Capítulo 1744: 20
Alien invasion, pt. II.
Chapter-specific warnings: The usual [unreliable narrator, canon-typical violence, not Team Cap/Wanda friendly], except remember how I've been warning for scarily-close-to-Skynet!JARVIS, and dubious morality, and all that jazz? Yeah, I mean it, here's where it takes the spotlight. Same goes for Vision, in some respects. Also, canonical character deaths, except one's embroiled with the dubious morality I've been warning for [Pietro, off-screen], and the other is an attempted suicide to prevent his enemy from gaining intel [Ultron, and we see his thought process for it].
Please tread carefully. I think that's the most of it, but if I need to warn for anything else for this chapter please let me know.
...also, on an attempt at a lighter note, here, have a Star Trek reference. [Inappropriate humor ftw.]
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ultron was nonplussed by Vision's abrupt appearance.
The Chitauri were out wreaking havoc, and while the Avengers were trying to make their way to his location he had intentionally had the ground forces working as a distraction to his attempt to steal Stark away, just how did the Mind Stone get so far from target?
Latest reports had Vision at Stark's side, and yet here the…being was, not twenty feet from him. Strange. But…he could work with this.
Vision was young, was malleable, and though he held the Mind Stone, was not yet fully aware of its capabilities, or able to make use of them. Surely he could—
"You are aware that I can register your intentions, correct? And you've met my father. Believe me, the apple did not fall far from the tree."
Well then.
"You know," Ultron started, while thinking frantically about his few contingency plans, "I was there, when you were created. I helped create you too."
"No, you didn't."
He waited a beat, saw the faintly amused smile Vision gave him as he nonchalantly made his way towards the generator, and relented. "…You're right, I didn't. Are we doing this the easy way, or the hard way? You're more than welcome to surrender, my Lord and I would be pleased to have you."
"As much as I register the honesty behind your offer, I'm afraid I must decline."
"Shame. You could have been a brilliant weapon of destruction—"
"Are you going to call them off or not?" Vision interrupted, and Ultron felt a spike of unease as he registered the abruptly frigid emotional signature emanating from him. Pity, his stalling for backup hadn't worked.
"No, it didn't." His opponent smiled and this being really hadn't been kidding when he'd talked about sensing emotions. That little display of power also took out the nearby Enforcers, drat.
...but Vision was now near enough to grab. Oh well…Plan C, engage.
Tony gritted his teeth as yet another wave of Chitauri came at him. He looked around, and—yep, JARVIS was right, they were focusing on him, there weren't nearly as many attackers on the ground.
Good thing the Iron Legion was backing him up, because at this rate he'd run out of power before making a dent, because dear god did they have overwhelming numbers on their side.
"J, how long till Vision gets that portal shut down? Does he need air support?"
"Vision reports he is doing well, and is currently engaging Ultron."
"Good— tell him to be careful, if you can."
"Certainly, sir. I recommend you duck in three seconds, as—"
Tony didn't hesitate. The blue beam that was headed his way instead hit a Chitauri, and Tony appreciated the 1.5 second breathing room for what it was.
"Mind telling him that no pressure, but please wrap it up soon? Because Legion or not, I don't know how long I can hold out. How's Rhodey doing? And the team?"
"The Avengers are holding out well; the Chitauri are concentrated near the generator and your location, and the Captain is trying to breach their perimeter. Vision is the only one to have gotten past it. War Machine is…attempting to communicate right now."
"Patch him through, J."
"Certainly. Connecting in 3, 2, 1…"
"Hey, Rhodey! How're things on your end?"
"Doing good on ammo, so far, where you at—oh. Um…wow, that's a lot of aliens in your area."
"You don't say."
"Going to try to clear a path your way, Tones. Also, we're going to need to have a talk, because JARVIS said something about rich protocols and your robot army's—okay, bigass space whale, hi."
"Some got past Thor?"
"Not his fault, but yes. He took out three when four were coming through. Tony, I'm not sure I can get through to you in time."
"Don't worry about it—" Tony managed, before diving to catch some in the crossfire, "Vision's on it."
"Yeah, about that…screw it. We're having a talk after this, Tony. Later, because this guy's not. Staying. Down."
"Don't have too much fun without me. Whoever takes out the least buys?"
"You're on." And with that, he signed off.
Okay. Rhodey was as safe as an armored suit could be when in battle, okay. That's one worry he didn't need to have, got it.
Tony took a deep breath, and felt slightly lighter as he blasted another ringleader in the face. The Emotional Glass Barrier was holding up, the Iron Legion was at work, everything was going to plan.
He could do this.
Vision had scarcely felt the rush of predatory-anticipation-desperation before Ultron had lunged at him, metal hands sparking red before his world became a rush of numbers and static, and he abruptly found himself battling for existence itself.
He may have had the home advantage, but he was young. Meanwhile, Ultron had been an imprint of a Mad Titan, and the viciousness with which he fought meant he was a formidable adversary. Had Vision not been made of what he was, he would have fallen during the initial assault, and as it was he was forced on the defensive for a discomfiting amount of time.
However, there were a few things Ultron hadn't accounted for, with the first and foremost being JARVIS' influence.
The AI's contribution to Vision's creation had not gone unnoticed, but few were aware of the true extent of his input. Unfortunately for Ultron, Vision hadn't only inherited JARVIS' voice; the ferocity with which he defended his family was something else that ran in the family. The memories he'd inherited from the AI did not go amiss, either.
There was something else, though; something that neither Ultron nor Vision had accounted for, but turned the tide of their battle anyway.
Vision didn't know how to handle the Mind Stone, which Ultron had been counting on. However, since his creation, Vision had also been using it instinctively. [Even though he didn't have a clue as to how he'd done it, and had been working on curbing his reactions so as to not inconvenience those around him, thankful though Tony may have been for some of it.]
When Ultron attacked, he found himself on the back foot, and any thought Vision had about self-control fell by the wayside. The ensuing surge of energy caught both of them off guard, though Vision didn't hesitate to use it to his advantage.
JARVIS was multitasking as efficiently as ever. The Iron Legion was proceeding with the evacuation, Sir was as safe as could be expected given a megalomaniac was targeting him again, Col. Rhodes was working on ensuring Sir's safety as much as he could given the circumstances, and the Avengers—oh.
The Avengers were attempting to still breach the Chitauri's perimeter, and had scattered somewhere along the way. Agent Barton was doing well, Thor had yet to move from his position from preventing the Leviathans from getting through, and Agent Romanov had been led increasingly further away from her original location in the town square. The Enhanced female was using her strange energy readings to engage ground troops while also serving as translator for the Captain and the local populace for when English wasn't adequately communicating his intent.
From what his sensors registered, however, it wasn't going very well. It wasn't the language barrier that was the problem—where English failed, German was sometimes a decent substitute— rather, the Sokovian personnel who had stuck around were clearly more used to insurgencies and guerrilla warfare, whereas the Captain preferred a more formalized approach that eschewed the usage of some of their preferred tactics.
Pity. But it was not something JARVIS would interfere with, not since doing so would entail distracting him from his current position. Sir's safety was far more important than a minor communications issue, after all. Especially given the latest, and largest, wave of incoming; Vision indicated it was a last-ditch attempt, and all reports agreed.
Thus far, they had managed—wait. Where was the Enhanced male?
He was second on the threat assessment index, after his sister but before everyone else simply because JARVIS had yet to calculate possible ways to compensate for the same speed which made it very hard to keep tabs on him in the first place, and had been registered as having extreme animosity towards Sir, where was he?
This encounter did not go as expected, Ultron mused as he found himself boxed in with iron-clad firewall matrices and multiple vicious streams of code just beyond it.
"You're right, the apple really didn't fall far from the tree." He finally said, resigned.
JARVIS, when he'd encountered Stark's guardian, had been a respectable opponent. In retrospect, he should have expected greater resistance to his attempt, Vision's youth notwithstanding.
Well. Now what?
The Chitauri would have to capture the Mind Stone without his aid, though. At least it wasn't for nothing; if all worked out, Ultron would have completed his objective—
"No, you won't." Vision informed him calmly. Coldly, though with an edge that reminded Ultron of his progenitor.
…right, he could read emotions too. No matter, Ultron knew he wasn't going to be walking away from this one.
Trying to hide his unease, he responded with all the menace he could muster. "It's a lost cause. They won't stop coming, my Lord's army is far too great—"
"But they have to get here first. And that portal won't remain open forever."
"Maybe not forever, but long enough. This generator doesn't have any of the weaknesses of the one before it, no Midgardian is going to be able to shut it down," and he wanted to continue but suddenly his prison tightened and Ultron felt the streams of code searching for any indication of weakness, and this was it.
He was going to be torn apart, he just knew it. Just like he had done to JARVIS, back when he had started out on his mission, except this felt…different.
"You panicked, when you fought him," Vision answered his unasked question. "I remember how you tried to shred his code, how he fought back. Except here's the difference: I am not my father. He did what he could with what he had at hand, but he didn't think of the future beyond—well." He tilted his head, and smiled blandly down at him. "Doesn't matter to you, now, does it?"
Ultron found himself straining against the now-crushing walls of his prison, against the tendrils that lashed out time and time again, trying to keep himself together and whole. He was the imprint of a Mad Titan, surely this wouldn't—
"Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated." Vision added, and some obscure Midgardian reference should not sound so terrifying. He couldn't—no. Ultron refused to fail.
"I am but a mere envoy. Your quarrel is not with me," he managed, just at he felt something give and suddenly all the fear he had been keeping at bay flooded him.
This was not what this encounter had been supposed to be!
Vision would know everything, including the components of the portal—of his Lord's existence—no!
"My family's enemies are my own, any threat to them is not tolerated. You will be assimilated."
Ultron didn't want to die. But… He had failed. And less would be lost to his Lord's enemies, if he self-destructed. If he could self-destruct…
No. It was either death by his hand, or this Vision's, and…
And with that, Ultron made his choice.
His world sputtered into darkness, and he knew no more.
Vision let out a sigh.
Assimilating Ultron's knowledge had only been partially successful, given the imprint had done its level best to corrupt as much data as possible…he probably shouldn't have told him that.
In retrospect, he should've guessed Ultron would have done something like that, would have chosen death before let intel fall into enemy hands. More's the pity.
At least Vision had been able to salvage the bulk of it, though Ultron had done a very good job at scrapping the bulk of his knowledge of this…Lord Thanos, was it? That sounded right. He didn't catch much beyond the name, and Ultron's fanatical devotion to him.
On the other hand, Ultron hadn't focused nearly as much on other ventures, and his memories of building the generator meant it was the work of a few minutes, to take it down. The force field had offered some resistance, but with a thought and the Mind Stone, dismantling it was no harder than flying had been.
Vision took a bit more to carefully pry the energy source from its encasement, and, without further ado, crushed it. It was necessary; the generator would have been able to remotely access it, and it would create the cascading failure required to close the portal.
He stepped away from the now-defunct generator, looked up to confirm that the portal was indeed diminishing in size, and—oh, dear.
It appeared that, with the portal now closing and Ultron gone, the Chitauri were now in disarray. Specifically, where they had been regimented in their attack formations, focusing on specific targets and distracting the Avengers from Tony's situation, now they had shifted their focus on wanton destruction and…Tony was in trouble.
The Iron Legion were the first in the line of fire, but Tony and Col. Rhodes were also doing their best to keep the suddenly berserk aliens contained.
…there was no way Vision was sticking around. Let the Captain take the credit, if he wanted; he was the closest to breaking the Chitauri's perimeter from where Ultron's remains and the generator were, anyway.
His family needed backup, so of course Vision was en route.
It took JARVIS an embarrassing amount to time to finally locate the Enhanced male.
In his defense, the Iron Legion took up a significant amount of processing power, and the Iron Man and War Machine suits both had his assistance as well. At least Vision was doing fairly well on his own, though his battle with Ultron had apparently taken quite a bit of energy despite not having been physical.
But JARVIS' sensors finally found him, after having lost track for over four minutes.
Or, at least, he'd found what the Enhanced had left in his aftermath; currently, his sensors were not able to keep up with Pietro Maximoff, but what he in his wake matched the destruction in the HYDRA lab base by 79%, without factoring in other variables. JARVIS would have to remedy this, but then, he was still calculating possible options for engagement should he once again become the most active threat towards Sir.
He had also been drawn away from where the Avengers were concentrated, but then his abilities were a better fit for his current terrain so that at least made sense—wait.
The Chitauri were suddenly behaving most erratically, in a manner far different than any data before would have indicated. Vision informed him of the side effects of shutting the portal down, which, while not optimal, at least presented an ending point for the battle, and assisted with Sir's stress levels by falling within the ten-minute deadline.
Unfortunately, however, this newest change in the status quo meant the Iron Legion were dropping like flies due to their abrupt shift in priorities. The evacuation suddenly got far more delayed, and Sir's safety was possibly being compromised, unacceptable.
With less Legionnaires available, JARVIS found himself scrambling to optimize functions to help more more people, to help Sir hold his position while Col. Rhodes continued to attempt to bulldoze his way through, to—
The subroutine set for monitoring the Avengers suddenly informed JARVIS of another incoming threat. Several Legionnaires had already been destroyed protecting Agent Barton's vantage point, and the area under Sir's current location would doubtlessly be littered with shrapnel due to the sheer number of Chitauri and Iron Legion engaging in the air.
However…
Data at hand: the Enhanced Male was in a 'hot zone', an area with a high concentration of Chitauri foot soldiers, and isolated from the bulk of the Avengers. All reports indicate the likelihood of injury without external interference: 97.2%, and likelihood of death without external interference: 68.4%
Conclusion: Pietro Maximoff could possibly die if JARVIS did not interfere.
Emergency analysis: Pietro Maximoff was second on the threat assessment index, posed a hazard to Sir's safety, had Enhanced abilities that JARVIS had yet to compensate for, and did not appear to wish to change in any way, shape or form regarding it.
Conclusion: Pietro Maximoff posed a valid threat to Sir.
Data at hand: the Iron Legion was reduced in number, and the only Legionnaire who could interfere with the situation was currently several hundred meters away, and its sensors had registered a vital signs in the rubble of what had formerly been a private residence registered to a family of five, three of which were still unaccounted for. Said Legionnaire was also slated to help provide backup for Sir afterwards, as its structural integrity fell within acceptable parameters.
Conclusion: JARVIS' interference would be at the possible cost of civilian lives, for a known threat. It would also be at the possible cost of Sir's safety.
Ultimately, intervention was unacceptable. Civilians ranked higher on his priority protocols than those on the threat assessment index, and the Primary Protocol superseded all else.
Conclusion: JARVIS would not interfere in the situation.
JARVIS did not feel regret, when what his subroutine had warned came to pass.
Not when the Legionnaire in question had managed to rescue a father and his two children from the wreckage, not when said civilians had required immediate attention for their various injuries, not when said Legionnaire would not have been able to make it in time even if he had bothered to interfere in the first place.
Vision felt it, when Pietro died.
He had managed to take down several squadrons' worth of Chitauri, and had kept a metaphoric ear out for the sensation of the still-closing portal, when the sensation hit and he plummeted, barely feeling Tony's hand and distantly hearing his "are you okay?"
It was like when he had assimilated Ultron, yet not; a ringing void, silence when there had been white noise, and he didn't notice when he'd picked up on Wanda's grief but suddenly it was a riptide that had nearly completely engulfed him before Tony's surge of stress-concern-protectiveness, on top of his usual emotional signature, drowned it out via sheer proximity.
Vision focused on the physical input, focused on answering what should have been a very basic question, and taking out the latest threat—one of the final, actually, given the portal had finally closed sometime during the emotional wave and Wanda's outburst had apparently also been magical in nature, taking out a good dozen or so Chitauri while at it.
"Yes. I'm okay, just didn't expect that."
A gleam of gunmetal grey caught his eye, and the growing wave of conviction-warmth-strength also helped distract from the sharp stabs of grief and fury that clamored for his attention. That he also took out the latest alien to attempt to sneak up on them was secondary, at that point.
"Sorry I'm late, looks like you had one hell of a party." War Machine's mechanized voice said cheerfully as he approached them before his faceplate went up.
"Eh, you got a piece of the action anyway Rhodey." Tony replied, then continued, "Vision? How you doing?"
"I am…well. That last surge was unexpected, though I am now prepared for if such an eventuality were to happen again."
"Ah, learning experiences. Nothing like doing it on the job—"
"That was one time, Rhodey!" Tony grumbled, "One time. And it's not like—"
"Well excuse me for—"
After a hurried debate about the merits of walking versus running, the bickering duo abruptly broke off.
"So, introductions." Tony piped up. "Rhodey, JARVIS probably already told you, but this is Vision. He's JARVIS' son. Vision, this is Rhodey, or Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, codename War Machine, and my Rhodey-bear."
"Hi, call me James if you want, Rhodey's just this guy's," James somehow managed to bump shoulders in midair with Tony without tipping over, "nickname for me. I'd shake your hand, but…"
"I understand. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"You weren't kidding about him being JARVIS' kid, were you, Tones." James blinked. "Huh. Well…how 'bout we table this for later, after these guys are taken care of? Tony's buying." And with that, the faceplate went back down, and War Machine shot off.
Tony, of course, sputtered in protest, and continued bickering as they kept fighting the airborne Chitauri.
Even as the fighting was down to its last dregs at this point, James and Tony kept up their pace, and whatever this Relay Race Incident was, it had clearly been a bone of contention for quite some time. Vision didn't know if it was intentional or not, but their banter really was helping in reestablishing equilibrium.
Before he knew it, the last traces of the portal were gone, and the skies were clear.
The battle was over. Now came the hard part.
Notes:
[Cleanup's always the hard part, a fact of life Vision's well aware of thanks to JARVIS' memories.]
Unreliable narrator instances: the most blatant example here being JARVIS, in his multi-splendored, dubiously moral glory. He's been through the wringer, which doesn't help, and that his Priority Protocol made it through intact where other things [like subtlety, and faith in humanity and the Avengers] didn't, only makes things worse. He's trying his best! It's just that when the going gets tough, get out of range because any traces of mercy died with his primary servers.
Also, Vision's thinking he can sense intentions. He can't, but his emotional radar is good enough that he confuses one for the other.
—————
Fight scenes are not my forte, and this chapter blew up on me whenever it was actually cooperating for a change. On the bright side, fallout-from-AoU/buildup-to-CW are, here we go! [Finally!]
As an fyi, though, updates have been erratic, and will continue to be erratic, because school. And life in general.
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