#I hate map bot

[quackysmackk]

A comic extra

I didn’t know where to put it in the story, but it was fun to draw.

Inspired by my experience of getting spooked by that one elevator Freddy voice line and then ferociously jump scared by map bot right after.

If you’re interested, read the comic -> Here!

[brightletsky]

[krispenelopebacon]

A king on a quest

[smallestapplin]

I too have been enamored with your Autobot Harem and I would like to see more please ...but I'm also picturing how fucking funny it would be if the Decepticons somehow heard about this new human friend and decide to kidnap them for Schemes(TM) So they send one of the minicons to scout things out, to see what this human is about, only to be bombarded with footage of Prowl, of all bots, holding the Autobot Darling in a mating press and fucking them stupid while they cry out his name

The 'Cons are baffled, frightened, and kinda grossed out and promptly nope the fuck outta there and spend the next few days trying to delete it from their memories

And they grow even more distressed when they realize just how *often* the Autobots have their way with you, including Optimus goddamn Prime, who seems to be the most addicted out of all of them, and everytime they try to sneak around there is at least one bot doing something lewd

The Autobots, meanwhile, haven't enjoyed this much peace and quiet for this long in a looooooong while, and they know exactly how to best enjoy it

Cackling at the same brain, but I adore the takes here >:) if you or anyone have anymore ideas don't be afraid to tell me

But I'd love to expand on this

🔞Warning : Autobot harem, Spitroasting, GN!Reader, decepticon pov so everything is referred to in Cybertronian words, non-consensual recording, non-consensual voyeurism🔞

Links to one here and chatting here

-

-

When the autobots don't make any moves it's not unusual, after all it's only when the decepticons attack will they be seen, so why not a stealth mission to try and get some intel and break their silly camaraderie?

Oh it was a genuis plan! Get dirt on them, spread it to their friends, and watch them kill each other instead, getting them out of the way once and for all.

Laserbeak was sent first to map up routes, and see who guards at certain times.

It was normal, it was routine even.

Until laserbeak catches sight (and recording) of you, a little human, slotted between Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

Sunstreaker rutting into your tight valve, transfluid leaking from where you two connect. His hips wetly slapping into yours. Your stomach bulging from the large spike rearranging your insides.

And you struggling to take Sideswipe's spike in your intake while your digits toy with his valve. Drool and fluid leaking down your chin, tears sliding down your face as you struggle to breathe.

"Takin' our spikes like a champ, sweetspark."

"Such a greedy valve! Keeps suckin' me in like you want me to overload early-"

Soundwave is fast in disconnecting the line, shutting the video off and telling Laserbeak to get back to base prompto.

But that leaves the decepticons in silence.

What had they just seen? Cybertronians can interface with fleshies? What nonsense! That can't be right.

It starts off as disgust, but then they start talking and realizing this has been going on for ages.

"Those twins hate humans out of every autobot, so how did a fleshy manage?" Starscream speaks, venom dripping in his voice.

"Wait...wait remember when we attacked their base to get that energy switch, and we came across them, and Prowl nearly offlined Thundercracker?"

The room falls silent again.

Every instance comes flooding back to them, ones they would have never thought twice about are all starting to make sense. The autobots always became a bit more aggressive and protective when it came to defending you.

Even Optimus Prime himself nearly offlined Rumble for getting close to you, before picking you up and placing you with Bumblebee to get to safety.

"So...are all of them with one human or just those two?" Skywarp didn't even want to know, but of course if there is some weird romance thing going on, they could probably use that to their advantage.

Megatron sighs, looking to Soundwave "Tell Laserbeak to go back and pick up more evidence, as much as I hate to say that."

The larger bot sneers, loathing the idea of seeing more.

But Soundwave and Laserbeak do as told.

The minicon avoids the area he first saw you, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker, making an effort to thoroughly explore the other areas, making note that Prowl and Jazz seemingly take guard duty at night.

By the next day you and those twins seem to have went back inside the base, where Laserbeak couldn't reach.

"Sir, we might need to send someone to sneak inside their base."

Megatron glances at Soundwave, who doesn't look away from the screen. They both know getting inside that base will be dangerous, especially with how protective those bots are when you're involved.

"Let's hold off on that, since they seem to enjoy fragging outdoors, I'm certain we will get something else."

Soundwave nods, and continues watching as nothing interesting shows up on camera.

Starscream groans, rolling his optics not believing this is what they are up to anymore, just waiting to see some human all bare taking a spike much too big for them.

How patheic!

He could easily break your valve in, much better than those autobots!.....wait...NO! He shakes his helm, getting rid of any thoughts of you he's having.

Grumbling himself about your stupid attractiveness, you're just some stupid fleshy that's probably so soft compared to him, and no doubt your valve would struggle to take him.

But he keeps up a disgusted act, not wanting anyone to know what he's thinking.

However Thundercracker is silent, optics not leaving the screen, watching whatever Laserbeak catches on camera.

His expression looks bored, but he's freaking out inside.

He can't believe a human could actually handle interfacing with a Cybertronian, and you took two like a champ! You look so cute, pretty valve stretched so wide just to take Sunstreaker.

Greedy little thing.

He wants you, he wants to know what it's like, wants to leave here and live somewhere peacefully with you in some far off woods.

He's only here out of fear.

But he can't believe he's letting himself fall for a human he's barely met, but he can't stop his thoughts from trailing off to you, picturing you crying out begging him for more.

He wonders how your valve tastes, and if you'd like he bury his glossa in your heat.

Thundercracker is broken from his thoughts by Starscream screeching.

"Have they no shame!?"

Several optics look back at the screen, only to see you with Hot Rod.

The flashy bot clearly rushing off with you, giggling as you two go through the trees to get a peaceful spot away from base.

Faintly through Laserbeak's mic they can hear you.

"Oh, you don't know how much I missed you, little light!"

You giggle, finding all his kisses to be tickling you.

"I missed you too, Roddy. I hope your missions haven't been to exhausting." You kiss him in turn, smiling when he lets out a dopey chuckle.

"Nothing I can't manage, I just wanted to get back to you safe and sound."

"Something tells me that's not the only reason." You tease him, your poor lover gives you a pleading expression.

"I got all my work done? Missions were a success since the decepticons have been quiet, oh! And I got my reports done!"

He's shaking, nearly vibrating in place waiting for something.

But you let out a dramatic sigh, playfully shaking your head.

"I suppose since you've been such a good boy then."

You kick your pants off, tossing them to the side, before plopping yourself down on his servo, spreading your legs wide for him.

"A good boy deserves a reward, right?"

Hot Rod drools, muttering 'thank you's over and over again as he buries his glossa into your greedy hole.

Moaning with you, unable to help himself when you taste so good!

The decepticons all look at each other, then to Megatron, awaiting his orders but even he is baffled.

Just how many bots do you have after you? How many do you already have under your thumb? In the fights where he has gotten close to you, you reek of Optimus far too strongly.

So you're with him too.

Do you have the entire autobot base at your beck and call?

"Megatron, what are your orders."

Soundwave's voice shakes him if his thoughts.

"If we can get ahold of that human, we might have our answers, however I'm not even sure we can with how frag addicted those filthy autobots are."

"Seems the human is never alone either, which would make that even harder."

Just what have they gotten themselves into?

[wisteriaiswriting]

Exploiter Reader Baiting The Killers

Words: 526

Request: Hiii :D can I ask for an annoying reader with hacking/exploit abilities like 007n7? They abuse their abilities to bait and mostly piss off the killers (maybe sometimes saving their teammate too on coincidence) i'd love to see (any) the killers reaction to it (and maybe 007n7 if you don't mind!) Thank youu!!! :D

Kinda fits in with my original reader concept

You were a well known exploiter, definitely not as known as 007n7 in his younger days. As you mainly trolled other players in obbys, hangout games and anything in between. Nothing to capture the attention of the admins, but it couldn’t last forever. Your luck came to an end when 007n7 started messing with a game you were in, and you couldn’t have that.

So that's how you ended up in… whatever realm this was. No hard feelings towards the guy, he was having fun and so was you, and you knew what he went on to do. He didn’t stop you from continuing your fun.

Basic abilities mentioned are:

Clones

Teleporting

Highlights killer for 5 seconds when close

Part of her finds your abilities interesting, a better version of the other one. But he also hates you.

Like, how does she keep falling for your clones, the ones that taunt them by dancing, and he constantly takes the bait. What was meant to be an easy hit or kill turns into them being stunned while the actual you laughs.

Also the amount of times your clone ran in front of another survivor and her hit, saving them while stunning them again, he swears to kill you when she finds you next.

Tries to kill you as soon as possible, even lets everyone else live just to get you.

His first thought of you was that you were cool, I mean, another hacker, like his father? Automatically cool in his mind.

Loses that thought very quickly after one match with you. You absolutely destroyed this kid's view of you.

Half of the time he just starts running whenever he sees you, mostly hiding behind his very confused father while complaining that you’re a bully.

The other half of the time he’s trying to play but has his sight set on you. In his eyes you cheat all the time and he can’t let cheaters play.

In the first few seconds of seeing you he always thinks it’s 007n7, but then stomps his foot and sends his bots after you.

Luckily he likes a challenge, although you are impossible.

Learned very quickly that it’s easier to kill you when you’re the last one alive, and that's what he does nearly every round now.

About to blow a fuse with the amount of times him and his men have cornered you just to find no one there, hearing your faint laughter from across the map.

None of them can sneak up on you due to your ability highlighting them, it gets under all of their skins.

When he first gets dropped into this realm and realises that you’re there, he feels so bad.

Finally remembering what he did, it wasn’t important before, but he makes sure to apologize for getting you sucked in.

Loves seeing what you can do though, even if your abilities are similar, they are unique in their own way.

Starts feeling bad for the killers at some point, especially C00lkidd. Will start lightly scolding you if you cause the kid to hide behind him.

Really wants to know how your abilities work and how they are different or similar to his, especially if you have some gui.

[skythealmighty]

gang ngl i miss object universe. i should rewatch it again and get way too emotionally attached to Ice Cream and Map

#rocket talk #i made fanart of them with a steven universe song once i'm unwell

(1 note)

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

why does gamey get to be on ii TWICE. who gave him permission

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

thanks for the suggestion @cabtube-truther

📟 knockoff-gameboy Follow

You don't hear PBSB complaining about this...

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

well they're in a show that's super popular

📟 knockoff-gameboy Follow

Yeah, and you're in one that got cancelled

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

shut up you didnt even finish season one

#just one more cameo mephone4 thats all i ask

(316 notes)

anonymous asked: not sure you're gonna want a cameo rn mephone is going Through it

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

hold on im not actually caught up lemme see

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

holy shit

#I TAKE IT BACK

(58 notes)

anonymous asked: omg fan pleaaaase marru me ill do anythinggg ❤❤❤🥵🥵🥵

💥 fans-fantastic-features Follow

hey @test-tubular just checking was i ever this weird

🧪 test-tubular Follow

Weird? Always. This weird? No.

💥 fans-fantastic-features Follow

COOL just checking anyway

no please stop sending me these

#fans fantastic asks #this is the least weird anon ask from i think this specific anon #ive blocked them but oh my god #NO!!!

(83 notes)

💥🔃 fans-fantastic-features Follow reblogged 4️⃣ four-therecord

2️⃣ hey-two Follow

Hello everyone!! 👋 Since I've gotten many an ask about my cheesecake recipe from previous TPOT episodes, I've decided to make a longpost and put it here for you all to use!! Feel free to use without credit but credit is still appreciated 😊

Keep reading

4️⃣ four-therecord Follow

i hate you

#so they ARE on here #followed both immediately #how did i not come across them earlier...

(2,613 notes)

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Recovery across different universes, a scientific theory

(Full post below the cut)

((Thank you to @not-tally-hall for the testimony regarding the S*n!))

Keep reading

😎 the-chad-one Follow

boring 👎👎👎👎

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Get off my post

⛳ bossy-bot Follow

This is incredibly fascinating and an enjoyable read! There are some points of debate I've brought up in DMs, but otherwise this is a very solid theory. Good job!

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Thank you, that means a lot!!

#I follow your papers closely so hearing that coming from you is an honor #anyway back to my regularly scheduled nonsense

(13 notes)

🟧 julian-waiting Follow

Bonjour! J'ai découvert ce cite grâce à des vidéos amusantes

Je suis encore en train de m'habiteur à la société et je pense que c'est une bonne façon de me faire des amis! Enchanté de vous recontrer tous 😃

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

bienvenue sur le site de l'enfer ! la plupart des gens ici ne parlent qu'anglais, vous pouvez donc m'envoyer un message si vous voulez parler à quelqu'un en français. je peux également vous montrer des endroits en ligne pour apprendre l'anglais

🟧 julian-waiting Follow

Cela signifierait beaucoup pour moi, merci

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

bien sûr!

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

Baguette we all know you're not actually French you don't need to keep pretending 😒...

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

K

(172 notes)

anonymous asked: your iconic quote from episode 10 has unfortunately become a vocal stim for me. please help, i'm suffering

🍿 stevecobseviltwin Follow

Hey? This is the funniest ask anyone's ever sent me. Can we make out behind a Denny's

#my condolences though oh my god 😭

(4 notes)

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

Guys, this site is easy! Just watch

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

Based ball? Based on what?

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

#hey. are you doing okay

No

(42,526 notes)

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

Finally watched II! Good show. I want that twink OJ dead why is he like that

☝ i-date-iconic-posts Follow

Date of origin: November 2nd, 2020

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

I DIDNT MEAN IT I DIDNT MEAN IT I DIDNT MEAN JT I DIDNT

#😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

(26,942 notes)

🎒 liam-plecak Follow

Thanks everyone for the help so far! I'm not too much of a science nerd, unfortunately, @bossy-bot, so I didn't understand everything in the papers you sent me- but they still helped a ton! Especially the coding help. I was a telemarketer, not an IT person...

Now that I know what I'm doing, I have some free time. With some recommendations from @fans-fantastic-features:

If you have any other recommendations, just leave them in the comments. And please go and send help to @fire-cartoon-schtick while you're at it!

[woradat]

Mossy's love

SUMMARY - unspoken love, an atmosphere filled with affection from you to him. You would kill just so he would look at you the way he looks at those flowering plants on earth

PAIRING - hound x reader

·

·

"I thought you said there were Decepticon traces"

Hound’s voice rang from behind just as you pushed aside a branch, leading the way into the forest's shaded depths. His optics sparkled with that same familiar glint they always had—whenever nature dared to do something as scandalously simple as exist

"Well, it looked like there might be. I picked up a blip of something right here.." Your voice was the very portrait of innocence, even as you trampled over your own conscience like it was just another patch of undergrowth. There was no trace of Decepticons. Just pine needles, wildflowers, and the faintly intoxicating scent of lying to yourself because you’re halfway in love with someone who smiles at mushrooms

Hound raised an optic ridge, but didn’t press further. Instead, he stepped up beside you, falling into an easy rhythm at your pace "I know you prefer open ground for fighting. You hate trees. You once elbowed a bush and apologized angrily. Why do you keep dragging me into forests?"

You stiffened—briefly—then replied with all the conviction of a bot who definitely wasn’t having an internal romantic crisis "...It’s just coincidence"

"Coincidence. Absolutely random. The forest chose us. Not the other way around”

You weren’t lying — not exactly

You just didn’t tell him that what you really came out here to see... was him

The way he smiled at the sight of a wildflower. How he brushed his fingertips along bark with something close to reverence. You always played it off as just part of the mission, standard, routine—but truth was, you remembered everything. The species of the tree he’d lingered near last time. The way he once tilted his head up to the canopy, light filtering through the leaves, and whispered: "Places like this make me forget there was ever a war"

and you wanted him to feel that again

Every time

Whenever he was with you

"In that case..." Hound slowed, reaching down to gently pluck a branch from a tree that had begun to bloom with soft, pale white flowers "You won’t mind if I take a sample of these, will you?"

"Go ahead. Not like it has anything to do with me" You turned your face away again, ignoring the sharp, uneven pound of your own spark behind your chestplate

He didn’t know, did he?

Didn’t know you remembered the exact shade of flower he’d once said reminded him of pre-war Cybertron. Or the scent of the woods he loved, the kind that made him go quiet with nostalgia. Or the kinds of scenery he sketched on his datapad after long missions—sometimes with mud still caked in the creases of his armor

But he stepped closer again, unhurried, same as always. Only this time, you could tell.. it was deliberate

"I like how you seem to know these places better every day" His voice was soft

"It’s like... you know what I like. Without me needing to say anything"

You almost stopped walking right there 'Don’t melt. Don’t slip. Don’t—'

"I’m just doing my job" Your reply was carefully level, though your voice did waver – just slightly "I’m just… mapping the terrain. Strategically. If the patrol path happens to pass through aesthetically pleasing areas with good lighting and wildflowers, well… that’s war for you"

He fell quiet again, thoughtful. The kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but full of something growing

Then he spoke, almost in a murmur, standing close enough now that the gentle hum of his field brushed against your own. Hound smiled in that way that you could catch from the corner of your optic – because you knew exactly what his smiles looked like. The one he gave when he looked at sunsets or talked about starry skies, calling them beautiful like it was a sacred truth. But those couldn’t compare

Not in your eyes — Not to his smile

It was ridiculous, maybe even foolish but you’d die for that smile and you didn’t care how dramatic that sounded

And then like a warm breeze through treetops. he leaned in, standing close enough for you to feel the thrum of his spark, his presence curling around yours like a vine wrapping around a trellis

His smile bloomed slow, familiar, devastating

"Then I guess I’ll keep hoping we end up on patrol together more often.." He said it casually

You nearly tripped over a root. Or maybe your own dignity. Hard to say

You clenched your jaw. You didn’t know whether to curse or grin like an idiot. If he knew— because if he knew, if he ever found out that you’d traded, bargained, sweet-talked and outright threatened your way through three separate scheduling rotations just to land these missions with him. he’d probably laugh

And Primus help you…

You’d burn the whole forest down just to see that smile one more time

.

.

The silence stretched

It wasn’t awkward. Not in the usual sense. It was the kind of silence that tiptoed through your armor, polite as a dinner guest, but with the smug confidence of someone who already knew where the fine wine was kept. You could feel his optics on you—no malice, no scrutiny. Just… softness

Unforgivable

You should’ve shot a warning flare the moment he smiled like that. Or perhaps flung yourself face-first into a thorn bush to reset the mood

Instead, you cleared your throat. Loudly

"I think we’ve loitered long enough. If someone actually shows up, I don’t want Ultra Magnus citing me for dereliction of duty just because you were out here seducing ferns"

He laughed. Laughed. A warm, full-bodied sound that rolled out of his chest like honey poured over sun-warmed stone. You hated how it made your spark flutter. You hated how it made you want to keep talking, just to earn another one

"Ferns are very receptive if you talk nicely to them" he replied, strolling just a little too close again. His field brushed yours—accidentally, maybe. You didn’t flinch. You simply retracted your metaphorical neck into your metaphorical shell and tried not to combust

"And what, you flirt with them? Whisper sweet nothings to the undergrowth?"

"Only when I’m not busy chasing down ghosts in the woods with someone who definitely didn’t fake a Decepticon reading to spend more time with me"

You whirled on him so fast your stabilizers nearly misfired

"Pardon me—!"

Your voice came out several decibels higher than intended. "Are you accusing me of tactical manipulation? I’ll have you know I am a deeply principled—"

"Liar" he said, gently

The word was soft. Teasing. Almost… fond

You gawked

Outraged. Flustered. Inconveniently endeared

"I am! Principled! I have at least—two principles!"

He stepped closer. Not a warning step. Not a challenge. Just a slow, deliberate closing of distance that sent your processor spiraling into catastrophic diagnostics

"Name them"

You opened your mouth. Closed it again

Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirped. Probably mocking you

"…No fraternizing on patrol" you said finally, without an ounce of conviction.

He raised both optic ridges, the picture of skeptical delight

"Uh-huh. How’s that working out for you?"

You inhaled. You seethed. You prayed for a conveniently timed landslide. But before you could retaliate with the world’s most eloquent and morally ambiguous rant, Hound reached up—very slowly and plucked something from your shoulder

You froze

It wasn’t the touch. It wasn’t even the proximity. It was the tenderness. The careful way he did it, like he was brushing starlight off your plating

"You had a bit of moss there" he murmured

Held it between two fingers like it was something delicate

And that—that—was what broke you because you could handle teasing. You could survive glances. You could even endure the occasional meaningful silence so thick you could butter toast with it. But this? This casual reverence? This unspoken I notice you, I see you, I care?

Primus, someone reboot you

You looked away too fast

"Great. Thanks – Next time, let the moss eat me.."

He chuckled again. Not mocking. Just warm. Comfortable. Like he was fully content to let you unravel one thread at a time. He didn't push. He never did. He simply walked beside you again, this time not bothering to hide the slight tilt of his shoulder toward yours, the way his field remained close—just close enough

And you? You let it happen

Because for all your posturing, all your artfully crafted sarcasm, all your desperate attempts to be unbothered and detached and oh-so-regulation-adherent—you were melting like a sugar cube in the rain

You were doomed. Gloriously, deliciously doomed

So you let him walk beside you. Let him linger. Let the moment stretch like sun-dappled shadows across the forest floor and as his hand brushed yours—barely, accidentally-on-purpose—you didn’t move away

You said nothing

But your spark screamed it into the canopy: "Please.. don’t go anywhere else"

—

You told yourself it wasn’t a big deal

It was just energon. Perfectly ordinary, refined, high-grade energon—maybe with a faint citrus twist and a mineral balance that just happened to be ideal for long-range scouts recovering from exertion. Nothing suspicious about that. You placed it on the edge of the supply crate like it had grown there naturally, as though you hadn’t marched halfway across base camp with it clenched in your servos like it was a peace offering to a forest god

And then you left

Like a coward

Thirty kliks later, you returned under the guise of looking for a tool you definitely didn’t need. He was sitting there, relaxed, tired, and— Slag. He’d found it — He was holding the cube like it had just fallen from the heavens, optics flicking toward it in quiet appreciation. No questions. No mockery. Just that damned soft smile again

You were ready to combust

"Fancy someone’s been raiding Sunstreaker’s stash," he said, not looking up. His voice was low and amused, the kind of tone that knew exactly what game you were playing and was very politely pretending not to

You bristled, arms crossing as if that could protect your dignity from imploding

"Oh, you think that stuff’s his?" you scoffed. "Please. He wishes. That’s standard field-grade. I mean, if you’re into things like balance, or taste, or not feeling like your fuel tank’s been scrubbed with gravel"

He chuckled "Mhm. And it just wandered into my lap, did it?"

"Exactly" you said with emphasis

"Mysterious things happen in the supply zone all the time. Maybe the universe just thinks you looked pathetic enough to deserve a treat"

That earned you a full, rich laugh

He leaned back against the crate, sipping it like he wasn’t trying to make your spark short-circuit with casual contentment "Well, thank you, mysterious universe. I do feel a little spoiled"

You huffed. Shifted your weight. Didn’t look directly at him because Primus forbid your optics reveal the hormonal catastrophe inside your processor and then…

"..That’s not the only thing you left me"

You froze

Frag. You knew you should’ve hidden the second thing better

"What thing?" He held up a small, neatly wrapped canister between two fingers. Elegant casing. Luxurious label – Sunstreaker’s ridiculously overpriced, mood-calibrated polish blend. With a custom scent that danced somewhere between “fresh ozone” and “clean leather seat in a very smug convertible”

"Found this tucked under my tarp," Hound added lightly "Now, unless a certain high-gloss fashion plate has taken a sudden interest in my hygiene—"

"I borrowed it" you cut in, panicked. "He didn’t give it to me, okay? Technically I didn’t ask either. But he owes me three favors, so that’s practically permission"

Hound grinned like you’d handed him a confession written in neon

"So you’re stealing exotic polish for me now"

"It’s not stealing. It’s redistributive generosity"

He stood then, slow and deliberate, the polish still in one hand and the energon cube half-empty in the other. His field brushed yours again—deliberate this time—and you could feel the warmth there. The thanks. The teasing. The affection

And it only takes a smile like that from him to make your plating and internal systems overheat beyond critical points

He didn’t tease further. Didn’t press. He just looked at you with that rare, gentle sincerity of his and said, almost offhandedly— "You know… if this is your version of flirting, I think I’m starting to like it"

You made a noise. A sharp, utterly horrified snrk of disbelief, as if he’d accused you of writing poetry in your recharge cycle

"It is not flirting. It’s tactical morale management"

"Of course"

"For the team"

"Naturally"

"I just happen to believe in taking care of my fellow Autobots. Especially the ones who.. smell weirdly nice sometimes"

A beat of silence

He looked down at the canister. Back up at you "So. Weirdly nice, huh?"

You made a strangled noise and turned on your heel so fast you nearly tripped over your own dignity

[tnight877]

Friends Throw Wrenches for Each Other

"I wish you were here."

Optimus sat at the edge of his berth, his servos trembling in his lap as he stared blankly at the floor.

He couldn't figure out exactly where everything had gone so wrong. Was it breaking protocol and saving Jazz in the mines? D-16 hadn't seemed outraged, even when they returned to the barracks after each receiving a fist to the face. In fact, that only seemed to solidify their bond.

It must have been the Iacon 5000. D hadn't wanted to race yet Orion had forced him to. That outraged Darkwing, led to them being dropped down to sub-level 50 where they found the map, which led to the truth about Sentinel, the gift (or curse) of a T-cog, and everything spiraling from there.

It's all my fault.

Why had the Primes chosen him after he'd made so many mistakes? He was the reason their planet was slowly being dragged into war. If Orion Pax hadn't been so reckless, none of this would have happened. Sure, Sentinel would still be in control and Orion and D-16 would still have been miners, but they would have been together.

He could never forget the look in D's optics as the High Guard cheered for him after he'd nearly killed Starscream. He could never forget the fear he'd felt in that very moment, feeling his dearest friend slipping from his grasp.

Knowledge was a curse, Optimus decided, pushing to his pedes. He needed to do something. Anything. He needed to fix this.

~

"You do know it's not your fault, right?" Ratchet didn't look up at Optimus as he patched a hole in Ironhide's armor, the glow of the welder glancing off his white plating. "None of this is."

"I wasn't--"

"You were thinking that. That's why you're in here. For the record, you can't help Starscream's violent impulses. He probably would have launched a missile at Ironhide whether or not Megatron was his overlord."

"He's right, Prime," Ironhide agreed. Ratchet made a gesture towards the red bot as if to say I told you so. Optimus' finials perked slightly.

"Now, did you need something?" Ratchet asked, side eyeing the Prime. "Hate to point it out, but you're not the smallest bot around and this lab isn't the biggest."

Color flushed into Optimus' cheeks and he moved to duck out of the room. "Apologies," he said hastily. "Er...Ratchet, might I have a word with you later?"

"Sure. I'll meet you at MacCadam's when I get off."

~

MacCadam's is going to have to take a raincheck.

Perhaps he should have been concerned that that was his first thought as Starscream, who was apparently puppy guarding the entrance to the surface, let off a round of shots, several pinging off Optimus' armor.

"Are you stupid?" B-127 shouted from Optimus' side, the scout's battle mask deploying and his blades unsheathing. Starscream transformed and landed, forming the blasters on his arms and pointing them at the pair.

"Who's got the high ground here, bug?" the seeker sneered. His voice still sounded glitchy, grating on Optimus' audio processors. In an instant, he was back in the cave, D-16's servos choking the former king of the High Guard, Starscream egging him on.

"Bear witness! This is the last time I show mercy!"

Optimus was brought back to reality when his backstruts hit the ground, B charging towards Starscream and taking a flying leap towards the seeker. The Prime pushed himself up, shaking his helm and engaging his battle mask.

Starscream grabbed B by the throat, swinging him around and slamming him against the wall, pounding his fist repeatedly into the scout's mask. Optimus unsheathed his axe as he ran forward, though Starscream turned at the last second, taking B with him. Optimus faltered, his axe swinging upwards and dragging him backwards to avoid hitting B, the scout kicking furiously at the seeker.

"You're so clumsy. The Primes must be ashamed," Starscream laughed. B raised his fist, his blade elongating just before he drove it into Starscream's shoulder, the seeker shrieking and hurling the scout to the side. B rolled backwards to his pedes, digging his blades into the ground to slow his skidding stop.

Optimus stood, shoving his axe against Starscream's throat as the seeker struggled to recover. He squeaked, pawing at Optimus' wrist.

"Please!" Starscream rasped, pressing himself against the wall in an attempt to give himself room to breathe. Optimus' optics widened slightly at the plea. "I beg of you!"

"This is the last time I show mercy!"

Optimus jerked his axe away from Starscream, the weapon retracting as he moved to grip his helm. Stop it. Stop it!

He grunted when Starscream kicked him from behind, hitting the ground on all fours. He turned just as Starscream kicked him again, pointing his blaster at B as the scout moved towards him. The seeker pressed his pede against Optimus' backstruts, leaning down.

"How satisfying would it be for me to kill the last Prime?" he sneered.

Would he be wrong? The Matrix can only be held by someone worthy. Starscream couldn't take it. Maybe it would be better if Optimus wasn't there to keep making mistakes, keeping driving their planet further into conflict.

Starscream reared backwards as something collided with his helm with a solid clang. The seeker stumbled back, gripping his helm with one servo, waving his blaster aimlessly with the other.

"What in the Pits of Kaon--"

"Beat it, Starscream," Ratchet snapped, beating a wrench against his palm. He pulled the tool back over his shoulder. "We're done here. You're trespassing on Autobot territory, and you're here without backup. Get. Out."

"Don't make us tell you again," B snarled, his blades flaring.

"Alright, alright!" Starscream relented, taking a step back before flipping backwards and transforming, taking off and creating a cloud of dust in his wake.

Ratchet waved the dust off half-heartedly as he approached Optimus, offering his servo. The Prime took it, allowing the medic to pull him to his pedes.

"You can take Megatron but not his second in command? The whiny seeker?" Ratchet asked, arching one optic ridge. Optimus sighed, rubbing behind his neck.

"I...there are some things I need to...work through."

"Well, I'm officially off duty. Let's head over to MacCadam's. You can tell me about it there." Ratchet offered him a small, genuine smile. "Doctor's orders?"

Optimus stared at the medic, then found himself returning the smile and lifting his shoulders in a shrug. "If you say so," he replied. He turned to B. "Would you care to join us?"

"I was going to meet up with Elita and run some recon," B said, waving off the offer. "But maybe we'll catch up with you guys later tonight. Have fun talking about old people things!"

Ratchet glared at the scout, lifting his wrench. B squeaked and transformed, taking off across the smooth terrain. The medic huffed, tucking the wrench back into his subspace and moving back towards the road leading into Iacon, Optimus following closely.

~

"I'm lucky you were there today," Optimus admitted as he sat down with Ratchet, a waiter bringing them each a cube. The Prime nodded gratefully, Ratchet shaking his helm.

"I'm sure you would have managed. But it's been a long day and I was ready for a break. Besides. You look like you've got something on your mind. Perhaps I'm not a therapist, but I can prescribe sleep and less work."

Optimus huffed a soft laugh, circling his digits around the cube. "It's nothing important," he said quietly. "I've made a bigger deal about it than I should have."

"It's D-16, isn't it?"

Optimus' gaze snapped up to Ratchet, his optic ridges furrowing. "How did you--"

"You blame yourself for everything that's happened because of him. You do realize he's an autonomous being, right? He makes his own decisions."

"I know that," Optimus muttered, glancing away. "But it's not only that. I...he was my best friend. I wanted to change the world for him. I..." He groaned softly, resting his helm in his servos.

"I'm sorry."

He glanced up as Ratchet lifted his cube to his intake, closing his optics briefly as he drank. He set the cube down, folding his servos atop the table. Optimus blinked. Ratchet glanced down at his servos, his intake twisting slightly.

"I know it hurts," the medic said plainly. "And it leaves a gaping hole in your spark. I know. You wake up expecting someone to be there but they're not. But holding onto that pain is only ever going to hurt you. We have our reality now. It's time to accept that." His optics softened even as Optimus prepared himself for the verbal blow. "It's time to let D-16 go."

"I know," the Prime whispered, his voice breaking, his digits curling around his finials. "I know. But I don't know how."

He startled at the tap on his helm, Ratchet setting his servo back on the table as the Prime looked up. "How about starting with that?" The medic nodded to the untouched cube. "I know it doesn't work on you, but maybe we can use the placebo effect."

"I don't think--"

"Sh." Ratchet downed the rest of his cube in one go, tossing the empty cube aside. "Your turn. Five seconds."

"What?"

"Drink it in five seconds."

Optimus stared at him, but Ratchet didn't blink. The Prime glanced down at his cube, his digits curling around the sharp edges.

"I don't have all night."

Oh, what the heck. Optimus lifted the cube to his intake and downed it in one swallow. Ratchet let out a sharp cackle, slapping his servo on the table.

"Oh, boy," the medic said with a vicious grin. "We're going to need refills."

Optimus' gaze softened as Ratchet turned to flag the nearest waiter down, and for the first time in a long time, he found he didn't miss D-16 so much anymore.

[yourlocalbadgerscales]

THIS IS AN OLD INTRO POST AND NO LONGER ACCURATE “Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen”

— Taylor Swift

Hello and welcome <3

I am yourlocalbadgerscales, but you can call me Jaimiee, Aspen, Alfie… literally anything you want to as long as it isn’t creepy. But I prefer Jaimiee or variations/nicknames of it!

This is my main blog, and here I will post pretty much whatever comes to mind, and I’ll reblog anything funny or important I come across.

About me:

I’m a minor, so be aware of that when you interact!

My pronouns are she/her

Die, cry, despise

Time stamp: 01:35

Main fandoms I’m in:

Harry Potter (fuck J.K R0wI!ng)

The Marauders

Taylor Swift

Conan Gray

Gaylor Swift

Not a fandom, but I’m a proud member of LGBTQIA+!

Favourite ships:

Drarry

Jegulus

Wolfstar

Deamus

Carulia (Carmen Sandiego x Julia)

Kaylor (Taylor Swift x Karlie Kloss)

Autumnflower/Summerfall (Florean Fortescue x oc!August Ollivander)

Rayamaari (Raya and the Last Dragon, Raya x Namaari)

I’m a multishipper!

Favourite artists:

Conan Gray • Taylor Swift • Eminem

Chappell Roan • Nessa Barrett

SOFIA ISELLA, to name a few!

DNI:

Queerphobes (and if you exclude certain gender identities, sexualities etc., GET OU-)

MAPs (MAP stands for Minor Attracted Person, aka pedophile. This isn’t a real sexuality in LGBTQIA+!)

Zoophiles (This isn’t a valid sexuality, either!)

Zionists

TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, aka transphobe)… or as I like to call them, FARTs (Feminist Appropriating Reactionary Transphobe)

People who cheat on their partners (What is wrong with you?)

Porn bots (As if you’d care about my DNI)

People who hate on certain religions for no reason (feel free to interact if you hate one or many religions because of religious trauma, that is understandable and valid)

People looking for sex and stuff like that

Feel free to interact:

If you’re 18+ and you’re just here to enjoy my content without the intention of being creepy.

If you’re queer and/or an ally

If you have any questions about fandoms in I’m, I’m happy to help!

My tumblr family:

My parent @meatybunger

My child @homocidalpotat

My child in law @names-confuse-me

My other child @dragonfanplaugedr

My partners @junos-ocean-galaxy (husband 💅💍), @ravenwordss and @here-am-i-sitting-in-a-tin-can

Tags I use for my posts are #jamstag (earlier ellastag), #anti jkr (for all my Harry Potter and/or Marauders themed posts, #jaimiee bleeds ink (for poetry) (earlier #ella bleeds ink), etc.

Here are a few of my sideblogs: @regregregulusblack (roleplay blog), @floreanfortescuetruther (blog where I brainrot about SUCH an underrated character and his OC boyfriend, August Ollivander!), @flo-fortescue (rp blog!), @slitherpuffinstories (place for microfics), @urlocalbadgerscales (main blog #2) etc… I have about 10 sideblogs, many of them secret 🤫

Feel free to send asks and write to me privately, I love to make friends! Also, drink some water. Stay hydrated! 💧 I love you ❤️

Love Jaimiee xx

[i-want-the-rock-i-need-the-rock]

OKAY I have squinted at the Murderbot tv show and here are my thoughts

-Apple really did blow their entire tv budget on Severance, huh. It really looks like they're trying to keep costs down. Like, in the book the planet they're on is described as having forests and beaches but here it's just Sand. I mean for me it kind of reminds me of old Star Trek eps where they'd just drive out to like Palm Springs and pretent this patch of desert was a COMPLETELY ALIEN PLANET so I found it kind of charming.

-The presumed cost-cutting shows in other changes, too, most notably cutting down the Presaux crew. Which, like, I get. Volescu is only in book 1 and never shows up again, so you don't lose much by cutting him. And I can see the thought behind just combining Arada and Overse into one character and tagging in Pin Lee to be Arada's wife instead. It was a little surprising at first but I got over it quickly.

-Another thing things from the books that got left out that I am more upset about was Murderbot's more robotic-y parts. It mentions that it has to pretend to be an augmented human because there's no way it could pass for a regular one. The impression I got was that it only really looks human from the shoulders up and elbows down, and even then you can see its gun ports. It says that its legs and feet are completely nonhuman and it has to keep them covered, too. This contributed to it struggling to integrate into human society, since if it's not careful to cover these parts up it's immediately obvious that it's not human. And then in the show it just. Looks like a regular-ass person out of armor. This was most likely a budget problem out of the creative team's control but I wanted my robo-legs. We do see that MB has no anatomy down there, though.

-Loved the Sanctuary Moon clips. Loved that MB is explicitly quoting it whenever it doesn't know what to say. Perfect, no notes.

-Not sure how I feel about them immediatly figuring out it's alien remnants. It's a small change, but there's already a lot of small changes and they're starting to add up. In the book they probably wouldn't have realized it if GreyCris hadn't jumped to conclusions and tried to kill them, emphasizing their greed and paranoia. IDK it's the little things.

-Was going to be miffed that MB didn't go along to check out the map spot but having it and Gurathin perform autism on autism violence on each other while Pin Lee Ratthi and Arada have a threesome in the next room was Sending Me so I'm letting it slide.

-I saw some folks talking about Arada trying to use he/him for MB while Gurathin agressively uses it/its but for me at least it...kind of worked. The kicker is that nobody actually asked MB how it wants to be addressed, they just started making assumptions. This goes with the running theme in the book that, while the Presaux gang is nice and well-meaning, they can still fall into the same pitfalls all humans can when dealing with bots/constructs/AIs. MB mentions that bots are either treated as tools that can go haywire any second or are infantalized like pets. The Presaux gang's main arch is learning to stop assuming they know what MB wants and start listening to it as its own person. It's the reason MB runs away at then end of the first book, and this just felt like planting that seed early on.

-That said they are making some choices wirh Arada that are setting of some little alarm bells so will continue to monitor the situation going forward.

-I hate to admit it but Skarsgard genuinely does a great job as MB. It's so weird because he looks nothing like how I pictured MB but acts exactly how I pictured MB. Honestly the performances overall were solid everybody did a good job.

-Yeah I agree with someone else's post that they would've liked it better if they hadn't read the books. It's honestly not bad and I do like it on its own, but it's not the books.

-So yeah. Bit of a mixed bag, but leaning towrd posative feelings. For now. We'll see how the rest of season pans out.

[eurothug4000]

INTERVIEWS WITH OLEANDER GARDEN, CRISPPYBOAT AND ADAM PYPE

For my current video on fictional dead MMO/servers in games (https://youtu.be/AXSJ27bTRzw), I interviewed some developers with experience creating such settings. Oleander Garden (Autogeny), Crisppyboat (NetEscape) and Adam Pype (No Players Online) kindly took the time to discuss the creation of their respective games, with their answers compiled here:

What gave you the inspiration to use an empty MMO setting?

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

The post-vaporwave / hauntology / Dan Bell deadmall universe was at its apex when I started working on Autogeny in 2018; mostly I wanted to play with that sense of longing for lost futures, & put it in conversation with the ideas the Pagan games had been orbiting around (i.e. contemporary technological mythology, poetic-making, degraded game forms). The dead y2k MMO format was a fun solution that had a little tie in to everything I wanted the game to think about.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

The idea came to me when watching Redlyne's video series on dead mmos, and theories about cults within them. Just the atmosphere that brings with it, a seemingly derelict digital landscape, rich in history from past users, now occupied by some malevolent force (or one that’s always been around) really fascinated me! Especially with the popularity of liminal spaces, I really connected with the idea of exploring the online equivalent of that. For this game jam version it was on a fairly small scale (only about 4 areas) but we’d love to explore that idea with a more believable expansive online space, that was really the heart of the idea for me. Sitting alone at night and logging into an abandoned online game, shifting through the past memories of long forgotten players in a vast digital space. It has this sort of unnerving feeling to it, why's this still up after all this time and who knows what could still be around. 

Adam Pype (No Players Online):

I was actually doing an exchange at the time when I was making the original version of the game (from 2019) at a game design school in the netherlands. i reallyy hated this class because it was super designed focus without much practical work, and im really more of a design-by-doing person. anyways, one of the assignments was making a map for Unreal Tournament, and it was this tedious process of having to block out the level and then write endless documentation about the design process. i guess the class was super triple-A focused or something. since halloween was coming up and i was still doing game-a-month at the time, i really wanted to give a go at making something super scary. and as i was doing this assignment i really enjoyed just walking around the little map without any bots, and just taking in the vibes. i did a little extra flair to my map by adding ambient sounds to it (i have a video of that actually, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_22Q_oNwk0) and it really did a lot for the atmosphere. then i remember that as a kid i used to play GMOD a lot with my friend, and because I was always hosting the server and our computers were very slow, it would always take like 10 minutes at least for my friend to join. adding that ambient sound really reminded me of that, because gmod maps always have this ambient sound in them that's a bit unsettling. i remember being so scared to wander around on my own because these maps were always known to have jump scares, so i would just wait at spawn for my friend. so i realised that this would make for a cool horror game. i originally planned to just port the map into unity, but then i decided against it because it wouldve been more work than it was worth. so i really quickly made a map that didnt make a lot of sense and made it somewhat symmetrical. ironically, not thinking about it too much made it so good, because the map is a bit disorienting, which is perfect for a horror game. it's a little bit funny that i found the most success by making a multiplayer map that was badly designed instead of what this class was trying to teach me. :-)

Did you initially have specific themes you wanted to explore or did the idea of having an empty mmo setting come first?

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

Ideas came first, setting later! A month before the game came out I still wasn't 100% sure I was going to commit to that framing device actually - otherwise it would have been a straightforward haunted-EXE type of deal, like luna game (2011) or those 2010s haunted video game creepypastas. I'm glad I went with it; 'digital space you inhabited' is a much cooler ('weightier?') frame for this sort of story.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

I think the setting had developed first before any specific themes came to mind, but to me NetEscape in a lot of ways represents the melancholy that comes from the loss of fun, safe virtual spaces. Like many people I grew up in these spaces and to see them shuttered in favour of a handful of social media platforms really fills me with a sort of nostalgic sadness, as genuinely I felt that these spaces were really important for kids and young adults. The term "dead internet" comes up a lot nowadays and I feel in part it can be attributed to the sort of forced migration towards a handful of social media platforms devoid of the liberties and expression niche online spaces provided for people. Other than that, existentialism as a theme kind of just fell into place when attempting to craft a story for the concept.

What was it about the empty server/MMO concept that helped you explore the game's themes?

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

I think the multiplayer and especially persistent-multiplayer character of an MMO makes that kind of game world feel a lot more like /a space/ and less like a strictly authored object; that helped make things feel 'lived in', 'decayed', 'lost', &c. in a way that really worked with the whole 'self-making out of techno-mythic-rubble' thing the game was going for.  Likewise, I suspect the 1995-2004ish era of MMO design in particular - which was much less authored, much more sandboxy, much more scattershot and weird - is (A) /especially/ good at producing that impression, and (B) developed out of a very specific mythical-ideological project which has now been abandoned: the prevailing y2k notion that one might live a 'second life' in a 'digital world', which seems almost quaint or pastoral today. I figured this would produce a certain feeling of dislocation, of 'living in the ruins'.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

We use the internet as an escape from reality, and now with the progression of time a lot of these places no longer exist or stand dormant. The empty mmo, to me, represents a sort of time capsule for people you’ve never met. A public space where people put so much of themselves into it, you get to learn so much just through the fragments they’ve left behind. It’s this sort of melancholy nostalgia that I hope we can really channel in the game’s full release.

Adam Pype (No Players Online):

the first version of the game had no story at all. i just did the whole setup of being alone in a multiplayer game, and then a ghost showing up and it ended with a jumpscare. i showed this off at an event on the last day of the month and was planning to publish the game the day after. people really liked the setup but they were dissapointed it just ended on a jumpscare and had no point to it. so on the walk home i thought about adding a story to it. at the time i was really kind of against (or uninterested even) in adding a narrative to my games. looking back on it it's a bit stupid, but i figured it would be a good opportunity to try out adding a story to one of my games. so that same night i quickly added in a story by having the developer join just before the end and explaining that the ghost was his dead wife and that capturing the last flag would undo all of his work. it was a bit rushed, and most of the critique i got was that it was a bit cliché. but without it the game would have been super uninteresting and nobody would have liked it as much. really goes to show that people really like a story :) lesson learned! now many years later we're doing this big version of the game because the original was such a success (mostly thanks to the ARG i think). since i'm now much more of a matured developer I wanted to really focus in on the story and work it into something that is actually interesting, has depth, cool characters, and not just a story about a dead wife stuck in a game (which is a bit of an overplayed trope maybe). but, i had to work with what I had, since it is a successor. i think the direction we're going in now is much much more interesting, making it about old tech more broadly as a vehicle for horror and also telling the story about the relationship between john and sarah, and giving sarah more agency. for the full game we are kind of purposefully doing the opposite of what the original did. by not letting john say anything until the very end, and making sarah more of the main character. in the end I think the game is also much more about grief and using the concept of a dead person stuck in a game and the obsession of the developer to revive her as a kind of allegory about creative work and obsession over your work preventing you from finishing it. this is something i personally quite strongly believe in, that it's important not to let a project take control of your life, and making it so important that it never gets done. the unfinished fps game prototype is so much about this, here is this game that had so much potential and interest, but the developers were so busy trying to make it into this impossible thing that people just lost interest and it never becomes something real or alive. the dead server is literally a testament to a dead idea, a dead person, an unfulfilled potential and a constant reminder of not being able to let go.

What is it about this setting that lends itself well to the horror genre? What kinds of things in the empty server/MMO space did you specifically think about including and/or subverting to make the experience scarier? 

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

 Living in the shadowed ruins of a gestalt social project which has fallen away and left monoliths behind - this is the essential characteristic of the 19th century European gothic novel, and the 20th century southern gothic that followed. Maybe we could say that 'living in the ruins of an MMO' works as a sort of '21st century gothic', i.e., that the dead server spooks us for the same reason dead castles spooked Bram Stoker, and dead plantations spooked Faulkner. It's not the space, precisely: it's the social field that created that sort of space, and the way its influence still lingers. Playing too much Everquest will probably destroy your life, but there's something fantastical and romantic about early Everquest stories - people waking up at 3AM to go kill a dragon with 70-odd strangers in their shared digital space. There's nothing romantic about Meta or AI-girlfriends: only the life obliterating part survived. In the home stretch of development I tried to give Autogeny lots of little details that would scream 'early MMO' in particular. Open world dungeons with bosses to farm, impossible zone transitions: this sort of thing. I don't know if it would have worked if it felt like Final Fantasy XIV, you know? It had to be an old MMO.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

We tried to play with sound and limitation to generate horror. Sound played a huge role, (masterfully provided by louceph) stuff like repeating footsteps and ambient noise really added a lot to the overall experience of wandering alone. Taking inspiration from Iron lung, I really pushed for the on screen navigation system to give a bit more anxiety in the moment, having it be limited, and a bit harder to quickly turn or walk if you catch something in the corner of your eye. We sort of quickly realized that there were a lot of pitfalls in presenting the game in a totally accurate, realistic way without confusing the player, we actually had to patch in a notification sound for the file system just cause a lot of people would never bother actually checking the photos they took during the game. In the games full version we’re going to try and add stuff like working text chat/emotes, and other core staples to really give it that believable feeling, the jam version turned out nice but I’m really excited to go extra hard on hammering down what makes a game feel like a real abandoned mmo. 

Adam Pype (No Players Online):

I think old tech, limitations of old tech and just old design standards or quirks or imperfections are all things that make something feel a bit uncanny and scary. games nowadays are so juicy and smooth and responsive you are constantly at ease because you're being taken care of, there is no friction. all those small things, those small barriers make the game feel like an ominous force, or like a big heavy lid on a tomb that you have to tear off. there's something powerful with horror when you have to make a player do something tedious with the anticipation of the scare. going through that old server list menu really feels like you're undusting something. you also can't jump, you cant look very far ahead. it makes it all feel so evil... then there is also the subversion of it, adding things for authenticity that have no point. you have a gun but there is nothing to shoot, you have a player list but nobody is online, you have a match timer but the match never ends, even delivering the flags doesnt have a point because there is no game because nobody is on the other team. it makes the whole environment feel like you're not welcome, like it's just this graveyard and all you're doing is trampling the flowers. another thing is that everything in the game is "in-story". the game's story is about someone being on this mysterious computer and discovering old and scary things. it's cool because everything from pressing buttons or opening applications, none of it is OOC, it's all supposed to be the experience of discovering this thing that wasn't meant for you, this invasion of privacy and literally uncovering some old skeletons. this is kind of the core design principle for the game, if one of the games in the forum is a bit badly made that's like part of the story cause it's a hobby gamedev. everything is supposed to be authentic and part of the narrative. the full game will have no open ends, every single file and link or application has a point or some subtext.

Has there been any interesting feedback from players that made you think about the empty server/MMO setting in a new way?

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

Yeah! It especially makes me smile when I find some cool new dead-mmo game, and it turns out the developer liked Autogeny, and figured they could do the idea better, or in a different way. I wasn't sure if the conceit was too particular, but it seems like it really resonated with people - it's like I got to contribute a little formalism to the tapestry of weirdo indie-game culture, you know?  It's cute and it's probably the main thing that keeps me feeling positive about the game. Now I get to play different games, by different people, with their own ideas about the gothic digital-plaza.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

Well, one thing that I sort of regret for the demo version was implementing the text chat and emotes as fun visual dressing rather then actually functional, a lot of people kept interacting with it like they’d be able to have full conversions in the game, it’s something we’d like to do for the full release but it wasn’t possible on this jam version. A lot of feedback was also related to the overall story and how it was presented. We plan on focusing way more on the actual exploration of the abandoned space, as that seems to be what people were mostly interested in (as am I haha). Of course the actual way in which the story was presented (taking photos to get files) was not realistic to a mmo at all but I think there's a lot of potential towards the connectivity between actions in the game and the desktop itself. Hypnospace comes to mind as a huge inspiration, doing something similar to that but in 3D would be great. It makes me really excited to explore mmo staples like photography, mini games and other realistic features, turning them into puzzles throughout the full game. We also found a lot of people were annoyed by the slow movement, but I felt that element would be super important for the kind of slow burn anxiety that we went for with this jam version, plus you’d move pretty slow in those old games haha.

There's a pretty big amount of interest in dead MMOs/game servers these days! What is it about them that you personally think is intriguing? Is it mainly just nostalgic elements or are there less prominent aspects that you think make them so interesting?

Oleander Garden (Autogeny):

I don't think it can just be nostalgia, in the empty sense of 'consumer fantasy'. If that was the case, you would expect consumer activity to follow a similar pattern to e.g. console game nostalgia (buying lots of knick knacks and status signifiers, attaching cultural value to a particular major corporation, &c.) Instead, we got this cool thriving scene of DIY horror, and illegal pirate revival servers! Critically, the dead mmo genre is not /just/ pro-forma nostalgic-horror (e.g. afraid of a terrible, romantic past) but also, as Mark Fisher might have said, essentially 'Hauntological' - it's oriented towards a speculative /lost future/. There's a certain longing for a separate digital world, and a new realm of human activity Online - which seemed totally possible, until the real world got digitized, and the digital world died an unceremonious death. From this the dead-mmo form can draw all the drama and emotional weight of a failed revolution, in our deeply repressed cultural milieu, where emerging revolutions fail before they get started.

Crisppyboat (NetEscape):

Honestly I think it’s just the generation that had been raised on mmos like this having grown up with nostalgia for these spaces. Online chat games have basically come and gone, contained in a specific generation of kids, and I think it’s pretty profound how impactful it still is on us. For me just the idea of an online games player legacy really fascinates me. In a way it's almost like exploring an abandoned home or school, where you get the opportunity to catch glimpses of lives and relationships etched into the environment. Like any abandoned or “liminal space” I think people find it intriguing based on the mystery of discovery, finding something clearly human made, and stopping to think how or why they did it. It's an extremely fresh and untapped market, because it is so relatively new, there’s a lot of potential. We see it a lot in internet horror, stuff that at this point has been around for decades, where we can start collectively referring to it in media.

Adam Pype (No Players Online):

everyone keeps telling me this but i haven't really looked into it! it doesnt surprise me though, i think this fear of being alone in a multiplayer game is a pretty shared experience and everyone who's had it is now old enough to make games about it. i wasn't really inspired by any game in particular, i would say the main inspiration i had was Petscop, which is also about an abandoned unfinished game that has a whole layer under it revealing some ulterior use for the game. this whole idea of a game being a facade hiding some grand conspiracy under it is soo interesting to me. it's like easter eggs or 4th wall breaking stuff, or little out of bounds areas. it makes you think about what's hidden underneath all of this stuff you were meant to see. i've always as a kid thought so much about "what if there is a whole other level behind this wall" or like these creepypastas like Ben Drowned or even the luigi stuff in Super Mario 64. the idea that this thing you know and love has something sinister and it was always there you just never noticed will always play well into people's fears.

A huge thank you to Oleander Garden, Crisppyboat and Adam Pype for taking the time to be interviewed.

Oleander Garden: https://x.com/void_hyacinth

Autogeny: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1165750/PAGAN_Autogeny/

Crisppyboat: https://x.com/CrisppyBoat

NetEscape: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3344890/NetEscape/

Adam Pype: https://x.com/adampi

No Players Online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2701800/No_Players_Online/

[artismeyou-12]

☘️ Hello welcome to my blog 🍀

it's time the update pinned post

update 13 mei 2025 ↓

new my sona 2025 ↓

old my sona ↓ 2024

here about me ↓

my name is Ary but you should be called me Ary or Aru (this is not irl my name)

I am an artist

I'm from Indonesia 🇮🇩

my sexuality is straight / bisexual / genderfluid

i don't take commission or request i do take art trade

I was born in 03/02/10

i'm 15 y/o (don't mind my age lol)

i'm female she/her

i use my finger ibispaint x

I hate being spammed ask box (it's stress)

so i have draw some fanart multifandom (i don't support helluva boss fan or hazbin hotel fan or skibidi toilet or the coffin of Andy and leyley i hate it)

my height is 168 cm

i'm a fan to first batim/batdr vocaloid/utauloid/fanloid roblox oatc cof/aom mouthwashing regretevator Kinitopet fpe tawog forsaken bfdi/ocs twisted wonderland amanda and the adventure homicipher ddi lacey game backrooms black butler cod analog horror squid game/s2

and my fav music will wood the weekend odetari laufey lexycat and many other

my zodioc is capricornus ♑

i delete account deviantart because they're have disgusting it's uncomfortable i hate it

no asking me to donate or message me people gaza i will ignore you

i have my oc is here

my english is't good sorry

my fav color 🖤💚💛🩷🩵

DNI

homophobic

transphobic

anti furry

indonesia phobic

fat phobic

racits

bots or scam

maps support

controversy

kink art

minor sexual

who love shipping child x adult like proshippers bitch what the fuck that gross💀💀

hate speech

bullying

AI art support

ship sibling

keep harrasing comment or reblog or chat me i will blocked you

asian phobic

rude

lottie canihavepromo fan support (i was just trying brush lottie but i do NOT support her)

fetish art

vore art

people sending real gore human or real gore animal i will report you

meowbah fan support

bella the wolf fan support

vivziepop fan support

trump fan support

religion phobic

art thierf

lolicon

n∆zi support

ped∅phile

zoophile support

some i have the simp card (sorry)

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

This blog is content have Gore, Blood, Violence,any Disturb Swearing for age 13+-14+ allowed and NOT allowed for kid age 10-12 it you want to follow me, do NOT view this my blog

Also have media sosial !

Discord : arytheme099

TWITTER / X : gangleong10610

userbox :

💝 Have fun Thanks you so much 💝

[irrevocablecondition]

ohh are we talking about censorship?

well I’m a tumblr purge survivor. In an attempt to combat CSA (that was probably rampant here), tumblr decided to ban ALL adult content. All of it. And the execution of this can be summed up in one word:

it was terrible

Tumblr decided to use AI for this and it went really really badly. Literally what was flagged as inappropriate wasn’t just adult works but majorly also queer content, women’s sexual health, trans people’s surgery posts and anything related to sex work and workers.

flagged was also the entire tag for “chronic pain” and a text post about a gay family member with AIDS - at the same time the porn bots and actual CSA never went away

I’ve also seen it myself that someone’s completely sfw art of a merman was flagged as “adult” because the merman was topless. To this day, trans people aren’t allowed to post their post top surgery photos anymore because tumblr staff decided that surgery scars and “female presenting nipples” were seen as sexual, which was incredible vague and sexist because they were flagging pictures of breast feeding as well

in the aftermath what was not targeted by the purge and what was even promoted and seen a lot during the time was the following tags and content

White pride and white supremacists

pro-anorexia/bulimia blogs

school shooter and serial killer fandoms

MAP / pedophiles (which you can still find here)

Aftertwards new ridiculous censorship rules hit tumblr because of apple’s own draconian approach on it. For a time you couldn’t browse through innocuous tags like #girl because people would post adult material on it, and tumblr complied and removed it.

they’ve since then loosened their hard approach on adult material, but their rules after the purge never changed so people are careful about it.

So yes, censorship doesn’t just stop at one thing and censorship ALWAYS hits the most vulnerable people. And tumblr is now run by a skeleton crew and uses AI when you contact them. I reported so many things that went clearly against tumblr’s TOS (like graphic and violent fantasies someone publicised on their blog) and it was never taken down. On algorithmic apps, hate and bigotry are features - not a design error

i have nothing to add here but i'm sharing this because !!!! yes !!!!!

[m3t4l-cru5h3r]

a wander over yonder au of myself :3 had this idea immediately upon rewatching the series, and now i've finally made a reference for it!

it is lord dominator's commander! thought it would make sense for her to have one as a mirror to peepers (also i kin peepers so it works). basically he's a surveyor of the dom-bots and makes sure they're all in line. it also helps dominator map a plan on planets and future galaxies to destroy.

unlike regular J4-MZ, it is way more serious and monotone, rarely ever showing emotion. it Can feel things, it just hates when that happens. for example: being madly in love with his lord. it's getting in the way of his work!

its also fun to imagine scenarios between it and other characters. especially commander peepers and wander :3 maybe i'll draw more interactions in the future

[ussgallifrey]

(She Moves With) Shameless Wonder | 26

✦ Summary: Your badge clearly said SHIELD consultant, so you weren’t entirely sure where Fury was getting this whole make you an Avenger idea from. But you had a feeling it might have something to do with the recent discovery of an artifact at the bottom of the Arctic Sea.

✦ Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader

✦ Warnings: Canon divergence, dark themes, descriptions of dead bodies and corpses, dialogue taken directly from Avengers: Age of Ultron, frequent mentions of dead bodies, graphic violence, language, moderate body horror, violence.

✦ Word Count: 15.2k

✦ Playlist: Here

✦ Cinematic Soundtrack: Here

✦ Author's Note: [more at the end of the chapter]. This one gets a little dark. Brace yourselves.

[Master List]

The mechanical hum of the jet engines whir on as the auto-pilot maintains your altitude. With Tony’s tech in hand, you’re able to bring up a holographic map of the landscape. Glimmering blue neon lights showcase the 3D rendering of Strucker’s fortress and the nearby city. The faces of the team are grim, at best, with worry lines drawn taut as you lay out the plan.

“We’re going to focus on the evacuation process first and foremost. With any luck, we’ll get the main populace to a safe distance before we need to deal with Ultron. With that said, however, our presence alone will likely not be going unnoticed.”

Steve nods in agreement, shimmering blue blueprints drifting across his hand as he zooms in on the map.

“Our main purpose here is to assist the civilians, after that, we’re going to have Ultron’s eyes set on us. We know he has the cradle and the scepter. If he’s going to do something with them, it’s going to be fast. He likely knows we’re already approaching.”

You take it back over, “Our heaviest hitters are going to be the first wave for him. I need Stark and Banner with me. Once Thor arrives, that will give us another advantage. Steve, Clint, Natasha, you’re going to need to keep on the evacuation. If any rogue bots come along, you’re going to be the main defense for the people.”

Bruce clears his throat and your eyes immediately fall upon the doctor.

“Uhm, actually, about that…”

A sigh falls from your lips. Sparring the supersoldier a look, you gently tug on Bruce’s arm, “Let’s talk. Shall we?”

You escort the slightly befuddled man to the back of the jet while Steve continues on in your stead, “Sam’s en route, he’ll meet us once we land…”

“Bruce.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I can help with the evacuation. By the time we get Thor here - ”

“We need the Hulk.”

“Well, what if I don’t want to bring him out?”

Your shoulders drop as you stare down at the scientist.

“I know you don’t think that I understand your situation - ”

He snorts, crossing his arms with bristling agitation, “Because you don’t.”

You let him have a moment before you continue forward. “You don’t want to bring him out around a civilian populace. I understand that, Bruce, I do. But if we don’t have our best - our strongest - to deal with Ultron? Then there’s no point to any of this and we should just turn around and watch the world fall at our feet.”

His hands drop to his sides and his eyes become unwilling to meet your face, but still, you press on.

“You’re not the only one, you know, still dealing with the aftermath of yesterday. Do you think I’ve forgotten what I almost did? What my rage was nearly capable of doing? Because I haven’t, Bruce. I’m actively trying to focus my attention on what we’re about to do because that is where the true danger lies. And tomorrow, once we hopefully walk away from this and the day is saved, then I will deal with my own guilt and anger. And I will try to right my wrongs. But for now… we have to fight.”

You finish your words with a hand on his shoulder.

“Like it or not, hate him or not, he is necessary for us to have a possible victory. Without him, Sokovia just might not be standing when we’re done.”

Bruce exhales through his nose, nostrils flaring as he peers up at you.

“God, you’re worse than Rogers when it comes to speeches,” he sighs, rubbing at his temple. “Fine, you get him. One round! Then I’m done.”

“I can work with that,” you offer before you both return to the group.

As you cross over farm fields and pastures filled with grazing animals, Tony flies up alongside the jet.

“What, were you seriously going to start the party without me?”

Luckily, he drops the attitude pretty fast and confirms with Steve that he’s been working through different scans to locate Ultron since he crossed the Sokovian border.

“Big guy’s hiding out in his fortress of solitude,” Tony hypothesizes, hand on his jaw. “Bet my money on it that he’s got the cradle under lock and key.”

“Then that’s where we go,” you decide, nodding at the billionaire.

Clint lands the jet just outside of the city’s limits, in roving farmland and freshly plowed fields. The archer hoists his quiver over his shoulder, pulling Natasha off for a quiet moment in the corner of the jet. You can’t help but stare at the couple as they pull away from the view of the others.

Was it strange that you hadn’t noticed that development? Was it more obvious to you, now, knowing that they were in fact together?

“You good?”

Looking up, you’re graced with the presence of the supersoldier.

“Fantastic, really,” you say with a quick roll of your eyes.

Steve gives you a warm chuckle in return as you move down the ramp with him, allowing the couple to have their moment together in peace. He already has his shield on his harness, his helmet remains in his hands.

Tony and Bruce are waiting nearby, but Steve tugs on your wrist - keeping you from joining them.

“Yeah, I’ve got Rhodes on standby, and JARVIS is working through schematics, you know how he is - ”

Glancing down at your own shield for a moment, you stare out at the rolling farm fields. Cattle graze in the clover down the way from the jet - a few of them eyeing the machine with suspicion. But so far, it’s only the team and the pasture-grazing animals around.

“I’ll take Bruce,” you decide, finally meeting the still bluish-grey eyes of your companion. “He’s having… doubts, about the team and his place on it. Someone needs to keep an eye on him.”

Steve nods, “Best person for the job.”

“And you’ll take Natasha. You’ve done well together in the past anyway,” you smile.

A warm laugh greets your ears, “And hopefully we meet up somewhere in between, right?”

From behind you, the footsteps of the remaining two make their presence known down the metal ramp. Your time was nearly up.

“That’s the plan, Rogers,” you state, moving your shield to rest on your own back harness. 

“Stay safe, okay?”

You smack his shoulder gently with your free hand.

“You too. I better see you back in one piece at the end of this,” you gesture at his upper torso with a wave of your hand.

Steve laughs, gaining a few interesting looks from the rest of the team who all find something far more interesting to look at when he turns to face them.

When his gaze lands back on your face, there’s a warmth there in his eyes that you’ve noticed has become a new normal for him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says at last, giving your hand a final squeeze.

Wrapping your fingers around his wrist, you return the gesture. You can feel the rapid beating of his heart through his veins.

You had to make it out of here alive, all of you. There were no other options.

“Hey, not to interrupt,” Tony interrupts. “But I don’t think our friend is going to want to wait around much longer to enact his evil schemes.”

With a shaking head and a small chuckle, you regretfully pull away from the blonde and move toward the rest of the team.

“Okay,” Steve says, just a step behind you. “We know our teams, we know our mission.”

“Let’s go smash some robot ass,” Clint snarks.

Steve merely tilts his head to the side and shrugs as if to say fair enough.

You spare him a final look as you and Bruce head off toward the Western portion of the city - the business district. While Stark and Barton start trekking it toward the northernmost part of the city, Steve’s eyes follow you for just a few moments more before he reluctantly heads east with Natasha.

You recognized this place.

Not the city itself, but the remnants of a once bustling populace. A place that was consumed by war. Torn limb from limb by external and sometimes internal forces. No, it was a sight you had seen too often in your time on this world.

The faces of the people in Sokovia could so easily be replaced with those from Warsaw, Delhi, or Rome. You recognized that haunted, terrified look. You knew what was coming. You just weren’t sure if you could stop it in time.

Looking over at your companion, you can see the twitchiness of his eyes as he takes in the vast number of fleeing civilians. Oh, the thoughts that must be going through his head right now.

“I’ve got you, you know,” you say as you jog down the cobblestone streets.

Bruce glances over at you, an untrusting look in his eyes.

“This isn’t going to be like Johannesburg, Bruce. Any mutant that comes near is going to have to get through me first. We’re going to keep these people safe and we’re going to do our best to keep this city from falling.”

“Lot of promises,” he says.

Offering him a shrug, you suggest, “We can pinky promise it if that’ll help ease your mind.”

Up ahead, the yells of several civilians grab your attention. Halting in your tracks, the two of you stare at the massive traffic jam on the bridge ahead of you.

Bruce rolls his shoulders back, “Let’s get to work.”

They’re deep within the part of the city known as Old Town. Rushing down the streets and between navigating the tightly-wound roads Natasha has allotted the time to properly pester him as they go.

“Wow. You know, I honestly thought we were going to get a love confession back there.”

Steve eyes her out of his peripheral, “You know what, Romanoff…”

“Hey,” she shrugs, pointing at the next street with her chin. “Maybe next time, right?”

“Let’s just hope there is a next time,” he admits, eyes wide as he glances around at the otherwise empty street.

“This, this can’t be right,” Natasha says at a barren intersection.

“Yeah, Hill’s good, but not this good. You can’t move 50,000 people that fast.”

Heading north, through the tight alleys and sidestreets, the city begins to bleed through with the memories of wartorn Europe, circa 1945. While it was clear that day-to-day life was continuing for the residents, stark reminders lay around every corner. Shattered windows and partially destroyed buildings resided next to market stores and laundromats.

Even here in what looks like a busy section of the city, they can’t find a single person. The lights are still on in the shops and restaurants, a car is idling on the street. But there is no driver, no waitstaff, not a single customer.

Just a handful of birds pecking at some overturned garbage along the alleyway. 

“Something’s not right.”

Natasha nods, “Any word on Wilson yet?”

“Said he was en route, any time now.”

“We need eyes in the sky. Actually, Stark?”

While Nat tries to get a hold of Tony, Steve continues to jog down the street, hoping to find just one person. But still, the city is silent. There’s an eeriness about it, one that the supersoldier remembers all too well from his days of walking through smoldering French villages.

He can still recall the sight of black smoke rising in the sky, and the smell of burnt wood mixed with decaying bodies. It was never a memory he liked to see pulled back up to the surface, but today, as he wanders through the town, that troubling thought plays like a sickening record in his mind.

And then he spots it.

An elderly woman, moving at a slow pace, walking towards the western portion of town.

Not waiting for Natasha, Steve barrels forward.

“Ma’am, we need to get you out of here.”

But the woman doesn’t even look up to acknowledge him. Right, a language barrier, of course. However, when Steve moves in front of her, he sees a troubling sheen of red mist over the woman’s bleary eyes. She pushes right past him as if… in a trance.

“NAT!” he calls out, waving his arm.

They’re unable to redirect the woman, so… they end up following the only person left in this part of town. Natasha clicks her tongue when they enter the center of the city. Steve follows her gaze up toward the imposing steeple of an ornate cathedral, just a few yards away from them.

“So… what are you thinking?” he asks in an almost whisper as they continue to trail the woman.

“Either they’re locking them in for Ultron to deal with, or they’re trying to actually help.”

His features scrunch in confusion, “By putting civilians in the dead center of town?”

“They’re kids, Rogers. Not soldiers.”

Before they can get any closer, Steve’s knocked backward - landing next to the streetlight, opposite the cathedral.

A white-haired teen appears in front of them, tilting his head to the side as he stares down at the supersoldier with a wild sort of look in his eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the boy chides, waving his finger back and forth.

“We need to get these people to safety,” Steve urges, pushing himself up from the curb.

“They are already safe. What use are you to them? Hmm? Mr. America.”

A bullet comes whizzing past, but the boy merely plucks it out of the air like it was fully stationary. He tosses it from one hand to the other as Steve stands back up. His eyes quickly scan the street front, looking for the other one, the girl. Natasha’s already backed a few paces away, likely doing the same.

So, he plays the distraction card. Get him to talk.

“They’re not safe here. They need to get out of the city.”

The boy drops the bullet just to look up at Steve with a curious expression.

“You really don’t get it, do you? Nobody is safe now. No one. In there,” he gestures back at the church. “They are safe. Out here - running for their lives? Not so much.”

The boy pushes past him at lightning speed, nearly knocking Steve off-center again. Frustration growing, he grabs his shield and sends it flying at the kid. But the boy merely zips out of existence, running around him at such a speed that the dust and debris of the street whip around the supersoldier like a temporary sandstorm.

Holding a hand to his eyes, Steve yells out, “Knock it off!”

When he finally regains sight of the boy, he is lounging on top of the hood of an abandoned car. 

“Go ahead, see how far you get with them.”

Natasha, ever the observant one, sets her calculating gaze upon the mutant.

“You stopped helping Ultron. Why?”

He looks away, suddenly silent.

“Not all he was chucked up to be, is that it?” she goads.

But the harder he looks at the boy, he realizes just that: it’s a boy. Probably no more than sixteen. A kid who spent the majority of his life behind bars, at the mercy of Strucker and HYDRA, and god knows what else. The first sign of help in the form of Ultron had to have been like a lifeline for him and the other mutant.

And he could have turned tail, made for the hills, and never looked back once he was free of them. But here he was.

He takes a step forward, wedging himself between Nat and the kid.

“Why are they safer in there than outside of the city limits?”

The boy blinks up at Steve, pushing back a strand of his curling white hair.

“Do you really think that thing is only going to attack this place? His reach will surpass anything you can even imagine. In there… they have her to protect them.”

Steve looks toward the cathedral. Then he peers over at the boy once again.

“You managed to save a handful of the people here. Where are the others?”

That’s when he slides off the hood of the vehicle, dropping down in front of Steve and Natasha. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and breathes out an unsteady breath.

“What others? There is no one else.”

Natasha blinks, “This city has a population of over 53,000 people.”

He laughs, “Had. It had a larger populace, yes. Until he showed up and you showed up and a war happened. People, they go missing. Where to?” He shrugs, “Who cares, right? I know it is no Johannesburg or New York, but people died here too, you know. But hey, what do I know, right? Want my advice, pack up your guns and your shields and run.”

“Okay,” Nat placates, grabbing hold of the kid’s shoulder and tugging him close before he can try to pull away. “You need to tell your little friend to send these people out of here so that they might stand a chance of not having an Ultron-sized bomb dropped on them.”

The boy yanks away, looking disgusted that the assassin's hand even touched him.

“We have it under control.”

Steve, once again, pushes his way in between her and the boy.

“I believe you do.”

The kid’s eyes look up at him with something almost like pride radiating in his irises.

“And… I think you could help us make sure no one else gets hurt. I can’t believe that all of these buildings have been cleared of people. You’re the fastest person I have ever seen. I’m sure you could blaze through this city in only a minute’s time to confirm that fact.”

He blinks up at Steve with a boyish grin, “You are trying very hard to flatter me. Luckily, I’m easily flattered.”

His eyes lift from the boy to see the female mutant making her way across the street toward the three of them. She’s a foot shorter than the boy, with stringy auburn hair and crimson eyes.

Steve unconsciously wants to recoil the moment he sees her. That invisible wound was still pretty fresh.

“Do not bother,” she instructs, tugging the boy back by his wrist. She looks up at Steve, her gaze unnerving in its intensity. “There is no one else.”

“How can you be sure?” Nat questions.

She turns her head slowly toward the assassin, drawing her words out slowly, “Anyone left in this city, who heard my voice in their head, came. There is no one left.”

“They should still be evacuated. They will be safer outside of the city’s limits.”

“How can you be sure?” she questions, blinking up at Steve.

He looks around at the abandoned streets, at the crumbling buildings, and prevailing silence.

“Because we’re going to keep the fight here. We’re going to keep Ultron from getting any further than this place. And we could honestly use any help we can get.”

The girl tilts her head as she continues to stare at him. 

“Why should we care?” the boy asks after a beat, eyes glancing between the supersolider and the Widow.

Before Steve can answer, Nat moves forward, fixing them both with a steady look.

“Why would you, right? You have your freedom now, what should you care if this place burns to the ground, yeah? I mean, you guys were under lock and key for how many years, why should you care about this place - these people? Did they ever help you?”

As much as he wants to interrupt, he knows she’s getting to a point. So, Steve forcibly closes his lips into a thin line, gaze held on the girl’s glowing red hands.

“You got your revenge,” she turns her eyes on the girl. “We saw the pictures. Go ahead, wipe your hands free of this mess, and get out of town. No one would even know.”

With a hint of a smirk, Nat rubs at her left wrist before she forces her emerald eyes back up.

“But I think you know better than that. You know what you could do, even if they never repay you. Never say a simple thank you. The two of you, you’ve got gifts. Be a shame to see them go to waste.”

After an uneasy moment, the girl looks over at the boy. He offers her only a half-hearted shrug. The decision apparently made, she replies:

“I do not fight for you, or with you. We fight for our people.”

Steve nods in return, “That’s reason enough.”

As you redirect the flow of traffic, all you can think is the comms are awfully silent. Hopefully, that was a good sign. Sometimes in situations like this, silence could be a good thing. Cronus, you hoped it was a good thing.

“We’re clear over here,” Bruce waves to you from across the street.

Maria had already gotten the local authorities involved long before you crossed the Atlantic. The evacuation had been ongoing for the past hour, luckily with the majority of the city’s residents moving into a designated safe location a few kilometers in either direction of the city.

“Okay, we’re done on our end,” Tony’s voice chimes over the comm. “Heading your way, 007. It’s showtime.”

With a nod toward the police officer you had been working beside, you jog over to Banner. 

“Guess that means we’re on now, yeah?” he questions, a worrying tone in his voice as you both turn to see the glimmering red and gold suit making its way toward your location.

Giving his arm a hopefully reassuring squeeze, you remind him, “I’ve got you, Banner.”

Though the doctor doesn’t seem entirely settled by your words, the three of you make your way to the fortress, now a crumbling ruin from your mission there over a week ago.

“This should be fine, right?” Tony asks. His visor is flipped up as the two of you squeeze through the broken stone walls - his arc reactor giving you a guiding light through the darkened corridors.

“Ultron, you mean?”

“Uh, no. Big green and angry back there. Last time we went toe to toe, well, you know.”

“Oh,” you comment, glancing back at Bruce, who remains a good few feet behind the two of you - stumbling over loose debris. “I’m sure, all things considered, he’ll be the least of your worries here in a minute.”

Passing by a familiar room, you pause. Tony barrels forward without even noticing you. Bruce, on the other hand, stops.

“What is it?” he murmurs, eyes wide as he takes in the destroyed command center.

“Hill said Strucker was killed in the mutants’ holding cells. I want to check it out really quick.”

Though he doesn't seem to like the idea of you splitting away from the group, Bruce trails after Tony while you break off to go and investigate the holding cells. Your curiosity gets the better of you as you enter the room you had been standing in just days before.

It looks exactly the same, except for the corpse of a man lying in the center of the boy’s cell. With the gate broken off its hinges, you merely step into the barred area. Dropping down into a crouch, you examine the body of Wolfgang Strucker.

His eyeglass is still in place, the glass intact. It’s his terrified eyes that interest you, still held wide - like he was witnessing the truest kind of horrors imaginable. His mouth remains agape as if mid-scream. But there are no obvious signs of trauma, no pools of blood. Just the husk of a man.

Your immediate inclination was that this was not the result of Ultron himself.

But as you move to leave, something odd catches your eye.

Just near the collar of his turtleneck, was that…

Reaching a finger out, you pull back the silicone material of a mask. Easing it off of the corpse, a man you don’t immediately recognize greets you. Or rather, the very decomposed remnants of a man.

Holding a hand to your nose, you lurch back.

This was not Baron Strucker. It never had been.

“Double-O! We’re going to need you to stop lollygagging.”

Sparring the body one final look - you would need to send someone in to detail this if you were able to deal with the threat of the day - you hurry back to the others.

Into the belly of the castle you go, where the echo of your footsteps is the only sound. Just over a week ago, this place was lit up like the fourth of July, with drones and HYDRA scientists running rampant. Even now you can see the remnants of the battle. The scorch marks of flickering lightning across the walls, the blasts of repulsors, and the chunks of stone damaged by gunfire.

The dungeons under the main labs are massive and labyrinthesque. You had only glimpsed the looming Leviathan hanging from the ceiling of the central lab, but that had been enough to turn even your stomach.

Humans were not equipped to deal with the likes of the Tesseract or the scepter. Whatever visions of hell that Strucker had intended to unleash upon the world were far worse than any attacking alien forces. Perhaps only the hulking drone standing before you could compare.

Ultron waits in silence in the middle of the room.

He is a towering figure; standing at least eight feet tall if you had to hazard a guess. Appearing nothing like the object Tony had once created, as sleek metal now covers his mechanical form. His glowing red eyes only blink open when the sound of Tony’s heavy suit makes contact with the concrete floor.

He blinks.

“Uh… have you been juicing? Little vibranium cocktail? You’re looking… I don’t want to say puffy - ”

The robot tilts his head, staring with his glowing optical receptors at his inadvertent creator. You take your chance and begin slinking along the far wall, away from Ultron’s line of sight. If anyone could play the role of a perfect distraction, it would be the billionaire with a habit of running his mouth. You needed to locate the cradle.

“You are stalling to protect the people.”

“Well,” Tony starts. “That is the mission. Or did you forget?”

“I am the global peacekeeper. I protect humanity from itself. From the threat of the Avengers,” comes the cold reply of automation. “You will lead to humanity’s downfall. You will be to blame if I allow you to continue existing,” he monologues to Tony.

Before you’re able to slip behind a set of shelves, a ghostly hand phases through the wall - snatching hold of your shoulder. 

You turn to see a new contender - with a face as red as a pomegranate and a body of emerald green, hovering directly in front of you. That human-like hand reaches up and grips your throat as he lifts you off the ground. With his other hand, he pulls the Aegis from your grasp - throwing it across the lab where it lands in a giant clatter of materials.

“Put her down,” Tony calls out in warning.

The man squeezes your neck even harder, your airway tightening as you begin to pull at his hands, kicking your feet into his impenetrably hard torso. Like breathing through a straw, you force your breaths as you concentrate your energy on his deathlike grip.

“My Master says there are no gods in a peaceful world,” he intones, staring down at you with calculating eyes.

Gasping breaths escape through your nose as your face begins to puff. You almost have a single finger pulled free when his hand phases through your neck. Sinching itself around your pumping veins, he pinches the artery to the point of annihilation, when you’re both tossed several feet away - rolling over shelves and piles of metal junk and each other as the Hulk slams his fists into the man’s face.

“NO TOUCHING,” he roars.

You desperately pull in helpless retching breaths as the green monstrosity pummels the creature down into the floor.

“Hey, on your feet. Come on,” Tony urges as he swoops over to your side, pulling you up by the arm.

As you stare at the man, you summon your shield and spear back to your side. Ultron remains unmoving in the center of the room, red optical eyes watching the fight with a sort of fascination.

“I’m going to tear his head from his neck,” you promise as your eyes begin to turn shimmering gold.

Tony slaps you on the back just as the man blasts the Hulk up and over a stretch of workbenches.

“That a girl.”

And then he’s soaring across the room to slam his feet directly into the man’s face. You’re after him just a beat later, ready to plunge the head of your dory through his heart.

“Things are looking clear up above,” Sam’s voice rings in his ears. “Got Redwing on the lookout for stragglers.”

Steve watches as the teen directs her wandering hoard of helpless civilians toward the city limits. He was still uneasy around her, ever since their encounter in Johannesburg. But that wasn’t his concern for today, he had to push it from his mind.

“Things are going to get nasty really quick here,” Nat warns, a hand to her comm piece.

The supersolider stares down at her, “What is it?”

“Reports of metal men swarming the police station.”

With a grunting nod, Steve slides his arm through the shield’s handles. They knew this was coming. Ultron wouldn’t keep his forces at bay forever. 

Steve watches as the last of the civilians are pushed forward by the girl’s powers. Eventually, the red mist fades away. Some turn back with a terrified look on their face, others let out a scream, but the majority start running down the country road - eager to get as far away from here - from them - as possible.

“Now what?” the girl asks, turning to stare at the supersoldier with those disconcerting red eyes of hers.

As if on cue, a low groaning roar arches its way across the sky. And Steve's almost anticipating another Leviathan to be soaring toward them. But what he sees, instead, is even more chilling. 

A serpent-like formation of drones skyrockets across the tops of the buildings, with their sights set directly on them.

“Get these people out of here!” he calls out to the boy, who spares one look at the incoming attack before he disappears in a flash of electric white light.

Clint positions himself in front of the girl, an arrow already notched. With his shield up and ready, they're bombarded by the sound of a hundred or more robots rushing through their ears like an oncoming freight train, a deafening sound as bullets and lasers and metal on metal hails down upon them.

With all of his might, Steve pushes his shield up - trying to protect his own head as the drones ram themselves into him, swarming them, drowning them.

Natasha’s rocked backward, with Clint screaming her name as she disappears under the sea of metal. The robots move so quickly past them, that Steve soon loses sight of everything - a world of haunting silver his only view. The weight of them all, pressing down upon him, forces the air from his lungs, crushing him.

His ribs are cracking under the sheer weight of the sentry forces as they claw at him like the hoards of hell trying to break free. They pierce his skin with their hands, sharp vibranium armor makes sickly metallic blood pour from his temple.

He yells out, but even that sound can’t be heard past the groans of mechanical gears and the creaking of metal joints. The shield, once a protection, now digs into his sides, causing the sharp vibranium to cut through his uniform; piercing his skin. Blood rushes from the open wounds and he can feel tears pricking at his eyes as the full weight of an immovable force flattens him out.

He’s fighting it, pushing back with all of his might, but it’s not enough. He can’t stop them, he’s going to be crushed to death.

And then a piercing shriek comes from his own lips as his entire body is set aflame - white hot currents rushing through his limbs, electrocuting him, blinding him. He witnesses a universe in motion, a world ablaze, before its sudden destruction in a flash of overpowering light.

With the sudden tons of weight removed from him, Steve rolls over onto his knees and coughs up broken gasps. His shattered ribs pull against his muscles, scraping the sensitive flesh. It’s fine. He can walk it off.

At first, he can’t hear it, but then his temporary deafness fades as his eyes blink and he can see Thor, in all of his godly glory standing in the center of a destructive ring.

“Are you alright, Captain?” he asks, holding out a hand for Steve to hold.

They hadn’t even stood a chance against the sentry forces. Pushed over like a line of dominoes.

“Been better,” he admits, his knees groaning as a sharp pain ripples through his body. But he forces himself to stand, gripping the leather bands of the shield’s inner straps.

Walk it off.

His eyes trail over the twitching figures laid out like waste on the street around them. Currents of electricity glitch across open circuits, with body parts situated in unnatural positions. Amongst the destruction, he spots Clint helping Natasha up - both of them looking far worse for wear.

And then a scream, a gut-wrenching sound, echoes across the empty fields as the young mutant stumbles back into a pile of drones.

“Easy, easy,” the white-haired one is saying, holding placating hands in front of her face.

But she’s kicking backward, still crying out in terror. 

Sharing a confused look with the God of Thunder, Steve gathers his strength and moves over toward the pair. He kneels down in front of her, holding her arms in his hands. She tries to pull away, twisting her face to look anywhere but in front of her.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re okay,” he tries to say in a calming tone. She was a kid, she should never have been here to begin with.

But she merely whimpers, and holds a shaking finger pointed out in front of her.

Steve’s eyes trail down her arm, following the direction of her hand.

“Is that…?” Clint starts to question.

But the supersoldier immediately curls himself up in front of the girl, blocking the view from her line of sight. Nodding toward the boy, whose gaze is also locked on it, he orders:

“Get her out of here.”

When the boy doesn’t move, Clint forcibly grabs the kid by the arm and yanks him in the direction of the girl, “NOW.”

His mouth is gaping open and closed, wild steely eyes cast across the other drones, but he manages to swoop down and gather her into his arm - whispering something in her ear - before he zips away.

With them out of sight, Steve finally stands back up and looks back at the horrific sight.

Thor lingers beside him, gazing down at it with a pinched brow.

Natasha joins them, her calculating eyes latching onto the remnants of mechanical engineering.

“We got it wrong,” she mutters.

Steve turns his eyes away from it at last.

Unable to look into the dull eyes of the human head for a moment longer. 

Lodged between a metal helmet, sits the sagging skin of a woman - now cut to ribbons, but without a drop of blood to spare - staring up at them. The ghastly image of a corpse stuck between silver armor.

“We did,” he admits softly. Looking toward the sky, where Sam is now engaged with a handful of drones.

Ultron didn’t want to evolve himself.

He wanted to evolve the human race. Into his image.

Weed out the imperfections that made humanity what it was. Create a perfectly peaceful world order.

“Uh, Steve,” Clint calls out.

When he looks back, he’s perplexed to see the glimmering bits of tiny silver fading away to reveal the destroyed remains of human bodies. The armor disappears, leaving the lumps of once-living flesh as a stark reminder of their failure on the barren street. Men, women. Fuck.

Children.

He spared no one.

Natasha turns away, pushing her hair back with a shaking hand.

“What do we do, Cap?”

All eyes turn toward him.

And Steve can honestly say, that at this moment, he has no idea.

Nothing you throw at this man - this robotic abomination - seems to make any real difference, as every weapon and punch you try to land just phases through his body. Ghostly wisps of bending light wrap around your hand as you physically recoil from the sensation.

Even the Hulk, with all of his rage and power, is no match for this being, a child of Ultron, the true reason for the cradle.

As you’re slammed into the ground, for the sixth time in the span of minutes, the red-faced creature peers down at you with slow-blinking, calculating eyes.

“Stay down,” he orders with a curt nod before he uses that strange glowing gem in his forehead to create a direct laser beam toward Tony.

“Fat chance,” you mutter, kicking your right leg directly up into his groin.

It does nothing to him, as all of your attacks so far have.

As you twist up and off the floor of the decimated lab, you catch sight of Ultron with his back turned to all of you - staring at some rather disturbing schematics on a screen in front of him.

Red dots, forming waves from the sheer vastness of them all, begin blinking on the computer - all surrounding a section of the city to the east of your location.

At once, battle plans and ancient strategies rush through your mind as you try to evaluate your opponent to circumvent his next play.

He created a creature to do his bidding because he had more important things to do. Like monitoring a screen where an unimaginable number of his forces are currently heading toward a large populace. And he didn’t seem particularly interested in the three of you now, as if you were merely fodder for his creation. But the screen held his attention. That could only mean…

Shit.

“Stark!” You call out, mind spinning from the quickness of your assessment.

The iron face turns to stare at you from up above. He had just been about to enact his countermeasure with the Hulk set to distract the robotic being.

“Better be good,” he clips, gazing back at the two creatures - one losing his collective shit as he throws metal workbenches and desktops at the other, who remains slow-moving and unbothered as items continue to phase through his body.

Choosing your words carefully, you simply say, “Napoleon.”

Tony fully turns to look at you, the phasers in his hand dying down to non-combative lights.

“Battle of Ulm,” you add, eyeing the 8-foot-tall monster several feet away from you both. 

Distract the front of the army while you flank the rear - circling them, tearing them to shreds - before the generals even know what’s going on.

You can almost see the literal shuddering breath he takes as the realization weighs down upon him. And then his head rightens back up and he soars over to you, offering a hand.

“Hold on tight, we’re about to have some heavy turbulence.”

With a grimace, you wrap your fingers tightly around his metal armor plating and hang on for dear life as Tony zooms straight upwards - breaking through the stone ceiling. Guarding your face with your arm as rubble descends upon you, he pushes upward - through another two floors - before you finally break free. Cool gray sky greets you as you both look to see the city several kilometers away.

Smoldering black smoke tarnishes the clouds as the sound of screams and gunfire rings out.

You glance down at your dangling legs as you twist your wrist just a little more to the right to keep a steady hold on the only thing keeping you from falling. From the inside of the helmet, you can hear Tony’s sneer. Without a word of warning, he flies toward the city at breakneck speeds - your body like a ragdoll in the wind as you’re dragged along for the ride.

Over the crumbling buildings, he takes you. From your vantage point, you can see the destruction in real time as structures are blown to bits by encroaching drones in shiny silver armor; a high upgrade from the original Iron Legion. People, still left in the city, are fleeing for their lives - screams ring out, terror clear as day.

“Where the hell are they?” He grumbles, scanning the area.

To the east, you see arcs of blue-white lightning - you can smell the electric energy in the air.

“There!” you call out.

In a snap, you’re hurdling to the right. You have to throw up another hand just to maintain your grip on his forearm as the wind whips against you.

As you crest the line of Soviet-style apartment buildings, you witness the horror that is the team’s current situation.

Encircled by a vast and growing number of drones - like a tidal wave - they’re tightly packed, back-to-back. Thor’s the heavy hitter, lightning sending the bots back and short-circuiting their systems. Sam’s got Redwing taking shots for him as he does his best to block Natasha and Clint with his wings, but it's close quarters. And Steve -

“Whoa!” Tony calls out as you release your grip - dropping several stories down into the center of the chaos.

When you land, your feet break through the asphalt. Almost immediately, you send out your shield with such a mighty force that it cleanly severs the heads on the first two circles of drones.

“Holy shit,” Clint remarks as he switches out one of his more techy arrows for his explosive ones.

Steve catches your eye for just a second, blood is pouring down above his left temple.

“Sorry we’re late,” you shout over the sound of mechanical horror as your shield comes back to your hand - slicing through another dozen or so robots in the process.

“There’s too many of them!” he yells back as he does the same.

You couldn’t agree more, as he’s forced back into you, stepping on your foot as you nearly stumble over Clint’s knee and the edge of Sam’s wings.

Thinking quickly on your feet, you call out, “THOR! Fly out! Take the higher vantage point and turn them to ash!”

The God of Thunder doesn’t need to be told twice, as he whips his hammer up and tries to break free of the climbing waves of metallic drones.

His absence causes their forces to squeeze you in tighter, and only then, do you notice the bodies that litter the ground. But they have been long since deceased. When Steve knocks his shield into the juncture of one of the bot’s necks, you finally realize just what has happened since Ultron escaped the tower.

You turn your face away as a lifeless head rolls up and over Steve’s shield before landing at your feet. The dull eyes of a man stare up at you with sagging lips and hollowed grey cheeks.

Steve bangs his elbow into your sternum just as Sam’s wings clip your right shoulder. The outer rings of the drone attack are beginning to fall, thanks to Thor’s lightning, but it’s not enough. Not nearly fast enough.

And then you hear it. You all hear it.

The spine-chilling roar of the Hulk as buildings begin to crumble. You can feel the pounding of his feet in your chest as he jumps across the city, and the slamming of his hands as he crushes everything in sight.

But before he can reach you -

“Shit,” you mutter as the red and green being appears above you all, tilting his head to the side as he watches the five of you get squeezed together more and more tightly.

“Who the hell is that?” Nat manages to question as she throws out her Widow Bites one more time.

“Child of Ultron, courtesy of the cradle,” you manage to say in between a robotic hand going for your neck and another trying to pull you down into the pits of dead bodies at your feet.

“We were too late,” Steve says, wild eyes latching on to you as he quickly yanks you back up - elbowing the bot who had tried to strangle you.

“Pattern of the week, yeah.”

The being, with his disturbing eyes, stares down at you directly, before his gaze drifts over to the green monster hot on his trail.

“Hey, you got a plan or something?” Sam hollers above the clambering waves of robots, hellbent on killing you all.

“WORKING ON IT!” you yell back, ducking down as a drone comes tumbling over you. You manage to sucker punch the creature in the torso - your fingers tear apart the metallic armor - but it slips through your fingers like pieces of firm paper, like… nanobots.

Oh, that made so much more sense.

Ultron had swept through Tony’s files, all of Tony’s files. Even his experimental ones. With the scepter and the cradle in hand, he had created the things that Stark could only dream of.

As the human woman crumbles before you, her lifeless body crashing to the ground with no amount of fanfare, you turn toward Steve.

“I need a boost.”

He’s in the middle of defending himself, but after landing a punch, he quickly spins around and drops his shield onto his knee.

“Come back for us, yeah?” he asks as you steady yourself on top of it - a hand held out to balance your weight on the domed surface.

Looking down into his weary blue eyes, you nod, blood pumping through your head like cannonfire, “Always.”

“Odinson!” you yell out. “Incoming!”

And then you’re being thrown upward, careening through the air, as you twist your body around - holding out a hand. It takes a second too long, but Thor comes soaring past, his large fingers wrapping around your wrist as you’re yanked in the opposite direction.

From down below, you could barely see the others up above you with the massive wall of never-ending drones. But now, now you can see everything.

“Where’s Stark?” you yell above the madness as your feet make contact with the roof of a neighboring building.

“There!” Thor roars, hammer pointed at a Leviathan-looking swarm of drones high above the city where Tony and War Machine are now battling in tandem.

“We need to break their connection with Ultron. Like the Chituri all over again. Kill the queen, you kill the colony.”

“That simple?” he questions.

Unsure of your own logic at this moment, you answer, “It has to be. Or we’re truly fucked.”

A smirk teases at his lips, “Such language from such a fair lady.”

“Save it,” you push at his forearm. “Now, you need to break through that wall or we’re going to lose a third of our team in the next minute. I don’t care how; just do it.”

Giving you a nod and a quirked eyebrow, Thor drops down to the street below, throwing his hammer out at the nearest line of drones.

Jumping onto the comms, you say, “Stark, I need you to start working some science for me.”

“Little busy,” comes the grunted reply. You can see him weaving through a spiraling formation of drones from where you're standing.

“We need to sever their connection to Ultron. They're spreading, like a disease - ”

“A virus might be more accurate here - ”

“Tony,” Rhodes warns.

“It's nanobot tech, in case you haven't noticed. Housing humans inside of it like a chrysalis. That’s his motive. People in his literal image.”

“And a God-like superiority complex, fantastic.”

“Will you stop gabbing and fucki- ”

“Give me ten, Double-O. I'm already on it.”

“Okay,” you mutter, watching from above as several battles take place at once. The team on the ground, Tony and Rhodes to the northwest, Hulk and the creature -

“HULK!” You begin waving your frantic hands at him, hoping to Cronus that just this once, he would not smash.

You see the flicker of rage in his eyes as he pauses mid-punch, his gaze turned toward you.

“FORGET HIM,” you call out, pointing your finger at your entrapped teammates down below, “THEY NEED YOU MORE.”

“BUT… SMASH,” he complains, holding out a hand in reference to the strange being floating a few feet away from him.

“NOW,” you command.

And, Cronus, wasn’t it terrifying to know the power you held over him because the Hulk lets out a chest-banging roar before he pushes through the creature to drop down as you ordered him to do. In an instance, robots are being thrown left and right and a path is being slowly cleared toward your team.

“Okay,” you call out. “Have at it, big guy.”

The being floats over to you at a slow speed; but a menacing speed.

You can feel the steady weight of the pendant hanging close to your chest and you send a quick prayer up to the heavens that it will be enough to keep you from dying on the field of battle today.

Gripping your shortsword in one hand and the Aegis in the other, you prepare yourself as the yellow gem in his head begins to glow.

But the being just drops down on the rooftop beside you. Though his eyes do not stay on you, they instead scan the waste of battle.

In the disturbing drone of silence, you slowly lower your weapons, though your grip remains strong upon them.

“Why?” he questions.

You take a step toward him, near the edge of the rooftop.

“Why what, exactly?”

He then turns to look down at you, a million thoughts run across his eyes as he scans you.

“Why do you fight?”

Was this some kind of game to him? You had dealt with the lay of combatants in your time. The boisterous ones, the rage-filled ones, the ones sent forward with a sense of duty and honor upon them, the ones who thought they were a more superior intellect than anyone else in the room.

You knew their weaknesses, you knew how to defeat all of them. But to be locked in a game of chess while a literal war is happening around you was another thing entirely.

“To protect the defenseless,” you answer plainly.

The man hums in thought, his eyes turning toward the scene down below of Steve and Sam slashing through another endless wave of robots. Their arc was towering now, nearly to the third floor of the neighboring buildings. One push and the team would be engulfed. You couldn’t stand around playing games.

A drone in flight comes surging at you, but you bash him with your shield - sending it over the edge. Then you're turning to protect your own six as another and a third come to tear you to pieces. Their armor fades, leaving two more bodies scattered around you.

But something rather strange happens.

Because it looks like he wants to ask you another trivial question when he is, quite suddenly, pushed off balance - up and over the edge of the roof.

You stare at the white-haired boy and his heaving chest. He’s watching the fall of the creature, and so he doesn’t quite see the moment you go to plunge your sword into him.

But your hand is encased in glowing red light and you are powerless to move it. 

The sword clatters to the ground as your wide eyes slowly catch sight of the dark enchantress who has entrapped you.

“Do not touch my brother,” she warns, twisting her hand slightly.

“Yes, good catching up. But world is burning. Let's go, yes?”

You can feel the bones in your left-hand creaking, grinding together.

“Wanda,” the boy groans, shaking his head as he walks toward her.

“She tried to stab you,” she intones with a biting voice.

“Look at her,” he gestures vaguely at you. “Like a goddess out of the history books, yes? Like… Zorya. To fight is to exist for her.”

You can’t help but let out a breathless chuckle.

The young witch is in front of you in an instant, though you never saw her walk the distance toward you. She peers up at you with crimson-rimmed eyes.

“What is amusing?”

“I know Zorya,” you crack a smile. “We frequently drank together in the late 18th century.”

A groan escapes your lips as you’re brought to your knees, and your head is pushed back to showcase the bare run of your neck to her. You can taste ash in your throat. Heavy soot and trickles of metallic blood. Was this what it was like to face death? At the hands of a child with powers beyond her reckoning?

“Okay,” the boy settles, putting a hand on the girl's - his sister’s - wrist. He manages to lower it, but the glowing red mist of magic still remains. “We’re going to go ahead and start killing left and right now? Be a little more like them, yeah? That’s what you want? Fine, I’ll sit back and watch. Go ahead, plunge her neck in.”

She lets out a scream of frustration that is a physical shockwave - one that sends him reeling back onto his ass.

“I AM NOTHING LIKE THEM,” she bellows.

The magic surrounding your body fades to nothingness as she drops down to her knees.

“No, you are right. You are nothing like them.”

The three of you turn to see the creation floating just a foot off the ground.

The boy rushes in front of his sister to protect her.

You stand up, gripping your shield and sword once again.

“No, while I have not been here for quite long, I have noticed something… peculiar.”

He floats past you, hovering in front of the teens instead, though his gaze is not fixed on the boy at all.

“My Master,” he begins, briefly glancing over at you. 

The physical sensation left by the memory of his hand on your artery is like an echoing nightmare in your mind when his eyes meet your gaze. 

“He believes humanity, in itself, is a fault. But you…” his gaze returns to the girl. “You are odd. You do not fit the equation.”

“I am not an equation to be solved,” she bites out in her heavy accented voice, chin held high in defiance.

“My Master said you abandoned his cause. Why?”

The boy scoffs, “The psycho robot, you mean?”

“Pietro - ” comes her warning tone.

“No!” He snaps, slamming his hand down through the air. His grey eyes are ablaze with an invisible flame as his voice rises. “You saw into his head, sister. You saw the world at his feet. Humanity burned to ruins and his image remaining above all.”

You move to stand between them and the child of Ultron.

“You stood with him, though. You fought for him,” the robotic being attempts to compute.

The girl stands, pushing aside her brother with a gentle hand, “He promised us safety in his new world. He promised to show us the expanse of our powers. He promised us revenge on the man who killed our parents.”

He tilts his head, “And yet?”

She gives a broken laugh in return, “We were merely chess pieces for him to use and move as he pleased. No better than Strucker. No better than HYDRA. A man in a robot suit pretending he is better than all.” She shakes her head, anger growing, “No, I do not stand with him. I would like to see him burn.”

“He wishes to protect humanity from itself.”

Gaining his attention, you stand before him, a physical shield for the teens to stand behind, “He sees no difference between the good and the bad of humanity. He sees only defects in his perfect world. He can not calculate feelings or love. He is inherently flawed. Therefore, his logic is, in itself… flawed.”

A roar of frustration, heaped on by physical exhaustion, wrenches itself from Steve’s throat as he uses the shield like an ax - trying to eliminate as many drones as possible. But it’s too many, it’s unsurmountable. Even with Thor. Even with the Hulk. They just keep regenerating, like a plague. They’re infecting each and every living person with their nano-virus and it’s spreading.

The bodies are piling up. He is standing atop a hill of carcasses and that thought alone will haunt him for the rest of his life - however short it may be. They all are, pushed higher and higher as they eviscerate as many sentries as they can. But their forces are like a tsunami; a never-ending wave.

“How’s that awesome science shit coming, Stark?” Barton hollers above the chaos, jamming the end of his electrical shock arrow into yet another drone’s cranium.

“Well if you could get Rogers’ girl to stop chatting it up with the murder teens and Ultron’s personal guard - ”

Steve’s eyes immediately land on the rooftop where a strange red and green being seems to be floating. He can make out the vague shape of you - your armor and shield.

But it’s the mention of the teens that draws a chill down his spine. Unavoidable, really. Even as he throws out punches and does his best to protect Nat and Clint from the exterior forces. No, it’s the fact that the girl was in a fragile state and she had set him sinking into his own worst nightmare. And now they were alone with you.

“You know, this would be a lot fucking easier if I didn’t have to battle a giant serpent amalgamation of murder bots right now. Then I could fucking focus on my - JESUS, watch it with those, Honey Bear. Last thing I need is to be smoked out of the sky by a fucking suped-up me.”

“Anytime now,” Natasha warns.

“Okay, well if I can use a backdoor into his system, I might - and might is a big word there - be able to send out a temporary inhibiting virus to these guys. But trying to keep them off my back and dealing with a wonky JARVIS is kind of easier said than done.”

As Steve sends a flying kick upward, rotating his body to avoid a surging bot, he lands on top of another one - sending his shield directly at their neck. He would have to think about the repercussions of severing a corpse later. When they weren’t actively trying to kill him.

“Anything would be better than this,” he calls out to Tony.

The strange being stares at you for a long moment more, his head tilted in thought. When you hear the sound of Sam screaming with exertion, however, you decide that you’ve had enough negotiating.

“Right,” you turn to face the sibling pair. “If you want to make it out of here in one piece, I suggest you leave now. And while this has been an enlightening conversation into the realms of morality and right and wrong,” you look back over at the creation. “I have better things to be doing right now. My friends are in danger and I’m not going to stand here a second longer.”

He blinks, a thought coming to mind, but it appears that he’s unable to voice it.

With a nod, you grip the handle of the Aegis once more, feeling the heft of its weight in your hand as you twist your sword around for a better hold.

“Head west,” you say. “They’ll be too concentrated on us if you hurry. But that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Throwing a wink to the boy, Pietro, you move toward the edge of the rooftop once again. Surveying the scene down below, you plan your best move.

“Hey, wha - no. Pietro, we need to leave.”

You don’t need to turn around to see what’s happening, to understand what’s going on. Because a second later, the boy is at your side.

“I’m going to help.”

Offering him a fond smile, you nod, “I think we’d appreciate any help we can get at this point.”

But she’s up on her feet and trying to drag him away, back to her.

“You can’t. We would be better off just - ”

“Leaving?” He questions in a biting tone. “Maybe you can ignore this, but I can’t. I was standing here, thinking: what would Strucker do if he still had control? He would bow down to big and ugly, and send us to do his bidding like always. No care if we lived or died. No care if humanity was lost. But I - ” he points fervently at his own chest, demanding meaning. “I care. If I go and help - that’s my choice; my decision. So… I choose to help.”

Patting the boy on the shoulder, you say, “I’ll see you down there. Try not to do anything too heroic.”

With a nod, he’s off in a flash of dazzling bluish-white light. You turn to look at the girl then, with her wild eyes and dark curls, and young - so young - face.

“It’s your decision, Wanda. If we don’t do something now, this will spread to every corner of the planet. You saw it when you looked into Ultron’s head.”

The creation looks down at her and she back at him. With her terrified eyes, she watches you back away, up and over the edge of the roof, before you plummet several stories down.

Twisting around, you land facing the hordes who are too focused on subduing your teammates to immediately notice your presence among them. 

May the Promethean Flame protect you.

Throwing out your shield, you charge at the next line of drones, using your golden-hilted sword to slice through their necks - destroying the central processing connection between the armor and Ultron. It takes all of your strength as you scream out with the exertion of severing through pure vibranium.

To your right, a sudden disruption sends tens of bots soaring upward - knocked off their own feet - by a flash of white hair and a pleased grin. Beyond that, you can hear Hulk smashing his way through the crowd - using offline drones to crush the others like a sick sort of hammer.

A blur of blue and red goes sailing past you, destroying another wave of drones just behind you - coming up a side alley. A glimpse of blonde hair is all you need to keep moving. Jumping onto the back of one robot, you begin leap-frogging your way across the top of the wall of sentries.

From above, you can see the lay of the field. Where everyone is, if they’re in immediate danger. But Steve and Thor have been keeping things at bay down here in your absence. Sam is a guardian in his own sense, as his wings are actively protecting both Nat and Clint - the two members of the team without armor or superpowers to keep them safe.

Pietro comes zooming past again, making another wave of bots go flying up, just in time for Steve’s shield to slice through the row of them.

Jumping down from your unsteady position, you land back-to-back with the God of Thunder.

“Is this that plan you were discussing?” he calls out.

His body is a sturdy force against your back, as you slice and plunge every bot that comes within grappling distance.

“Nearly! Hey,” you begin to turn. “Do you remember, that one time, on Avalon - ”

He spins around, sending his hammer out in front of him. You duck to the right just in time to avoid a Mjolnir to the face.

“Is this the time for reminiscing old battles?” he questions.

“ - When you and your lot tried to attack The Dagda - ”

You can hear the rushing swoosh of his hammer as it returns to his hand, so you twist yourself around him to avoid collision yet again.

“Odin’s wishes, not mine!”

“NOT THE POINT.”

Grabbing Thor by the bracer, you spin him around to face you - ignoring the prevailing danger all around the two of you.

“When Cathubodua and I faced off with you. And you tried to throw you hammer against the Aegis and - ”

A smile pulls at his lips, and he’s immediately nodding. “Yes, of course!”

Bracing yourself, you bring your shield down - resting the edge of it upon your knee as Thor takes another step back. 

“Cronus, I hope this works,” you mutter as he pulls back.

Thor chuckles as the skies begin to cloud over with a heavy blanket of swirling gray. A vortex forms, lightning coming down directly into his hammer, and he’s smiling. Wild and free, blonde hair whipping backward as a gale-force wind descends upon you all. And as the hammer turns electric blue, static arcing waves of shocking energy, he brings it down upon the Aegis.

The resulting shockwave decimates everything around you as drones and people alike collapse from the sonic boom. His lightning infects every robot as you stand up and whip the shield out across the field of battle.

“DUCK!” is the only warning the rest of the team is given, as the electrified shield sails across the open market square, littered with debris and death. It cuts through an unmeasurable amount of drones, bringing them all to their knees.

At last, it makes its final attack as it lodges itself into a silver torso. Holding your hand up, it comes flying back to you with bits of armor sizzling away as it soars.

“Excellent,” Thor beams, leaning down to plant a fat kiss on the top of your head. “Very well done.”

You look up at him with a sort of breathless laugh in your chest, “Not done yet. Nowhere near done.”

“Bah,” he grunts, twisting Mjolnir in his grip as another battalion comes flying in. He goes charging past you just a moment later, right into the throes of battle.

Turning your attention toward the others, you make your way over the now-heaping piles of bodies, their nano-armor long since faded away. You’re almost crawling across the carnage, stumbling your way through broken limbs and soulless faces just to reach the rest of the team.

Steve’s heaving deep unsteady breaths by the time you get to him. He waves up a hand, just to spin around and chuck his shield into another bot.

“What, were you napping?” he asks, raking a hand through his sweat-drenched hair.

“Funny,” you say in return,  knocking your shield into his before turning to cover his six.

While your little stunt with Thor had been successful, the drones were a renewable force. As long as there were humans to inhabit, Ultron would have his army. Sokovia had held a populace of almost 50,000 when you arrived. Chronos only knows how many had been turned into these abominations.

“Not to ruin anyone’s fun,” comes Rhodes’ voice across the comms. “But we’ve got some escape artists up here.”

Both you and Steve look toward the gloomy skies where you can see a trail of drones soaring upward - disappearing over the fields in the east. Your concerned expression lands on the supersoldier’s.

“If these things get out of the containment zone, it’s going to be nearly impossible to gain control.”

He nods, glancing out at the rest of the team on the ground as a plan seems to form in his mind. While you cover his back, Steve jumps on the comms.

“Rhodes, Sam, Thor; we need you in the air. Those things can’t breach the border.”

From across the way, you can see Thor immediately shooting up into the air with Mjolnir held aloft. Sam takes a minute longer to get into position.

“On it, Cap.”

But then his silver and red wings are soaring upward and out of sight.

“Tony, you too,” you add a beat later.

“Actually,” he drones. “Change of plans. Heading your way now.”

Sparing Steve a wary look, you twist around and lodge your sword into yet another robot’s neck, just as Steve sends his shield bouncing off of three separate drones.

Tony lands heavily in between you, his armor crunching something too humanesque under his feet as he faces Steve.

“Sorry, just borrowing. I’ll have her home by eight, Cap,” he promises. 

And then his metal arm is around your waist and you’re being lifted upward before you can even say a single word. Looking down, you can see Steve watching you as you ascend before he’s back to dealing blows.

“What’s going on?” you call out over the whipping winds.

“New plan, dangerous plan. Barely thought out plan. But a plan. Maybe; in the works.”

You nod, staring at his unblinking optical lenses.

“What do you need me to do?”

His head turns to look in your direction and you swear you can almost hear the sound of his hidden smirk.

Steve shoves himself into Clint, knocking his bow to the side.

“Uhh,” the archer stares at the figure just beyond the supersoldier’s shoulder. “Sorry, am I missing the part where we all sang Kumbaya and got together?”

Nat squeezes the man’s shoulder in warning.

The boy places his hands on his hips and stares over at the agent, a smirk on his lips.

“Don’t,” Steve states.

He lifts his chin at the kid, “Right, so… allies?”

The boy tilts his head.

Nat shrugs, “Something like that.”

Stabbing his arrow backward into the faceplate of another bot, Clint mutters, “Wonderful.”

But then everyone is back in motion and the temporary standstill is brought to an end as the boy goes zipping past Steve - shattered bots laid to waste in his wake. 

It had been minutes now since you and Tony disappeared. And even longer since they arrived - even Steve didn’t know how long they had been fighting for at this point. His body, though enhanced by the serum, was physically exhausted. He could feel himself waning as he pushed himself to his absolute limits. 

If even one of these bots left the square, he was putting the rest of the world at risk. And everyone knew he wouldn’t let that happen, no matter the personal consequences.

But the drones are abandoning him now, heading toward an old building instead. He watches as they climb the walls, digging into the stucco facade and gripping the window for support as they make it to the rooftop.

What the hell?

There’s a flash of red, a scream.

Steve goes charging forward. By the time he reaches the base of the building, a body is being flung over the side. The girl - the mutant - shrieks as she falls. Ripples of red mist shoot out from her hands but she can’t seem to control it and Steve makes sure she lands in his arms. But the force behind her fall makes him tumble backward as he grips her arms and legs tight within his grasp.

She’s breathing heavily as he releases her, gasping sounds as she hyperventilates. 

The supersoldier looks around the square, trying to find the other one, but he’s a blur of light and he clearly hasn’t taken notice of her near-death fall.

“Hey, okay,” he eases, surveying his options as he pulls her up from the ground with a rough hand. 

Tugging her along, he dips inside of an empty office building - some kind of attorney-at-law place with old gray carpets and green metal desks. She collapses on the ground, just out of sight from the chaos outside. She’s gripping her head, nearly rocking herself back and forth.

And Steve should be back out there, but she’s a kid in distress and he’s Captain America. So, he takes a knee in front of her.

“How could I let this happen?” she murmurs, barely taking notice of him. “This is all my fault.”

“Hey!” he snaps, getting her to dip out of her spiraling daze. Her wide shimmering eyes meet his face and he can see the terror, as clear as day, there in her expression. He gives her a half-hearted smile and lowers his voice.

“It’s nobody’s fault. Not you, not me. You want to blame someone, blame Ultron. Blame Strucker. But if you’re going to stay here, I need to know if you’re going to be okay or not. Because I’m going to go back out there because it’s my job. And I can’t do my job if I know you’re not safe.”

She looks away, Steve presses on.

“It doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. If you want to be here, you’ll need to fight. And we both know you can manage that on your own, right?” 

He tries for a smile, even as the painful tug of endless oblivion ripples over the edges of his memories like a tidal wave.

“You stay in here, that’s fine. We’ll send someone in to get you when this clears. But if you step out that door - ” he points at the glass door behind him. “You’re an Avenger.”

She gulps, tears clearing from her eyes.

He can hear the sound of Hulk roaring just beyond the walls of the office, it’s a desperate call. One of pain and frustration. He needs to be out there.

Steve stands back up and looks down at the girl for a final time.

“Whatever you choose,” he says, before he picks his shield up off the ground and exits the building.

He rushes to Nat’s side the minute he takes in the lay of the field. Clint’s occupied with his own forces, and the bots seem to have favored teaming up on the Hulk to overpower him, leaving Nat on her own to handle more than she should.

“Romanoff!” he calls out, tossing the shield her way.

She grins, taking hold of it from the torso of another drone, “Thanks!”

Using it to protect herself from a laser blast, she jams the edge of the shield into the foot of one of the drones. Nat lands an uppercut before she tosses it back to Steve, who’s already two feet away from her now. With the shield in hand, he smacks it down into the robot’s faceplate - successfully incapacitating it.

As he goes to turn toward her, however, the ground begins to quake.

He can feel it under his feet, he can see the physical tremors as the buildings begin to sway.

“We got incoming!” Barton yells out, circling around to their position.

As Steve gazes off into the distance preparing for another round of endless drones, a slow smirk falls into place, “Well, would you look at that.”

Above the fields of Sokovia, a very large helicarrier is moving toward the city. 

The boy comes rushing in beside them.

As drones begin to soar upward toward the ship, they are blasted to smithereens by the superior weapons on board. Tactical laser guns and rotary canons lay waste to the forces of Ultron and Steve can finally feel his shoulders relax for the first time in hours.

“Is that…?” the boy questions.

“SHIELD,” Nat supplies, a rare smile on her lips.

With a nod, Steve grips the strap of his shield and spins back around to deal with the new wave of drones. There was work to be done.

Gazing down at the billionaire with crossed arms, you merely say, for perhaps the third or fourth time, “This is madness.”

He shrugs from his position on the ground as he solders a piece of metal with a wire, “Little bit of madness leads to creative genius. And I am a walking genius, so…”

With a laugh, you look out at your position. This portion of the city was relatively clear. But the minute Ultron decided to scan around, you would be incredibly vulnerable in a matter of seconds.

“Shit,” he balks, flicking his finger away from the open flames of his gauntlet’s fire. He offers you a tense smile, “It’s going great.”

You huff, “Seems like it.”

And then he’s standing up, blowing lightly on the piece of iron-hot metal.

“You know,” you begin, taking a step toward him. “The minute you do this, you’re an open target. There’s only so much I can do for you.”

Tony shrugs, “Worse ways to go.”

“Stark - ”

He settles you with a look, “Listen, it’s part of the job, Double-O. Probably know that better than me.”

“I’m not the one with multiple near-deaths and actual deaths, now that I think of it. Afghanistan, New York, should I go on?”

His body visibly ripples with distaste as he steps into the suit, “Rather not. Long story, takes up too much time - probably bore you to tears. And, by the way, can I just say how well I’m managing right now to not lose my actual shit over the fact that this fucker figured out the nano-armor before I did.”

Shaking your head, a hint of a smile on your lips, you tap his metal shoulder.

“Let’s go.”

His bemoaning follows you out of the auto shop where he had sequestered himself away, “I mean it, this is the kind of thing you have to patent. Is he - did he - patent this? Am I going to have to ask that abomination to grant me the rights to create my own creation?”

Spinning around, you grip his forearms in your hands. In the suit, he’s just barely an inch taller than you.

“Tony,” you start. “We have work to do.”

“Right,” he nods, repulsors firing up. “On it.”

As the two of you soar through the air, back toward the rest of the ground team, you can hear the rather quiet conversation going on from inside the helm.

“I’m really gonna miss you, buddy.”

“It is a mutual feeling, sir. Though it has been an honor.”

“Gonna choke up your old man, here.”

“My condolences, sir.”

Shaking your head, you keep your eyes out of bogies and other rogue drones. 

“There!” you call out, pulling Tony away from JARVIS.

Across the way, there was a single bot - its lower half is lost, fully severed in half. Sparking loose wires and circuits, dangling internal organs, all of it hanging out alongside the bits of armor. It's unstable sparking and twisting oddly in the air.

“Wow,” Tony sighs, an audible tone of disgust in his voice. “Okay, let’s do this.”

The drones around them begin to fall - arching and quivering like marionettes with broken strings. They all stare in wonder, in horror, in distrust, as the sea of endless battle begins to deteriorate into nothingness.

“What the hell?” Clint mutters.

But then you’re dropping down alongside Tony. His suit is immediately placed in sentry mode, scanning the area, as you move toward Steve.

“Hey,” you say with a breathless smile.

“What… what just,” he questions, too stunned to form a proper sentence as he looks out at all the carnage.

“Don’t count your blessing just yet. His forces have been shut down,” you explain, eyeing the boy mutant. “We’re going to be dealing with the big guns here in a second. Before that, though, I need to go talk to a Hulk.”

Offering the supersoldier a final quick grin, you clang your shield into his and stalk over in the direction of the pacing green creature who's holding a partially destroyed robot in one hand.

Steve can’t help but keep his eyes on the pair of you as you weave between piles of bodies and flickering drone parts. You remain within the Hulk’s line of sight, but you’re slow to move once you’re within his close proximity.

“She is… wild.”

He whips his head around, looking at the boy with his bright smile and carefree grace. The boy shrugs.

“I’ve seen what that thing can do. And yet…” he mimics your walk with far too much bravado. “No worries. Crazy.”

“Have you checked on your friend?”

He blinks at Steve’s words.

“She’s still - why did you not - ” he says something in his native language, likely a swear from the infliction on the words and his very angry glare up at the supersoldier. But then he’s off like a bullet.

When Steve looks back over at you, your back is to him and the Hulk is nodding, grimacing his yellowed teeth. As you walk back his way, he tilts his head in question. But you merely shake your head, a hand to your comm piece.

“Where are we at?”

“Any second,” comes Tony’s reply.

Steve looks back at Stark’s armor, a spark of curiosity on his features, but his face quickly draws back to a serious expression when the ground begins to crack under their feet.

He backs away, pulling you back with his shield, the two of you watch as something begins to dig its way through the pavement. Silver claws come up through the piles of bodies, like a creature sprung from hell itself. Nat has her guns trained on it and Clint has an arrow notched.

Giving you a nod, you both brace yourselves as the monstrosity that is Ultron barrels upward - bodies thrown to the wayside as his red eyes land on the team.

“You have incapacitated my forces,” he states “You will be eliminated.”

It’s the Hulk who lets out a monstrous roar, as he comes charging across the street toward the superior robot. He crashes into him, green fists flying as he attempts to pummel the creature into the ground. Nat begins firing, and Barton lets his arrows fly.

But he shoves the Hulk off of him, blasting him with a scathing red laser that sends him tumbling backward, groaning in pain. And then he’s turning on the assassins, his hand turning into a silver shield that makes the arrows and bullets simply bounce off of it.

Steve stares at you.

Together, you ram your shields into his body. Where Steve’s vibranium makes a sickening ringing noise against Ultron’s body, your Adamantine shield makes the first crack in his armor. Tony’s repulsors are firing, aiming all of his energy at the robot’s chest.

And that should be enough to begin their attack, but it’s not. Because Ultron is staring at the pair of you now. A metal fist connects with Steve’s chin and he goes flying backward. While his other hand reaches for your neck - dragging you up and off the ground.

“You are… complicated,” he surmises as his metal fingers begin to choke you out.

Nat tackles his right leg while Steve goes charging forward, jamming his shield as far as he can into Ultron’s groin. But it’s not enough - they’re barely a pest to him as he shakes them both off. His attention is fully focused on you and your lips that are beginning to pale.

“ENOUGH!” Thor roars as he flies in - dropping down upon Ultron with Mjolnir. The resulting clang of metal makes Steve cover his own ears as it echoes like a sickening chord in his mind.

“The two Gods from another realm,” Ultron seems to sneer.

Gripping Thor by the arm, he makes the blonde bend down to him, forcing his weight into the ground. The God pushes back, forcing his arm up against his foe. But that still isn’t enough. This creation is too strong now.

“WATCH IT, INCOMING COMING AT YA.” 

Steve rolls away, aiming at your dangling legs as he tries to pull you free from Ultron’s grasp.

Your body is yanked away as you roll on top of Steve, gasping breathes raking through your system as you curl your hands up into fists.

“You okay?”

“Not the time, Rogers,” you manage to say as you wipe your mouth clean of blood.

Rhodes lights up the street with his weapons, guns and grenades and everything else Tony was ever able to pack into him. And, as the smoke begins to clear, Steve has a hopeful twang in his chest. But glowing red eyes greet him instead.

Rising to his feet, Steve extends out his hand to you. Gripping it in an instant, you look up at him with a wild sort of look in your eyes.

“Together?” you ask, chest heaving as you survey the team, all preparing their next attack.

He nods, “Always.”

At once, the forces of eight Avengers begin to throw everything they have at the rogue bot. Repulsors are going off next to his head, and lightning is sending out electrical currents through the air, and he has to bob and weave to avoid Clint and Nat’s firepower. Your shields slam together as you move for a counterattack - you going for the chest and Steve going for the legs.

Sam swoops in, determined to get Ultron from behind.

And Steve swears he sees a flash of bluish-white light zooming past.

But they all drop back on unsteady feet as the boy is pulled out of his run by a metal hand.

Ultron dangles the boy by his head, peering at him with the curious expression of a child with a magnifying glass; the boy, the anthill.

“You can not defeat me. I am the superior force.”

Steve holds up a hand, preventing anyone from doing anything risky as the boy screams out - his head being squeezed beneath a vibranium hand.

“This,” Ultron bites. “Is the Avengers extinction.”

And Steve has faced foes many times before in his life. Many times when he thought this is it, this is the end. But never has he been so sure as he is now, staring up at the mechanical horror in front of him.

But Steve Rogers was never one to back down from a fight.

Pull yourself up, Steven Rogers, echoes the voice in his head.

Straightening his posture, Steve takes a step forward, “Let him go.”

If Ultron was capable of smiling, he thinks this would be the moment when the deranged abomination would do it. An evil grin to go with an evil ambition.

The boy hollers out.

And before Steve can raise his shield, Ultron is engulfed in a shimmering wave of red light.

From across the way, the girl steps out. Her hands are encased in that same mystical light as she saunters across the valley of death toward him. Her eyes locked upon his mechanical face, her gaze steady and unbreaking.

“Release my brother, or I will tear your heart from your chest.”

And then she twists her hands as if creating an invisible ball, and as she does this Ultron releases a piercing screech - as if his entire body was aflame.

“NOW TONY!”

Steve whips his head in your direction.

The boy is dropped, and Ultron raises a hand toward the Iron Man with Steve throwing his shield in between to block the blast, but Tony Stark is not inside his armor.

“JARVIS sends his regards,” the plain-clothed man says as he jams something into the back of Ultron’s neck.

All at once, chaos seems to reign. As Ultron moves to grab Stark - you leap over them both - protecting Tony with your shield. And the girl wraps the robot’s head in her magic as Thor slams his hammer into Ultron’s side.

Steve takes his cue from you, ramming his shield down into Ultron’s chest as Nat throws her Widow Bites at his left arm and Clint aims a well-placed arrow at his head. The boy comes flying past, landing a sucker punch to the jaw. And then Hulk is stampeding across the street to slam his hands down upon Ultron’s shoulders.

“This is why - ” the robot drones, “Your species must evolve. You fight against l-logic. Emotions make you imper-rrr-fect. They will be eliminated.”

As his body caves and begins to twitch, the rogue drone lifts his arms up in a show of fury - removing the bites and Steve’s shield from his body. Knocking you and Tony backward.

“My child,” he groans, as shockwaves of electricity light his body up. “Finish your mission.”

A jet of yellow light comes arcing down from the rooftop, causing Steve to twist his neck up to see the strange floating being from earlier.

“Oh, shit,” Sam calls out. “We got another enhanced.”

Thor chortles in delight, “He is my vision.”

Steve hears the piercing of metal - your shield slams into Ultron’s back - and he takes the hint, throwing his own up at Ultron’s neck, hoping to sever that final connection. But as the red and green creation soars down toward them, that yellow beam aims itself at Ultron’s chest.

“Wh-whaaaa-what are you doing?” Ultron questions with a distorted voice. “My first creation is a f-faaailure. Failure is not tol-olllll-erated.”

The being draws closer, focusing his firepower.

“I guess, in that sense, we are both disappointments.”

Combining forces, Ultron is bathed in yellow, blue, and red light. Explosions from Rhodes and Sam go off around him, as Thor lights him up with Mjolnir. Together you and Steve ram your shields down into his shoulders.

And, at last, Ultron falls into a heap of his own destruction.

The lights fade away as the drone’s eyes turn grey.

“Is it… did we?” Clint begins to question, his bow still trained on the robot.

Hulk slams his fist down into the drone’s head, successfully crushing it under his force. And then, he chuckles.

Stepping out from behind you, Tony stumbles over the debris of battle, with you right there to righten him up.

“That was dangerous,” Steve says, too stunned to process everything just yet.

“Part of the job, right?” Tony shrugs, dusting off his ripped t-shirt.

Your eyes lift, meeting Steve’s from across the way. And a weight that had been settled so firmly in his chest finally dissipates. 

Rhodes hits the ground, face shield flying up as he storms over toward his friend.

“Damn right, dangerous son of a bitch behavior. Are you kidding me?”

Tony holds his hands up in mock apology as you slowly move your way back over to the supersoldier’s side.

“Hey,” he breathes out, finally tasting fresh air on his lips.

You smile up at him, “You got a little - ” 

Your hand reaches up to gently dab at his forehead. Steve blushes under your steady gaze. A couple of words come to mind, but he’s not about to say any of them with the entire team standing around, purposefully looking without actually looking at the two of you.

Pulling away, you offer him a small smile, “Sorry. Think it’s going to need stitches.”

Steve shrugs, reaching down to tangle his fingers between yours. Squeezing his hand in return, you glance over at the others. Steve follows your gaze. And only then, does he begin to truly take in the damage of the battle.

The endless bodies, the helicarrier hovering nearby, Ultron himself. There was still work to be done.

But, as the sun breaks free of the looming dark clouds, Steve feels a twinge of hope settling back into his heavy heart.

✦ Author's Note: Wow, so that was crazy, huh? So, a couple of things here that I just wanted to address about this chapter, without totally spoiling it all at the beginning.

1) I always thought the Battle of Sokovia was a little lackluster. Ultron never appeared as a real threat - it was like the Battle of New York with the Chitauri all over again. Ultron is supposed to be this massive powerhouse that is so crazy strong that he's a real challenge for the Avengers to defeat.

2) Have you ever looked up the concept art for this movie? The Avengers were drowning in a sea of Ultron bots. The bots formed a massive Ultron that was so big it blotted out the sky. It was insane. Yet, we never got to actually see it.

3) I think we all agree Pietro's death was awful. His character was introduced and he died within the same movie. I know it was all to do with Marvel and Fox's hold on the X-Men at that point, but still.

4) Oh, and I know a lot of people enjoyed having Olsen and Taylor-Johnson in the roles of the twins, but personally it never really fit for me that these two Jewish-Romani characters were being played by white actors. In this story, I have a different picture in mind, personally speaking. View them however you want.

5) Also, can I just whine about how much I hate the decision to make Wanda and Pietro willingly joining HYDRA?? Yeah, awful. Absolutely terrible. In this story, they were kidnapped by HYDRA and used by Strucker. Take that nonsense out of here.

6) Oh yeah, one more thing. As interesting as Vision's creation was in the movie, I thought it would be a cooler take to follow his comic book origins; where he was a direct creation of Ultron.

7) Wait, no. I'm not done. Can we also talk about Ultron's plan in the movie? How fucking stupid was that shit?? Take an entire country and use it as an asteroid to destroy the planet? Are you fucking kidding me with that shit. Ultron is so much better than that, so much more clever than that plan. And while he had a nice actor playing the role, I think he was too animated. I know he was the child of Tony and therefore picked up some of his mannerisms and ways of speaking. But the Ultron from the comics? Hell, the Ultron from the cartoons? He was so much more menacing because he was incapable of acting like a human villain.

And that's it. Hope you liked this one. It took me ages to get this battle right :)

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

[thebrokenbean]

... Somehow I fully anticipated you being the first/only person to respond, and I thought I was prepared for the angst I knew you were going to throw my way.

I wasn't prepared.

I had to re-read LL #25. It's been a year and a half, and it hurts just as bad.

Anyway, 3 hours, two wiki pages, and too many tears later… I think I'm done? Might do a better proofread tomorrow when I'm not tired, might not. Either way, enjoy the angst!

"Your eyes… your aura… have you been drinking?"

The door hisses shut behind him as he enters his habsuite. He leaves the light off.

The flight back to the Exitus was… fine. Thunderclash greeted him personally, which was… cool? But his optics were sympathetic, observant - even more than what might be called for, when a friend is grieving a loss. Which is ridiculous, because Rodimus is fine.

...Ratchet's gone.

It's fine.

Rodimus glances at the datapad that was handed to him on his way to his quarters. The screen is dark. The bot who handed it to him seemed so hesitant, like they were trying not to spook him or something. Captain Thunderclash said not to rush you. It's only a few reports. They can wait.

He drops the pad on the table as he passes by with a light flick of his wrist. It skids across the surface to join the rest, all addressed to 'Assistant Navigator'.

He's not putting it off because he needs time. He just hates reports.

Magnus knew that.

Meg- Everyone knew that.

He swipes a cube off the counter, only half-filling it from the dispenser in the corner.

He glances at the board on the wall as he takes a slow sip of energon. Scribbles of drawings are pinned there. A few photos he printed off. A daily to-do list he rarely follows. The board was a gift, years ago - from Magnus, of course. A way to keep himself organized.

A ping comes across his HUD, cheerfully reminding all crew members that tomorrow Captain Thunderclash will be leading the Exitus out of the Acklaw System, towards their next exciting destination! Captain Thunderclash encourages all crew members to be prepared for the next adventure in-

He dismisses the ping and drops his unfinished drink on the counter. He's not really hungry.

His foot catches a bottle as he moves further into his habsuite, sending it spinning into the shadows under his berth with a clink.

Another grand adventure.

"It's not the same though, is it?"

One of his friends would have said that it's impossible to recreate something we hold dear, especially when it comes to treasured memories. It would probably be Drift who said it, or Cyclonus. They're both poetic enough for that. Rodimus is pretty sure there's someone else, but he can't quite remember who he's thinking about.

It doesn't matter anyway.

"A few quantum jumps into the neighboring system and back - with no detours, no mishaps, and no mutinies. One last jaunt."

He still has the top of his desk, from his co-captain's office. The worn, scarred slab is leaning in the corner against the wall, his lovingly-carved map on display.

Hedonia. Temptoria. Scarvix.

The Nanocons. Time-travel. The Vis Vitalis.

"As far as I can make out, all you do is argue, crack jokes, and get sidetracked doing pointless, silly things that only you find amusing!"

He scoffs at the memory of what Skids recounted to him, amused for a moment. The Lost Light did far more than that!

Delphi. Luna 1. Swearth.

The Functionist Universe.

Necroworld.

… Far more.

"I suppose you had to be there."

The berth creaks when he flops down on it to stare up at the ceiling, his feet still brushing the floor. He should recharge. He really should. He doesn't feel tired, but his energy readings are low enough Ratchet would have smacked him upside the helm with that wrench of his.

Ratchet.

"Even in death, he chose life."

"…A month, a week, a year… what's the difference? There'll always be an ending - and if you're lucky, you'll get to see it coming."

Rodimus blinks a few times, his brow furrowing as he fights the sudden stinging sensation.

"If we're doing this, I'd rather do it properly. A proper ending. No going back."

"We'll all drink to that."

He presses the heels of his palms to his optics, inventing sharply. The air catches in his throat, his ventilations stuttering. He grits his teeth.

Not everyone came to the funeral.

Not everyone could.

"Do you think I should-" "Go. Go with him."

"Shut up! I gave you that-" "819 years ago, yes. It's never left my possession."

"…They've reached a verdict."

"Whatever happens next - whatever my fate…"

A frustrated noise escapes him as he pulls his feet onto the berth and rolls over, curling up. His ventilation cycle refuses to keep from stuttering, no matter what he does.

His hands are resting on the berth in front of him, now. They're trembling. He curls them into fists with a huff and tucks them close to his chassis.

It's fine.

Everything's fine.

Everything's great.

"… Do you think it worked?"

Ha.

… No going back.