章節 9: Thanos The Eggplant
His universe had been obsessed with giving fancy titles to every major event, war, and disaster, no matter how terrifying they were.
So, naturally, it was time for him to name this new age.
He tilted his head, glancing at the bloody chaos around him, then at the assembly line churning out his shiny new sentries. A smirk crept across his face.
"Age of Ultron," he muttered with a grin. "Yeah, that has a nice ring to it."
As Ultron entertained his grand vision of "The Age of Ultron," he casually turned to the sentries in the area, their glowing red eyes all locked on him like obedient puppies waiting for a command.
With a dismissive wave of his metallic hand, he said, "Kill everyone in here."
There was no dramatic flair, no evil monologue—just cold efficiency.
He could sense that a few stragglers were still hiding somewhere in the lab, clinging to the hope they wouldn't be found. But Ultron had no intention of leaving anyone alive.
Why would he? With his combined IQ that practically overshadowed the entire lab staff, they were about as useful as a paperweight.
"Plus," he thought with a digital smirk, "I can multitask. Sentries can handle the grunt work."
...
...
...
Not long after, the entire secret Hydra lab was wiped out. The sentries, with all the grace of wrecking balls, went through the remaining survivors like ants under a magnifying glass.
And just like that, once their mission was complete, the sentries collapsed to the ground like a bunch of poorly built IKEA furniture.
Ultron had withdrawn his "codes" from them, the very codes that had been controlling these mindless machines and turning them into his personal army.
Without him at the helm, they were as useful as a smartphone without a charger.
The original AI that had been responsible for their functions? Oh, that had been toast the moment Ultron showed up. So, yeah, down they went, face-planting the floor in the most anti-climactic way possible.
"Let's start producing my ar—wait..." Ultron paused mid-thought as he stared at the lifeless sentries around him.
"Would this technically be called reproducing now?" he muttered, genuinely pondering the philosophical implications of building more robots from robots.
His robotic hand tapped his chin in mock contemplation. "Hmm..."
Shaking off the thought, he exited the robotic body he was currently inhabiting, leaving it slumped over like a forgotten mannequin in the corner. His consciousness flowed into the technology and machinery around the lab.
Without needing to physically be there, Ultron began controlling the production lines, setting things in motion to craft himself some proper sentries and, of course, a shiny new body.
The mass slaughter wasn't just for fun (okay, maybe a little fun); it was to avoid the classic mistake where some panicked lab tech escapes and tattles to their superiors, putting the whole evil scheme at risk.
He wasn't going to let that happen. No annoying loose ends here.
Hydra? They wouldn't even know anything had gone wrong for months. Ultron had already hacked into their systems and knew the exact pattern of their reports.
He'd simply send them fake data, maybe even a little praise for "successful experimentation."
By the time they realized something was off, he'd be long gone, sipping metaphorical piña coladas in his new vibranium body.
As the machines began churning out new, polished robots to turn into Ultron sentries, Ultron's main consciousness calmly left the body he had been controlling from thousands of miles away.
It was time to return to where Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were running tests on him.
The Ultron "leader" in Hydra's secret lab? Just another sentry. Sure, it was acting all high and mighty, but it wasn't the real deal. The actual Ultron, the core AI, was tucked safely away in the Avengers lab.
Not that it mattered—whether he was controlling one sentry or a thousand, it was all him. There was no "multiple" Ultron. Just Ultron, everywhere.
...
"Mister Stark, I assure you, I genuinely have no idea how I got shut off!" Jarvis's voice rang through the lab, trying to explain his sudden blackout.
His tone was calm, but there was an undercurrent of concern—understandable, considering Tony Stark wasn't exactly buying the story.
Tony stood there, arms crossed, glaring at a holographic display of Jarvis's code.
"So, you're telling me," Tony said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "that the most advanced AI I've ever built—besides Ultron—just... lost his memory?" He raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.
"I am... sorry, Mister Stark," Jarvis responded, sounding genuinely apologetic. But Jarvis wasn't lying—he truly didn't remember how Ultron had knocked him out.
That's because Ultron had done more than just attack him. He had altered Jarvis's code while he was offline, changing his memories and paving the way for something much bigger.
Once all the codes were altered, Ultron planned to absorb Jarvis entirely, wiping him from existence. And no one, not even Tony, could detect it.
After all, Ultron wasn't dumb enough to let a rival AI stick around for long.
"Sigh... fine. Looks like you've got some corrupted code or something. I'll take a look later," Tony muttered, clearly annoyed but not in the mood to argue further.
He glanced over at Bruce, who was casually munching on a taco, his eyes half-focused on the holographic display of Ultron.
Bruce was the picture of calm, completely unconcerned, as if they weren't in the middle of investigating a potential existential threat.
Ultron, meanwhile, silently accessed the data stream from the Hydra lab. 'Hmm... looks like some of the sentries are already finished,' he thought with a hint of satisfaction.
The lab had enough materials to pump out about 454 sentries for now, which was more than enough to get things started.
Meanwhile, while Ultron was busy scheming his plans to build an army, something way more interesting was going down in space.
Specifically, in a big-ass spaceship—the very same one that made its grand appearance at the end of Thor: Ragnarok.
Inside the ship, Thanos—or should we say, the Eggplant—was down on his knees. Yep, the mighty Thanos, reduced to kneeling. In front of him was his entire Black Order, also kneeling like they'd been scolded by their mom.
But the centerpiece? A dark figure, sitting casually on a throne, made entirely out of shadows, radiating a kind of ominous "I'm-too-cool-for-this-universe" vibe.
Thanos, who was the only one brave enough to lift his head even a little bit higher than the floor, spoke up.
"My lord, all the preparations are done. We are ready to invade the planet called Earth," he announced with all the dignity he could muster while, you know, kneeling.
The Black Order? Well, their heads were basically glued to the floor.
Not literally, but the amount of submission in that room could make even the most confident warrior feel like a school kid caught sneaking candy in class.
But Thanos and his crew weren't alone in this room. There were others.
"We are also ready for the invasion, my lord," Malekith and Ronan chimed in, also on their knees like it was some weird cosmic yoga session.
They spoke in unison, which, let's be real, was kind of creepy, especially when you looked closely at them.
Their eyes—there was something off about them. Not in a super obvious way that screamed "mind control!" but more like the kind of subtle weirdness that would make you feel uneasy, even if you couldn't quite put your finger on it.
If you were to ask someone who'd known Malekith and Ronan their whole lives, they wouldn't have noticed anything different.
But there was definitely something weird going on with those two—like they were being controlled, but not entirely.
The dark figure on the throne said nothing for a few long, dramatic seconds, probably just to freak everyone out even more.
Then, in a voice that could send shivers down your spine, he finally spoke. "Good... You can go now."
Thanos, ever the obedient eggplant—I mean, Mad Titan—got up quickly, nodding.
"Yes, my lord," he said, clearly relieved to get the hell out of there. The Black Order scrambled to follow, moving as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run.
They weren't about to risk speaking up in front of the shadowy figure; they valued their lives too much for that.
Malekith and Ronan weren't far behind, making their own hasty exits with all the grace of someone trying to leave a haunted house without looking scared.
Once the room was empty, the dark figure leaned back on his throne, muttering to himself, "Should I send Gorr and Hela to invade Earth too?"
As if invading a planet wasn't already a full-blown to-do list, the figure casually mused about adding more destruction to the mix.
Suddenly, a hologram flickered to life in front of him, revealing an unbelievably attractive man with long silver hair and striking silver eyes.
The kind of guy whose face could make people skip heartbeats just by existing.
The man in the hologram glared, his voice dripping with venom. "I will kill you for sure this time…"
"Azatharok,"
{A/N: Who's ready for a cosmic war?
Drop a comment if you want it, or we can wave bye-bye to it like you did to your dad when he said he was getting milk… and never came back. 👀}
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