Returning to Grace

A Marvel: Avengers Alliance fanfiction

by Jonathan 'KnightMysterio' Spires

Chapter 2: Omega Sentinel

All characters not original copyrighted to Marvel and used without permission for non-profit amusement reasons. All original characters copyrighted to me. Agent in this and subsequent stories is male and based on me, but my in-game Agent is female.

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Stark Tower...

A laboratory...

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"She's in there?" Agent Towers asked.

The blue-furred Beast and the uncharacteristically solemn Tony Stark both looked at each other and nodded. "Yep," Tony said. "Recuperating from having her brain freed of Sentinel programming. We used what we learned in getting Vision on our side to pretty much decimate the Sentinel code forced into her brain."

"She's still hurting right now, Agent," Beast said. "So be gentle with her."

Agent Towers just nodded, clenching his fist tightly. "I know, I know..."

Beast frowned. "I've read your files, Agent Towers. I know you lost your family to Sentinels. But remember, she's just as much of a victim as you were. She lost herself to them."

Agent Towers grimaced. "It's... hard..." he said. "I know intellectually that she's a human, but after fighting her so many times..."

Tony smiled gently. "Look at it this way," he said. "Get her on your side, and you can have the pleasure of using a Sentinel to smash other Sentinels! Irony! So delicious."

Agent Towers turned to stare at Tony, and then shook his head. "You're full of it, Stark. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Every hour on the hour," Tony said with a smirk. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to hack SHIELD's database again and get her registered as an Avenger before the delightfully charming and sexy Maria Hill can stop me."

Beast chuckled. "You'd think with the number of times that you and/or Doom or some other miscreant has broken into SHIELD's central files that they'd change their passwords."

"That would require change," Tony said as he and Beast went down the hall. "And Fury's too stubborn to change anything except his underwear, and even then he has to think about it."

Beast laughed. Agent Towers barely noticed, staring at the door. After a moment, he pushed the door open and went inside, taking a deep breath to calm himself.

Sitting on the exam table, staring at a picture of herself from when she was still human, was a woman clad in what looked like a white bodysuit, one that covered her almost entirely, leaving her dark-skinned face and long hair exposed. Lines highlighted the bodysuit in various places, Agent Towers knowing that many of those lines could split open to reveal hidden weapons. Weapons for butchering mutants.

Damn it, stop, Agent Towers told himself. Primes like her are victims, changed by Bastion into Sentinels. He shook his head, and forced a smile on his face.

"Omega Sentinel," he said. The woman turned, staring at him. Agent Towers smiled, nodding. "I'm Agent Towers. I'm currently the head of the SHIELD Metahuman and Vigilante Cooperative Commission, and..."

"I remember you," Omega Sentinel said softly. "My database and memory banks were not erased when my mind was freed and my humanity restored. I remember our battles."

His fists reflexively clenched again. "Oh?"

Omega Sentinel smiled weakly. "Yes... Thank you for stopping me," she said. "I... I don't want to harm innocent people, human or mutant..." She took a deep breath. "In the battle that resulted in my capture, you tried to kill me. Iron Man had to hold you back."

"Yes..." Agent Towers said warily.

"Why?" Omega Sentinel asked, her expression sad.

Agent Towers hesitated a long moment. "Both my parents were mutants. One I lost to a Sentinel, the other to an anti-mutant riot caused by the Sentinel's presence. I've hated them ever since."

Omega Sentinel's eyes glowed slightly, and Agent Towers knew he was being scanned. "You register as human. Iso-8 enhanced, but human."

Agent Towers shrugged. "I can't help that."

Omega Sentinel nodded, and went back to staring at the floor. "You must hate me," she said softly. "Because I am a Sentinel as well..."

Agent Towers clenched his fists again... and sighed. "Yes," he admitted. "But I don't want to. Maybe..." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Tell me about yourself, Omega Sentinel. Tell me how... how 'this' happened to you..."

Omega Sentinel nodded, sighing. "My name is Karima Shapandar. I didn't know that five minutes ago," she said.

Pretty name, the Agent thought, blinking in surprise at the thought. Omega Sentinel continued. "The Prime Sentinel program took my memories from me, and I am only now getting them back."

The Agent blinked in surprised. "But... wait, didn't Stark and Beast get you deprogrammed more than an hour ago?"

Omega Sentinel smiled weakly. "Yes. But my mind is still breaking free of the Sentinel programming's influence. Memories started to come back almost instantly, but my name only came to me just before you came in..."

Agent Towers frowned, feeling a pang of sympathy for her. "Please, continue," he said.

Omega Sentinel nodded, looking down at the picture of her human self again. She sighed, and continued. "I was a detective in the Indian National Police Force. I was good at my job. Good enough that the Chief of Police assigned me to be the bodyguard of his son, Neal."

She held up her palm, a hologram of a young man in an INPF uniform appearing in it. "The Chief's elder son, Sanjit, had gone missing while researching mysterious disappearances on the streets of Kolkata. I decided to take up the case."

The hologram shifted, changing into that of a Prime Sentinel. Omega Sentinel scowled. "I discovered that people were being transformed into Prime Sentinels, cyborg sleeper agents disguised as humans, designed to hunt down and kill mutants."

Primes, thought the Agent angrily. Of all the disgusting variants of those things, those disgust me the worse. The people they victi... mize... oh hell. He frowned, realizing for the first time the prejudice he had been showing in his dealings with Omega Sentinel.

Omega Sentinel didn't seem to notice, dispelling the hologram and hugged herself, shivering. "Worse..." she said, "I discovered I was a Prime Sentinel as well. A protoype of a more advanced model called 'Omega.' That's when the programming dropped over me like a shroud." Her voice became quieter. "Only now do I realize what was done to me."

She held up her hands, staring at them. "My bones and muscles were torn from me, replaced with carbonized titanium and reactive polymer. They filled me with plasma weapons, blades, bombs, disruptors, and sensors. So many sensors..." She shivered softly.

Agent Towers put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. She smiled weakly at him, and sighed. She gestured, and a holographic overlay of the Tower and the city around it appeared and filled the room, showing several glowing dots. The Agent looked around, realizing what the overlay meant. Omega Sentinel nodded, confirming his suspicions.

"Right now," Omega Sentinel said, "I am automatically tracking all twenty-one thousand, four hundred thirty-eight people in a mile radius around me. Several of them are mutants, and their presence is like an itch in my brain." She closed her hand, and the tracking hologram vanished. "An itch I refuse to scratch."

She looked at the Agent, her expression resolute. "I will never be fully human again, but I will also never be their tool. Call me Omega Sentinel if you wish. But my name is Karima. And I am an Avenger."

Agent Towers closed his eyes and sighed, a smile coming to his face. "Karima," he said. "I am sorry if I ever showed you any bigotry or hatred. I forgot, Primes like you are victims of the Sentinels just as much as those they hunt are. You did not deserve to have this happen to you." He took her hand. "And I swear that I will never let anyone, not the Sentinels, not AIM, nor anyone else like them use you ever again. Welcome to the team."

Omega Sentinel smiled, tears coming to her eyes. "Thank you Agent," she said, standing up and hugging him. "Thank you."

Agent Towers was taken aback for a moment, but he chuckled, hugging her as well.

"Hey, how come you get to hug the pretty robot girl before I do?" Tony said, leaning up against the door to the lab.

Omega Sentinel blushed, she and the Agent stepping away from each other. "Stark, you asshole! There's a reason Director Fury's always so annoyed with you!"

"Just one?" Tony teased. "Speaking of which, we should probably get going. We've still got Ultron to deal with and I've just detected Crimson Dynamo skulking about. Plus... I sorta... actually... need to actually tell Fury about you."

Agent Towers facepalmed. Omega Sentinel chuckled. "Is he always like this?"

"I'd be worried if he wasn't, honestly," the Agent admitted.

Omega Sentinel smiled. "Then let's go," she said. "Time to get a start on my life again."

THE END