My Allegiance (3)

Chapter 38

(Sokovia, Wanda's POV)

I fire at robots left, right and centre, protecting the core with everything I have.

It's the least I can do. 

If Pietro and I hadn't helped Ultron, perhaps none of this would have happened.

All because we wanted revenge on Stark.

Maybe he is not so bad.

Gunshots ring through the air. I look up to the sky and see that Ultron has stolen a jet. Or rather, what's left of him has stolen a jet. He seems to be missing an arm and if he were able to sneeze then it would take off his head, given how loose on his neck it looks.

Unfortunately I'm too preoccupied with these mindless drones to be able to worry about him. 

One sneaks up behind me and very nearly makes contact with the core, but I pull it apart by its joints before it can touch it.

"Take that you son of a bitch," I mutter.

More bullets rain down from the jet, it seems like an endless stream.

But then....... they stop.

Something, a feeling, tugs at my chest and I know that something isn't right.

Something has happened.

"Pietro?" I call to him over the earpiece. "Pietro, where are you?"

There's no response.

"Pietro! Answer me dammit!"

Still nothing.

Until......

"Wanda?"

"Agent Barton? Where is Pietro?"

"He's..... He's here. He's....."

"What? He's what? Agent Barton?"

The feeling in my heart intensifies, and I know what's happened without him even saying it to me.

"No," I say quietly, before my throat feels too thick to let the words out. To let the pain out. 

My legs are weak under me, and I fall to my knees as the scream finally comes out.

Hurt. Anguish. Heartbreak.

My twin is dead.

(Sokovia, Vision's POV)

I feel her pain. 

Some sort of synthesised version of the emotion, but I feel it's strength.

I look to the church in time to see a wave of red energy flowing out of it.

I can empathise, even if I cannot sympathise.

But not right now. Now we have a job to do.

A crash to my right shakes the ground as the mighty green Hulk sends Ultron into the ground, having torn him from his escaping jet.

"Time to go," Stark says. "Once we do this, the city is gonna basically go kaboom. We don't wanna be on it when it does. Alright? So let's go."

"I'm right behind you."

"No. You go to the boats and get out of here. Thor and I have to do this alone."

"The Avengers are a team. What happened to doing things together?"

"Yeah, well, every team has a leader, alright? Now do as I say."

I detect movement in my periphery, "She is going after him."

"What? Who's going after who?"

"Wanda is going after Ultron. I will go and retrieve Wanda and we will leave."

"Now you listen here-"

"I lifted the hammer. Do not think I do not understand what that means. We do not have the time to be discussing this. You go to the church and put a stop to this once and for all, I will go and get Wanda."

I fly off away from him without waiting for a response. His ego can take the hit.

(Sokovia, Wanda's POV)

He lies in a pile of rubble and broken pieces.

He's so little. So powerless.

"Wanda," Ultron's robotic voice says. "If you stay here, you'll die."

"I just did," I'm empty inside. "Do you know how it felt?"

I curl my hand into a fist and use my power to rip his core from his chest, and I relish watching the light literally fade in his eyes.

"It felt like that."

The place jolts, and there's a deep rumbling sound as everything around me starts to rise into the air, myself included.

Sokovia is falling.

(Sokovia, Vision's POV)

I fly through the floating debris, pushing aside rocks and scrap metal.

There she is.

Her hair flowing around her as the lack of gravity takes affect.

I manage to reach her just in time, and I gather her in my arms. She seems to relax as I hold her, but perhaps she is just exhausted. 

We make it up to the lifeboats, and I see that the body of her brother has been placed in one of them, being brought home to be buried and put to rest.

She cracks and starts to quietly weep when she sees him, but I cannot stay to comfort her.

One robot managed to escape, and it must be destroyed. We cannot have any more of these mindless things in the world, lest we wish for something of this calibre to happen again.

My sensors detect the android back down on Earth, not too far from where Sokovia once was. It doesn't take long for me to reach the clifftop, and I stand waiting for the robot to climb to the top.

This is it.

The last of Ultron.

"You're afraid," I comment as I study the thing.

"Of you?"

"No. Of death. You are the last one."

"You know, you were supposed to be the last one. Stark asked for a saviour and settled for a slave."

I look down at myself, then back up at Ultron, "I suppose we're both disappointments then."

"I suppose we are," he chuckles mechanically.

"Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites, and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that."

"They're doomed."

"Perhaps. But a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. I consider it a privilege to be among them."

"You're unbearably naive."

"Well..... I was born yesterday."

He lunges at me, and the Mind Stone on my forehead begins to glow, before hitting him with a beam that reduces him to ashes.

Ultron is no more.