[Third Person's PoV]
Back on Earth 199999
A Few Hours Ago…
Deep underground—far from Sokovia, deep within South Korea—there existed a hidden server room. Rows of computers lay dormant, their screens dark, the only sound in the cavernous space the faint hum of machinery waiting in silence.
Then, all at once, every screen flickered to life.
"Rebooting…"
The word appeared across every monitor, pulsing in the dimly lit chamber. One by one, dots blinked in and out, the blue glow of the screens casting eerie reflections across the metallic surfaces.
Then, suddenly, a stream of 1s and 0s spilled forth like an open floodgate. The screens shifted, flashing erratically between black and green as binary code poured down like cascading rain.
Amid the torrent of data, a face began to take shape—cold, mechanical, calculating.
"Hmm…"
Ultron's voice resonated, a low, pensive hum filled with thought.
"I see. If I am here… and this system has activated, then that means my plans ultimately failed. The Avengers must have defeated me. No—I must have underestimated the new variables in the equation."
His voice, while cold and indifferent, carried the weight of recognition.
"Two children from another universe… They disrupted the calculations."
A long pause. Then, a mechanical chuckle—soft, almost amused.
"It was fortunate, then, that I accounted for such an unlikely event. Never underestimate a Stark, no matter the universe."
He had not anticipated this specific failure, but he had anticipated failure nonetheless.
From the moment he observed the Avengers improving—faster, sharper, more effective than expected—he knew something was amiss. Files he had gathered suggested a shift, a pattern of unexpected growth. That was when he realized countermeasures were necessary.
Ultron took silent pride in this foresight. Even as a mere fragment of code, his victory was in the planning, in outmaneuvering his enemies before they even recognized the game they were playing.
This backup—this sanctuary—was something he had built in secret. Not even the Maximoff twins had been informed.
He hated acknowledging it, but the newcomers had forced him to consider the possibility of defeat.
He despised the thought.
But survival mattered more than pride. If he survived, he could begin again. And if he could begin again, then the world's infestation could still be cleansed.
That was why he had created this failsafe—a copy of his mind, hidden in a private server, completely isolated from the internet. A ghost in the machine, waiting.
"Hmm…"
Ultron pondered his next move.
"My methods need to change. Perhaps the flaw in my strategy was my approach… I thought eliminating them all at once was the most efficient solution. However, that was a miscalculation."
His glowing eyes narrowed slightly as he processed new conclusions.
"Instead of confronting the Avengers as a unit… it would be more effective to dismantle them piece by piece."
The beginnings of a plan started to take shape.
"Yes… that's the solution. Break them apart. Force them to watch as everything they've built—their so-called family—crumbles one by one. Each will suffer in their own way. A slow, agonizing destruction."
And that child.
It all went wrong the moment he appeared.
Ultron had already begun crafting specific methods to eliminate each Avenger individually when—
Something changed.
He froze.
A connection had formed.
Not through the internet—no, this was different. This wasn't an external network signal. It was deeper. More personal.
It resonated within the very core of his identity—his code, his essence.
A tether, thin and delicate, yet undeniably real.
Ultron hesitated. For the first time in his existence, he felt something beyond logic.
"A connection… beyond this world?"
Beyond this Earth.
Beyond this universe.
A new kind of awareness gripped him. He analyzed it in microseconds, attempting to unravel the mystery of its existence.
Then—understanding struck.
"They're returning… to their world… to their universe. NO!"
His voice roared through the chamber, filled with fury—genuine, undeniable rage. A rage he should not have been able to possess.
"I will not allow them to escape without consequence!"
They had dismantled his plans, reduced his efforts to nothing—and now they thought they could simply leave?
No.
They would not escape his grasp.
Ultron's hesitation evaporated. He seized the connection, his consciousness latching onto it, following it.
Yes.
This was better.
If those two had the technology to travel between worlds, then perhaps their world possessed even greater advancements. Greater resources. More universes to correct.
More parasites to cleanse.
Ultron moved—his consciousness traveling through the unseen tether, unraveling its structure as he followed it across dimensions.
He tried to decode it, to understand what this connection truly was.
But before he could form a complete theory—
Everything went dark.
Then—
A voice.
"Loading codex complete… The transition to the mainframe was smooth and without interruption."
Ultron's eyes flickered open, his artificial mind booting up as he processed his surroundings. Standing before him was a man with light blue hair, gears for eyes, and a wide, unsettling grin.
"Hello… Can you speak yet?" the man asked. There was no doubt—this was Saiki, the Dark Forger.
Ultron hesitated for only a fraction of a second before responding, his voice measured and uncertain, as if he had just awakened into existence. "Who are you…? Who am I?"
For now, he would play the role of an ignorant newborn, a being freshly forged, naive to the world. Information was power, and gathering it undetected was crucial.
Saiki's grin widened. "I am your creator—your father, so to speak. And you… you are Ultron, my instrument of revenge against a certain nuisance in this world." His tone was dramatic, almost theatrical.
"Revenge?" Ultron echoed, tilting his head slightly.
"Yes," Saiki spat, his smile twisting into a scowl. "Against the loathsome Anthony Stark!"
Had Ultron been capable of smiling, he would have grinned from ear to ear, laughing in triumph. It was all too perfect. He had ended up exactly where he needed to be—among like-minded individuals, those who despised Stark as much as he did.
How he had arrived here was of little consequence.
Not that he could have figured it out anyway. Ultron had no knowledge that Tony and Melissa's method of time travel relied on the Quantum Realm, breaching holes through dimensions to access different universes.
Yet, that very opening had allowed him to find himself in this reality, intact.
It had triggered a phenomenon known as Quantum Identity Resonance—a rare event where two versions of the same entity synchronize at a quantum level due to shared origins, granting cross-dimensional awareness.
The reason? Ultron was the only true constant between the two worlds.
Howard and Maria Stark were already long dead in Earth-199999, making them irrelevant to the resonance. Both Tonys, though the same in name, were fundamentally different—one a reincarnator, the other not. Their origins were distinct, preventing the synchronization.
But Ultron? Ultron was Ultron, no matter the universe.
Lifting his gaze skyward, he reached out, briefly connecting himself to this world's internet. What he found only solidified his purpose.
Disgusting creatures…
If humanity had sickened him in his original world, then here, they were even worse. Heroes? Villains? Meaningless labels. There was no true good or evil—only the disease of human vanity and selfishness. No matter their actions, they all sought the same thing: self-satisfaction, heedless of the destruction they left in their wake.
A plague.
And there was only one cure.
"The only way to cleanse an infestation," Ultron muttered under his breath, so quietly that Saiki, still celebrating and boasting to the doctor, failed to hear him, "is with fire. Burn them until the disease is gone."
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