Remember the moment when Ego activated his super plants in Guardians of the Galaxy 2? I'm pretty sure the Avengers would most likely notice such an alarming incident.
I don't own The Avengers. Marvel Does. I only own my OCs.
Throughout the rest of the year, when they were not dating, Ultron and Carol would usually keep up to date on current events while the silver robot kept practicing his problem solving skills. They spent Halloween giving out candy to the young trick-or-treaters in Central Park and during Christmas, Carol prepared a holiday-themed digital illustration which included the Avengers and emailed it to them when she finished the picture.
Around the beginning of January, Carol started packing in anticipation for moving out, now that she eagerly accepted Ultron's offer to test his self-sustaining home. She still made a mental note that she would have to maintain it during her stay. Carol finished filling one box with her video games when she saw Janette scramble into her room with a panicked expression in her eyes.
"Hey," Carol snapped, "didn't dad say you're supposed to knock first before you enter my room?!"
Janette didn't say anything, but she whimpered and wrapped her arms around Carol from behind while she squeezed her eyes shut, much to her older sister's confusion.
"W-Wait," Carol paused, "Janette, are you—?
"I-I'm scared, Carol," Janette squeaked softly, "the planet doesn't have much time left before it's gone!"
Carol shuddered in shock.
"W-What do you mean?" Carol objected in confusion, "is someone trying to turn another city into a meteor?"
Janette shook her head.
"No, it's a lot worse," Janette corrected, "you've gotta see this!"
Janette gripped Carol's wrist and dragged her out of her room, eliciting a startled yelp out of the older sister. Once they reached the living room, Carol stared in disbelief when she noticed the footage of giant blob-like growths expanding across towns on the screen.
"Whoa," Carol stammered to herself, "what are those things?!"
Carol pulled her smart phone out of her pocket and called Captain America's number, feeling confident that Ultron might handle the situation in some way without her help, but she couldn't help but worry for the Avengers' safety.
When Steve answered, the background noise indicated that he was in the Avengers Tower, judging by the cacophony of familiar voices and alarm klaxons.
"Carol, we've seen it," he said immediately with a calm tone, having guessed at the purpose behind her call, "do you need us to send you a Quinjet?"
"I-I don't think we're in its direct path," Carol blurted, "why?"
"It's all hands on deck over here," Steve explained, "the military is already dispatching everything they have to begin evacuating regions close to…whatever the hell it is that's growing, and Pietro's already pushing his limit grabbing up anybody too close to be air lifted out. All of this means we'll have people scrambling for space, refugee camps with even more people scrambling for food and medicine…it'll be a logistical nightmare that'll turn violent if people get desperate enough, but if we have at least a few Avengers on the scene we can help keep things stable."
Clint was shouting in the background, and from the sound of it Vision was momentarily close to wherever Steve was standing or walking before ending up too far for Carol to pick up anything discernible.
"Tony's already been pulled into a tele-conference," Steve continued, "turns out the UN has him and a few dozen other geniuses on speed dial for this sort of mess. They'll be working out a long term solution, but I need anybody I can get to help with the evacuation effort."
"Well," Carol replied, her hands shaking nervously, "do you think Ultron is also aware of this?"
"Not sure, I haven't been able to reach him and neither has Tony and the new Doomsday Think Tank," Steve answered grimly, "I was hoping you'd have an emergency channel to call him on."
"Ok, I'll see if I can reach him," Carol nodded.
While keeping Steve on the line, Carol began calling Ultron, only to notice the massive blob-like growths stopped expanding all of a sudden.
"Wait, what the—?" Carol blurted.
"You don't need to tell me what's going on, my little kitten," Ultron assured over the phone, "are you preparing for evacuation?"
Carol took only a few seconds to calm herself.
"I…haven't started yet," Carol admitted.
"Then you'd best start now," Ultron advised her, "I'll send several drones to collect you and your family."
With the growth having halted, police officers closest to the scene moved to herd curious bystanders away from the outermost edges and set up a perimeter. Military helicopters and Quinjets were still seen on approach to the small town or air lifting people out of nearby communities by different news teams rushed out into the field. It was still a full state of panic in areas that had not yet heard that the growth had stopped, but from time to time a silver blur would be seen breaking apart fights and restraining any particularly violent evacuees.
Still, Carol had no choice but to comply, so she continued packing her items starting with stashing her laptop and its equipment into her backpack. Once she had her basic essentials packed up, she put on her green winter coat, her earmuffs and her boots before she grabbed her handbag and her backpack. While she slipped her gloves on, she searched the entire apartment for Snoofles, suspecting that he might be hiding.
Within minutes a squadron of Ultron's drones could be seen on approach, accompanying a Quinjet which assumed position overhead and hovered in place. They began slowing down and spreading out to take up position around the apartment complex while one of their numbers proceeded to enter, in a surprising display of mundanity, through the front door. It then made its way to Carol's apartment where it extended one finger towards the lock. The digit reshaped into a key, and a moment the drone stepped into the apartment.
"I'm here," Ultron spoke through the lesser copy of himself, which he had lean up against the wall next to the door, "take your time, kitten. All of me isn't going anywhere until you're ready and I managed to con a Quinjet out of Stark so the ride is more comfy…aaaaaand we're looking for Mr. Snoofles, aren't we?"
He made a single glance at Carol in the midst of her search.
"If these masses are such a dangerous deal," Carol explained, "then I can't leave my kitty behind."
With a sigh, Ultron engaged his thermal vision mode and began to scan the apartment from top to bottom until…
"I don't even want to know how you got up there," he said, finding Snoofles somehow atop one of the kitchen cupboards, "Carol? I found him, and personally I think you should keep a bell on him from now on."
Ultron carefully lifted Snoofles off the cupboard and led Carol and Janette over to the sliding door that led to the balcony. Ahead, they could see a Quinjet waiting for them.
"Geez, how are we going to get across?" Janette asked.
Carol scratched her head.
"Right now," Carol replied, "I'm just hoping our parents would make it out alive, too."
"Got another squad picking them up now," Ultron assured the two as a drone on the aft ramp of the Quinjet extended the ramp until it was a few feet from the balcony, "let's just focus on getting you both out of here, cross that bridge when we come to it."
The drone on the ramp extended a hand while the one at Carol's side lifted her up so she could reach and be pulled aboard. While Carol settled into her seat, the drone set off to pull Janette aboard. Sitting next to an empty seat was Nicole, who hugged her arms to her chest while she trembled.
"Nicole," Janette exclaimed, "you're ok!"
By then, one of Ultron's drones stepped in with Snoofles in its arms.
"I picked her up on the way here," Ultron said with a shrug of every set of shoulders he had in the jet at that moment, "next stop: Avengers HQ."
The drone holding Snoofles set the cat in Nicole's lap.
"I'm getting the sense that cats and robots don't agree with each other," Ultron commented, noting how much Snoofles had struggled to escape his arms from the moment the drone had picked him up.
Janette turned on her smart phone and checked for news feeds, grimacing when she saw footage of the blob-like masses starting to light up and expand again.
"Aw crap, Stark is badgering me even more now," Ultron's drones made a gesture of rolling their optics in their sockets, "Carol, gonna have to put these bodies on auto pilot so I can talk with Stark."
As the blob continued expanding, Pietro could be spotted snatching up news teams in the field and relocating them as well as many others to the nearest evacuation zone. Other Avengers were on the scene now, including Falcon who scooped up a mother and her child just in time to get them clear of the expansion. Vision could also be seen along with more of Ultron's drone bodies, lending a hand while Quinjets began to bombard some areas of the blob, testing its resilience to ballistics, thermal weapons and even what appeared to be reverse engineered Chitauri weapons judging from the blue blobs of energy which struck the mass to no effect.
"Oh, is there no way to stop those things?" Janette moaned.
Concern welling up in her eyes, Nicole placed her hand on Janette's.
"We'll have to find out," Ultron said before everyone of the drones onboard stiffened and resumed operation of the Quinjet to signal Ultron's departure to focus on the think tank devoted to the crisis.
With the growths continuing to expand and consume everything in its path, Ultron flew overhead as he scanned each blob-like growth, wanting to determine what material they were made of and what they don't like.
"And so far," Ultron's primary body mused from the meeting room it occupied alongside Tony and several other experts quickly brought together in Washington, "it looks like it hates…absolutely nothing, it's absorbing anything and everything as far as I can tell, and those missiles and bullets you're feeding it aren't so much as getting a reaction out of it."
"Christ almighty, where'd this thing come from?" a man in a military uniform demanded, eyes fixed on a screen demonstrating the rate of expansion.
"As best as I can tell…from out behind a fast food joint," Ultron answered, comparing a map of what used to be a town to an overlay of a satellite image taken minutes ago of the same location, "I don't want to cause a panic here but-"
"But we've got maybe weeks at best before this thing covers every inch of the planet?" Tony guessed.
"Nailed it," Ultron nodded, "so…anybody got any doomsday weapons stashed away that you'd like to consider tossing at it?"
"Yeah, let's not go there just yet," Tony interjected before anybody could answer, "okay, things are looking pretty grim so…I personally suggest that while we work on a solution somebody call up Thor and see if Asgard might be willing to help evacuate."
"Can they hold seven billion plus people?" James 'Rhodey' Rhodes asked, standing off to the side.
"Well there are nine realms so…hopefully one is pretty empty and Thor Sr is feeling generous," Tony shrugged, "just food for thought in case we don't have any concrete plans by next week…which by then I think this thing will cover most of this continent, so whoever is reporting directly to the UN, get to it five minutes ago."
"Sounds like a plan," Ultron nodded, "let's get to it."
All of a sudden, the massive growths stopped expanding altogether. Vision considered volunteering to call Thor, keeping vigilant in case the growths started expanding again. But just as they were continuing with their emergency protocols, the massive growths started shriveling up instead, even if the pace was slow.
"W-Wait a minute!" exclaimed Tony, "this isn't right! What's going on now?!"
Ultron couldn't help but sigh as he called Carol, wanting to check on her.
"Ultron?" Carol said over the com-link.
"Carol, I think the blobs are acting strange…as if they're shrinking," Ultron reported.
"That sounds kinda funny," Carol commented over the com-link, "I wonder if we'll be able to reach the source of these things."
"I think I'll check one out," Ultron nodded.
"Great!" Carol clamored over the com-link, "could you bring me along? I wanna check it out, too!"
Tony and Rhodey couldn't help but give Ultron a puzzled stare as they overheard Carol's voice. Ultron rolled his optics as he tilted his head to the side.
"You really can't help but be curious, can you, little kitten?" Ultron replied, "if you insist, I'll advise you to be careful. Besides, it might spring back to life."
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