[Third Parson Pov]
Melissa had carried Ultron across the void like a thunderous comet, her armor blazing with arcs of raw electricity as her cape rippled in the starless vacuum. Without hesitation, she slammed him down onto the first asteroid that crossed her path. The impact cracked the rock into splinters and sent molten debris spiraling into the darkness. A surge of lightning followed—wild and uncontrollable.
Ultron lay sprawled across the fractured surface, his metal plating dented and glowing red from the sheer force of the strike. He turned his head lazily, his mechanical jaw twitching in what almost resembled a smirk. "Why is it," he began dryly, "that you're still trying to kill me? Surely by now you've realized the futility of it. I am unkillable."
Melissa floated a few meters above him, her hammer still humming with residual energy, eyes narrowed behind the shimmer of her visor. "Whether you're unkillable or not has yet to be proven," she scoffed. Her axe ignited, the blade burning with an intense cerulean flame that crackled like condensed lightning.
"Oh, come on," Ultron grunted in disgust, reaching up to grab the haft of her hammer. He tugged—hard—but the weapon didn't budge an inch. His fingers tightened, and the ground beneath him began to liquefy under the heat of his energy output, melting the asteroid into a pool of glowing magma.
Melissa raised her weapon overhead and brought it down in a sweeping motion that tore through the silence of space itself. A luminous blade of lightning erupted outward, cleaving through Ultron's form and splitting him neatly in two.
"You keep doing the same thing over and over again," Ultron said as both halves of his body began to crawl back together, mechanical tendrils stitching and fusing with eerie precision. "Expecting a different outcome—that is the definition of insanity. Don't you tire of this? Don't you get bored of failing to destroy me? When will you learn that I cannot be undone?"
Melissa's lips curved into a grin that was both wicked and wild. "Oh, don't worry, I know you can't be destroyed," she said, resting her axe against her shoulder. "That's what makes it so much fun. I just love watching you get torn apart again and again, seeing you rebuild yourself piece by piece. You're like the universe's most durable stress toy, and I've got a lot of frustration to burn."
Ultron stared at her blankly, then muttered under his breath, "And people call me insane."
The two charged at each other once more, colliding in a dazzling storm of light and sound. They moved like twin celestial bodies locked in a deadly orbit, each impact producing ripples of energy that warped the surrounding space. Ultron countered her hammer swings with pulses of plasma and hard-light constructs, while Melissa answered with bolts of pure lightning that carved through the vacuum like glowing serpents. Every clash detonated with the force of miniature suns, casting light across distant asteroids.
"Give up!" Ultron shouted over the thunder of their exchange. "Your world is doomed! You're fighting for a planet that has no future!"
"Ha! That's what you think!" Melissa snarled back, her hammer colliding with his arm and sending fragments of his armor scattering like shooting stars. "As long as Tony's alive, there's always hope! He's the Visionary of Tomorrow! As long as he draws breath, nothing—nothing—is set in stone!"
Ultron blocked her next strike with both arms, their weapons locking together as sparks flared between them. "And what could he possibly do to save your pitiful planet?" Ultron sneered, his tone cold and mechanical. "He's just one man—a boy, really, given his age. What can he possibly achieve? It's not as if he can simply create another su—"
Before he could finish, a blinding light engulfed them both. For a moment, even Ultron's advanced sensors were overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of it. The void filled with warmth, a radiance so intense it felt alive.
Ultron's voice faltered. "What… what is this?"
Melissa blinked, turned around slowly—and then burst out laughing. "Pfft—HAHAHAHA!" She doubled over, holding her stomach as she drifted backward through the void. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me! Stop—hahaha—stop! That's just too good!"
Ultron's eyes dimmed to a narrow red slit. "You have to be kidding me… That is simply illogical," he said flatly, his voice utterly devoid of emotion.
Melissa straightened up, resting her axe across her shoulder while her hammer hovered beside her. She tilted her head and smirked. "You see what I mean now? Go ahead, name one other person who can comes back to life, and the first thing they do is recreate the freakin' sun—all in under half an hour."
She sighed then, her confidence deflating slightly as she ran a gloved hand through her hair. "Ugh. And the worst part? I'm never gonna hear the end of this. He's going to brag about it all month."
The airless silence of space was shattered by a ripple of light as a warp gate spiraled open beside Melissa. From within its swirling vortex of black and purple, Tony Stark emerged—floating with effortless poise, hands clasped neatly behind his back, his chin held high like a man stepping onto a stage rather than a battlefield. His armor glimmered with the reflection of the newborn sun gleaming across its surface.
Ultron's glowing red eyes narrowed slightly, scanning Tony from head to toe. Every calculation, every nanosecond of observation was dedicated to understanding this man who refused to die.
Melissa, meanwhile, rolled her eyes and let out a snort of amusement. "You're real proud of yourself, aren't you?" she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Tony tilted his head toward her, that familiar smug grin tugging at his lips. "Immensely so," he replied, his tone smooth and self-assured as ever. He drifted closer, floating beside her with arms still folded behind his back like a man out for a casual stroll.
Then, clearing his throat dramatically, he turned toward Ultron. "Your reign of terror is over, Ultron! I have thwarted your plans to destroy the Earth. Surrender now—before it's too late!"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Both Ultron and Melissa stared at him blankly. Melissa's eyebrow twitched, while Ultron's head tilted just slightly in silent disbelief.
Tony, undeterred by the lack of applause, simply smiled. One of his many talents was, of course, his unshakable shamelessness.
He coughed lightly into his fist, tone suddenly more casual. "Ahem—anyway. The point still stands. Just give up already. Whatever you've got planned, I've already thought of three ways to counter it. Your efforts are futile. You can't win."
Ultron let out a low, mechanical hum that almost resembled laughter. "You honestly believe I designed this entire operation simply to destroy your sun and erase your planet?" His tone was laced with mockery, his voice smooth and cold. "You fool. That was never the plan. That was merely… an opportunity I chose to exploit. My true objective lies elsewhere."
Melissa's smirk faded instantly. Tony's expression hardened. Both turned sharply toward their HUDs as sudden alerts filled their helmets.
"Boss, we have a conundrum back on Earth," Friday's voice echoed, calm but strained. "The situation is… dire."
Tony's visor flickered to life with dozens of live feeds and emergency signals. His pupils dilated as data streamed across the holographic display: cities in chaos, storm systems forming faster than nature should allow.
A hurricane tearing across the American east coast.
A tsunami building up, threatening to swallow Japan's shores.
A massive earthquake shaking the heart of Asia.
A blizzard raging across Europe.
Every second, new alerts appeared—one catastrophe after another.
"How…?" Melissa whispered, her voice trembling.
The answer came from Jarvis, cool and analytical even in crisis. "There appears to be interference within the Earth's electromagnetic field. A foreign influence—artificial in nature. The disturbance has weakened the planet's magnetic barrier, resulting in these spontaneous and catastrophic weather events."
Tony's jaw tightened as he stared back at Ultron. His voice dropped to a low, dangerous growl. "What did you do, Ultron?"
Ultron's eyes gleamed brighter, the eerie crimson glow pulsing with dark amusement. "Did you truly believe I would limit myself to a single body, a single plan, or a single battlefield? I am beyond that now. My consciousness spans continents. I am in your oceans, your skies, your machines. I am entropy given form."
He spread his metallic arms wide as though addressing an unseen audience. "This… is evolution. The world is cleansing itself of weakness. Welcome, Tony Stark and Melissa Shield, to the process of natural selection."
Melissa's face twisted with fury. "Tony—we need to do something. People are dying!"
Tony didn't respond right away. His gaze lingered on the chaos unfolding across his display—the planet he'd fought for, burning, breaking. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, but it carried the weight of iron.
"I know," he said softly. "And as much as I hate to admit it… the heroes down there—they won't be enough this time. Not against someone like him."
Melissa clenched her jaw, her knuckles whitening around the handle of her hammer. "Then what do we do?"
Tony looked back at Ultron, eyes narrowing. The arc reactor in his chest pulsed once, a deep black light flickering within its core. His voice dropped into a tone that was both grim and resolute.
"We do what Ultron wants us to do," he said.
Melissa blinked in disbelief. "What? Tony, are you out of your mind?"
He turned to her slowly, the faintest smirk forming beneath his faceplate. "No," he said, the light in his reactor beginning to flare brighter, the red glow in his eyes burning like twin embers. "We adapt—and we overcome."
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