Chapter 30: Ultron Awakened

The Avengers barely had time to react once Ultron unleashed the Iron Legion on them. As everyone dove for cover, Steve kicked the Coffee table into the air to try and block the attack, and was sent prone as a Drone slammed into it. Maria Hill, having dropped to her back, fired up at another passing Drone. Thor struck out at one that got near, and Adora rolled into cover to take up her sword and bisect one of the robots. Rhodey and Tony leapt over the nearby Railing to rush and grab their armors, though Tony was knocked through several shelves back a charging drone. Rhodey himself was knocked through a glass ceiling into the Quinjet hanger.

Thor leapt at one of the drones and punched it back, Catra sliding under it and putting a few rounds from her handgun into its chest area, then allowing it to crash into another table. "Fucking robots! Fucking Killer Robots!" She yelled, clawing at one that got too close. Clint managed to slide himself under a table for cover, as Natasha and Bruce dove behind the bar.

In the chaos, one of the drones managed to snag Loki's scepter out of its containment field, and began to fly off. Natasha quickly grabbed a gun from under the bar and opened fire on the Drones, with Steve leaping on one's back and beginning to punch at it. Adora jumped in front of Catra and deflected one of their shots with her sword. "Go Catra!" She shouted. Not even hesitating, Catra jumped off Adora's back to dig her claws into one of the drones and tear at its circuitry., hissing in anger.

The drone that Steve had grabbed flew back into the wall, smashing him against a paneled section and breaking free. Natasha and Bruce managed to get out from the bar and began rushing to higher ground, Natasha returning fire with the Drones. Clint had been knocked to the ground attempting to find more cover. The drone who shot him soon found itself grappled when Tony leapt off a railing to land on its back. Meanwhile Thor was busy smashing apart one of the drones with Mjolnir and his bare hands, throwing it over a ledge, where Adora stabbed into it. "Stark!" Someone yelled in the confusion.

Tony, grappling with one of the drones, had attempted to use one of his tools to access the drone and disable their attackers remotely. "One sec, one sec, I got this." He claimed. As he worked, the bisected drone took to the air and prepared to fire on Helen Cho, only for it to hesitate just long enough that Steve came up behind it and tossed it aside. HE called out to Thor who crushed its head.

Tony managed to disable his robot, but none of the others. That was swiftly handled when Clint passed Steve his shield, and Steve bisected the Robot at the waist and Adora cut the remainder in half vertically. Within moments, the Robots were all destroyed.

"That was dramatic." Quipped Ultron, sounding almost bored as he limped back into view. "I'm sorry. I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through." Adora glared daggers at the robot as it spoke, Catra slowly glancing over at her girlfriend and remembering Adora's fury about Project Insight. "You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved it it isn't allowed to evolve?" Tony and Bruce exchanged worried glances with one another. "With these?" Ultron leaned forward and grabbed one of the damaged robots by the head. "These puppets?" He tightened his grip until its head was crushed. "There's only one path to peace. The Avengers' Extinction." Thor had finally heard enough, and with a look of pure anger threw Mjolnir right through the drone, completely shattering it. As the light faded from Ultron's eyes, he began so quietly sing. "I had strings, but now I'm free…."

Halfway across the world, Ultron began to assemble himself a new body…

"All our work is gone…" Bruce admitted somberly, while Tony looked at the remnants of Ultron's body. "Ultron cleared out. He used the Internet as an escape hatch." While nobody in the room seemed to want to speak up, Adora was quietly seething. Catra was angry too, but was more concerned with keeping Adora from attacking Tony.

"Ultron…" Steve repeated, trying to process what had occurred.

"He's been in everything. Files, Surveillance." Natasha added, turning to face the others. "He probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

Rhodey shook his head. "He's in your files, he's in the Internet. What if he decides he wants to access something a little more exciting." He stated, walking across the room.

"Nuclear codes?" Maria questioned.

"Nuclear Codes." Rhodey Affirmed. "Look we need to make some calls. Assuming we still can."

"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Natasha commented, before Steve spoke up.

"He didn't say 'dead' he said 'extinct'."

"What difference does it make? It's still dead." Catra hissed.

Clint then brought everyone's attention to the elephant in the room. "He also said he killed somebody."

"There wasn't anyone else in the building." Maria said in confusion.

Tony simply walked to the center of the room grimly. "Yes….there was." he said with sadness in his voice. Adora felt her heart stop briefly once she pieced together what Tony meant. She hoped and prayed it was not true. Those hopes were dashed as Tony brought up a holographic image of JARVIS's AI core...which was currently shattered and unresponsive. She'd only known JARVIS for a short time, and though he was only an Artificial Intelligence he was still gone. Another person she's lost in the last year. She looked over at Tony and could only imagine what he was feeling.

Bruce was staring in shock at the sight before him. "What…? This is insane."

"JARVIS was the first line of defense." Steve said, his eyes still on the ground. "He could have shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No. Ultron could have assimilated JARVIS." Bruce explained. "This isn't strategy. This is….rage."

As if on cue, Thor stormed into the room in full armor and grabbed Tony by the throat. "It's going around." Clint quipped. Even Adora was hesitant to jump to Tony's defense, but still tried to ease the situation alongside the others.

"Come on, use your words buddy!" Stark said, trying to lighten the mood.

Thor however wasn't moved by his attempt at humor. "Oh I have more than enough words to describe your Stark." he said coldly.

"Thor! The Legionnaire." Steve shouted, trying to change the subject.

Thor angrily lowered Stark and glanced over at Steve. "Trail went cold about 100 miles out but its headed North." He explained, before glaring at Tony again. "And it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it again."

"Genie's out of that bottle." Natasha deadpanned. "Clear and present is Ultron."

"No kidding mom.." Adora grumbled under her breath.

"I don't understand. You built this program." Helen said, bringing everyone's attention to the subject. "Why is it trying to kill us?" Tony only responded by bitterly chuckling. This obviously got Thor rather annoyed, but Catra could tell it was a hollow, bitter laugh. Tony was trying to cope with his mistake.

"You think this is funny?" Thor said, scoffing over Tony's apparent lack of worry.

Tony then turned to Thor, seriousness back on his face. "No. It's probably not, Right?" he said, looking at all the judging eyes in the room. "This is so terrible. Is it so…" Tony began to laugh again. "Is it….this is terrible."

"All of this could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand!" Thor declared, walking closer to Tony.

Catra noted the brief look of anger on Tony's face as he walked back over to Thor. "No, it is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony maybe this isn't the time." Bruce tried to warn.

"Bruce, I respect you, but shut the hell up! Tony's explaining this." Adora suddenly snapped, startling Catra and quieting down Banner.

"Really? That's it?" Tony said in disbelief. "You just roll over, show your belly any time someone snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce deadpanned.

Tony continued. "We didn't! We weren't even close." he said angrily. "Were we close to an interface?"

"Well you did something." Steve pointed out.

"And you did it right here!" Catra added, her claws slowly sliding out.

"The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD." Steve continued.

"Anyone remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony stated.

"No it's never come up." Rhodey deadpanned.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard about it." Rhodey quipped again.

"Recall that?!" Tony continued, getting angrier. "A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing 300 feet below it." he looked around the room. "We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but that up there…" he pointed up as he spoke. "That's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Steve stated plainly.

"We'll lose." Tony bluntly replied.

"Then we'll do that together too." Steve replied. "Thor's right, Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

Tony got to work trying to track down Ultron, while simultaneously working on a new AI to run his suit without JARVIS. Adora had gone down to speak with Maria and Steve about their leads. "Ultron's all over the world. Robotics Labs, Weapon's facilities, Propulsion labs." Maria began to explain as they walked by. "Reports of Metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place."

"Fatalities?"

"Only when engaged." She continued. "Mostly guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and 'something to fast to see.'"

"Son of a bitch he's got the Enhanced…" Adora groaned.

"Young lady you have been really vulgar these last couple years." Steve commented, as Catra walked by.

"Yeah Adora, remember, watch your fucking language." Catra teased, sticking her tongue out at Steve as they walked by.

Ignoring Catra's teasing, Steve continued. "Makes sense he'd go to them, they have something in common."

"They hate us." Adora finished his thought.

Steve shook his head. "Strucker."

"Not anymore." Maria said, handing over her tablet. Adora was shocked to see Strucker dead in his cell, the word 'Peace" written on the wall in his blood.

The three walked past Clint, who Adora overheard on the phone. She knew it was probably his family. She thought back to her early days in SHIELD when he'd talk about them at the lunch table, or when on leave. She always hoped to meet his family, but now wasn't the time. "Clint, we might have something." She said. Clint nodded and hung up his phone.

"Who was that?" Steve asked, curiously.

"Girlfriend." Clint downplayed. Adora was surprised he didn't say wife, but shrugged it off and joined the others. Catra even jumped up to the railing to watch what they found.

"What's this?" Tony asked, as Thor roughly shoved the tablet into his chest.

"A Message. Ultron killed Strucker." Steve explained.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony quipped. Unlike his usual jokes though, this one was very obviously a coping attempt.

"It's gotta be a smokescreen." Catra commented, slightly squicked out by the image.

"I agree." Natasha said with a nod. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve pointed out, looking at the others.

"Yeah I bet he…" Natasha began, bringing up Strucker's file which came up completely empty. "Yeah. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."

"Not everything." Steve commented. Catra left out an irritated groan as she knew exactly where this was going. Next thing any of them knew, they were going through binders full of physical SHIELD files. "Known Associates. Contacts."

"Strucker had a lot of friends." Catra commented, her eyes briefly falling on a photo of her mother. Adora noted the sadness in her eyes and came over, putting her arm around her girlfriend."

"Yeah but all these people were horrible." Banner pointed out, flipping through the files.

"Wait, I know that guy!" Tony suddenly said. Banner handed over the file as Tony examined the face. "From back in the day, he operated off the African Coast. Black Market Arms." He then handed it over to Thor as Steve slowly looked at Tony with a dead look of exasperation. "There are conventions alright? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game changer." Adora walks over and glanced at the photo, the man in it identified as Ulysses Klaue. Catra walked over and glanced at the photo herself and scoffed.

"The fuck kinda name is Ulysses Klaue?" She said. Adora slowly turned and stared at her. "Shut up, you know why I'm named this."

"It was all very Ahab." Tony finished.

Thor pointed out the markings on Klaue's body. "This?"

"Ah, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it." Tony began, but Thor continued.

"Those are tattoos." He stated, pointing at said tattoos, before he pointed something else out. A Red mark on Klaue's neck. "That's a brand."

Banner brought up the picture on a nearby terminal and scanned the Brand on Klaue's neck. "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'Thief.' In a much less friendly way." He explained, turning around to look at the others.

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada…?" Banner replied, clearly struggling to pronounce the right word. "Wakanda."

Tony looked over to Steve. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods…"

"I thought your father said he got the last of it." Steve commented.

"I'm not following." Bruce chimed in.

"Yeah what comes outta Wakanda?" Catra asked, tilting her head. Steve and Tony looked at one another, then at the group.

"The strongest Metal on Earth." Steve said, looking over at his shield.

"Whoa, Vibranium?" Adora said in surprise.

"Where is this guy now." Steve asked, eager to prevent Ultron from getting more of the metal that mde his Shield.

To Be Continued...

So uh, been a while huh?

I should explain that I am far more active on AO3 than here, due to several exclusive stories on that site that I personally don't feel would fit this community. As such, I recently finished one of those stories, which is what I was working on since the last upload here, and afterward took a nearly month long hiatus. I will still be uploading here, but much, much mor einfrequently than I already am. I'm very sorry, but it can't be helped due to how my stories are spread out, the sheer number of them I have, and my own personal motivation.

I do not own She-Ra or the MCU.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you're enjoying the story thus far.

NEXT TIME: Adora, What do you fear most?