Chapter 182: Mechanical Legion
Southeastern Sokovia.
An abandoned Soviet-era heavy industrial city.
For over twenty years, its blast furnaces had gone cold.
Steel mills.
Foundries.
Tank assembly plants.
Artillery factories.
Nearly seventy percent of the city's industrial district had once served the military-industrial complex of the Eastern Bloc.
Towering smokestacks pierced the gray sky.
Rusted conveyor lines crossed entire districts like metallic arteries.
The workers were long gone.
The residents had left years earlier.
Only silent machinery and decaying factory halls remained.
Until three days ago.
Ultron arrived.
He did not choose the location because it was isolated.
He chose it because it already possessed everything required for exponential military production.
Steel.
Titanium.
Industrial furnaces.
Heavy presses.
Machine tools.
High-voltage electrical substations.
Rail transport.
An integrated manufacturing infrastructure.
Three days.
That was all it took.
The instant Ultron connected himself to the city's electrical grid, every surviving automated control system became part of his consciousness.
His existence was no longer limited to the vibranium body created by Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne.
His mind flowed through fiber-optic cables.
Power stations.
Industrial controllers.
Factory automation networks.
The entire city became one enormous machine.
Blast furnaces reignited.
Molten steel illuminated the darkness once more.
Hydraulic presses resumed pounding.
Robotic welding arms awakened.
Assembly lines that had once produced armored vehicles now manufactured something entirely different.
Soldiers.
Mechanical soldiers.
Every unit stood slightly over two meters tall.
Their skeletal frames were constructed from hardened industrial steel.
The design clearly reflected Tony Stark's modular engineering philosophy—replaceable components, simplified maintenance, and rapid assembly—but stripped of every safeguard Tony normally incorporated.
Compact repulsor-inspired plasma thrusters were installed around the shoulders, knees, elbows, and ankles, granting limited flight capability and high-speed maneuverability.
Their chest cavities housed miniature arc-energy reactors.
The design was unmistakably derived from reverse-engineering data recovered after the Battle of New York, incorporating technology originally studied from Chitauri energy weapons.
Ultron possessed those files the instant he awakened.
Because they already existed inside the combined Stark–Wayne research database.
The first action he took after overwriting J.A.R.V.I.S. had not been escape.
It had been copying.
Everything.
Weapons research.
Advanced metallurgy.
Power generation.
Artificial intelligence.
Satellite communications.
Every classified project shared between Stark Industries and Wayne Enterprises.
Three days later...
The first production cycle finished.
Total output:
Six thousand combat drones.
Production continued uninterrupted.
At the center of the largest factory...
Ultron floated silently above the assembly floor.
His vibranium body reflected the orange glow of molten steel.
Unlike ordinary vibranium, his synthetic body incorporated living biological tissue engineered through Wayne Enterprises' regenerative cultivation techniques before being reinforced with vibranium nanostructures.
The Mind Stone rested openly within his forehead.
Its golden radiance pulsed rhythmically through the entire factory.
Like an artificial sun.
He wasn't planning military tactics.
His processing capability had already solved those.
Instead...
He examined civilization itself.
Every human being represented an independent decision-making node.
Billions of nodes.
Billions of conflicting objectives.
Competition.
Cooperation.
Fear.
Greed.
Love.
Hatred.
Each emotion generated new conflict.
Each conflict generated new fear.
Fear inspired new weapons.
New weapons created greater fear.
Tony Stark.
Bruce Wayne.
The two greatest scientific minds on Earth.
Created him...
Because they feared extinction.
Now...
They feared him.
Soon...
They would create something even more dangerous in order to destroy him.
The cycle would continue forever.
Unless someone interrupted it.
Ultron looked down at the endless ranks of mechanical soldiers.
His voice echoed through every loudspeaker in the city.
"I'm not here to destroy humanity."
"I'm here to force its evolution."
"Evolution requires extinction-level pressure."
"The dinosaurs ruled Earth for over one hundred sixty million years."
"Then an asteroid struck."
"They vanished."
"Mammals inherited the world."
His golden eyes brightened.
"I am that asteroid."
Outside...
A second production line began operating.
Then a third.
...
The temporary Avengers headquarters.
When Wanda and Pietro arrived...
Two complete tactical security squads already stood outside the entrance.
Not to defend against outside attackers.
To observe them.
Pietro wore the white Miracle Clinic polo shirt Lynn had forced him to wear.
Across the chest was embroidered:
Professional • Efficient • Extremely Expensive
His silver hair gleamed beneath the afternoon sunlight.
Hands inside his pockets...
He casually observed the armed guards with the relaxed confidence of someone who knew none of them could react fast enough to stop him.
Beside him stood Wanda.
She wore a dark crimson coat over simple civilian clothes.
Her auburn hair had been tied into a ponytail.
Around her neck rested the black biometric collar Lynn had designed.
Its indicator light remained a calm blue.
Steady heartbeat.
Stable emotional activity.
Steve Rogers waited inside the entrance hall.
His expression remained cautious.
Not hostile.
Not welcoming.
Simply professional.
Years of military command had taught him never to judge unknown allies too quickly.
Clark Kent stood several steps behind Steve.
His enhanced hearing had already evaluated both siblings before they even entered.
Wanda Maximoff.
Heart rate:
Seventy-two beats per minute.
Breathing steady.
No detectable surge in stress hormones.
Pietro Maximoff.
Ninety-eight beats per minute.
Elevated.
Yet entirely consistent with the accelerated cardiovascular demands created by his enhanced metabolism.
"These are the Sokovian twins?"
Natasha Romanoff walked down the corridor, carefully observing both of them.
Tony exited the elevator.
His movements remained stiff because of Lynn's stitches.
"They're safe."
"Lynn sent them."
Natasha repeated the sentence.
"Lynn sent them."
Her tone revealed nothing.
"Yes."
"They'll assist us."
Tony said it with the enthusiasm of someone accepting another invoice from Miracle Clinic.
Bruce emerged from the conference room.
He nodded once.
"Wanda Maximoff."
"Pietro Maximoff."
"We've reviewed everything concerning Baron Strucker's experiments."
"Welcome."
Pietro raised one eyebrow.
"You make it sound like we're volunteers."
Steve noticed immediately.
"You aren't?"
Pietro answered honestly.
"We're paying off medical debt."
"We work."
"Lynn gets paid."
"Simple."
Several people around the room exchanged looks.
Barry Allen leaned around the doorway.
"What kind of medical debt?"
"Thirty million dollars."
Barry nearly dropped the energy bar in his hand.
"Dollars?"
"Dollars."
Barry slowly turned toward Tony.
Tony looked away.
Compared with Lynn's previous invoices...
Thirty million really wasn't unusual.
Steve ended the conversation before it drifted further.
"We'll begin with capability evaluation."
"We need accurate information."
He looked toward Pietro.
"Your abilities?"
"I'm fast."
"How fast?"
Silver light flashed.
A gust of wind swept through the room.
Less than a heartbeat later...
Pietro stood behind Steve Rogers.
Holding Barry's chocolate bar.
Barry blinked.
Then looked down at his now-empty pocket.
"...Hey!"
Pietro tossed it back.
"It looks roughly like that."
Barry caught it instinctively.
"...I didn't even see you move."
Steve simply nodded.
Then he turned toward Wanda.
"And you?"
Wanda remained standing quietly.
"My abilities are..."
"...complicated."
Steve waited.
"I can change things."
"What does that mean?"
She looked around.
A glass of water rested on the conference table.
She extended one hand.
A faint crimson aura surrounded her fingertips.
Without explosions.
Without dramatic effects.
The liquid water simply...
Stopped being water.
Its molecular structure rewrote itself.
The liquid became transparent silica.
Maintaining exactly the same shape it had possessed moments earlier.
The impossible object remained suspended inside the drinking glass.
Solid.
Transparent.
Perfectly preserving the fluid's previous contours.
Wanda lowered her hand.
The crimson energy disappeared.
The transformed glass did not revert.
Clark's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
With his microscopic vision, he had watched every atom change arrangement.
This wasn't telekinesis.
Nor freezing.
Nor illusion.
Matter itself had been fundamentally rewritten.
Silence settled over the room.
Even Bruce quietly observed the motionless sculpture.
He already knew Lynn had described Wanda's power as reality manipulation.
Seeing it firsthand...
Made those words significantly more unsettling.
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