Unstoppable
Ipiranga, Sao Paulo – 8:53 AM
A red energy beam lanced through the darkness and collided with Luke, sending him crashing through the wall and into the empty crates inside the storage room.
"Luke!" Danny dove out of the room to give himself more space. Bucky quickly followed and lobbed a grenade toward Ultron.
The grenade exploded, filling the room with smoke and dust.
"How ordinary your weapons are, Barnes," Ultron mused as he stepped into the light. His chassis looked very much the same as before, only much shinier. "Not that that should come as a surprise from someone as unremarkable as you."
Bucky growled and opened fire. Adamantium bullets bounced off of Ultron and pierced through walls. "Wha–" He cursed and ducked behind a row of crates. "His chassis is vibranium!"
"Very good." Ultron shot forward and swung for Danny's head.
He ducked under it and threw a chi enhanced punch, aimed for Ultron's sternum. The impact was solid, but did nothing but barely singe his torso. Danny flipped away to regroup.
Ultron didn't give him the chance. As soon as Danny's feet touched the floor - more like the moment before - a scarlet red beam erupted from Ultron's mouth and slammed into Danny, sending him flying and slamming into the wall behind him.
By this point, Luke was on his feet and charging toward Ultron. He landed several solid punches, but he might as well have been a baby trying to slap at a car door. Not even so much as a dent resulted from his flurry.
Ultron laughed heartily and swatted him away.
Luke rolled to his feet. "Nothing we do is doing anything!"
"Now do you see what I mean?" A small compartment on his arm slid open, releasing a laser turret. "Your flesh is weak." A thin blue beam shot out of the turret and lance straight through Luke's chest. Another one followed and transpierced his side.
Luke screamed and crumbled to the floor.
"How simple it would be to kill you, Cage. For someone as confident as you, you are easily defeated. Just two shots and you fall like a harmless leaf at the dawn of autumn. I was hoping you all would have learned from last time. I really did."
Bucky rose and opened fire again. The same result occurred, much to Ultron's amusement.
"'If at first you don't succeed, try try again' is, I believe, the apt saying for this moment. That is, of course, the definition of insanity, also. That is, failing at something, then trying it again the exact same way. Without your captain, you really are a lost cause, Barnes."
Bucky growled and mentally sifted through his weapons. Nothing he had at his disposal would have done him any good. Even the small EMP he brought with him.
Danny rose to his feet and prepared to launch another attack.
"More of the same from you also, Iron Fist?"
Danny dashed forward, an almost unseen blur of motion. His fist began to glow as chi energy flowed through it. This, however, was different than his normal chi strikes. It was more potent and more concentrated. It was the power of the Iron Fist.
His fist exploded forward at uncanny speed. It connected with Ultron's sternum. To the robot's surprise, he was sent flying through the wall and into the next room.
Danny breathed out and ran toward Bucky and Luke. "He's down but not out. Let's get Luke out of here before he comes back."
"Right." They both grabbed an arm and gently hoisted Luke to his feet.
As they slowly made their way to the main assembly floor where the others likely were, Danny tapped his comm with his free hand. "Rhodey, it's Danny. Ultron's up and running again and he's got his vibranium shell. Luke's injured and nothing we do is doing any good."
Rhodey cursed. =Rendezvous at the quinjet. We have to get out of here.=
He nodded and was about to respond when a beam nearly took his head off. "Gah!"
"An interesting attack. It won't happen again."
"Get Luke to the jet," Danny told Bucky. "I'll hold Ultron off."
Bucky nodded and adjusted his grip so he could move more quickly.
Danny stood tall, fist still glowing from his concentrated chi. As before, he dashed forward and launched another jab imbued with the power of the Iron Fist.
This time, however, Ultron parried the punch cleanly and swatted Danny into the near wall. "As I said, it won't be happening again."
He stood and charged again. He launched a lightning fast flurry of punches and kicks, each one destined to be more devastating that the last. That kind of offensive attack would have overwhelmed nearly any other opponent.
Ultron dodged and parried all of them with ease. His mechanical limbs were moving to block before Danny could begin the attack that they ended up blocking. Ultron chuckled and launched his own attack. It was as if Ultron knew where he was going to position himself to block or dodge and had a blast ready to hit him in his vulnerable spots.
A burst of light shine from Ultron's hand as he jerked it back. Danny flew forward, only to be knocked back by the tremendous blast of energy that followed.
Danny was driven out of the storage room and into the assembly area, where he slammed into on of the assembly machines, completely destroying it. Blood dripped from his open wounds to the floor. He groaned softly and tried to rise to his knees, only to fall flat on his face.
"Danny!" Peter came running up, but his spider sense starting blaring. He backflipped out of instinct and managed to avoid Ultron. While he was still in midair, Ultron fired a beam that drove him clear through two assembly machines.
Rhodey rocketed forward and slammed into Ultron full force. The gatling gun on his shoulder pepper him with bullets, only for them to ricochet off and pock Rhodey's armor with bullet holes. Luckily for him, the War Machine armor contained a second, thinner layer of protective material between him and the outer shell.
"The lesser Iron Man," Ultron mocked as he grabbed onto the gatling gun. With a single pull, he ripped it off and hurled it at an oncoming She-Hulk. "How much longer do you think you will be allowed to live in Stark's shadow?"
"I live in Tony's shadow? News to me." Rhodey managed to free himself and fired a laser from his wrist.
Ultron chuckled and tilted his arm at the right angle so that when the laser reflected off it, it pierced through Jen's chest.
"No! Jennifer!" He managed to catch Jen before she fell to the floor. "Are you alright?"
She groaned and clutched at the quarter sized hole in her chest. "I've been better."
Ultron laughed and quickly grabbed hold of Rhodey. With a single beam, he blasted him out of the factory and across the street. "Ah, the imitation Hulk. Easily mistaken for a promiscuous Halloween costume than a hero." He grabbed Jen by the throat. A orangish beam shot from two ports on his forehead and engulfed her head. "My encephalo beam will make use of you."
She screamed out. Subliminal messages bombarded her mind, forcing out her thoughts and replacing them with Ultron's wishes and desires. She had a strong will, but even hers couldn't hold to the psychic assault. Before it was over, she lost consciousness and transformed back into Jennifer, making her mind even easier to mold to Ultron's control.
When he was finished, he dropped her like a piece of garbage.
"Bastard!" Peter shot a continuous stream of webbing at Ultron, completely trapping him in a cocoon. Not wasting any time, he picked up Jennifer and Danny and made a mad dash out the door. He headed right for the quinjet, which had been brought down to the street when Bucky made his way outside with Luke.
Rhodey was on his feet by the time Peter boarded. "Set them down next to Luke." Jocasta locked onto Ultron's location.
"The factory is scheduled for demolition in one week, Colonel," she noted.
"Good." Rhodey fired his Ex-Wife missile into the factory. The massive, ground shaking explosion brought the building down on itself, burying Ultron in tons upon tons of cement and debris. "Let's get out of here before he digs himself out." He boarded the jet and closed the hatch behind him.
Moments later, the jet was in the air and heading off for the palace.
They were out of Brazilian airspace in thirty minutes, and took a moment to breath and recollect themselves after their battle with Ultron. "We were supposed to call T'Challa when we found him," Peter said.
"Yeah, kinda slipped our minds, I guess." Bucky put his rifle, safety on, inside an overhead compartment, along with a submachine gun and grenade belt. "Don't know what he could have done, anyway. That thing was unstoppable."
"More than usual." Rhodey took his helmet off and placed it down beside him.
"It was like he knew what we were going to do before we did."
"I wouldn't be surprised if he did," Rhodey said. "He's had all this time to prepare for us since our battle in DC, remember?"
"Yeah." Bucky rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It won't matter if we have all hands on deck or not. Not while he can't even be scratched."
Peter nodded in agreement. "But there has to be some way to stop him. And I bet it's right in front of us."
They silently hoped he was right. Everything they tried had failed to put Ultron down for good and they were running out of ideas.