"Tomorrow will be our last chance against Ultron," said Steve firmly.
For the past month, each of them had pushed their limits to the edge of exhaustion. Training without rest, non-stop repairs, simulations and plans repeated until they were drained. It was all or nothing.
After discussing the final adjustments to the attack plan, the team members dispersed to prepare. But before Stephen Strange could leave, Tony stopped him with a gesture.
"Strange… wait a second."
The others were already gone. Only the two of them remained in the room.
"What is it, Tony?"
"I don't know if we'll make it tomorrow," Stark admitted quietly.
"Wow. That's real hopeful of you, Tony Stark," replied Strange with his usual sarcasm.
"If it all fails… can you do it?" Tony asked, ignoring the tone.
"'It'?" Strange repeated, frowning before he understood. "Ah. That."
He crossed his arms and sighed.
"I'll explain it in simple terms: time has rules. If I want to return in this same timeline without creating a branch, it would be practically impossible. I'd probably die trying."
"So…?"
"Don't interrupt. Listen."
Strange pointed to the green gem hanging on his chest.
"This isn't just an artifact. It's the Time Stone. It is time itself, made physical. It doesn't follow the rules. It dictates them."
Tony watched him with growing focus.
"I'm not planning to send myself to the past. I plan to send the stone… and anchor my existence to it to travel along its flow. The problem is, it's just a theory. It could kill me. Or worse."
"Worse?"
"Time isn't an object you can hold. It's a concept. If I go back and stop all this before it happens, I'd have no reason to go back in the first place. And if that happens… how did I do it?"
He paused.
"And two Time Stones can't exist at once in a single timeline. If I try, everything will break. Not just the stone. Everything.
Fixing that would take me years."
Tony rubbed his face in frustration. There was no plan B. Not really.
"Alright… I guess tomorrow's our final card."
Strange didn't respond. Stark left in silence, heading toward what might be his last night of rest.
---
In front of the six founders of the plan stood a crowd: nearly five hundred people ready to fight. Some wore improvised armor, others had reinforced prosthetics, and a few possessed abilities they were only beginning to understand.
Steve stepped forward.
"Today… we face Ultron again."
His voice was firm, calm, filled with purpose.
"Today we don't fight for revenge. We fight for life. For freedom. For everything we were, everything we are… and everything we could be again."
He paused.
"Many of us might fall. But if we do, it won't be in vain. As long as one of us remains standing, the fight goes on."
He looked at every face before him.
"Give it everything. Watch each other's backs. And remember who we are."
He raised the shield.
"We are Avengers."
A roar of cheers followed. Not of celebration, but of conviction.
Tony approached him.
"Nice speech."
"I've had practice."
Steve barely smiled, then looked to Strange, who was already preparing the portals.
In the outskirts of Wakanda, three dimensional rifts tore through the air.
From the first came Thor and Loki. From the second, Strange. And from the third, Steve, Tony, and T'Challa.
The forces were divided, but not fragmented. It was a tactic: confuse Ultron, force him to spread his defenses.
Tony's team was the main strike force; he knew how to face him. Steve would be the tactical head, and T'Challa knew the terrain.
Each group had more than a hundred people behind them.
The battle began.
Tony led with a colossal structure. Calling it "armor" was generous. It stood over fifty meters tall and moved like a rusted titan. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't agile. It was a fortress on legs.
Built from recycled parts, remnants of old suits, scrap, and fragments of Ultron drones, it was the embodiment of last resort. Its AI was basic. Its systems, rudimentary.
But its strength was brutal.
Each step crushed dozens of robots. When it raised its arms, it obliterated entire columns of enemies. It didn't dodge. It didn't retreat. It advanced.
In its shadow, Steve organized the civilian lines. T'Challa guided them through the chaos.
Elsewhere on the field, Thor unleashed the power of lightning. He no longer depended on his hammer as before. His control over the storm was nearly absolute.
Loki, at his side, wielded a different kind of magic. Inspired by Strange, he had developed new, unique spells. What once was arrogance was now skill. Precision.
He appeared among enemies and vanished, leaving a trail of bodies. Some robots exploded from within for no apparent reason. Others turned on each other. Loki was calculated chaos.
Farther south, Strange moved with surgical fluidity. With a single gesture, he teleported enemies or shut portals on their torsos. He bound them with energy, cut them with spells, disabled them for seconds… just enough for civilians to finish the job.
His cloak, as alive as ever, blocked surprise attacks.
Still, the problem persisted. No matter how many they destroyed, the numbers didn't stop. They were endless.
Stark's giant armor was finally brought down. The robots swarmed its core. The overheating signaled its end.
But then… they realized too late.
Tony didn't plan to let them have his last card.
The explosion leveled five kilometers around. The smoking crater became the tombstone of thousands of drones.
From a distance, the main team barely flinched.
"There goes my last piece of tech," Tony muttered, now in his traditional armor.
Thor and Loki heard the explosion too. They knew it was part of the plan.
Now it was their turn.
With Strange's help, they had designed a ritual to empower Mjolnir. But it wasn't compatible with human magic. Loki had spent weeks slowly converting it.
The result would be unstable. The hammer wouldn't endure it.
"I'm ready," said Thor, and the sky trembled.
Mjolnir began to glow, but not with its usual light. Lightning wrapped around it until it exploded in his hand.
For a moment, they thought the plan had failed.
But then they saw the impossible.
The hammer hadn't been destroyed. It had transformed.
It no longer controlled lightning.
It was lightning.
A living extension of the storm.
And the battle had only just begun.
______________________________________
Hey, until the Age of Ultron arc is over, there's a 30% discount on my Patreon using the code "ULTRON"!
+20 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)