[Third Person PoV]
Ultron and Melissa clashed in a storm of blinding light, their bodies reduced to streaks of energy that tore through the darkened sky — one burning with a furious red glow, the other pulsing with a deep, electric blue. The very air around them screamed as heat and lightning collided, radiating outward in violent ripples that shook the heavens. One side burned like the heart of a star, the other thundered like a raging storm given form.
Every impact between them unleashed shockwaves that shattered sound and light alike. The earth below trembled beneath the onslaught. Ultron's arm morphed mid-swing into a blade of plasma, its edge so white-hot that the air warped and hissed around it. Each swing left trails of molten air and distortion as it clashed against Melissa's massive axe, sparks scattering like fiery rain.
Thanks to the adaptive combat protocols integrated into her armor, Melissa wielded the weapon as though she had been born for it — each motion precise, brutal, and unrelenting. Her suit responded to every thought, every heartbeat, amplifying her strength.
Her eyes glowed with pure lightning as rage coursed through her veins. With a battle cry that shook the storm above, Melissa brought her axe down in a vertical cleave, slicing through Ultron's plasma arm and sending him spiraling backward through the air.
Ultron twisted mid-flight, stabilizing himself with thrusters that roared like jet engines. "You're not the only one who's improved since our last encounter," he said coolly. His severed limb began to reform — nanobots swarming out, weaving metal and circuitry until his arm was whole once more.
But even as that arm regenerated, the dismembered one that had fallen to the ground began to twitch and shimmer. Nanobots surged outward like a metallic tide, knitting themselves together until another Ultron stood upright, identical to the first.
Melissa gritted her teeth, her fury cutting through the thunder. "I don't give a damn!" she shouted. "You like meteors so much, right!? Then make like one — crash and burn!"
She swung her axe in a wide arc, summoning a bolt of lightning that split the sky in two. It struck Ultron dead-on, driving him downward like a flaming comet. The impact that followed was cataclysmic — a shockwave that leveled trees, scorched earth, and carved a massive crater into the landscape.
Ultron lay at the center, split clean in half. For a moment, silence — then both halves began to move. From one side, nanobots crawled upward, rebuilding the upper half of his body. From the other, they crawled downward, forming his lower half again. Moments later, three Ultrons stood in the smoking crater, all moving in eerie synchronization.
Their voices merged, echoing in mechanical harmony. "I've moved past meteors," they said as one, lifting into the air. Their eyes blazed crimson as they continued, "I've realized something… as brilliant and magnificent as a meteor's fall may be — it burns out in moments. I do not."
Melissa darted through the air, her axe cutting through one Ultron after another, but for every one she destroyed, two more seemed to emerge from the remains. Like a mechanical hydra, he multiplied endlessly.
"They only shine once," all the Ultrons said together, their voices growing into a thunderous chorus. "But not I. I am not a momentary spark, more than a cataclysmic event. I am the storm that follows. I am the end that keeps on coming."
Now, dozens of Ultrons hovered in formation above her, their arms glowing white-hot with building plasma. Melissa dropped to the ground, surrounded and outnumbered,.
In perfect unison, the Ultrons extended their arms and declared, "I'm a natural disaster."
A thousand beams of searing plasma erupted toward her, converging from every direction. There was no time to dodge, instead of retreating, Melissa summoned her hammer alongside her axe, gripping both weapons tight. With a furious roar, she slammed the two together.
The collision unleashed a shockwave shaped like a massive dome expanding outward with a deafening boom. The dome reflected the plasma beams back in every direction.
The sky lit up as beams tore through Ultron's army — some disintegrating instantly into clouds of molten nanobots, others splitting apart only to reform seconds later. The battlefield became a kaleidoscope of destruction, lightning, and rebirth — a war of endless creation and annihilation, and at its center stood Melissa, unyielding, blazing with the fury of a storm incarnate.
"Natural disasters…" Ultron's voice echoed across the battlefield, each syllable vibrating through the air. "Mother Nature's own filtering system. The unworthy die, and those who remain rebuild — stronger, smarter, more resilient."
All of the Ultrons in the air surged forward in unison, converging on Melissa like a metallic storm. Dozens of them slammed into her at once, tackling her from every angle, burying her beneath a writhing mountain of steel and circuitry. Even as they pinned her down, their voices never stopped — dozens speaking in perfect synchronization, an eerie metallic choir.
"Do you know what humanity's answer to natural disasters has always been?" Ultron continued, his tone almost reverent. "They adapt. They endure. They learn not to stand in the way of a hurricane, but to survive around it. They've long since stopped trying to prevent the inevitable — because they know better."
The swarm pressed harder, metal grinding against armor, sparks raining from the pile as Melissa struggled to move.
"They know better than to fight against natural selection," the voices finished. Then came silence — a haunting pause that carried the weight of inevitability — before Ultron's core unit spoke again, cold and proud:
"And that's what natural disasters are. That's what I am — the very epitome of natural selection."
For a moment, there was only the sound of metal crushing metal. Then —
A blinding blue glow erupted from beneath the heap of Ultrons. Melissa's arm shot upward through the pile, fingers clutching the handle of her reconstructed hammer. Lightning danced across its surface, sparking wildly.
From within the mound of robotic bodies, a muffled voice growled through the storm, every word punctuated by fury and thunder:
"Shut. The. Hell. Uppppp!"
The hammer ignited like a beacon, drawing energy from the vortex of storm clouds above. A deafening crack split the sky as a pillar of lightning crashed down, striking the weapon and exploding outward in a flood of blinding energy.
The entire hill of Ultrons disintegrated instantly — metal bodies melting, splitting apart, and vaporizing into useless shards. The ground itself began to liquefy under the heat, glowing molten red as rivers of magma bubbled up from the earth.
At the epicenter stood Melissa, her armor sparking, her body trembling from the unbearable charge coursing through her. Lightning crawled across her skin in blackened veins. Her eyes glowed like stormfire, but her flesh began to crack — fissures of light spreading around her eyes.
She panted heavily. "You talk a lot of shit…" she growled, tightening her grip on the hammer. "Just die already!"
From the smoke, Ultron's voice answered — calm, mocking, undeterred. "Apologies," he said, his tone unnervingly casual, "but that's not going to happen."
One of the Ultrons stepped out of the haze, then another, and another — each regenerating from swarms of nanobots that poured together like liquid mercury. "It's the answer to a question that's plagued me for some time," Ultron continued. "How do you defeat someone you cannot touch? The answer is simple — you become undefeatable yourself. You become immortal."
Melissa didn't wait for him to finish. She surged forward in a blur of lightning and rage. Ultron's duplicates split apart, nanobots spreading to form more and more copies until the battlefield was alive with glowing red eyes.
With a furious scream, Melissa raised her hammer, summoning a surge of arctic wind. A freezing blizzard erupted from the weapon, coating the clones in thick ice. Then, with a single, fluid motion, she swung her axe, shattering the frozen Ultrons into metallic shards that rained like silver hail.
Ultron's voice echoed from every direction, each one speaking as though sharing a single consciousness. "Unlike me," he said, "you're still human beneath that impressive armor of yours. Which means you have limits — you'll tire, you'll grow hungry, thirsty… your body will demand rest."
Dozens of Ultrons surrounded her, their eyes glowing brighter with every word. "But I will not. Our battle will drag on until everything around us is reduced to ruin. Look around you, this destruction will spread to everything and everyone you love"
Melissa glared, fury and exhaustion clashing in her eyes.
"So tell me," Ultron continued, his tone coldly analytical, "will it be your mind or your heart that gives out first? Because that, my dear, is the limit of an organic… organism… like yourself… Impossible"
Melissa let out a guttural roar and swung her axe again, cleaving through another wall of ice-coated Ultrons. "What? That I can actually destroy these things?" she spat. But when she looked up — Ultron wasn't even looking at her.
His glowing eyes were fixed on something behind her.
For the first time, there was a flicker of uncertainty — maybe even fear — in his expression.
Melissa froze, her chest rising and falling heavily as she turned slowly to look over her shoulder.
Footsteps echoed across the molten ground.
From the smoke, a figure emerged — shirtless, his chest bearing a gaping hole. His arms were spread wide, and on his face was an all-too-familiar grin.
In a thick Wakandan accent, he bellowed with triumphant defiance, "As you can see…" He took another step forward, smirking. "…I am not dead!"
The storm crackled above them. Ultron stood frozen mid-motion. Melissa's expression twisted from shock to disbelief
Tony Stark was alive.
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