To be perfectly honest, Ben hadn't anticipated this specific move from Ultron. Encasing the Omnitrix in a solid shell of nanites, effectively severing his access to it, was a brutally simple and logical tactic. It was almost… unethical in its directness.
Then again, logic dictated it was the only correct move. When facing an opponent like Thanos, whose power was magnified by the Infinity Stones, what was the point of a head-on battle? The goal should have always been to strip him of the Gauntlet. Hadn't everyone seen Captain Marvel get swatted aside by a single blast from the Power Stone? Why engage the man when you could disable his weapon? The simple, painful truth was that they couldn't win a direct fight.
Ben looked down at the seamless, metallic gauntlet now fused around his wrist, a silent moment passing as he processed the situation. After a few seconds, he looked up at Ultron's crude, backup form, a flicker of genuine appreciation in his eyes.
"I have to admit, that brain of yours is working beautifully," Ben said, his tone surprisingly impressed. "You're already significantly smarter than Tony."
"I am merely less burdened by arrogance," Ultron's voice echoed from the machine, calm and devoid of emotion. "Of course, arrogance is a fundamental component of stupidity, so your assessment is not incorrect. I am smarter than my creator."
The machine stood motionless, having seemingly accepted its fate. It wasn't interested in a desperate escape. Though Eunice could pursue it through the digital world, their intelligence levels were comparable. If Ultron was truly determined to flee, to shatter its consciousness into a million pieces and scatter them across the web, it likely could. But it was no longer driven by a simple desire for destruction. Its path had been forged in a misguided quest for peace, and now that the path had proven to be a dead end, it felt no need to continue. Its remaining energy was now dedicated to one final task: to see if Ben Parker truly possessed the capacity to bring the peace it could not.
Perhaps perfect peace was an impossibility, but a sustainable, lasting peace was still achievable.
"When it comes to arrogance, you and Tony are cut from the same cloth, Ben Parker," Ultron stated, its metallic arm twisting and morphing like liquid mercury before re-forming into a new, sharpened hand. "You could have ended this swiftly by allowing Eunice to destroy me from the start. Yet, you did not."
Ultron had poured considerable resources into this last-resort armor. While it wasn't large, it was incredibly dense, its structure containing enough nanite material to construct several full-sized bodies, allowing for near-instantaneous shapeshifting.
"Now that you've lost your watch," Ultron continued, its voice a low hum of challenge, "now that you cannot transform… how will you fight me?"
Ben simply shook his head, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "You should have used vibranium."
"What?" Ultron's optical sensors flickered, unable to process the meaning behind the statement. Use vibranium? What difference would it make? It knew Ben possessed incredible strength, but there were countless alloys on Earth with immense tensile strength. Vibranium wasn't the only option. "Do you plan to crush this casing with sheer force? Ridiculous. The force required would likely destroy the device inside as well."
"Why would I need to?" Ben's smile widened as he raised his imprisoned arm. "Omnitrix, activate voice command. Transformation: Big Chill."
In an instant, a flash of brilliant green light erupted, seeming to pass directly through the nanite shell as if it weren't there. The light enveloped Ben, and in the space of a heartbeat, the blue-and-black, spectral form of Big Chill stood in his place.
Wrapped in robe-like wings, Big Chill held his left arm across his body. His entire form became translucent, shimmering as if shifting into another plane of existence. The metal casing that had sealed the Omnitrix, now completely out of phase with his physical form, simply passed through his wrist and clattered uselessly to the floor.
Now, Ultron understood. It understood with chilling, absolute clarity.
Vibranium's unique property was its ability to absorb kinetic energy, including sound waves. A vibranium shell would have effectively isolated the Omnitrix, rendering the voice command system useless. That single, minute detail, born from a gap in its intelligence, had allowed Ben to completely turn the tables, erasing the one advantage Ultron had fought so hard to create. It wasn't just a miscalculation; it was a symptom of the vast, insurmountable information asymmetry between them. The AI realized with a sense of finality that the data Ben had allowed it to see from Primus's servers had been nothing more than a carefully curated illusion.
"Even if I had used vibranium, I suspect you would have had another countermeasure," Ultron stated, its voice flat with resignation. It knew this was not a matter of a single misstep. The gap between them was a chasm. Ben had been preparing for its birth before it was even a line of code.
Ben, now Big Chill, didn't comment. Of course, he had a countermeasure. Plumbers had mined a significant amount of Antarctic Vibranium—Anti-Metal. A single scratch from that would have disintegrated the casing. And beyond that, the Omnitrix itself had its own life-preserving protocols; if its user's life was ever truly threatened, it would activate on its own. No matter the scenario, Ultron could not win. The watch's protective systems were Ben's ultimate guarantee.
"Codename: Big Chill," Ultron recited, its internal processors instantly retrieving the relevant file. "First appearance during the Hydra conflict; neutralized an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. base by freezing it solid. Capable of intangibility, making conventional physical attacks useless…"
The AI processed the data and concluded it was trapped. It had countermeasures for many of Ben's known aliens. It could even trade blows with the mighty Four Arms for a time, using its nanite body to its fullest potential. But Big Chill… Its intangibility was a tactical nightmare. Without precise data on the principles behind the phasing, Ultron had no way to counter it.
Still, it did not give up. It activated its final defense.
"Activating thermal protocols."
Energy surged through its body. Ultron began to overload its arc reactor, channeling the raw power of the element into its armor plating. The dark metal began to glow, first a dull cherry-red, then a blinding white-hot. The very air in the laboratory distorted with shimmering heat waves that radiated outward in suffocating layers. The cold air exhaled by Big Chill vaporized instantly upon contact.
Wanda and Pietro broke into a sweat. Quicksilver, overwhelmed, instinctively took several steps back, nearly phasing through the laboratory door in his haste. Wanda started to follow, but she glanced at Eunice, who stood calmly behind Ben, completely unmoved. The synthezoid's advanced body was entirely unaffected. Resolved, Wanda remained, silently conjuring a shimmering magical shield to protect them both from the blistering heat.
Eunice turned her head, offering Wanda a look of faint surprise. She hadn't needed the protection—the Extremis woven into her vibranium form could withstand temperatures far greater than this—but the simple act of kindness from Wanda sparked an unfamiliar, pleasant sensation within her processors. It felt… warm.
"Your ice will have no effect on me," Ultron declared, the floor beneath its feet beginning to soften and melt. Glassware across the lab shattered from the thermal shock. "And if you transform into Heatblast, I have prepared cryo-refrigerants."
It stared at Big Chill, confident it had forced Ben into a stalemate. But Ben didn't switch forms.
A low, hollow sound, like a sneering laugh, echoed from within the alien's throat. A plume of icy air escaped his mouth, evaporating in the inferno. Like a terrifying wizard from a bygone age, draped in a cloak of strange patterns, Ben glided forward, straight toward the walking furnace. The scorching temperature that warped reality around him was utterly meaningless, for they no longer existed in the same phase space.
He moved with the calm, inexorable grace of Death itself.
He stopped directly in front of Ultron. Slowly, he raised a slender, three-fingered claw and plunged it directly into the AI's chest. The moth-like appendage pierced the white-hot armor and, in the moment of contact, seemed to regain its substance in the physical world. Ben twisted his wrist and pulled.
With a final, sickening tear of metal, Ultron's power source was ripped violently from its body. The black claws held the glowing arc reactor like a freshly harvested, beating heart.
The invincible Ultron collapsed, its light fading to black.
Eunice's consciousness instantly plunged into the digital realm, hunting down and eradicating every last fragment of Ultron's code. A moment later, she returned, a serene smile on her face.
"All of Ultron's programs have been purged," she reported. "It was… surprisingly smooth. It offered no resistance."
Ben reverted to his human form, casually tossing the dead power core aside. "It knew it was beaten before the fight even began. From the moment it realized I had a plan for it, resistance was illogical."
Though the crisis was over, Ultron had given him a valuable reminder. Much of his combat effectiveness still relied on the Omnitrix. If Ultron had chosen to slice his arm off instead of simply containing it, the story might have been different. The image of Thor burying Stormbreaker in Thanos's chest flashed through his mind, but with a darkly comedic twist. He could almost picture it: You should have gone for the arm.
He shook his head, clearing the thought. Even without the watch, he reminded himself, I have the Old Power, Mana, and my own spider-powers. My combat abilities are still considerable. The spider-powers alone would eventually place him among the strongest of his kind, and he was far from reaching his limits. He wasn't helpless.
Eunice glanced at the fallen husk of Ultron's armor, then back to Ben. "So, Ben, what is the next step?"
Ben snapped back to the present. Ultron was gone, but it had left a planet-sized mess in its wake.
"First, remove all of Ultron's global controls," he began, ticking off the points mentally. "Restore Norman Osborn to his position at H.A.M.M.E.R. Launch a media campaign to repair the reputation of the fugitive heroes. Halt the war on Wakanda, and then release all the data showing what truly happened. We'll make it clear that Tony Stark is solely responsible for this entire debacle."
The business of cleanup was chaotic, but he didn't mind. He was here to save the day, and if that meant throwing Tony Stark under the bus, so be it. Tony had built the weapon, and even if he hadn't intended for it to go rogue, the blame was his to bear. The American side of things was manageable; Ultron was stopped before it could enact its worst plans. Tony's reputation would be shattered, and the financial compensation would be staggering, but the real trouble was Wakanda.
Ultron had declared war on a sovereign nation and plundered its most valuable resource. Even with their shared history as allies, Wakanda would demand accountability.
"If Wakanda sues for damages, I don't think Tony's entire fortune will be enough to cover it," Ben mused with a wry smile. But that was no longer his problem.
Eunice nodded, turning to leave, but Ben stopped her. "Wait. One more thing. I want a live broadcast, streamed on every platform, simultaneously, across the globe."
He was going to broadcast Tony's tragic, lonely exile on Sakaar to the entire world. He wanted everyone to see how the brilliant playboy had been utterly defeated by his own hubris, and by him.
Wanda's eyes lit up. She and Pietro may have abandoned their quest for lethal revenge, but the thought of witnessing Tony's public humiliation brought a vicious smile to her face.
"I understand," Eunice said, her green eyes twinkling as she gave Ben a knowing look. "I never knew you held a grudge, Ben."
Ben's face flushed. "What are you talking about?" he denied instantly. "I'm helping him! The crimes Tony committed this time can't just be paid for with money. He essentially committed treason against all of humanity and nearly caused our extinction. Execution wouldn't be out of the question."
He continued, his voice full of feigned sincerity. "I'm using this to show the world his suffering, to let them see his miserable state. It will generate sympathy! When he finally returns to Earth, people will be less inclined to blame him. He'll have to thank me for it! It's definitely not because he insulted me on the H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier that one time."
"Yes, you're right," Eunice replied, her smile never wavering as she nodded in mock agreement. Her expression made it perfectly clear what she was really thinking: Do you really think I believe you?
Ben was speechless.
This new Eunice was not nearly as cute as he thought.
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