I have discovered that, for some reason, it's hard to write for Strucker. He wouldn't co-operate...
Strucker was most pleased. As he had the foreboding feeling that he shouldn't touch the stones, he had his men design a small ring, one that he could fasten the stones to. That way, he would be able to harness their power without any danger to himself.
Coincidentally, the "Crimson Dynamo" operation had also been nearing its finish around the time, so Strucker had made the executive call to tie the two productions together. He wanted a robot army, one powered by the seemingly limitless gems. The robots would never need to be recharged, and would be able to harness great energy.
Now, as he watched his army shoot down the Avenger's jet just as he commanded, he frowned a bit. The Dynamos were by all rights formidable, but it wasn't quite as he expected, making him flashback to an encounter a few days prior.
"What do you mean that you can't access 100% of their capabilities?" Strucker made sure his voice had a dangerous edge to it. It always caused his followers to react the same way, with twitching eyes or flinching, maybe the occasional back step.
"S-sir," one tentatively began, his face mildly obscured by the mask he wore to protect his face as he worked. "Our instruments, as you no doubt are aware, have detected large quantities of cosmic energy emanating from these jewels."
Strucker grabbed the scientist by the front of his white lab coat. "I am not interested in being told things I have known for more than 24 hours. What I want to know is why you're telling me I can't harness all their energy?" He dropped the pathetic man, turning to stare at the gems, which seemed to glow brighter from behind their protective glass casing, as if laughing at him.
"But sir, it isn't all bad news. We did create the ring, as you ordered, and have linked it with the Crimson Dynamo units. Once you put on the ring, you'll be able to psychically control them, and with the jewels, power them up to new levels." Strucker idly listened, growing bored of his scientist's nervous prattle.
"Congratulations, you get to live – for now. I want answers on how to use all their power in the next few weeks, or I'll have to find a new head scientist." The man gulped as Strucker calmly walked out of the dark room.
It was no matter, really; Strucker had confidence that even with only part of the gem's power, his robots would be victorious. The only real threat might be the Hulk, and word on the grapevine was that the monster had been making his appearances less and less frequently. Perhaps he hadn't been mistaken to have Pietro stay back at the base after all.
As he watched the jet slowly slide towards the ground, a bunch of figures jumped out. Strucker had been half-hoping that the Avengers would put up some resistance; it would be a shame if they just perished in a simple plane crash.
Once he was sure that the heroes could see him, he spread his arms out in the same way he had seen Hitler do back in the good days. A bit theatric, but it also made him seem like an imposing figure.
"I must admit, I wasn't sure that you would come." He waved his hands towards a particularly large building that was no doubt still being evacuated. "Not so much because of the bystanders, but because I wasn't certain if I had made this a bit too obvious."
The thing was, when he had begun wantonly using the gems power in New Jersey, he wasn't sure if the Avengers would even have any technology that could sense the power of the stones. Obviously, his fear had been unnecessary, but caution was something that always came in handy.
"Trap or not, we wouldn't have left these people alone to be slaughtered by you or your militarist robots." Of course, the captain was the first to bark, or perhaps it was more of a whimper. He never liked patriotic dogs.
"Not that your robots look very impressive," a skeptical Iron Man uttered. Strucker grinned.
"Well, these unimpressive robots managed to take down your ship, which I presume you built." Petty, perhaps, but it felt good to rub the salt in the wound.
"Say the word, father, and I'll rush him," the silver robot besides Iron Man growled, or perhaps whined. Strucker had never seen a machine who could speak so…human-like, but it was no matter. That android wasn't powered by a cosmic gem.
"This was a fun discussion," Strucker intoned in a voice that claimed otherwise, "but I think I'll have my robots finish you off so that I can be rid of all my troubles." He raised his hands once more for effect, and his army came to life.
Ultron didn't like the way the old relic talked to his father, and he liked it even less when the man sent his goons after them. The robots, as far as Ultron's scans could detect, were all primitive. He had no idea why the man would place such confidence in their ability to kill any half-decent superhero.
Hawkeye and Natasha wasted no time in firing their heavy artillery into the crimson robots. It was hard to see with all the dust and explosions, but two of the electronic signals on Ultron's sensors vanished, which equaled two destroyed mechs.
"Explosive, armor-piercing arrows. I never leave home without them." Hawkeye sounded like a parent bragging about their genius kid. Natasha simply rolled her eyes as she continued to shoot sparking "widow's bites" from her wrists, effectively stunning their targets.
"Just don't forget who built them for you," Stark pointed out as he flew into the robot horde, grabbing two of them to lift them into the air before dropping them down – hard.
Captain America made a similar pose to a baseball pitcher before swinging his shield at one of the robots, aiming for the neck. As the shield whizzed past Ultron, the robot that stood in its path suddenly got a spike in its power supply.
"Cap, wait -!" Ultron wasn't fast enough, and just as the shield was about to slice at the robot, a purple energy field burst from its visor, engulfing the shield and stopping its momentum. The robot almost lazily reached out and grabbed the shield.
"Crud," Hawkeye grunted as he somersaulted out of the way of a spinning red, white, and blue shield. Steve, ever the athlete, managed to grab the shield without having his fingers cut off.
Stark whistled. "Next time we play baseball, you need to do that sliding move." Natasha nudged him.
"Focus, Stark." Nodding at Ultron, she asked, "What other tricks do these things have that we don't know about?" Ultron wasn't sure exactly how to answer.
"As far as my sensors are telling me, that purple energy shouldn't have been there in the first place. It's like the energy suddenly appeared, before vanishing again. That shouldn't be possible." And he wasn't jealous of the robots with a mysterious power source that could seemingly fill itself up, no sir.
"Everything has a source of power, whether it's internal or external. If these things keep managing to recharge their energy, it has to be coming from somewhere," Tony muttered, almost more to himself than the others.
Seeming to come to a decision, Stark placed his armored hand on Ultron. "Hey, I hate to ask you to sit out, but I need you to search around to find whatever power source they're using. Switch through every single frequency you can."
Ultron didn't like that plan at all. "So you're basically saying that instead of fighting alongside you, I have to stay on the sidelines and try to find something that could actually be a wild goose chase." Fortunately, as he had no lungs and didn't need oxygen, he managed to get all the words out at an even pace.
Stark did his best to placate Ultron. "Looks, it's not like I'm crazy about getting rid of one of my teammates right when a battle is about to start, but your sensors are some of the best. Trust me, I would know." With a final smirk, Stark let his face hide behind the front of his helmet as he leapt into the fray that his teammates had already been a part of.
Scowling, Ultron "closed" his optics as he began internally setting up the scanners, which only took a few seconds. His database listed over a hundred different energy sources, and he would have to search through every single one until he found the right one.
Uranium, gamma energy, plutonium…the list went on and on. His speakers were very distracting; he could make out the standard sounds of battle; yells, explosions, even the vibrating quiver of Hawkeye's bow as it fired arrow after arrow. Ultron's body vibrated with the sheer need to be there, fighting and battling as an Avenger.
Tony had been a bit concerned that sending Ultron on a side mission would hamper their fighting ability, especially since Thor was on some family vacation. As for Bruce, the scientist was probably meditating or something zen like that. So far, however, the fight had been going easy – maybe even too easy. Tony may have had an ego, but he could still tell when a battle had too little resistance.
At the moment, he had confused two of the robots by flying in neat circles around their heads. The computerized brains had seemingly burnt out, with one of the machinations even falling to its knees. Seeing his chance, he snatched it! Zooming in towards the immobile creations, Stark charged up his unibeam, letting the blue glow warm up his suit before firing.
But something was wrong. Normally, when he fired off his unibeam, it felt like discharging a shaken soda bottle, with the energy discharging fast and hard enough that he had to recoil. But now, it was like it was…leaking, for lack of a better term.
The robots (or Strucker) must have noticed, because they began to awkwardly activate their boosters. It took a few tries, as the engines sputtered more than once, but the robots managed to get airborne. Deciding to try a different tactic, Tony attempted to maneuver away – but found that he couldn't!
No, couldn't was too strong a word. He was moving, but at an alarmingly slow rate. Every command his brain gave reached his body just fine, only his body seemed too sluggish to respond correctly. It reminded him of his old partying days back in the 80s, only he definitely wasn't on acid this time!
"Oh boy," he uttered between clenched teeth as his HUB warned him about the two incoming hunks of metal. The two's flying abilities were laughable, and normally he could dodge them without breaking a sweat, but considering that he was moving at a snail's pace…
He felt the blow, and he had to fight to catch his breath before it was all knocked out of him. But somehow, even falling to the ground was happening in slow motion. Worse than painful, it was embarrassing to experience.
As he felt his back touch the ground, he had to admit that the one pro was that there was no crash due to his feather landing. But as he looked up into the barrel of a humming canon, he wondered if the painless landing was just a small mercy.
Author's Notes:
So, Age of Ultron comes out on Blu-ray next month. Can't wait to pick it up! Hopefully we get the first trailer for Civil War around then!
Anyway, as always, thanks for your support, everyone! :D