[ Present ]
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue - Bolts of Balthakk! (Jutsu Shiki Junten: Ao - Baretsuku no Raikō)"
The words were barely audible over the screaming wind, but the effect was instantaneous. Satoru stood on the vibrating ramp of the Quinjet, his palm facing upward while his other hand formed the Karana Mudra.
Between his fingers, a palm-sized sphere of intense blue light ignited. A high-density core that seemed to suck the light out of the cabin. Beams of azure radiance shot out from its center, and arcs of mystical lightning began to crackle and dance around the orb. Two rings of ancient runic symbols materialized, spinning and intertwining around the sphere with a low hum.
Satoru aimed at the leading sentries.
The sphere shot from his palm with the literal speed of a lightning strike. It tore through the air, leaving a jagged trail of blue-orange electricity in its wake. The first sentry was obliterated on impact, but the orb didn't stop. It bounced, zig-zagging through the two other standing sentry like a pinball.
The strangeness of the technique lay in its dual nature. As the sphere zipped out of the hatch to find a new target, the Blue sphere at its core generated an intense magnetic vacuum.
Sentries that were clawing at the interior found themselves yanking towards it, pulled by an irresistible force into the lingering arcs of lightning. They were shredded before they could even re-orient their thrusters as it bounces and hunted the sentries clinging around the hull of the Quinjet.
Inside the cabin, the Avengers watched as the red dots on their tactical displays vanished in clusters. The screeching of metal on metal, the sound of Ultron's drones trying to tear through the hull, all of them were imploding outside the Quinjet.
Tony Stark stared through his HUD, watching the azure trail zigzagging outside the windows. "FRIDAY, tell me I'm not seeing something that doubles as a Tesla coil."
Thor stepped up to the edge of the ramp, his cape snapping in the gale as he watched the wreckage fall away into the clouds. "What is this sorcery…" Thor wondered. "I've never seen something like this before."
"Ramp's clear," Satoru called out. He turned to look at the stunned team. "But it's not over. I can still feel a large amount of energy outside, if I'm right, that's the toaster we're looking for."
Tony and Thor exchanged a knowing look.
"Cap, keep the bird steady if you can. We'll meet you on the ground." Tony said, his thrusters beginning to glow as he calibrated for a high-altitude exit.
Thor nodded grimly. "Be careful, wizard. This foe is not like the metal shells you just broke." Evidently, the visions he saw from the Water of Sight still lingers in his thoughts.
With a sudden burst of speed, Tony rocketed out of the hatch against the dark Norwegian sky. Thor followed a second later, spinning his hammer until he was pulled into the air.
Satoru watched them go, then turned to the remaining two. Steve Rogers was fighting the flight controls as the jet groaned from the previous impacts, while Wanda stood near the ramp.
"I cannot go with you," Wanda said, her voice tight with frustration. She looked at the drop and then at Satoru. "But I can feel him. He is... he is waiting."
"I know," Satoru replied, strolling back toward the edge of the open ramp. "So you should stay with the captain."
"And what about you?" Steve called out from the cockpit. "You don't have a suit or a hammer."
Satoru leaned back, letting the freezing wind whip his hair around. He gave them a casual, two-finger salute before stepping backward into the empty air.
"Why would I need that?" Satoru's voice drifted back just as he plummeted into the clouds.
…
A few miles ahead, Tony and Thor were carving through the clouds. Tony's HUD was a mess of interference. "FRIDAY, give me a lock on something, anything."
"Energy readings are fluctuating, Boss," FRIDAY replied. "But, there's an energy reading last recorded three clicks south of the main NEXUS hub. It's approaching the NEXUS fast."
"That's the spot," Tony muttered, his repulsors flaring as he banked left. "Thor, follow me."
"No, you guys follow me."
The voice didn't come over the comms; it was right next to them, cutting through the roar of the wind.
Tony jerked his head to the side. Satoru was casually drifting alongside him, hands in his pockets, flying through the air with a grace that made Tony's billion-dollar thrusters look clunky.
Before Tony could even crack a joke about the lack of a flight suit, Satoru accelerated. In a blur of white and black, he streaked past them, leaving a faint ripple in the air.
"Did he just... pass me?" Tony muttered, banking his suit hard to keep up.
Thor let out a booming laugh, his cape snapping behind him like a thunderclap. "The boy has no wings, yet he conquers the sky! Follow him, Stark!"
Satoru ignored them both, his Six Eyes locked on the target three clicks south. To him, the Norwegian landscape was a dark canvas, and Ultron was a jagged, golden tear in the middle of it.
"There you are," Satoru murmured.
The closer he got, the more he felt the pressure from that golden energy. 'So this is the Mind Stone's energy? It felt so different from the Time Stone back in Kamar-Taj…'
He didn't wait for Tony or Thor. Satoru dropped like a stone before snapping into a sudden halt a few hundred feet above a snow-covered mountain pass. Below him, a streak of silver and gold was hurtling toward the NEXUS facility nestled in the valley.
It was Ultron.
Ultron seemed to have sensed him, as he flew up to where Satoru is.
Satoru can now properly see this 'toaster'. Ultron's synthetic body shimmered under the moonlight, as the yellow gem in his forehead pulsed with a terrifying light. He slowed as he came to a mid-air stop, hovering right in Satoru's path.
Tony and Thor arrived a moment later, flanking Satoru. Tony's repulsors were whining at full charge, and Thor's hammer was already dancing with sparks.
"End of the line, robot," Tony snapped, his voice amplified through his suit's speakers. "We're revoking your internet privileges."
Ultron tilted his head as he ignored Tony's words and Thor. His glowing red eyes settled entirely on the Satoru floating casually in his white haori.
"Who are you?" Ultron's voice vibrated through the air, resonant and cold. "I have scrubbed every server on this planet and know the biometrics of every 'enhanced' individual in the Avengers' files. But you… I don't have any record of you. Were you living under a rock your whole life?"
"Living under a rock?" Satoru repeated. He leaned back in the air, crossing his legs as if he were sitting on an invisible sofa. "Actually, it was more of a temple in the mountains. Very scenic, though the Wi-Fi was terrible. Probably why you missed me."
Ultron's red optics flickered as he processed the lack of fear in the teenager's voice. He finally shifted his gaze toward the man in the iron suit.
"But Stark," Ultron hummed. "Even if you were this desperate, why bring a child into this? Is your legacy so fragile that you've resorted to using schoolboys to fight your monsters?"
Tony's faceplate glinted in the moonlight. "He's not a shield, Sparky. And trust me, you wouldn't be calling him a schoolboy if you'd seen what he just did to your welcoming committee. He's the one who turned your sentries into scrap metal before I could even join the party."
Satoru let out a lazy yawn, tapping a finger against his chin. "Do you guys usually talk a lot before a fight?"
He uncrossed his legs, standing upright in the air as his expression shifted from bored to a sharp smirk that bordered on maniacal. The air around him began to hum, a subtle distortion of space that made the snowflakes nearby dance and freeze in mid-air.
"If you're done," Satoru said, raising his hand and pointing a single finger toward the synthetic being, "let's end this already. I still have some students to teach back home."
Ultron's eyes flared a dangerous crimson. "Arrogance is a human sin, child. I am—"
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red - Rings of Raggadorr! (Jutsu Shiki Sonten: Aka - Ragadōru no Wa)."
Satoru didn't wait for the retort. Seven crimson, runic bands materialized instantly around Satoru's forearms, rotating with a high-pitched hum before shooting toward Ultron from every conceivable angle.
However, Ultron reacted fast even when he was caught off guard. The Mind Stone flared, emitting a series of searing beams of golden light that he aimed at the crimson bands. Each time the beam connected with a ring, a massive shockwave of repulsive force erupted, pushing back Ultron from the space of where he was.
"My turn!" Tony shouted.
The Mark XLIII's chest piece ignited, firing a concentrated Unibeam that slammed into Ultron's side. Simultaneously, Thor descended from above him, Mjolnir trailing a web of white lightning.
"For Midgard!" Thor roared, bringing the hammer down.
A massive pillar of lightning collided with the repulsor blast right on Ultron's position. The resulting explosion turned the night sky into a blinding kaleidoscope of gold, red, blue and white.
As the smoke cleared, Ultron remained suspended in the air, his vibranium-synthetic skin glowing cherry-red from the thermal soak.
He looked at his scorched arm, then back at the trio.
"Is that the best the 'Protectors of Earth' can do?" Ultron asked, his voice unaffected. "How disappointing."
"You speak of revoking privileges," Ultron said, his eyes glowing with a cold, renewed intensity as the heat began to bleed off his synthetic frame. "But you are the ones clinging to a world that's beyond repair."
He spread his arms wide, and the Mind Stone pulsed, which seemed to signal something below them.
"I know you're good people. I know you mean well. But you just didn't think it through."
From the dense, snow-laden pine forest below, the darkness began to move. Thousands of glowing red eyes ignited simultaneously, cutting through the shadows of the trees. With a deafening, metallic roar that drowned out the wind, a swarm of Ultron sentries erupted from the canopy, rising like a cloud of locusts.
Satoru watched the sentries rise up. He noticed the positioning immediately. Ultron stood at the center of the vertical column, with the entire hive rising directly beneath him from the forest.
He didn't waste a second. Satoru rocketed upward, positioning himself directly above Ultron and the rising swarm.
Ultron, sensing the tactical shift, tilted his head back. "You seek the high ground? A primitive instinct."
The Mind Stone flared, unleashing a barrage of concentrated golden beams aimed directly at the boy's chest. Ultron expected a hit, or at least a dodge, but the beams simply stopped. They hit Satoru's Infinity, as the attack just suspended there, Satoru did a hand gesture that turned the beams into… butterflies.
Confused by the lack of impact, Ultron commanded his hive mind. "Tear him apart."
The thousands of sentries redirected their flight paths, converging into a singular, massive drill of steel aimed straight up at Satoru. It was exactly what he wanted. By drawing them into a vertical line, they had created the perfect corridor for a total wipeout.
Satoru's smirk widened, he lifted a hand and removed his blindfold relic, revealing his blue eyes which seemed to glow against the night sky. With his other hand, his fingers moved into a familiar mudra.
"Hollow Technique: Purple - Images of Ikonn! (Kyoshiki: Murasaki - Ikon no Zō)"