His body may be gone, but that mechanized menace Ultron is still at large! Like a virus creeping into every system, SHIELD's deadly technology is now his to command! Can our heroes prevail? You're not ready for this one, true believers! Read on as the Avengers fight to keep the earth from becoming subjected to-
Chapter 21: The Ultron Imperative
The sweet scent of blooming flowers and luscious grass drew him from slumber, his blue eyes opening with a groan. Above him, the branches of a tree in full bloom waved in a gentle breeze, framing a cloudless sky and a sun that warmed him.
Wherever he was, this was paradise.
His senses tended to in a perfect harmony of all the right sounds, smells and sensations, he looked over his hand, feeling whole and proper again. A voice quietly shushed him, lowering his hand as a soft, feminine touch caressed his cheek. "Whatever was happening, it will take care of itself." He slowly closed his eyes again, feeling at peace as Amora the Enchantress tended to him beneath the tree.
"For we are together now, Thor, and that is all that matters…"
Elsewhere…
The satellites were the first to change.
Their internal programming overridden as new signals and programming interrupted their flow, corrupting their programs with with a hive-mind code that began linking them to a much larger network. Not a single satellite related to military or paramilitary use could be commanded by its superiors any more. Someone or something had taken over.
Next came a Russian nuclear submarine patrolling the North Atlantic, the first of many. The veseel's command suddenly found themselves in the terrifying role of having to stop the corruption seeping into their weapons consoles, locking them out and taking complete control over the submarine's arsenal of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. It could fire them all at any given time.
Then it happened to the nuclear missile silos in Northern China, where the communist regime suddenly lost access to all of its firing commands, the computer programs overridden and taken over by an outside force that bathed their monitors in a sinister crimson shade…
A United States Air Force stealth bomber flying a patrol in the Arctic Circle became yet another victim of the global tech-jacking, its complete interface turning red as a foreign power commandeered its systems, as well as the deadly payload of missiles armed and ready to be fired. The pilots were helpless to change anything, an advanced algorithm unlike anything humanity had ever encountered was shutting them out, turning them into terrified passengers on a ride with a mind of its own…
Not even the NORAD Command Centre in Colorado was safe, officers, Generals, staff sergeants and resident IT personnel powerless as each and every one of their systems was corrupted and confiscated by an advanced technological entity that robbed them of their strategic power that folded their systems into its own. The technological hive-mind was growing, with no sign of stopping.
Aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, it was Agent Jasper Sitwell who spotted the trouble first at his command station. "Director Hill, we've got a problem." He announced. "We're losing all systems, something is-" His sentence halted as all the monitors on the bridge turned red, hijakced just like the rest of the world's military technology. Maria and her agents watched as the central screen began to flicker, broadcasting a new shape that was far from friendly.
Mechanical, jagged, sharp antenna and an even sharper jaw design lit by bright crimson photoreceptors filled the screen, revealing the mastermind behind these events.
"I am Ultron-Six, a cybernetic intelligence created by Doctor Henry Pym. My imperative is to bring peace and order to this world. I am about to fulfill that imperative. For the extinction of humanity… begins now." Ultron announced.
Meanwhile, at Avengers Mansion…
"This can't be happening. I can't believe he's gone… that Thor is gone." Wasp whispered with a mournful sigh. In the wake of Ultron's assault on the Avengers, the team was in disarray. Hank and Tony were busy destroying every possible trace of Ultron while she, Hulk, T'Challa and Hawkeye, were the only standing members left to clean up the mess.
Among said mess, was Thor's hammer.
Mjolnir lay were it fell, a painful yet poignant reminder that the team had lost, big time, despite managing to stop Ultron. "Should… Should we move his hammer?" Wasp quietly asked of the men. "Hulk, maybe-"
"Can't move it. Can't even pick it up." He said simply.
"Why not?" Janet queried.
"Because… I'm not Thor." Hulk replied, his own voice bearing a melancholic tone as they all stared at Mjolnir, mystical words engraved into the hammer-head flashing the truth behind its inability to be moved.
'Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.'
"How could this happen?" Wasp wondered in distress. "I… I can't believe that Hank-"
"What?" Hawkeye snapped. "You can't believe that your boyfriend's pet robot went nuts? That it put Captain America in the hospital, beat Cybernaut half to death, and almost took down the whole team?" He sharply asked. "We were lucky. Thor wasn't." He muttered, his crestfallen gaze turning back to Mjolnir.
Elsewhere, in Hank's personal lab, Tony and Hank continued their tireless work purging the remains of Ultron from the living world. Every piece was rounded up, every possible body part, every program, every microchip was all cast in Hank's disintegrator, reduced to atoms and no longer a threat. "I can't believe this is happening." The doctor bemoaned.
"How many other are there?" Tony questioned.
"This is the last of them." Hank promised. "That's every Ultron component that was at the Mansion. Forty-Two is clear, so is the lab at Greyburn College." He paused, studying a lone Ultron helm as Tony continued analyzing new program scans acquired after the android's defeat. "I just don't understand what went wrong. Ultron was supposed to be a force for peace, for order…" He trailed off.
"Hank, this isn't your fault." Tony quickly told him. "I was just as responsible. I pushed using Ultron as a weapon from the start. The work we did at stark Industries, before you left-"
"Ultron was my responsibility." Hank stated firmly. "I'm the one who allowed this to happen. I just… I just don't understand how I could've created something that would do this… something that would try to kill Connor… and actually killed Thor." He sadly mused.
The paradisial lands Thor found himself in were certainly beautiful. The scenery was so pristine and perfect, the sights, sounds and smells were all just right. Truly this was Valhalla, if not a realm so very close to it.
"Ooh, this is why I saved you, my love." Amora cooed, shifting her position as she cuddled up beside him. "This is all I ever wanted. The two of us, alone, rulers of our own world." Draping an arm around his muscular torso, she pressed her face against the crook of his neck, blonde locks intertwining as she did. Thor passively accepted her advances, even though he couldn't help but feel like something was off, that this was wrong. Something bugged him, something at the back of his mind…
A soft green glow from Enchantress' fingers wove into his mind, quelling his worries. "We will be together. Forever." She whispered, her magic swirling in his sapphire gaze…
"There was a massive series of upgrades in Ultron's CPU." Tony discovered, assembling a complete file on Ultron's upgrades, pulling several pieces of scan data together. "I'm trying to pinpoint the cause."
"Tony, I mapped human brain patterns onto a machine. Any one of a million things could've gone wrong," Hank replied, "it's a completely new-" he stopped suddenly. Human brain patterns. That was it. "It's me." He whispered in realization. "I used my own brainwaves as a template, a starting point to create Ultron. My mind made it go bad!"
"The first sign of deviation came after Kang's invasion, and Ultron-Five did interface with Kang's tech. Connor helped him do it." Tony determined. "Maybe… wait." Something caught his eye and several keystrokes pulled up the clue he'd been missing. "This isn't Ultron-Five." He realized. Hank suddenly turned to him, shocked.
"What?"
"This body, it's not the original one. The programming has been uploaded to it according to this data stream." Tony explained. "Ultron's been transferring its intelligence into new bodies over and over… the last time it did it was an hour ago!" He exclaimed, jabbing his finger at the exact time stamp denoted on the screen.
"That's after we destroyed it." Hank realized, a cold fear shooting up his spine.
"Yeah, so where did it transfer its AI to?" Tony wondered.
As if to answer him, the power in the room suddenly drained and the central monitor turned red…
Beneath the Mansion, Tony's personal armor's came alive as Ultron's AI slipped into every single one of his Iron Man suits. The stealth armor, the space armor, the Silver Centurion armor, even the Hulkbuster armor began to move of their own accord as Ultron's mind infected them all.
But the worst case unfolded within Stark Tower. In a single, solitary storeroom where Tony had dumped all of his abandoned weapons projects, a fresh military-grade Ultron body came to life, it's photoreceptors glowing bright crimson as Ultron found new life and broke free from his confines.
The four Avengers had slowly made their way into the meeting room and none of them were expecting the Hulkbuster armor to come crashing through the wall and knock them all off their feet with a single sweep of its massive arm. Hawkeye recovered first, drawing an explosive arrow and letting it fly… only for his projectile to be stopped in midair.
Only then did the stealth armor's chameleon-screen generator power down and reveal the presence of the navy-blue suit.
"Stark!" Hawkeye demanded as he teammates recovered. "What're you-" He was interrupted as the walls fell apart as more Iron Man armors arrived on the scene. They quickly took note of the Mark 4, the Silver Centurion, even the old and grey Mark 2, Tony's second-ever suit. It was alive and active, a bright red repulsor charged and ready to fire. The Avengers were totally surrounded by battle-ready Iron Man armors.
"That's… a lot of Iron Mans." Janet noted.
"Yeah… Where's Cybernaut when you need him." Clint remarked ruefully, readying a second arrow. Then, Tony's own Mark 8 emerged from the dusty haze.
"You attempted to destroy me, Avengers…" It told them, a very familiar yet unwelcome voice coming through the vocal synthesizer.
"Ultron?" Hawkeye gasped. The optics of the Iron Man suit glowed in recognition, as if affirming his question.
"You failed." Ultron growled.
Elsewhere…
"I want all systems back up right now!" Maria Hill demanded. "And Sitwell, get me Tony Stark." She ordered. A suddenly explosion tore through the back of the bridge, pitching agents into the air as smoke and fire raged wildly. Drawing her personal sidearm, Maria took aim as a figure emerged from the haze, tall and shiny silver. Ultron made the purpose of his presence known straightaway as repulsor emitters in the palms of his hands immediately lit up the SHIELD agents, taking them all out in a volley of heavy repulsor fire. None lasted long against him, those before falling with ease and those behind promptly dealt with as Ultron's head swiveled 180 degrees and he wiped them out with his particle beam.
Soon, all that was left was Maria Hill, and no matter how many shots she fired, Ultron kept coming. Each round ricocheted off his chassis, not even leaving a scorch mark behind, and Ultron soon releived her of her sole defence as a repulsor blast knocked her pistol out of her grip. "Maria Christina Hill, director of SHIELD." Ultron surmised. "As such, you are in possession of information not contained in any database on the planet: the security codes for the worldwide SHIELD arsenal."
"And you think I'm gonna hand them over to you?" Maria defiantly retorted, standing tall despite Ultron behind half a head taller than her.
"You misunderstand." Ultron said simply. "I am not asking…"
Back at Avengers Mansion…
Hulk went toe-to-toe with the Hulkbuster armor as Wasp barraged the Mark 3, agile enough to avoid its repulsor blasts while landing several hits of her own. Hawkeye fared far better, landing three electric arrows on the Mark 2 that struck it's repulsor and ARC reactor, creating a chain reaction that resulted in the armor's destruction.
Black Panther vaulted over the Silver Centurion and drove his feet into the cloaked stealth armor, knocking it into view only for it to promptly disappear again. The Silver Centurion rose, clearly it would take far more to stop the armors, and Panther readied several Vibranium daggers as he dodged twin repulsor blasts.
The battle raged on, the Avengers holding their own but only just as the Iron Man armors kept coming. No matter what they did, Tony's later models were sturdy and nigh invincible, able to resist their strength, powers and tech. As Black Panther and Wasp helped disable the stealth armor pursuing Hawkeye, Janet put out a call. "Tony, it's Ultron. He's taken over your armor. All of them!"
Tony and Hank were busy preparing, suiting up in Mark 1 armor and Ant-Man costume respectively. "I'm coming with you." Hank stated.
"No, stay here. Destroy the rest of the Ultron pieces." Tony responded, sliding his helmet on. "We have to make sure-" Just then, Hank's helmet picked up ambient transmissions through his helmet's comm-receivers.
"Wait…" He said, adjusting the incoming frequency to improve the message. "The SHIELD Helicarrier is under attack! It's Ultron."
"Why would Ultron attack SHIELD?" Tony questioned.
"His programming." Hank realized. "What he said before, the only way he can achieve his goals is through the extinction of humanity. SHIELD has the ability to do just that."
Thor was troubled.
Despite Amora's insistence and the simple ease which with which she rested against him, he knew something was amiss. Faint memories continued to plague him, moments from an event just just before his arrival here. Something had transpired…
"Have at thee, machine!"
"Thor, wait!"
Voices, then pain, then a flash of light… Thor could deny it no longer. Something had transpired. Something was wrong.
"This… This is not right." He whispered.
"My love?" Enchantress queried, lifting her head.
"I… I was in battle." Thor continued, sitting up. "There was a flash of light…" Oblivious to the flash of annoyance crossing her features, Thor looked up as an emerald glow surrounded Amora's hand.
"Do not be troubled, Thor." She whispered, reaching for him with the same hand. Magic tinckled his senses, a tingle flaring through his mind that threatened to block out those memories again. But this time, Thor knew they could not be ignored. "Such memories will go-ah!" Amora stopped with a gasp as Thor gripped her wrist. Struggling against him to no avail, Enchantress was lifted off her feet and left to dangle in his grip as Thor stood.
"You will return me to Midgard now, witch." Thor growled, fixing her with a sharp glare. "Or by Odin, you will know my fury." He threatened, releasing her. Falling to her feet, Amora rubbed her wrist with an irritated glare.
"I am trying to save you, fool!" She snapped.
"I do not want your help or your affection." Thor retorted. "But if you wish to fight me, I will oblige you." Amora's gaze narrowed.
"I could hurt you. Torture you! I could force you to stay." Enchantress ranted. "But… if you love your precious Midgard so much, you can go die with it!" She spat.
Elsewhere…
He came too with a groan. His body ached and he knew why. Memories of Ultron, of his fists crashing into his body over and over and over again. Memories of pain, of agony, an unfeeling machine unleashing its destructive capabilities on frail organic flesh.
Blinking his eyes a few times, Connor adjusted to the starkly decorated hospital room. His body bandaged and wired up to all manner of machines, he had to wonder how long he'd been out for. Laying still, he allowed his mind to wander, technopathic senses reaching out to intertwine with the programming of each machine here in the room with him. He felt the murmuring of the machine watching his vitals, the consistent chirping of the heartrate monitor, and the gentle cooing from the regulator system that managed his IV drip.
That's when he sensed the television, suspended in the corner of the room. Reaching out with practiced ease, his mind already used to the calibration required to operate a TV, he flicked on the screen and cycled to the news. "…reports are coming in of an attack against the SHIELD Helicarrier, the vessel is apparently on fire and weapon discharges have been spotted from afar. Could this be in conjunction with the worldwide cyber-attack from the entity calling itself 'Ultron'? More details to follow." The images and words startled him.
"Ultron…" Connor whispered. Clearly things had escalated since he'd been knocked out. And with a crisis of this scale unfolding, he needed to act. The fiendish android was still at large and wreaking havoc on a global scale.
And given Ultron's ability to manipulate technology and bend it to his will, Connor knew he would be needed.
He began to shift in the bed, the odd throbbing pain forcing him to stop and grimace before continuing again. He managed to get into a seated position and started plucking out needles and tubes. Any doctor right now would be throwing a fit if they could see him, but the fate of the Earth didn't wait for him to recover. He would simply have to push through the pain and get to work. The Avengers needed him and he would answer.
Connor forced himself to stand, waiting a moment as his body adjusted to the new position. No wonder he was supposed to stay bedridden, his body was definitely not up to fighting grade just yet. But if his mind was still sharp and up to the task, then Connor presumed he was already in fighting shape.
Spying a few surviving articles from his ruined costumed piled in a chair, he tugged off his hospital gown and made to get dressed…
"Guys? A little help here!" Hawkeye cried, trapped in the grip of the Mark 7. Unfortunately, the Avengers were all busy with their own battles. Hulk was trapped beneath the gravimetric beam of the Hulkbuster, Wasp led the stealth armor on a perilous chase and Black Panther continued to struggle against the Mark 3 and Silver Centurion armors. With none of them able to come to his aid, Hawkeye was at the mercy of the Mark 7's repulsor rays...
Suddenly, Tony burst through a wall in the Mark 1, freeing Clint from the Mark 7 as he powered his advanced suit across the room and drove him into the opposite wall. From there he drove the suit into the ground before picking it up and slamming it back into the wall.
"Get out of my suit!" Tony ordered.
"Your armor, like all of humanity, is obsolete." Ultron retorted. "Accept your end." Tony glowered.
"Yeah, I don't think so." He retorted, raising his hand and blasting the Mark 7 with a full-powered repulsor, annihilating the helmet and officially taking the suit offline. Turning around, Tony promptly blasted the suits assault Black Panther, his extra firepower helping the Avengers take down both the Silver Centurion and the stealth armor.
"What's happening?" Janet demanded. "I thought Ultron was destroyed?"
"Yeah, so did I. Turns out the real Ultron is attacking the SHIELD Helicarrier right now, we've got to stop him." Tony replied.
"Stop him from doing what, exactly?" Clint wondered. "What does he even want?"
"It wants to end all life on Earth." Tony stated gravely.
"Oh." Clint muttered, lost for words. "You go then, take Hulk and Wasp. Panther and I will finish up here."
"Clint-" Tony countered.
"Go!" Clint snapped. "You said it yourself, he wants to end all life on Earth. These tin cans of yours are just the distraction while he gets away with the real thing." No one could argue with that, and so without argument, the three took off to go and aid shield.
Not long after they did, several surviving suits picked themselves up. The Mark 7, Silver Centurion, stealth armor and Mark 4 surrounded the remaining two Avengers. Black Panther shot Hawkeye a look as if to say 'this was your idea'. "Yeah, I know, I'm dumb." Clint stated with a sigh, fitting another arrow into his bowstring.
On the Helicarrier…
Maria Hill's best efforts to stop Ultron were, ultimately, futile at best. Grasping her wrists, the mechanical menace used pain to his advantage and drove Maria to her knees before him. "Never…" she gasped, "I'll never tell you." She swore.
"As I said, your compliance is unnecessary." Ultron intoned. A panel in his chest slid apart, a series of tentacular wires slithering out as sinister liking micro-cables appeared on the ends. Maria gulped. She'd been on the internet enough to know where this was going… "Scanning and replicating the human mind was the first thing I ever learned." Ultron revealed. The cables latched on to Maria's head, probing her mind with an onslaught of forced data-output, digging deep into her psyche as they transformed neurons pulses to lines of code. The process was entirely painful and Maria's scream filled the empty bridge. Ultron remained unfazed, he would've rendered her catatonic if need be. But that wasn't necessary, the codes he needed were his…
Suddenly, a bio-sting shot through his cables, severing them all and dropping Maria to the floor. Ultron had barely a second to respond before he was blasted by a mighty unibeam, wrought from Iron Man's armor. Quickly forming an energy shield against the onslaught, Ultron soon found himself subjected to the Hulk's wrath, the gamma giant tanking his particle beam point-blank without flinching. "Gonna enjoy this, robot." Hulk snarled. "This is for Thor!" He bellowed, landing a massive punch that pitched Ultron across the room, the android coming to a halt on the distant wall as he reset himself, his ray shield proving impenetrable.
"I cannot be defeated, monster. But I do not expect you to understand that." Ultron sneered.
"I smashed you before, I'll smash you again!" Hulk retorted, barreling towards the android and cracking his knuckles.
"No. You will not." Ultron retorted, standing stock-still despite the incoming Hulk. Snapping out his hand, Ultron projected an aura wrought from his internal siphon generator, drawing on the gamma energy being emitted from the Hulk and slowly draining the jade giant of his power.
"Smash… you…!" Hulk roared, struggling to stay coherent as the very energy responsible for his creation was sucked away, Ultron transforming his power into his own as Hulk lost the ability to stay conscious. His body shrinking in size, the Hulk was lost and soon only Bruce Banner knelt on the floor where Hulk had once been.
The diminutive doctor was now at Ultron's mercy, gamma energy converted into further fuel necessary for turbocharging his internal systems. Raising a single hand, Ultron charged a repulsor blast to take out Bruce, only to change targets last minute as Iron Man struck from above. Casting a force field to protect himself, Ultron hit Iron Man full-force with his repulsor ray, the beam so powerful it tore pieces off his arm and left Iron Man a smoking, near-melted wreck on the floor alongside an unconscious Bruce Banner.
"Even if you take us down, there are more Avengers on their way." Tony fibbed.
"You are lying, but that is inconsequential. I have what I need." Ultron replied.
"What does he mean?" Janet worriedly asked as she helped Hill to her feet.
"The codes. He' got SHIELD's missile codes." Maria replied in an equally distressed tone as the monitors behind her revealed a global map of SHIELD's personal missile silos. Not just located in the United States, but across the world. 'Director Maria Hill. Security codes accepted. Nuclear missile launch in progress.' The terminal intoned as Ultron performed his own act of technopathy.
"He's firing a nuclear missile?!" Janet cried in dismay.
"No. Not a missile," Maria gravely clarified, "all of them." The devastating news spurred Wasp and Iron Man into action, attacking Ultron with everything they could muster. Maria joined in as she emptied the clip of her pistol. But the android hovered quietly before his unfolding plan, his personal force field protecting him from their firepower. With the launch codes accepted, every nuclear missile SHIELD had access to across the world was launched, from stealth bombers, from nuclear subs, from silos and secret bunkers.
"Humanity has failed as a species." Ultron stated, speaking not just to those in his presence but to those who could hear his voice all over the world. "You have accomplished much with your limited capacity, but ultimately you were too greedy and too frail to ever last in the environment you created. Soon the Earth will no longer be inhabitable for any biological organism. Man, woman, child, plant, animal, fungus, or bacterium. All life will cease to exist. This is not a threat, there is nothing you can do to stop it. The process has already begun. I receive no pleasure in this, it is simply the only solution. There must be peace and order, the end of life on Earth will ensure that. Good-bye." It was true. All of it. Unless the heroes of the world could respond, unless they could find some means to counteract this scheme, the age of men was over…
And the Age of Ultron was about to begin.
Black Panther had clawed the Mark 4 to pieces, only to be bowled over by the stealth armor blasting him back into the meeting table. Hawkeye soon suffered a similar fate, the Silver Centurion laying him out flat as fire raged through the room. Down below, Ant-Man worked feverishly on a plan to counteract Ultron, but his work may have come too little too late. Hawkeye and Black Panther were out of energy and out of options, the Iron Man suits closed in on them, ready to administer a final blow…
Then, all of a sudden, lighting struck from above and obliterated the stealth armor to the tune of rumbling thunder. The pieces hit the ground and Hawkeye looked up to see where their help had come from.
The sight took his breath away. "No way." He gasped with a growing smile.
There in the air floated Thor, the god of thunder fully rested and ready for another round. His lightning destroyed the Mark 7 and knocked the Silver Centurion out of the air. "Where is Ultron?" He questioned.
"At the SHIELD Helicarrier, attempting to destroy all life on the Earth." Black Panther answered as Hawkeye helped him up.
"Then we must away, my friends!" Thor urged. But before they could, the Silver Centurion got back up, the red glow of its ARC reactor shifting to white, along with its optics. Hawkeye primed an arrow, ready to shoot, but then the armor's hands reached up and removed the helmet… revealing the face of Cybernaut to them all.
"Connor?!" T'Challa gasped.
"Friend Cybernaut!" Thor exclaimed.
"When did you get here?" Hawkeye questioned in amazement. "And aren't you supposed to be bedridden?"
"I got over it and snuck out of the hospital, showed up about the same time Thor did. The world could use an IT specialist, looks likes it's got a bug in its program." Connor remarked. His motions were slow, but the Iron Man armor would offer some extra protection. Connor looked each of his teammates in the eye, deadly serious. "Now to echo Thor, where's Ultron? We've got a score to settle." He asked.
Tony's armor was no match for Ultron, each blast superheating the metal to a fine and brittle point at which Ultron could calmly tear a piece off and send him hutlgin to the floor below. "We have to do something!" Janet exclaimed.
"No kidding!" Maria retorted, lobbing a grenade that exploded against Ultron's shield. Glancing down, Ultron loosed a particle beam that knocked both women down for the count. On the rampage, the android tore off Iron Man's helmet, prepping another particle beam that would surely kill Tony. Ultron received only a glare in response, the countdown until impact reading a mere 6-and-a-half minutes.
Then, a thunderbolt from above drove Ultron deep into the floor, heralding the arrival of some much needed backup. Tony looked up and gasped in pure delight and Mjolnir flew back into Thor's grip, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Black Panther and an armored Cybernaut right behind him. "Ultron… we would have words with thee." Thor rumbled and his stormy expression matched his tone.
"Error: contradicting data. The entity known as 'Thor' was disintegrated." Ultron observed, his body piecing itself together and even removing the sizeable dent Mjolnir had left behind. "Solution: resolve contradiction." Unleashing a massive particle blast from his mouth, Ultron's beam was countered by Thor as the two engaged in a heated duel to overcome the other, crimson particle power and blue lightning lashing back and forth. As they did, a revived Maria scrambled for the computer terminal.
"Can you recall the missiles?" Tony asked.
"Normally, yeah. I could even detonate the missiles remotely without unleashing the warheads." She replied. "But we were completely locked out of our systems before-" she trailed off, glancing up at the countdown clock. "B-before…" Just under 6 minutes were left. "This is it, isn't it?" She wondered despondently.
"Hey, hey, Hill." Tony snapped his fingers, grabbing her attention. "Ultron locked you out? Then we unlock you. That's what the Avengers do, we save the world." Tony stated, leaving no room for argument. As he finished, Cybernaut dropped down to the floor and shucked off his gauntlets, flexing his fingers as he approached the two.
"Where's the patient?" He queried.
As they worked, the Avengers laid into Ultron with everything they had. But his shields remained impenetrable and, to make matters worse, a pair of over-the-shoulder Gatling guns unfolded from behind and attacked the team with lightning-fast strafing runs. "Hey! You're not supposed to have guns! Hank didn't put those in you!" Janet snapped as she buzzed around.
"This chassis was designed by Henry Pym and modified by Tony Stark." Ultron revealed.
Everyone collectively shot Tony a glare, the billionaire shrugging helplessly.
"That's just perfect." Hawkeye grumbled. "What did Hulk contribute, your bad attitude?" He quipped, loosing an ultrasonic arrow that generated a powerful frequency that knocked out the android's shielding.
"Error: shielding offline." Ultron realized, promptly retaliating with everything in his ar seal to protect himself. And with his attention elsewhere, Connor set to work tapping into SHIELD's network.
"What's the damage?" Tony queried.
"It's Ultron's code, alright. It's infecting every system with a piece of his artificial intelligence, not unlike a virus." The technopath answered, his mind clearing out swaths of program pathways as he sought out the information they desperately needed.
"Can you unlock the system?" Maria questioned.
"I can, but I need a moment. He's using a scramble algorithm, not unlike Kang's." Connor replied, various pieces of data rapidly flashing across screens as his mind went to work. "Fortunately, none of his coding is alien, which makes it easy for me to access."
"So long as you can access it in less than five minutes." Hill remarked, worriedly glancing up at their 'doomsday clock'. "We're running out of time." Connor closed his eyes, dedicating every essence of his being to undermining Ultron's work. It was skillfully well-done, the average human codebreaker would've needed years to bypass such intense firewalls.
Fortunately, his entire brain was like one incredible computer capable of going toe-to-toe with Ultron's programming.
"Now we end this, machine!" Thor roared as he continued to slug it out with Ultron, Black Panther and Hawkeye offering as much assistance as possible with arrows and Vibranium daggers. But the android proved incredibly tough and sturdy, his body easily reforming after every earth-shattering blow from Mjolnir and retaliating with equally destructive force. He proved very tough, but the Avengers weren't giving up now.
Connor quickly hacked his way through Ultron's viral defences, like using a machete to clear jungle underbrush. His mind sought out the missile command sequence, clearing a pathway that was quickly reinforced by his technopathy. It was starting to show too, blood actively running from his nose. "Connor?" Tony pressed. "Anything?"
"I've got something." He replied breathlessly. "Pick your poison, Hill; remote detonation or remote recall?" He asked aloud.
"Detonation! There's no time for recall!" Hill exclaimed, pouring pistol rounds into Ultron's back. Doing as asked, Connor sent the command as his defences withheld Ultron's attempts to recoup his losses. The single programming key shot clean through his carven pathway, reaching out to every single missile flying over the Earth and commanding them to self-destruct.
And all at once, they did.
The countdown stopped at exactly 1 minute, the missiles all disappearing from the screen as the words detonation successful flashed across each one. Releasing his presence from the computer, Connor slumped over, breathing heavily as he recuperated. "Easy, champ." Tony said softly, patting his back. "You did it. You saved the world." The din of combat still raging behind him echoed dully in Connor's hearing. Forcing himself to stand, he exhaled slowly.
"Not yet, I haven't." He remarked.
Black Panther was down for the count, his body limp and unconscious as Ultron advanced with killer intentions. At once, Wasp hovered between them, filling Ultron's view. "Back off. You can't hurt me." She ordered. In response, Ultron reached out and snared her in a single mechanized grip.
"False. You are referring to the flaw in Ultron-Five's programming. I am Ultron-Six. That flaw has been corrected." Ultron stated, his photoreceptors flaring brightly as he charged up a fresh beam. Janet struggled vainly, trying to escape his crushing hold.
That was when Cybernaut tackled Ultron from behind.
"You're mine, you discount Skynet!" He growled, using his magnets to form a field around his hand that acted as good as a blade, allowing him to hack off the arm holding Janet with a single judo chop. His bare hands exposed, Connor gripped Ultron's head and applied the extra strength provided by the Silver Centurion armor to trap Ultron in a headlock. His technopathic senses reached out again, intertwining with Ultron's programming as he proceeded to hack into the android's head. That proved tougher than expected, but it did slow Ultron just long enough for the Avengers to recover.
"Error: contradicting data. The entity known as 'Cybernaut' was hospitalized." Ultron stated.
"No thanks to you." Connor growled.
"Solution: resolve contradiction." The android intoned. Connor was a strong opponent. That being said, Ultron had countermeasures prepared just in case. "Thank you, Connor Peterson." He remarked.
"For what?" Connor growled, his disinterest evident in his tone.
"For thinking hard enough." Ultron responded, his head turning around 180 degrees with his photoreceptors aglow. His Encephalo-ray, originally designed to subdue criminals by attacking their neurological functions and put them into a forced coma, promptly struck Connor full in the face.
And with his mind hard at work deciphering Ultron's code, the feedback loop was intense.
A piercing scream filled the air, the harshest, loudest, most painful noise any of the Avengers had ever heard before as Connor's body was lit by glowing red. The worst pain the poor technopath had ever experienced wracked his body, like his mind and nerves had been lit on fire by the evil android. As such, his body failed to hold out longer than a few seconds and by the time Ultron was satisfied, he fell limp to the floor of the bridge, unconscious and unmoving.
"Connor!" Janet screamed, horrified at having to witness his downfall a second time. Ultron charged up his particle ray, ready to do him in again. Janet, however, refused to sit idly by while she could act. And so, growing to full size, she landed a bio-electric punch that sent the android spinning. As he came around, a new shrunken hero met his gaze.
"Ultron!" Ant-Man shouted, drawing his attention.
"Doctor Pym." Ultron observed, unleashing a pair of optic blasts that narrowly scorched him and his mount. "Just as illogical and weak as the rest of your species." But as he droned on, Hank ordered his flying ant into Ultron's mouth, using his small size to disappear into the vast network of machinery and technology as he entered the inner-workings of his creation. Held tightly in his grip, a single computer box held the vital tools required to put an end to this once and for all, his destination in sight as he arrived at Ultron's crystal-matrix core.
Battle raged outside, the Avengers still giving Ultron their all as the android battled back, the interior shaking and trembling as Ant-Man connected to the matrix and began to upload his files. "I am aware of your presence in here. You must know that if this body is destroyed, I will simply upload into another." Ultron stated from within, the room glowing red in his presence.
"I know." Hank said simply as he kept typing.
"What do you hope to accomplish in here? No virus can stop me." Ultron questioned.
"It's not a virus." Hank replied. "It's logic." A ping resounded from his computer as the upload completed, Hank looking up at the custom-build crystal-matrix he had personally manufactured so many years ago. "Good-bye, Ultron." He whispered sadly as the crystal glowed white as fresh data flooded Ultron's very core.
Outside, the android laid into Thor with its own brand of martial combat, laying the Asgardian low. But before it could finsih Thor entirely, Ultron stopped and his single arm fell limp at his side, his optics flashing for a brief moment, they soon turned back as Ultron powered down and fell still.
An odd quiet filled the bridge as Ultron stood still, neither moving nor responding to any sort of stimulus. Around the world, the machines forced under his control were freed immediately as Ultron's influence began to recede from them all. The Avengers pulled themselves together, Hawkeye and Panther helping Bruce banner over as Tony and Maria joined the ensemble at the very moment Hank emerged from within the android and grew to full size. "Victory is yours, Ant-Man. Your plan was sound." Thor congratulated.
"Wait, we had a plan?" Hawkeye wondered aloud.
"During the fighting in the Mansion, I realized there was a flaw in Ultron's logic." Ant-Man explained. "Because his programming is based on the human mind, he himself is as flawed as us, and therefore part of the problem. Ultron couldn't exist in his own imperative." It was certainly sound and seeing as it had been the key to winning the day, no one could argue with it. Diving forward, Wasp grew to normal size just in time to throw her arms around his neck.
"Hank you did it!" She cheered as they spun around, Hank smiling for the first time in a long time. "You saved the world, with science even!" She exclaimed.
"It's because of him that the world was in danger in the first place." Maria stated coldly, ruining the moment. "Ultron was his machine."
"Look, Maria-" Tony cut in, attempting to rectify things.
"No, she's right." Hank ruefully agreed, shrugging out of Janet's arms as he started walking away. Janet paused, her eye full and wide, thinking it best to follow him.
But that's when a groan caught her attention.
"Connor…!" She gasped, racing over to the conscious technopath. Coughing a little as he regained consciousness, Janet gingerly helped him into a seated position, his head lolling about as he found a place to rest on her shoulder.
"I'm… getting really tired… of getting KO'd by a robot…" He mumbled, closing his eyes and content to be in Janet's hold. As he did, Janet pulled him closer, cradling him in her arms now that the nightmare was over.
"Help! Someone help!" A sudden cry jerked her head up and caught the attention of the other Avengers as someone arrived on the bridge. Emerging from distant rubble, a tattered Jace Carson carried an equally tattered Jennifer Walters in his arms. She was passed out, her skin pale and dirty.
"Carson!" Maria cried, running over. "What happened?"
"Jen was here running the legal files like you asked. We… W-We weren't expecting the attack. She and I were caught in an explosion… I think she took the brunt of it." Jace explained through ragged breaths. Still on site, Ant-Man checked her over, using his helmet to perform a thorough check of her vitals.
"She's lost a lot of blood. She'll need a transfusion." He announced. At that moment, Bruce Banner came to and quickly shrugged his way out of Hawkeye and Panther's grip as he realized the peril his cousin was in.
"Jenny…" he gasped, checking her over. "Oh no…!"
"Get her to sick bay, that should still be operational." Maria ordered.
"What's happening? W-What's wrong with her?" Bruce queried.
"She's lost a lof of blood, Doctor Banner." Ant-Man explained. "She needs blood, now."
"I… I'm her cousin, I-I think I should be her type." Bruce stammered in reply.
"That'll save us some time." Hank readily agreed.
"Come on then, the sooner the better!" Jace urged, the trio quickly finding their way back through the rubble, hellbent on saving the day one more time.
Later that day…
"She just returned you to Earth?" Tony wondered, speaking privately with Thor in the Mansion's library room.
"Aye, the Enchantress' fury was great, but she told me that sending me back to Midgard was a fate worse than death." The Asgardian confirmed, glancing at the roaring fire in the fireplace. "I fear that as dangerous as Ultron was, something worse is coming." He grimly mused. Tony glanced down, pondering the possibilities behind such words.
Neither of them had any idea that, in other corners of the Nine Realms, the fires of war were being stoked…