Wanda was the first to react. Her grip on Satoru's hand tightened as a flicker of genuine hope replaced the urgency in her eyes. "You can take us there faster than the Quinjet?"
Tony, however, looked stunned. He had been half-joking, half-sarcastic, with a bit of seriousness that came from not having any other option. But now, his gaze was locked onto the small brass trinket on Satoru's fingers. "Wait... you actually have a portal? Like, a literal door-to-anywhere, non-aerodynamic gateway? You're serious?"
Satoru gave the Sling Ring a nonchalant spin. "Well, yeah. Why? You wanna study it, Stark? I don't think your science would be able to replicate this though. Trust me, I tried."
Before anyone could ask for a technical explanation, Satoru turned his gaze toward the crater. With a casual flick of his wrist, the Mind Stone was instantly yanked from its housing in Ultron's cracked forehead, flying through the air before snapping perfectly into Satoru's open palm.
The Avengers watched warily. Steve took a step forward, his mouth opening as if to say something, but Satoru didn't give him the chance.
"Stark," Satoru said, his voice regaining its sharp, domineering edge as he pocketed the glowing yellow stone. "Coordinates. Give me the exact location of that HYDRA base in Sokovia."
Tony blinked, his helmet retracting as he scrambled to pull up the data on his gauntlet. "Uh, right. Forty-eight degrees north, eighteen degrees east. Novi Grad, Sokovia. It's a mountain fortress, you can't miss it."
Satoru nodded once. He then looked down at Wanda's hand, which was still firmly clutching his. An amused smirk couldn't help but make its way on his lips. "I kinda need both my hands to do this one," he said softly. "Do you mind letting go?"
Wanda's eyes widened as she realized she was still holding on.
"O-oh. R-right," she quickly pulled her hand back and tucked it into her sleeve.
Satoru didn't tease her further, now wasn't the time nor place for this kind of thing. He planted his feet, raised both arms, and began to rotate his right hand in a rhythmic circle.
Immediately, the air in front of him hissed as a trail of orange abrasive sparks ignited. The sparks spun rapidly, expanding outward into a circular ring of sparks. Through the center of the gateway was a view of a bright, midday valley that contrasted with the dark freezing Norway where they stood.
Without further ado, Satoru stepped through first and the rest followed with varying hesitation, leaving the craters of Norway behind for the sunny valley of Sokovia.
…
[ Former HYDRA Research Base, Novi Grad, Sokovia ]
As their boots hit the dirt, the shift in atmosphere was aggravating. Satoru immediately felt it through his eyes; the city beyond the valley was crawling with thousands of Ultron's sentries everywhere.
Tony's HUD flickered to life. Being physically closer to the source allowed FRIDAY to bypass Ultron's regional jammer. "I'm dialed in on surveillance. Accessing local scanners… it's a mess, but I've got visuals."
He fanned out a series of small holographic windows. One showed the Hulk smashing through a line of robots on the city outskirts; another showed War Machine raining fire from the sky. But it was the third window that made him pause.
The camera showed Clint Barton stumbling through a courtyard through the falling dust and debris, carrying a limp body in a blue suit. The fabric was stained dark with blood.
"Pietro!" Wanda suddenly screamed. Now that she was in the same city, the psychic tether she shared with her twin didn't just feel weak… it felt severed.
Without waiting for orders or whatever plans, Wanda bolted, her red energy erupted around her as she sprinted towards the city. The others followed close behind, unable to stop her, not that they would.
As they ran, the comms finally cleared. The proximity allowed their gear to overpower the interference Ultron had been using to keep the teams isolated.
"Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Pietro, Rhodes, respond." Captain America tried to see if he could reach the others.
"Look who's late to the party." Natasha Romanoff was the first to respond. "Bruce is busy smashing sentries in the city. You should try again next time."
"Cap? Tony?" Clint's voice burst through, ragged and breathless. "If you can hear me, Ultron's at church in the center of the town. Pietro's down…"
"We're on our way, Clint," Steve replied, his voice grim. "Hang on."
Satoru kept pace with Wanda, his eyes scanning the horizon before deciding they were losing too much time.
"If you'll excuse me," Satoru said.
He didn't wait for a reply. He reached out, his hands grabbing the air as if he were catching the shoulders of the space they occupied. In an instant, the world blurred into a messy streak of colors and pressurized silence.
With a soft pop of displaced air, they appeared instantly in the middle of the debris-strewn city plaza.
The Avengers and Wanda stumbled, disoriented by the sudden shift in momentum and the lack of a transition. Tony nearly tipped over in his suit.
"But you guys are too slow." Satoru continued.
"Don't ever do that to me again!" Tony snapped as he fired a repulsor blast into a sentry that was mid-lunge. "A little warning for the human vestibular system next time, maybe?"
Wanda didn't even acknowledge the disorientation. The moment her feet hit the cracked pavement, she bolted toward the courtyard where she could see Clint's silhouette. She streaked through the sentries that tried to attack or block her way with her red misty magic.
Thor didn't miss a beat. He swung Mjolnir in a wide arc, a stray sentry that had jumped at him being reduced to scrap metal instantly.
"Know your place, robots!" he roared, raising his hammer as a massive bolt of lightning tore from the sky, incinerating a dozen robots in front of him.
Steve steadied himself, raising his shield to deflect a hail of incoming fire. "Focus up! Tony, Thor, handle the air. We need to start moving the civilians to safety and avoid casualties!"
"I'm going for Sparky," Tony replied, his thrusters flaring as he took to the skies. "Clint said he's at the church."
Satoru watched them scatter as a fresh wave of sentries swarmed out from the surrounding buildings, their red eyes locked onto him, he smirked.
He didn't even move from his spot. He simply raised his palm, his other hand forming the Karana Mudra once more.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue - Bolts of Balthakk (Jutsu Shiki Junten: Ao - Baretsuku no Raikō)."
A blue-orange sphere ignited in his hand and shot out like a ricocheting bullet. It tore through the plaza, bouncing between the sentries with lightning speed. The magnetic vacuum of the Blue core dragged the robots into the path of the mystical lightning, turning the entire wave of machines into a sparkling, mangled pile of junk in seconds.
Satoru let the technique dissipate. He watched the scrap metal settle when a massive shadow suddenly blotted out the sun.
With a bone-shaking thud, the Hulk slammed into the pavement nearby, a crushed sentry still gripped in one green hand like a discarded soda can. The beast stood up, breathing like a freight train, and turned his ever-frowning face toward Satoru.
For a moment, the Hulk just stared, his muscles tensing as if deciding whether this new person was to smash or to… smash.
Satoru didn't flinch. He just held up his hands in a mock gesture of surrender, a relaxed grin on his face. "Easy there, big guy. I'm with the group. I come in peace."
The Hulk let out a huff and then turned and launched himself into the air, leaping toward an area where a cluster of sentries was gathering.
"Well, he's charming," Satoru muttered to himself.
Deciding that the plaza was cleared, Satoru kicked off the ground and glided toward the center of the city, where he saw the church's steeple.
He was halfway there when the world around him suddenly trembled.
It started with a vibrating hum that rattled his teeth. Then, the tremor hit that made the ground break apart. Huge cracks tore through the streets, separating the center of the city from the rest of the valley.
With a massive roar of grinding stone and engines, the entire landmass started to lift. Blue thrusters ignited underneath the city, shoving the entire landmass into the sky.
Satoru stopped and hovered in mid-air as the sentries around him stilled and began to speak with Ultron's collective voice.
"Do you see? The beauty of it, the inevitability." Ultron's voice echoed from thousands of metallic throats. "You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword, and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world… will be metal."
Satoru let out a snort, watching a drone hover aimlessly in front of him. He flicked his wrist, and the drone speaking to him imploded into a ball of scrap.
"Guys... Sokovia's going for a ride," Tony's voice crackled over the comms. "The vibranium core... Ultron built a meteor. He's gonna drop it from the atmosphere."
'Now…' Satoru looked down at the widening chasm. 'This is actually a problem.'
Not for him, but for the civilians.