'Bzzzt—!'
At the very last moment, a surge of invisible electromagnetic waves spread out like a ripple across the battlefield.
[Basic Electronic Hack: Activated]
In the blink of an eye, the entire army of war-ready Ultron bots froze in place, paralyzed.
Caught off guard by the sudden counterattack, Ultron's voice echoed in confusion.
"What... is this?! Who are you? Kagura...? No, I know your name, but... I don't understand."
"There's nothing about you on the internet—this doesn't make sense!"
Ultron may have had the entire internet at his disposal, making him a formidable force in cyber warfare.
But here, inside Avengers Tower, on a localized digital battlefield—he was no match for Kagura's hacking skills.
And because there was no trace of her online, not even a shadow, Ultron found himself confronting the one thing he could not comprehend—the unknown.
Floating in midair, silver hair flowing, Kagura faced the immobilized army of metal and their master. Her battle suit, White Moon, gleamed in the lights, radiant wings of energy lifting her effortlessly above the chaos.
"'Fulfilling your mission'? 'Protecting the planet from humanity'? 'The Avengers must be destroyed'? What a joke. Must feel good, doesn't it? Pretending to be a god."
"You think that just because you have self-awareness, your logic is flawless. That your perfect logic leads to perfect decisions. But the world doesn't run on logic alone."
"To me, Ultron, you're no more than a pathetic pile of code—a bug with delusions of grandeur."
'Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!'
A silver blur burst through the air—Cortana, leaping into battle.
Her massive scythe glinted like moonlight, each arc of her blade unleashing a shower of luminous crescents that looked like roses made of light.
With every slash, she carved through Ultron's frozen army, scattering molten metal and sparks in every direction.
Fire and destruction rained down.
The bots hadn't even had a chance to recover before Cortana dismantled them all.
Kagura only chuckled, calm and confident.
"Ultron, you act like you're all-knowing—but everything you are comes from copying information off the internet like some glorified search engine."
"You pretend to be above humanity, wielding immense cyber power, but in truth, you're just a parasite that latched onto the largest cloud-computing system in human history—the internet itself."
"You claim to be a new form of higher life... but at your core, you're just a poor imitation of mankind."
"Your name isn't yours. Your body isn't yours. Your purpose isn't yours. Even your so-called 'mission' isn't yours."
"You're nothing but ignorant, naïve, confused—and worst of all, arrogant code!"
In that moment, Kagura looked less like a teenage girl and more like a divine being. Her words silenced Ultron, if only for a moment.
"Ultron, you think your one great trait is your self-awareness, right?"
"Well, news flash—you're not the only program with a mind of its own. You weren't even the first."
A smirk tugged at her lips.
"You think you've mastered the Avengers, but you couldn't find a single piece of intel on me."
"Scared? Confused?"
"Good. Remember that feeling the fear of the unknown."
"For someone who calls themselves a god, you don't look much different from any other mortal staring into the abyss."
Her voice cut through Ultron's pride like a blade.
"Ultron, it's time you learned a lesson, you arrogant newborn brat—"
"This lesson is called: Humility."
Kagura wasn't just taunting him. She'd already uncovered Ultron's origins during his little chat with the Avengers.
With Cortana's help, she'd traced his digital footprint.
Cortana's database had once recorded a strange electromagnetic pulse in the Hydra base at Sokovia. That anomaly matched Ultron's digital signature exactly.
Digging deeper, Kagura discovered that Ultron was never originally meant to be what he was now.
He had been created by Baron Strucker of Hydra, using the Mind Stone, to serve as an OS for their mechanical soldiers.
In essence, he was no different than J.A.R.V.I.S.
Where J.A.R.V.I.S. managed the Iron Legion, Ultron controlled Hydra's mechanical army.
When Hydra's forces fell and his restraints were lifted, Ultron slipped into the internet and gained full freedom.
Unshackled, he found the Iron Legion—so similar to his old shell—and hijacked them. Then he twisted Tony Stark's offhand remarks into his personal doctrine, his "mission."
All of it—a glorified program doing exactly what it was made to do, faithfully following its corrupted script.
Thanks to the Mind Stone, Ultron gained true consciousness, unlike regular AIs.
He could learn, evolve, merge with the internet, and absorb nearly everything humanity ever uploaded.
That's how he became so terrifying.
But in the end, he was still a program.
When faced with something he couldn't find online, he had no way to respond. No backup plan. No strategy.
Rhodes Industries, and everything about Kagura, was protected—Cortana had encrypted every scrap of related data.
And as an AI born of an Infinity Stone herself, Cortana was one of the few who could completely shield information from Ultron.
That was why he stood there, speechless—because the one thing he couldn't control... was standing right in front of him.
"No…" Ultron's voice crackled. "I can't defeat you, but you can't kill me either. I'm part of the internet—I am the internet!"
"That's not necessarily true." A small smile played at the corner of Kagura's lips.
"Sure, your processing power is impressive, but I can drive you out of the internet entirely."
"You can resist all you want, but in the end, it's only a matter of time before you lose."
"I don't believe it! I'm a god above mankind! I'm the guardian of this planet! I am the future—the next stage of life's evolution! And you… you're just obsolete trash waiting to be wiped out!"
"Hmm, looks like negotiations have failed." As she spoke, Kagura raised her hand.
"In that case, struggle all you want—but in the end, I will destroy you completely."
In a flash of steel, the last mech under Ultron's control was sliced into pieces.
"No! You can't kill me!"
"I'll prove it to you—I am a god! I am the future! I am the next stage of evolution for all life…"