MY FINEST GIGAYEAR

Chapter

Zzt-sssshhhhh-BOOOOMMM!

The concussion blast rushing forth from Ultron's cybernetic eyes bombastically impacted with the immaterial Vision in such a fashion so as to interrupt such molecular control…

"Wha—?"

…forcing the former Avenger to suddenly solidify and, thanks to Earth's gravity, dragged down to hit the super-solidity of what used to be an oceanic environ, long before the swelling sun caused all water to boil and bubble away…

Kuh-THUUNNKK!

Where he remained motionless so long that Ultron laughingly lauded, "Hahahaha! I have destroyed the Vision! So swiftly…so absolutely…so…disappointingly…"

All at once, Ultron's triumph completely collapsed into unfettered frustration. For Ultron the Ultimate had survived so impossibly long to awaken within an End of Time situation, for Earth and its Sun, only to win far too swiftly.

"Perhaps," pondered the oppressive cybernetic entity in impenetrable armor of super-adamantium, "the Vision lives still. If so…I shall make certain to extend his demise. At least, until I can come up with a means of ultimately leaving this solar-suffused planet in order to seek out Man. Wherever he might be."

Relying upon built-in mini-jets, capable of carrying Ultron at multi-Mach speeds for as long as he so desired, the Ultimate Automaton soon landed next to the fallen and still Vision. Cape crumbled about the back of the Synthezoid who lay face-first on the once-liquid/now-solid location colloquially called The Atlantic.

And what of the Vision? Did he still live? Was his supreme mind still intact?

As Ultron silently stood so close, quietly considering the possibility that Life still clung to the perfected form of green and yellow with crimson face…

"Where am I now?" asked the unconscious Self that was the synthesized Man named Vision while seemingly swimming in some strange Elsewhere within his own automaton mind. "The last thing I recall after reacquiring consciousness more than two billion years into Earth's scorching future…was soaring through the cloud-choked sky in my most immaterial molecular form…when something of immense dynamism shocked me senseless…and sent me crashing down. But now…?"

"Hello, Vision," an electronically delivered voice said from nearby and behind the standing on something super-android. "Been a really long time. You seem well…all things considered."

"Iron Man!" exclaimed a confused Vision as his synthetic eyes narrowed in order to look at the man named Anthony "Tony" Stark in his familiar-in-memory armor of red-and-yellow. "How can this be? You could not have possibly survived the eons…let alone the runaway greenhouse effect set in motion by a swelling Sun. And not even your unique armor could withstand such heat."

Slowly landing via boot-jets, Iron Man removed his head-armor to expose a smiling, mustache-and-goatee dominated face, handsome as ever, so readily remembered by the mind of the Vision…

"You're right," he replied with pearl-white teeth exposed by said smile with a no-longer-amplified voice so consistently Human in tonal affectation. "I did die…as all organic members of the Avengers died…well within our ordinary life-spans long, long ago. As to humanity…most made new 'homes' on planets about stars far, far, far away from here. Although, after two billion years…little persisted of such organic Humans."

"Then," interjected a still-curious Vision standing a scant meter-and-a-half from the man inside the Iron Man armor, "you are…a ghost? An apparition from some other Reality or Plane?"

"In a sense," said Iron Man while holding his head-armor in the crook of one still-armored arm. "Just as these others whom you once considered…friends."

"Hello, old friend," a man with blonde hair and blue eyes who'd held a number of superhero personas since being an inaugural member of The Mighty Avengers.

"Dr. Pym," said Vision with a wisp of a smile, "Henry!"

It was especially emotional for this green-and-yellow fellow Avenger, mostly a simulated Man and not truly real, to see someone whom, in a strange roundabout way, was his "grandfather". After all, Dr. Henry Pym did originally create Ultron and Ultron created the Vision.

"But…you, too, are a 'ghostly' representation, Doctor. For, whether Ant-Man, Goliath, or Yellowjacket, you could still never survive the eons or the current Earth's harsh heat."

"Very logical, Vision," Dr. Pym smilingly said, "just what one could come to expect. But I also see that your programmed emotionality is still intact, too. That would seem to be a problem for an immortal Sim-Man on a planet whose Sun was in its death-throes."

"Yes," nodded Vision as his smile swiftly disappeared into the seriousness of his crimson countenance, "but even this cannot compare to the overwhelming loss I felt for…Wanda."

"You don't have to feel 'loss', my love."

Spinning, Vision was astounded by the site of the Scarlet Witch who'd once held his hand and heart in the purest of emotions: Love.

"W-Wanda? H-how I've m-missed you," unsteadily said the usually stoic, at least on the surface, Vision while looking into the beauteous eyes belonging to the Avenger dressed in sensual uniform of red befitting one once capable of warping reality on a localized basis. Not that such served to stop…the inevitable.

"I've missed you, too, beloved," Scarlet Witch said with a serene smile. "I am saddened by the fact you have 'awakened' in such a desolate land at the very End of Time for Earth. If I could, I would…"

Even as a suddenly sorrowful Scarlet Witch allowed her words to trail off unfinished, Vision shifted his singularly synthetic thoughts back to the matter of the moment…

"Does this mean that I am now…deactivated? Dead?"

"If you want to be," said a vociferous voice that caused the Vision to turn to his right in order to see the massively muscular member of the Avengers with eyes a radiant red from the ionic energies permeating his superhuman form. "'Course, that's really up to you, my mechanized friend."

"Wonder Man," managed the Vision as another smile played upon his crimson mouth even as what had been expressed slowly sank in. "So, Simon…everyone…it would seem I have a choice. I can remain completely incorporeal or…"

"Or," finished the former Ant-Man, Dr. Henry Pym, with a certain urgency to expression and pitch, "you could allow yourself to resume your previous existence on a dead Earth in order to destroy Ultron. Before his robotic malevolence might, somehow, survive in order to menace other humanoids."

A choice had to, indeed, be made by the simulated Man. One that would either permit him an honest escape from a doomed world…or plunge him headlong back into it in order to face and fight his ultimate nemesis.

Ultron the Ultimate.

END OF CHAPTER 2