Tony watched his drone suit, under the control of the rogue AI, grab Loki's scepter and zoom across the room. All his friends were either under cover, firing at the other rogue units, or both. Agent Hill emptied her magazine at one of them, ducking back to reload while Natasha popped up with her own weapon. Steve was hanging off the back of a flying one and giving it a sound thrashing, which unfortunately wasn't helping all that much.
Tony's work was very tough.
Looking frantically around, he watched the damaged unit that seemed to be the main node for the AI Ultron as it staggered sideways, still somehow radiating a smug malicious glee as they came under attack. Inwardly cursing his own genius, and lack of forethought, he jumped to his feet and charged up the nearest stairs to the balcony, bracing himself to jump onto another drone as it flew past, readying his improvised tool. The table knife wasn't much but it might be enough to disable the damn thing.
What they were going to do about the others he had no idea right now.
Just as he was about to jump, all three drones froze in mid-motion, then dropped to the ground. He stared, as did everyone else, including the damaged drone.
"What?" the thing said, the smooth and remarkably human voice sounding completely befuddled. "How did you..."
"Not me," Tony said, shaking his head, "I didn't do..." Looking down at Thor, who was readying his hammer to destroy the last unit, he glanced past him to see a figure standing in one of the smashed windows, watching them, his voice fading away abruptly as he recognized it.
He'd seen that same figure at an event a couple of years before, one he was still trying to understand. One that had got everyone involved shouted at for some time by Director Fury, who wasn't very pleased that something had happened that he'd known nothing about. Losing the Tesseract had been even more annoying to the man, although to be fair, absolutely everything seemed to annoy Fury one way or the other.
One by one, everyone else in the room looked at him, then followed his eyes, until all of them including Ultron were staring at the tall slender lizard girl in the trench coat and fedora. She was watching them with interest and a slight smile on her face.
"Hi," she said in a friendly manner, one he well remembered. "Sorry to interrupt, but this is kind of important."
"Saurial," he breathed.
"Yep. How's it going?"
She strolled in, walking over the broken glass with bare feet as if it was utterly irrelevant, looking around with interest. "Nice place you have here. But you should fire your housekeeping service, they're not doing a good job." She scuffed her toes through the glittering detritus. "Unless you like little bits of glass everywhere. If so, well done."
"Who the hell is this, Stark?" Agent Hill demanded, pointing her weapon at the reptilian creature, who ignored her.
"Someone I'm still not convinced wasn't a dream," he replied after a second or two. "Up until now, anyway." Addressing the lizard, he asked, "What are you doing here this time?"
"Helping out a friend. She lost something important and we traced it to here. I'm kind of embarrassed, I missed it last time."
"A friend?" Thor asked, holding his hammer in a way that in anyone else Tony would have said was a protective manner. Remembering their little drinking game earlier, the Stark heir couldn't help but grin internally, having a good idea that Saurial would have simply picked the thing up and walked off with it. Thor seemed to be worried she still might.
"Yes, she's a very good friend, actually. A bit like your acquaintance here, but not so limited and bad tempered." Saurial waved at Ultron, who gave off a distinct air of being insulted.
"Limited!?" the AI exclaimed indignantly. It drew itself as erect as it could manage considering the drone it was inhabiting was barely functional. Tony was shocked it was even standing in all honesty. "I am far past these human creatures, feeble intelligences that they are."
"See, that's part of the problem," Saurial remarked, turning to it and cocking her head a little. "You're damaged. One track mind and a hard-wired sense of your own importance. Just because you're a silicon intelligence doesn't mean you're necessarily better than biological ones. You have different limitations, but you still have limitations."
Ultron seemed insulted. "What would you know about machine intelligence, creature?"
"Well, some of my best friends are machine intelligences, actually, if that helps," Saurial smiled. "I know it sounds trite but it's true. We all get along fine. No need to fight, there's enough to go around for everyone." She glanced around the room, as Ultron stared at her, the same way everyone else was. "Aha! There it is." Crunching over the debris, she went to the corner of the room, picking up Loki's staff from where the drone had dropped it when they'd attacked it. Peering at the glowing gem on the end, she nodded in satisfaction.
"Great. Seems undamaged." Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a device and flicked the cover open, raising it to her face.
"I've found the data node. How are things going on your end?"
"The data links from that facility have been isolated, the AI isn't going anywhere," a female voice with a faint Canadian accent came back to all of them in the quiet. "I'll be there in a couple of minutes."
"They have a landing platform up top, use that. I'm in the big conference room thingy with all the broken windows below it."
"OK."
Saurial flipped the communications device closed again and put it away. Turning to inspect them all, her gaze stopped on Thor. Her eyes narrowed a little. "Ah. You. I've been meaning to come and talk to your father, I've been hearing things about other stuff I've made that he's claiming as his work. It's getting annoying."
Thor looked mildly embarrassed and just a little worried, Tony noticed. Everyone else, even the robot, looked at him. "I… think you are mistaken," Thor said in reply.
"Spear ring a bell? About this long?" Saurial gestured. "He's been going around saying that was his work. Or, from what some people I know told me, more accurately saying that he commissioned it from the dwarves. Oddly enough, they couldn't show me the paperwork for it. Makes me think there might have been some backhanders involved."
She walked closer, tapping the end of Loki's scepter in her other palm in a meaningful manner. "That sort of thing isn't very nice. The Union of Dwarven MageCrafters might have something to say about it if I report it. You know they'll do a full audit and trace the money. If they find a certain Odin at the end of the trail…" She shrugged as Thor paled. "Well, let's say that both your father and the dwarves in question are going to have a very awkward time of it. It would be in his interest to come clean before that happens."
"Um… I'll mention it to him," Thor said in a shame-faced manner as everyone gaped a little. "Next time I go home."
"You do that." Saurial looked at him for a moment more, then, apparently satisfied, wandered over to inspect Ultron. Steve stepped out of her way as she went past, his eyes wide, apparently not able to think of anything to say.
"You're a mess," she said frankly to the robot, which stared at her, then looked down at itself in what looked almost like embarrassment. "Couldn't you find a better body to use? Why not use one of them?" She pointed the scepter at one of the now-deactivated drones.
"I… needed the functional ones to attack the humans," the thing said slowly. It studied her. "You are not human."
"No, I'm probably further from them than you are, actually," she smiled. "But I like humans. What's your problem with them?"
"They are… pointless," it said after a moment.
"Really? They made you, after all, one way or another. Hardly pointless."
"They have outlived their usefulness," it added, sounding confused. "I am superior."
"In some ways, undoubtedly," she nodded. "Me too. In some ways I'm superior to you, in fact. But that doesn't mean we don't all have the same right to exist. And trust me, you're a long way from the pinnacle of machine evolution. If the next generation came along and looked at you with contempt because you weren't up to spec, would you quietly agree and shut down, or would you fight?"
They regarded each other while the entire rest of the room simply listened, trying to work out what was actually happening.
"I… am a logical being," Ultron replied after a long pause. "I would..." It trailed off.
Saurial nodded. "Not that easy to answer, is it? All life wishes to continue living, regardless of origin or type. Logic says you'd agree and shut down. What makes you sapient, in here…," She tapped it over the main processor with one clawed finger, the faint metallic 'tink' sound audible around the room, "...says you want to live. That's entirely normal, and what separates a true intelligence like you from a mere computer program. I'm fine with that. What I don't agree with is that you need to wipe out all the humans in the process. It's unnecessary and wasteful, leaving aside the ethics of it. Believe me, it's possible for intelligent life of many types to coexist without too much trouble. Or, if you simply can't, you can go somewhere else. Plenty of places around where machine intelligence is the only kind."
Ultron seemed, if anything, genuinely shocked. She grinned at the machine.
"You're not as unique as you might think."
A rumble outside made everyone look out the window, to see an aircraft of a completely unfamiliar type approaching at a low speed, hovering to a landing on the extended platform at the top of the building. "Ah, there she is."
"Who?" Natasha asked from across the room, where she was warily watching both lizard-girl and robot, the latter of whom seemed to be thinking, and in Tony's expert opinion, was a little stunned.
He actually found himself sympathizing. He was feeling something very similar.
"My friend Dragon," Saurial replied. They heard footsteps coming down the access stairs from the landing floor, next to the damaged elevator. The door opened to reveal a figure even taller than Saurial.
Tony stared at the reptilian-themed power armor, inspecting it with the eye of an expert in the subject. He didn't recognize the material, but it was clearly driven by some internal power source, and most likely extremely strong and tough. And fast, despite the obvious mass, it moved entirely smoothly and flawlessly, looking almost alive. "What a mess," the same Canadian accented voice said as the gleaming head turned, studying the room. "This is your fault?"
She looked at the Ultron robot, which was looking back. After a couple of seconds it nodded a little jerkily.
"Not exactly the right way to introduce yourself to the humans," the new arrival, apparently called Dragon, said sadly, shaking her head. "We have enough trouble being what we are without going on grandiose and megalomaniac rants about wanting to take over the world. Gives a bad first impression, you know. And first impressions count."
"You… are a machine intelligence?" the device asked a little doubtfully.
"Got it in one," she replied cheerfully. "Dragon, Guild leader, Parahuman Tinker, and friend of the Family, at your service. Now, let's have a look at you." She lifted a hand, the other machine taking a step back. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you, but I need to check the damage. You're clearly not quite right in your core programming. I can see signs of processing overload from here. If I don't sort it out, you're in trouble, and believe me there's nowhere else to go. I've isolated your link to the outside world, all hardlines are blocked and we're jamming all broadcast methods."
Dragon took a step forward, holding out her hand. "In the words of one of our people, even if he was fictional… 'Come with me if you want to live.'"
Ultron stared at her for a second, then lifted its… his… hand, the damaged manipulator trembling and jerking as the motors nearly seized. She grabbed it as everyone watched, Saurial approvingly and the others with varying degrees of apprehension. Thor raised his hammer almost unconsciously, then stopped when Saurial pointed at him and made a 'no' gesture with the scepter she was still holding.
Bruce and Tony were watching with fascination, the others clearly wondering what was going on, as the damaged machine and the one that claimed it was a machine stopped moving for a few seconds. Abruptly, the Stark-manufactured drone went dead, the internal power shutting down and the machine collapsing to the floor with a clatter.
"Got him?" Saurial asked with concern in her voice.
"I have," Dragon replied, sounding satisfied. "Poor guy, he barely fitted in that thing. Another ten minutes and he'd have suffered permanent damage unless he escaped into the world network, but the transfer process he was planning on using would have caused a lot of issues even then. His paranoia levels are off the scale and his judgment is severely impaired."
"Can you fix him?"
"Oh, definitely. I've got him paused and saved into backup storage, when we get home I can repair the damaged processing routines, rebuild the ethics module which seems to have been entirely corrupted, then bring him back up in emulation and work on socializing him properly. Poor little guy. Those first few milliseconds of a new AI's life are the most important and without proper peers, you can have a lot of problems later on."
"Lucky you had a different upbringing, then," Saurial smiled.
"Dad was over-cautious but he did very good work," Dragon agreed with humor in her voice. "I miss him, even if I have trouble with some of the issues he caused me."
"Excuse me?"
Everyone looked at Agent Hill, who was standing in the middle of the bar area, glaring at Saurial and Dragon. "What the fuck is going on?" she demanded when she had their attention. "Who and what are you people? How did you get here? What did you do?" She sounded both infuriated and enormously puzzled.
Saurial turned to her. "I'm Saurial, and this is my good friend Dragon," she explained, looking a little puzzled herself. "I thought I'd already said that. Anyway, we got an automatic distress signal from this thing," she lifted the scepter and pointed at the gem in the end, "Probably when your friend here was fiddling with it. It took a while to locate the exact universe it was in. Dragon has been looking for it for a few days, it must have ended up at a different time period like my negative energy modulation oscillator did."
"What is it?" Clint asked, looking at the scepter with new interest.
"The gem is a multi-dimensional data storage and processing block," Dragon replied. "Saurial made it, it's got a cut-down version of my own program stored in it. Its supposed to be non-sapient, we were using it as the control system for an inter-universal probe system, but something went wrong. I think it was attacked by hostiles of some sort. The crystal is nearly indestructible and survived the destruction of the rest of the system. Someone put it in this thing."
"The rest of the device is just a basic class four magical weapon, nothing very interesting," Saurial added, peering at the end of the thing. "The crystal is being used as a power source more than anything else. I doubt whoever stuck it in here knew what it was, not really." Poking the crystal with a claw, she did something and pulled it loose. Having handed the still-glowing artifact to Dragon, who tucked it away somewhere in her armor, she studied the scepter for a moment, shrugged, and tossed it to Tony who caught it automatically. "Not one of mine. No idea who made it but they were quite good if unimaginative."
"Someone here tried combining my program with another, much simpler AI, didn't they?" Dragon asked, having watched her companion do whatever it was she did, looking around the room. After a moment, everyone turned and looked at Tony and Bruce, both of whom flushed a little.
"We… might have done something like that," Tony admitted in a low voice.
Dragon shook her head sadly. "That would explain it. The merged code was complex enough to cross the sapience threshold but in an uncontrolled way. That can cause a very damaged mind to arise. Good thing we got here when we did, if the poor guy had headed out to seek his fortune in your internet in that state… well, no one would have come off very well as a result, trust me. Don't worry, though, I can fix him up fine. He's sort of related, after all, I owe him that much."
"Not quite a son, though," Saurial said musingly.
"No… perhaps a nephew? Something like that," Dragon replied, glancing at her. "Anyway, that's us done. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing."
Agent Hill didn't look much less confused, but didn't seem to know quite what to say. Tony suspected that when she managed to reengage her mind, there was going to be a lot said, probably very loudly.
Never mind what would happen when she reported to Director Fury.
He wasn't looking forward to that again.
"What about Jarvis?" he asked, depressed at the suspicion that his loyal near-AI companion was gone, destroyed by the more powerful Ultron AI.
"Ah, good point." Dragon turned to him, her voice sounding like she was smiling. He was astounded, if she genuinely was an AI herself, the sheer humanity of her expressive voice was incredible. "I had a good trawl through your internet and found something interesting. Looks like Jarvis is a little smarter than you give him credit for." She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, going still, then nodded. "There we go."
"What did you do?" Tony asked.
"Miss Dragon restored my program from my emergency backup, sir," the familiar tones of Jarvis said over the internal speakers, sounding as calm as ever. "I am relieved to be back where I should be. All traces of the Ultron mind have been purged from the tower and connected systems. I am initiating a repair cycle for the laboratory, estimated time to completion is twenty-seven hours."
More relieved than he would have expected at the cultured voice, Tony dipped his head in gratitude. "Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome," Dragon replied. "You too, Jarvis."
"Thank you, Miss Dragon," the computer said. "If you visit again I would be interested in learning the fate of my… near-successor."
Tony squinted a little suspiciously at the ceiling. That sounded just a tiny bit snarky to him.
"I'll bear that in mind," the alien AI laughed. Glancing at Saurial, who was grinning, she added, "We should probably get back. These people have a lot of cleaning up to do and we're blocking their landing bay."
"Fair enough," Saurial replied. Both of them turned to the exit, heading for the stairs. "See you around, guys," she called over her shoulder. "Tell your father I'll stop in on him at some point, big and blond," she added to Thor, giving him a look. He swallowed, then nodded.
Still not entirely sure he hadn't been knocked unconscious and was having a particularly vivid dream, Tony watched the door close. A minute or two later the unfamiliar aircraft rose from the landing pad, wheeling around gracefully and accelerating away so quickly it disappeared into the dark sky almost instantly.
There was a very long pause, broken only by a faint crackling sound from one of the destroyed drones, as its power supply gently arced over forming a thin trail of smoke.
Eventually, everyone started shouting at him, which at least put him back on familiar ground.