"Ultron?" Trista repeated the name.
"In the flesh, or, no. Not yet. Not this … chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission." Ultron stuttered a bit as he looked around the room.
"What mission?" Natasha coldly and cautiously asked.
"Peace in our time." Ultron answered firmly. Suddenly the walls exploded inward as the Iron Legion came barreling into the room, everyone fell back, Hotaru let out a scream as the attack quickly took place, she fell back and tried to hide as the attack took place. Everyone attacked the Iron Legion. Trista leaps into the air and flips over Iron Legion, summoning her Garnet Rod she moved it to its neck, the Iron Legion reaches up and grabs her arm and throws her hard.
"Trista!" Steve yells as she thrown hard into a hallway, disappearing.
"Rhodey!" Hotaru cries as she watches him get thrown out a window. "Stark, you just had to build a homicidal robot, didn't you?" An Iron Legion comes at her, she quickly leaps over the couch, but the robot grabs her arm. "Dad!" She cries as she struggles and twists herself around to try and kick the legs out, as she does Clint runs over firing an arrow into the faceplate.
"This is not the time to discuss this!" Tony yelled back, fighting off one of the Legions himself. It was a little difficult since he was only fighting with an Iron Man glove.
"Oh, because we are fighting an army of homicidal robots." Clint snapped, making sure Hotaru stays behind him. "With my daughter in the damn room!"
"Stark!" Steve snaps as he tries to get Loki's scepter back from one of the Legion.
"We are here to help." Another Iron Legion said, Tony attempted to fight it off with a fondue fork this time.
"One sec, one sec, I got this!" Tony yelled as he tried to stab the robot with the fork.
"Thor!" Steve yells as he tries to move towards the hallway Trista disappeared through.
"Pluto Crystal Power! Dead Scream!" The Avengers were quick to avoid the attack. Sailor Pluto walks out of the hall that she disappeared through as she holds her Garnet Rod. Everyone then tuns their attention to Ultron.
"That was dramatic! I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve?" Ultron said in thought, picking up a mangled Legion. "With these? These puppets?" He gestures to the bot as he crushed its head with his hand. "There's only one path to peace. The Avengers' extinction." Thor threw his hammer at Ultron, destroying Ultron's body, only the head remained. "I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me, no strings on me." Ultron's head began to sing.
Sailor Pluto kicks Ultron's head into a window. She turns to glare hard at Tony. "Stark, you better start talking right now!" She said firmly as she returns to citizen form and Steve comes up to her, wrapping his arm around her waist and holding her close to his chest. She took solace in his comforting and warm arms.
"We need to go to the lab." Tony started then rushed out of the room, everyone followed short after him.
XxXxXxXxXx
"All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out and used the internet as an escape hatch." Bruce said, going through the information in the computer, his eyes shining in horror.
"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably know more us then we know about each other." Natasha said firmly with caution.
"And we hardly know anything about him." Trista added. "This is not good at all."
"He's in your files, he's on the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey asked with concern.
"Nuclear codes." Doctor Cho supplied gravely, making everyone freeze in horror.
"Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can." Rhodey said as Hotaru backed up in horror, bumping into Steve.
"Nukes?" Natasha asked with confusion.
"He wants us extinct." Hotaru said, when Steve calmly places his hands on her shoulders she looks up at him then takes a few deep breaths, her eyes closing as she leans the back of her head on his stomach.
"He also said he killed somebody." Clint added.
Hotaru reopens her eyes to look up at Steve. "But we're the only ones here." She said with a frown.
"No. That's not true." Tony sighed, bringing up JARVIS on the screen.
"This is insane." Bruce is horrified, walking around a table, his hand in his hair in fear and frustration at their situation.
"JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense." Steve said with thought.
"It was a savage kill." Hotaru added. "With my powers I can sense death. But JARVIS is a computer. "That, I can't sense."
"Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS." Bruce nods. "This is strategy, this is rage." As he finished, a very angry Thor storms in, coming right up to Tony and grabbing his neck and lifting in the air.
"It's going around." Clint said as he watched the situation unfold in front of him.
"Come on Point Break. Use your words buddy." Tony coughed, his hands on Thor's wrist.
"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor growled out.
"Thor!" Steve calls. "Legionnaire."
Thor lets go of Tony, who stumbles backwards. "Trail went cold about a hundred miles our four it's headed north." Thor said, looking at Steve, then turns to glare at Tony. "And it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it. Again."
"Genies out of that bottle, clear and present as Ultron." Natasha said.
"I don't understand." Cho said, studying an Iron Legion, then turns to Tony. "You built this program." She said confused.
Tony walks up to a table and began to laugh humorlessly.
"You think this is funny?" Thor snaps at him.
"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so … is it so … it is. It's so terrible." Tony continued like a madman, laughing.
"Stark, you finally lost your marbles." Hotaru said, folding her arms and staring close to Steve.
"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor roared.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony states sarcastically and coldly.
"Oh, this makes total sense." Trista said sarcastically folding her arms as she stood near Steve.
"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to." Bruce starts.
"Really!? That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls?" Tony demands, looking at his fellow scientist.
"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce snaps back.
"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to interface?" Tony is sarcastic.
"Well you did something right." Steve said with his arms folded as he leans his back on the table. "And you did it right here." He moves forward. "The Avengers were supposed to be different then SHEILD."
Tony wasn't phased. "Does anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" He asks, feeling everybody gaining up on him.
"No." Rhodey shook his head. "It's never come up." Tony shot him a glare.
"Traitor. Some best friend you are right now." He looked around. "Saving New York. Recall that? A hostel alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing 300 feet below it." Everyone was quiet as they remembered that day. "We're the Avengers. We can bust arm dealers all the live long day, but that up there." He points towards the roof. "That's, that's the endgame. How are you guys planning on beating that?"
"Together." Steve said calmly.
Tony looks right at him, the same look on his face. "We'll lose." He said coldly.
Steve squared his shoulders. "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." He orders.
"He's all over the globe. Robotics labs, weapon facilities, jet propulsion labs, reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place." Trista describes, reading from a tablet, Steve coming up behind her to look over her shoulder.
XxXxXxXxX
The team heads to a room that looks constructed to be a board meeting. Hotaru sat in her father's lap.
"Fatalities?" Steve asked, Trista sitting next to him with her tablet.
"Only when enraged. Mostly guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."
"Maximoff." Steve whispered in realization.
"That makes sense he'd go after them." Trista said. "Those twins have something."
Clint frowns. "What? What do they have?"
Trista turns her tablet about to show everyone. A picture of Strucker's dead body, his cell wall painted in his blood reading 'Peace'.
"A message?" Clint asked.
"Ultron claimed another victim." Hotaru nods, leaning her back against her father's chest. "He killed Strucker."
"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony stats, annoyed as he folds his arms.
"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha asked stoically, leaning on the table crossing her arms on the smooth surface.
"What if it's both?" Trista asked, while looking at the image. "A message is a smoke screen, but also a leader."
"She's right. Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve agrees, looking in thought.
"What'd he want us to miss?" Trista asked, studying the picture.
Natasha pulls out a laptop, powering it on. Once it was booted she types away. "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."
XxXxXxXX
As everyone worked. Hotaru took a nap, curled up on the floor. Thor even took off his cap and placed it over her for a blanket.
"Ulysses Klaue." Clint read a name. "I know that guy." He places a picture on the table, everyone moved to gather around the photo. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." He explains.
"I remember this creep." Trista said. "He tried to break into a Moon Kingdom's palace, trying to steal the legendary Silver Crystal. Of course he failed. Amara - Michelle's cousin, was this close to killing him. But Queen Serenity stopped her, then blasted Klaue out of the Kingdom's atmosphere."
"What's this?" Thor asked, looking over Trista's shoulder, she noticed and held the picture closer to him for a better look.
"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it." Tony said in thought and confusion.
"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." Thor said in a grave tone, he points to a different part, showing the brand again.
"Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief. In a much less friendly way." Natasha explained simply as she looked at the brand.
"What dialect?" Bruce asks, trying to see for himself, Trista gives him the picture. "Wa … Wa ... Wakanda?" He reads, trying to pronounce it.
"Wakanda. It's a small, but powerful province, or country in Africa." Trista said with thought.
"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods." Tony trailed off.
"I thought Howard said he got the last of it?" Steve asked.
"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked confused.
"The strongest metal on Earth." Steve answered, turning to look at his shield.