looking over at the Maximoff twins, Barry didn't know if he should be proud or sad that they were so accepting of that decision; they were barely out of their teens, and neither of them showed any signs of anger or panic when the team they'd considered the enemy just a few days ago basically pronounced a death sentence on all ten of them to stop a literally apocalyptic threat.
"Glad you like the view, Romanoff," an unfamiliar voice suddenly cut in over the radio. "It's about to get better."
Exchanging a glance with Pietro, Barry and his fellow speedster immediately ran to the edge of the city and ran around it until they reached the area where Steve and Natasha were standing. Turning around to look at the view they'd been discussing, Barry soon found himself speechless as he took in the incredible sight of a flying aircraft carrier, with vast propellers on its sides, flying alongside the rising city.
"Nice, right?" the new voice said. "I pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do."
"Fury, you son of a bitch," Steve said, smiling as he stared at the new arrival.
"Oooh!" the new speaker said in the teasing manner of a man who rarely made actual jokes. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
"Altitude is eighteen thousand and climbing," a new woman said.
"Lifeboats secure to deploy," another new male voice said, reinforcing Barry's theory that these new speakers were on that carrier. "Disengage in three, two… take 'em out."
With those words, hatches opened in the bottom of the carrier- the parts that would have been underwater if this thing had been the boat it looked like- revealing a series of large, open-topped vehicles that put Barry in mind of those troop transports he'd seen from news footage of D-Day. They were moving at an almost leisurely pace compared to some aircraft Barry had seen over the years, but they were clearly heading for the edge of the city, settling into a position near the areas where the ground had come through the tremors of their ascent comparatively intact.
"This is SHIELD?" Pietro asked (Barry took a moment, but if he remembered those articles he'd skimmed while researching the Avengers, SHIELD had been this international spy agency that brought the Avengers together before it was revealed that some of the higher-ups had been working with a Nazi splinter group or something).
"This is what SHIELD's supposed to be," Steve replied with a cool certainty.
"This is not so bad," Pietro acknowledged.
"Not bad?" Barry looked at Pietro incredulously. "These guys have a flying aircraft carrier; that is… awesome!"
"Good way to keep everything mobile," Natasha explained, smiling slightly at his enthusiasm.
"Let's load 'em up," Steve said, looking over at the speedsters in a manner that made his point clear.
"Right," Barry nodded, turning around to dive back into the city; the sooner they could evacuate the civilians, the sooner they could focus on blowing this city to pieces before Ultron could drop it.
