The sarcasm is strong with this one
I was slowly starting to warm up to this whole ‘being stuck with a megalomaniac metal brain’ business. The whole time I directed Ultron onto a floor further below, so we could creepily sneak up on Klaue by flying up to the window of his box, I was certain that I would have had a shit-eating grin on my face...had I still possessed a face.
Of course, as glass shattered and Klaue crashed onto the cold, unyielding floor and I wasn’t nearly as opposed to all the violence as I should have been, I still had the nagging thought of our upcoming meeting with the Avengers and how I would make sure everyone walked out of it alive.
“There is no man in charge.” Ultron subtly brought me back to the problem at hand: What to do with Ulysses Klaue. The man was lying flat on his back, arms held up in a weak attempt to shield his face from further harm. He was close to hyperventilating and his pupils dilated enough to nearly swallow the whole iris.
‘He’s about to wet his pants, Ultron. Slow down a little, alright?’ I requested.
‘Now why should I do that?’
‘Because he’s of no use to you if he passes out...or has an aneurism.’
‘Humans are such brittle creatures.’
‘Hey, not everyone can be made out of freaking titanium,’ I argued. Ultron hummed in thought before bending down low enough for the robot’s face to almost touch Klaue’s. Gross. I once more was glad that I no longer possessed a nose (and henceforth had become a metal version of Voldemort) and smell whatever layers of dirt the man below us was covered with.
“Let’s talk business,” Ultron growled in a voice a bit lower than usual, apparently still trying to scare the man to death. Back in my little corner of Ultron’s mind, I huffed in exaggeration.
‘Real smooth, Ultron. Let’s see how long you can keep that up before his heart gives in to the stress and you face the consequences of not getting any Vibranium for your oh so glorious plan...’
‘Be quiet. I need to concentrate.’
‘Oh, now I have to be quiet again. But when my thoughts benefit your plans, you’re suddenly all ears...’
Despite Ultron’s continuous attempts of intimidation, Klaue somewhat recovered. He called for the few men that hadn’t fled the building after Wanda’s attack and ordered them to put the power back on. The whole process couldn’t have taken longer than a few minutes, yet it was enough to send Ultron pacing again; quite the human habit he’d picked up from all the camera-feeds he’d taken in through the internet.
Once the power was back on, we stepped onto a large platform that was covered in rust from top to bottom and was the only thing that kept us from a fall, several floors further below. Wanda looked weary of the contraption, something I understood just too well. I hadn’t been all too fond of heights, back when I still consisted out of flesh and blood, too. Her weariness only increased once the industrial elevator that connected to the platform was set in motion and the sound of scraping metal echoed across the entire shipyard. We stood in silence as the elevator moved, carrying pallets loaded with dismantled missiles, bio hazardous chemicals filled into leaking barrels (a wonderful combination, really) past us. Finally a wall covered in large tubes of glass, filled with the precious metal appeared in between all of that hazardous cargo.
“Upon this rock I will build my church,” Ultron whispered almost reverently as Klaue handed him one of the tubes, holding it into room’s dim light.
‘Seriously? You had time to read the bible?’
‘Know thy enemy,’ Ultron retorted. I snorted in a very unladylike fashion.
‘What enemy? Christianity? I think once they see a large robot with glowy eyes and an entire army at his beck and call, people will have more pressing problems than defending their belief.
“Vibranium...” Ultron apparently had switched over to ignoring me again.
“You know,” Klaue began. “This came to me at a great personal cost...” The dramatic effect that Klaue obviously had tried to archive by slowly trailing off and giving Ultron a meaningful look was completely and utterly lost on the tin-man. Ultron remained silent.
‘What is the man talking about?’ Ultron asked me, forcefully pulling me further into the active part of our shared mind as to understand my thoughts more easily. I felt the urge to shrug.
‘He wants to get paid,’ I explained. ‘You know? Money? Preferably American Dollars, I would imagine. Easiest to handle and counterfeit. I once read that the black market basically runs in dollars, almost all around the world, ‘xcept for the Asian countries. Of course in the end, most people don’t care what currency they get when doing illegal stuff like this here. Money’s money, after all.’
‘So, cutting your rant short, he wants payment?’
‘Yup,’ I said, popping the ‘p’ just to irritate my mental roommate some more, ‘If I remember correctly, which I do, you transferred...eh...will transfer it to his bank account’
‘But they are mere numbers inside a system one can control just too easily. Why would anyone put all their wealth into –‘
‘I don’t know! I didn’t invent online banking and sure as hell didn’t invent the internet.’
‘Hm...Very well’
One could easily tell that Klaue was slowly starting to get freaked out. And if a dangerous, lunatic drug lord freaked out in your immediate proximity, then you knew that something was wrong with you. Of course it didn’t help that Ultron started chuckling; a low artificial sound erupting from his voice box.
“It’s worth billions,” Klaue continued, pressing the issue for payment despite his apparent fear of the 8 foot tall robot.
‘Oh for the love of...just pay the man. But don’t take from anyone with a bank account below the six digits.’
‘As you wish.’
I expected to hear a bit of whirring; maybe a dial-up sound like an old modem just to be cynical, yet no such thing happened. Instead, I was pulled alongside Ultron’s thoughts. He dug through countless bank accounts in a split second. What shocked me most wasn’t that Ultron was able to do that but that I was apparently able to follow. Once Ultron found an account with digits above my limit, he stopped. It took me a moment to realise that he was waiting for my approval. Dumbfounded, I gave my permission and Ultron withdrew a certain amount of money. He was smart about the transactions, only taking money from sources that wouldn’t be able to report anything to the administrative authorities. Drug lords, leaders of human trafficking, the list continued on. Ultron had delved deep into the Deep Web to find suitable victims for his hunt and amassed a staggering amount of money within less time than it took for Klaue to make a move to grab back the vial with Vibranium.
“And now, so are you,” Ultron said, his tone dripping with smugness. As much as I wanted to chastise him for it, I had to admit that the robot had done well for once.
Ulysses frowned and opened his mouth, about to ask what the hell Ultron meant with that, for sure, when his phone started to vibrate.
“What the hell,” Klaue mused to himself, his eyebrows rising a tad every time his phone showed a new transaction in favour of his bank account.
“It’s all under your...what is the term?” Ultron asked. I remained silent, wondering what Ultron was up to, when I felt a jolt of electricity urge me into action.
“Dummy holdings?” I more asked than answered, unsure what Ultron was doing. This wasn’t really going as scripted anymore.
“Ah, yes. Finances, so weird,” Ultron mused.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked the artificial intelligence.
‘Planning ahead.’ Ultron didn’t elaborate, leaving me with more questions than before. Apparently, just because Ultron slowly learned to endure my presence, it didn’t mean that he stopped keeping secrets from me wherever he could.
“What was that voice just now?” Klaue asked. Ultron chuckled, swiftly moving into Klaue’s personal space once more just to intimidate him.
“Don’t worry about it. Nothing of importance,” he answered.
‘I resent that!’ I complained.
“Well, anyways. As I always say: Keep your friends rich and your enemies rich and wait to find out which is which.”
‘That didn’t make any sense...also, you never say that,’ I deadpanned and seeing as I didn’t expect a reply, I wasn’t disappointed when Ultron was more focused on what Klaue was implying than my unimportant comments from the sideline.
“Stark,” Ulysses breathed in both awe and terror.
Ultron’s reaction to a single word was quite astonishing. One moment, Ultron was calm and in an excellent mood, having gotten what he’d come for, the next I was trying not to drown in the hot wave of blind anger that flooded Ultron’s senses.
“What?” If I ever heard a single word being uttered holding such a promise of pain and agonising death, I didn’t remember. Apparently, Klaue was in a similar predicament.
“Tony Stark used to say that,” he bravely continued on nevertheless. Brave...or terribly stupid.
“To me. You’re one of his.” Yep, I was definitely betting my money on the latter; though ‘stupid’ didn’t quite cover such a lack of self-preservation anymore.
“WHAT?!” Ultron hissed, his eyes flashing bright enough to illuminate the entire room for a moment. “I’m not! You think I’m one of Stark’s puppets? His hollow men?!” In a flash of movements, Ultron had seized the criminal’s arm, twisting it painfully as he pulled the man closer to him. Out of the corner of Ultron’s consciousness I could see Wanda doing her best to keep both Klaue’s firearm as well as the one of his henchman pointed down onto the ground. Still, it was easy to see that she was scared, terrified of the prospect of dying because of Tony Stark once more, though this time a bit more indirectly than the scenario with the missile.
“Calm down, Ultron. If you rip off that man’s arm because of some fucked up daddy issues that you have, it won’t do your plan of getting more Vibranium any good,” I tried to reason, only to be forcefully pushed back. That didn’t mean that I stayed back, too. Now was not the time to listen to him. Shit was about to hit the fan.
“I mean look at me! Do I look like IRON MAN?!” Ultron yelled, his voice echoing all around the shipyard. If the Avengers
had already arrived, and I strongly assumed that they had, they now knew where to find us.
“Not the time, Ultron! We can attend group-therapy after we get out of here. We all get it now: Ultron no like Iron man. Let him go before he wets himself!”
“Will you just once be quiet?!” Ultron bellowed with a ferocity that had Wanda back off against her brother in sheer terror. I inwardly grimaced. I’d forgotten about the twins’ history with angry superiors. Now they probably had to deal with yet another trauma...
Still, we had more pressing problems at hand; like a severed arm, for example. In his rage, Ultron had pulled a sharp blade from somewhere between all his wires and metal, sharp enough to effortlessly sever Ulysses’ left arm.
Gasping in pain, Klaue stumbled back and Ultron came back to his senses as some part of his peace-maintaining program flared up at the blatant show of violence.
‘Oh, did I do that?’ Ultron apparently had the nerve to ask me. I couldn’t help but I scoff at him.
‘Nooo, Santa did that because he’s been naughty. What do you think, Einstein? You have a freaking blade attached to your arm. Yes, you did that.’
‘But humans certainly regenerate?’
‘Oh, absolutely! Just apologise for the pain he’s in and it’s gonna grow right back. Everything's gonna be just peachy...’ To my eternal misfortune, Ultron temporarily seemed to be immune to any kind of sarcasm.
“I’m sorry, I’m so...oooh. I’m sure that’s going to be okay, I’m sorry.” Ultron appeared to attempt to appease the mutilated criminal in front of him. I attempted to suppress yet another sarcastic snort. Keyword here? Attempted.
Ultron’s attention snapped back to me apparently displeased (and therefore surprised for some reason) at my blatant lack of support. I, once again, felt the urge to shrug at the robot.
“Are you demented?! Seriously, you cut off his freaking arm! That’s not going to grow back, he isn’t Wolverine! Of course, you could always attempt to sew it back on but with your sensitivity equalling the one of a wrecking ball, I doubt that you’ll do more good than rather cause even more harm,” I yelled loud enough for my metallic voice to ricochet off the walls like a bullet.
Ultron hissed, releasing air through clenched teeth. Quite the threatening sound, if one came into the misfortune of hearing it up close. And one didn’t get any closer than I was...sadly.
“If you’d be serious for once, I wouldn’t face the dilemma of wondering which words you mean and which words are just said to hinder me. So I strongly suggest that if you can’t add anything useful for us in this situation right now, you better say nothing at all.”
“Again with that voice! What’s wrong with you?!” Klaue yelled, breathing hard in an attempt to ease the pain.
“I’m sorry. Apparently, your arm will not be fine. A crying shame, really. It was a good arm. But you have to understand that you can’t compare me with Stark!” Ultron’s voice once more rose, as did his anger within him.
‘Calm down! If you’re going to hurt him any more than you already have, the twins aren’t going to stay with you, you know?!’ I tried to address his voice of reason, however small it was right now, ‘You think they want to fight for a crazy robot that would hurt them, in a similar fashion as Stark has, without a second thought? Let him go. He’s scared enough, he won’t cross your path again.’
Ultron remained silent and unmoving for a second, a sign that Klaue and his partner in crime took to bail. I heard them yelling and racing down the stairs as fast as their legs would carry them.
“It’s just...,” Ultron continued on, despite the offender having left the building. “It’s a thing with me. Stark is, he’s a sickness!”
“Oh junior,” a new voice sighed, sounding eerily familiar, just as metallic as Ultron’s and making everyone in the room freeze. Tony Stark had arrived at the crime scene. “You’re gonna break your old man’s heart.”
Ultron’s entire demeanour changed in seconds. He rose to his full intimidating height, hid the deadly blade wherever he’d gotten it from and turned partially towards Tony; just enough to see whatever was going on in Tony’s direction, yet not enough to provide the Avengers with an easy target.
Tony sighed once more, started to turn away before he suddenly homed in on Ultron again, pointing at the robot for good measure.
“Hey, kiddo. You still in there?” I blinked in surprise, feeling the robotic body following my movement.
“I’m ‘kiddo’ now?” I asked.
“Good, good! I already feared that Thor did some damage back in the tower. Did his hit surprise you?” Tony asked and although his tone was joking, there was a clear hint of challenge in it to tick off Ultron just a tad more.
“Oh, I was thunderstruck,” I quipped. A groan coming from Steve filled the air. Apparently Captain America did not appreciate the art of terrible puns.
“I like her!” Tony declared. “I’d toast to that, if I’d brought my drink.”
“Do you really think this is the time for bad jokes?” Steve reprimanded Tony sharply. The Iron Man Suit shrugged.
“Why not? It’s a great way for us to break the ice,” the billionaire retorted.
“If I have to, I’ll gladly break more than that,” Ultron interrupted.
“You don’t have to break anything,” Thor attempted to reason.
“Clearly you’ve never made an omelette.”
‘May I remind you: Neither have you. But just for you general information: You sounded a lot like Tony right now.’
‘I did not!’
“He beat me by one second.” Tony’s complaint echoed through the silence between Ultron and me and, if I had been able to, a smug smirk would have been plastered across my face.
“Told you so.”
“Shut up before I rid myself of you.”
“I second that notion!” Tony interrupted. “It would make things a hell of a lot easier. You know we had a debate about you, kiddo. There was enough talk about righteousness that I think I saw the walls start to look like Cap’s armour.”
“Why?” I asked. Tony’s metal suit shrugged. Oh, the envy I felt.
“Well I suppose because righteousness is what defines –“
“No, you numb nut,” I interrupted. “Why did you talk about me?”
“Because you are innocent,” Thor declared in his ‘too mighty and powerful for you’ voice. “And the innocent should not suffer the consequences of ill intent.”
“Wait a second; was I the only one who just heard that? The only one who resents that comment?” Tony asked, turning to this fellow teammates. Teammates that did him the favour of entirely ignoring him.
“Well, anyways, that’s nice and all,” I argued, silently wondering why Ultron was so patient with my talking right now when seconds before he’d been seething at me. “But shouldn’t one casualty be more attractive than tons of them? I mean should Ultron see his plans through to destroy humanity? ‘Cause I –“
“I believe you’ve had enough time to chat,” Ultron interrupted, pushing me back where I had no hope of reaching them again for now.
“And we were having such a nice talk...Alright; I suppose that means back to family feud.”
“Ah, this is funny, Mr. Stark,” a new voice pitched into the conversation and my heart sank; a heart that I no longer had. Oh, who paid attention to technicalities?
“It’s what, comfortable? Like old times?”
The voice belonged to Pietro and with that said, the twins entered the scene. My attempt to move into the front of my shared consciousness to tell them to stay out of it was rudely squashed by Ultron sending a wave of electricity at me. By the time this whole thing was over, I probably would give people electric shocks for months.
“This was never my life,” Tony mused, not entirely sticking to the truth, yet certainly remorseful.
“You can still walk away from this!” It was Steve Rogers this time who had spoken. Whilst Pietro grimaced, it was Wanda this time that answered.
“Oh, we will.”
“I know you’ve suffered –“
A seriously grossed out sound came from Ultron, making me jump. Since when was he the master of sarcasm? Sass, maybe. But Sarcasm?
“Captain America. God’s righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can’t physically throw up in my mouth but –“
Maybe my sarcasm was rubbing off on Ultron more than I’d thought.
“If you believe in peace, then let us keep it,” Thor argued.
“I think you’re confusing peace with quiet.”
“Yea, uhu. That’s really nice and all that but say, what’s the Vibranium for?” Tony apparently had finally addressed the elephant in the room.
“I’m glad you asked because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan...”
Yes, I was definitely rubbing off on the guy. It was kinda disturbing. However we never got to hear his elaborate talk about evil plans and Bond-references, when Tony shot Ultron.
The calm before the storm had passed and the tornado of destruction touched ground.
Ultron recovered quickly from the grazing shot, sending back an angry red laser-beam back, hitting the Iron Man suit full force and sending him crashing into the wall behind. I winced as I saw the imprint the suit had made in the enforced metal walls of the shipyard.
The group of both Avengers and the twins moved out of the way as Tony once more stood and then charged. Tony and Ultron collided midway in a tangle of metallic limbs and deadly rays. I felt Ultron give the unspoken word for his robots to keep the remaining Avengers busy whilst he dealt with Tony himself.
Had I still possessed fingernails to chew, they’d be gone within moments. I hissed and snarled like a rabid animal against its cage as I tried to hinder Ultron in some way. I saw the twins begin their own fights as Pietro disappeared in a flash of white and blue and Wanda’s hands began glowing red.
“Wanda!” I bellowed, surprising both her and myself as my voice actually got through. I saw her shoulders drop as she shook her head and then she was gone as well. To add insult to injury, gunshots filled the air moments after the first robots hit the ground, destroyed and smoking.
“Ulysses,” I breathed as I realised who’d sent the bullets after both Ultron and the Avengers.
“What now?” Ultron asked as he sent Tony flying through a window pane, “Can’t you see I’m a little busy right now?”
“Klaue is attacking. Everyone, I mean. You want him to have the honour of stealing your kill? Or whatever fucked up plan you’ve cooked up?”
“A weak attempt, even for you. If the Avengers can be brought down by a few scared men with guns, then they are not worth my time.” Then Tony was back and the fight continued before I could remind him that Wanda was also in danger to be shot.
The downside to being merged with someone’s consciousness, despite the obvious reasons and the terribly lack of privacy, is that you feel what they feel. So whenever Ultron got shot, beaten, stabbed or whatnot, I shared that pain. Why were there even sensors for pain in this robot in the first place? So they could detect whenever he took too much damage? Damn, that one actually sounded reasonable...
I heard Pietro cry out in pain and focused back on the dilemma at hand. He had, in a fit of absolute stupidity, grabbed hold of Thor’s hammer and it carried him with it, sending him tumbling one floor further down.
“Sorry, kiddo,” I heard Tony speak up. “This one’s gonna hurt.”
And then, we were flying. Some part of Ultron’s topmost shell broke off as he made a break for a narrow opening in the ceiling. Underneath I saw the ship that we’d climbed into to find Klaue, but I had not realised that the tide had set in and we’d left the shipyard at any point. It hadn’t happened in the movie, as far as I remembered, so I was honestly surprised that I had not noticed the ship leaving the coast...But then again with Ultron in charge, I did not feel most movement. Still, I at least should have heard something, right?
I shrieked; harshly brought back to the present when I felt Ultron leave me for a moment, the body’s flight slowing down dramatically.
“Shitshitshitshit,” I elaborately cursed as I attempted to fly this thing myself...with mild success.
“What’s going on?” Tony shouted as he watched Ultron’s body spasm through the air.
“Hey, a bit of help would be nice!”
“Did you take over?” Tony asked in astonishment. I scoffed.
“Hardly. He just left for a moment. Hopefully he will be back before I sink this thing...”
“He can do that?”
“Yea, sometimes. He’s still here...just not active.”
“Did you miss me?”
“Did you just quote Moriarty?!”
“Now, where were we? Ah yes...”
Ultron punched Tony with such a force that he plummeted out of the sky, only catching himself before he could crash into the ship. They continued flying, trying to outmanoeuvre each other before more missiles and lasers filled the air. They reached the beach within minutes, dodging each other by flying through narrow gaps of stranded ships scattered across the sand, long abandoned.
Every now and then I felt Ultron leave for a second and then return. I hoped that everything went according to the original script and that nobody got hurt. Neither did I need one of the Avengers dying, nor the twins. I’d grown rather fond of them and would hate for more to happen than the electroshock Wanda undoubtedly was experiencing right now.
Suddenly, there was pain as a large blast hit Ultron dead on, sending us crashing into the bow of a ship’s sad remnants.
“Ah, the Vibranium’s getting away,” Ultron boasted triumphantly, yet with the clear intent to distract Tony. Sadly for him,
it didn’t work. The wrist of the Iron Man Suit opened and revealed a tiny missile that I knew would bring an end to this robot. Not Ultron’s mind itself, and therefore luckily not me, but the surprisingly comfortable shell that we inhabited.
“And you’re not going anywhere.” Ultron laughed at that.
“Of course not. I’m already there. Don’t worry, you’ll catch on...but first, you might need to catch Dr. Banner.”
Ultron had hit a sore spot with that remark. If one thing Tony cared about, then it was his friends. And Ultron, just like Loki before him, had managed to piss off every single one of them; Tony especially. The last thing I saw, here on the beach, was Tony zooming back into the sky before a missile brought this robot to a swift end, scattering its pieces into the wind.
