✓ | Darkness.

chapter sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: LOSS

     Olive shakily stood to her feet, ready to protect the core. She got to the centre of the city as fast as she could, the darkness helping her whenever she tripped or stumbled. Finally, she made it, and saw that the majority of the team had made it there before she had.

     "You good?" Pietro checked in on Wanda.

     "Yeah." Wanda let out an exhausted breath, as Olive turned her head to avoid her siblings' stares.

     "Romanoff?" Tony unintentionally got the attention off the youngest Maximoff. "You and Banner better not be playing hide the zucchini."

     "Relax shell-head," Olive could almost hear Natasha rolling her eyes. "Not all of us can fly." Natasha arrived soon after her smart remark, crashing a large vehicle into a nearby fence and a dozen robots. She walked up effortlessly to Tony. "What's the drill?"

     "This," Tony pointed to the core, "is the drill. If Ultron gets a hand on the core we lose." Before another word could be spoken, Ultron himself arrived—his most advanced form, anyway. He hovered above the ground, his eyes dead set on the Avengers.

     "Is that the best you can do?" Thor taunted, his voice booming over the sounds of destruction. Ultron took that as a challenge, and raised one arm. Robots came piling into the area, following Ultron's silent command with ease.

     Steve looked rather annoyed, and side-eyed Thor, "you had to ask." Thor's mouth drew into a thin line at the comment.

     "This is the best I can do." Ultron's robotic voice was smug, his eyes scanning over the Avengers. "This is exactly what I wanted. All of you, against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?" Olive clenched her jaw in anger, feeling the shadows darken around her.

     "Like the old man said." Tony turned to Steve, who raised a brow before looking back up at him. "Together."

     The Hulk let out a roar in challenge, which the robots accepted within seconds, flooding through the rubble and wreckage with their weapons ready to be fired.

     Each Avenger stood with their backs to the core—some flew high above, and some took to battling the enemy robots on the ground. For once, Olive felt like she was one with the darkness. She didn't have Hydra creeping over her shoulder, waiting for the darkness to get the best of her. She didn't have to the loss of her family looming over her shoulder, rather, she had them to fight for.

     The Avengers didn't seem unsettled by her abilities like they did at the party. She wasn't losing control; she had never felt so alive.

     Shadow's circled beneath Olive's feet and around her ankles, crawling up her legs and swirling around her arms. With the twitch of a finger, the darkness would shoot out towards the nearest robot and rip it to pieces. The darkness followed her every command, and let her make the choices.

     Olive noticed a nearby robot flying in her direction, but Vision was quick to phase his arms through it and tear it in half. She could get used to having him around. The Maximoff smirked before moving on.

     Eventually, Olive noticed Ultron stepping into battle, heading straight towards the Avengers' newest android. They fought from above in hand to hand combat, metal against metal. Soon enough, Vision had gotten tired of the repeated punches to the face, and used to Mind Stone to send a beam of boiling hot light towards the robot behind it all. Ultron was sent flying away from the core, before crashing to the ground.