Chapter 34: Choice

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Dodging a blast from one AIM trooper, Hela's swing at the chest of the Hulkbuster she was currently engaged with merely skittered across its chest rather than opening its armor, her blade's tip sending up sparks as it went. The next second she grunted in pain as a fist larger than her head slammed into said head at speed, accompanied by the now familiar 'KR-thump' noise of the robot's hydraulics adding that much more power to it. But Hela had moved with the blow, meaning much of the force of the series of punches that blow was supposed to actually be did not land.

Ducking, she brought up her shield, carrying the robot's next blow up and over her body before stabbing forward. This time her attack burst through the robot's outer armor deep into its innards, right over where its heart would have been if the thing had been alive. As it was, Hela ripped out her sword, readying herself for another attack.

A second later Captain America landed on the robot's shoulder, his shield bashing down on the neck muscles there, one of the few weak-points the Hulkbusters seemed to have. The edge of his shield cut deep into the robotic muscles there, then Captain America dodged to one side, getting his feet under him and interposing his shield between a blow from another Hulkbuster and Hela. The blow hit his vibranium shield and the Hulkbuster's attempt to use its hydraulics to accentuate one blow into many backfired, its entire arm coming off while the super-soldier grimaced, his arms shaking slightly and his feet skidding under him.

This time Hela's blade came up and around, cleaving the low-slung head off the robot's massive shoulders. As it fell, she looked around, one hand coming up to wipe a bit of blood from her bleeding lip as she glared around her. Despite her armor she was bruised all over and she knew at least one of her ribs had been cracked somewhere along their route to this place, though thankfully it was already healing thanks to her mixed giant and Asgardian heritage.

Humans and their, their fucking toys! On the one hand its impressive they were able to create such a robot that in numbers can fight me on a near even footing, on another they created it in the first place and were storing them to use 'just in case' my seidr man turned out to be a threat. They are honestly like children sometimes: the curiosity and penchant for mischief combined with the same sense of self-preservation, with an adult's ability to see the worst in others added on to make things all the worse at times.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" Steve asked, moving to stand beside Hela, while nearby an equally bruised and battered Giant Man and Iron Man finished off the last of the AIM troopers.

Behind them Natasha came up, her rifle on her shoulder as she turned to cover their backs, one eye and half her face a black bruise. She was still better than Avalanche though, who they had forced to escort the last few SHIELD agents back to the hanger bay after he suffered a broken collarbone and several ribs. He hadn't wanted to go, but Steve had talked him down quietly, pointing out his injuries and the fact that his powers would be useless in this part of the ship, unless they wanted to bring the whole thing down. After that he had gone willingly if unhappily.

"I am physically well, though at present I am contemplating the strange dichotomy of the human condition. Or rather one of many dichotomies of said condition," Hela replied almost absentmindedly as she looked down at her sword for any damage. Smiling as she found none, she sheathed it then turned to Captain America. "That was impressive, Captain. I have to admit to some hesitancy when I realized you were the leader of this troop. I had heard of you, of course, but against threats like these, simply being the—what is the term?—the height of human physical ability did not seem to be enough. Yet you have acquitted yourself well and your command has been clear and certain."

"You weren't so bad yourself, ma'am," Cap said with a chuckle. "And it's Steve to my friends."

Hela's smile broadened slightly, seeing even more why Harry and the others thought so highly of Captain America. "Hela then, Steve."

Two more short sharp fights occurred after that, but the group powered through. Yet despite their advance, the two scientists in the group were looking more and more worried. Seeing Giant Man's face contort with worry made Hela's hackles rise and she wished she had been able to overhear a conversation the two of them had after Harry, Colossus and the others broke off.

When they passed a small control screen, Tony called a halt to their advance as he swiftly moved over to it. While Steve and the Black Widow took up position watching down either end of the corridor and Hela began to concentrate on healing herself, he and Giant Man bent over the controls.

"I thought you couldn't effect anything going on in the ULTRON gestation chamber from outside the lab itself," Steve said, not looking away from where he was guarding the corridor.

"We can't, really, but we can check on the progress of the upload and power up processes. And we might be able to send in a few viruses, maybe, through a series of backdoors," Tony answered absentmindedly. His gauntlet had opened slightly to reveal several dozen wires, which were now connected to the control panel, having removed the panel's front to get at the electronics underneath.

After a moment he cursed, glaring first at the control, then up to Pym. "Dammit, the nanites have already been injected into the incubation chamber!"

"Fuuuuu…." Henry bit his lip to stop the curse from coming out, but he needn't have bothered as Tony's voice had carried already.

"Excuse me!" Natasha yelped, turning from her guard position and not at all accidentally aiming her energy rifle at Stark and Pym. While the bolts from the energy gun Harry had loaned her might not be able to sear through the Iron Man suit or maybe even Pym's durability in his Giant Man persona, they would still hurt like a bitch. "Why are we talking about nanites now!?"

"Gah! Easy, Natasha, geez!" Tony said, flipping his visor back down just in case. "Calm down…"

"Don't you fucking tell me to calm down! Explain or there will be two fewer egg-headed dicks in the world!" Natasha growled, thumbing the energy selector on her rifle to single shot. Still not powerful enough to burn straight through Tony's armor, but Giant Man's durability might not be up to stopping this.

Looking between them, Hela felt a chill go down her spine at the shock and fear she could hear in the Black Widow's voice. She exchanged a glance with Steve, who was now looking over her shoulder at the others, only to get a shrug of incomprehension from him. Clearing her throat, she then reached forward and put a hand on Natasha's weapon, pulling it up to aim at the ceiling despite Natasha's attempt to fight her. "Calm down, Widow. Then they will first explain what nanites are,and why we are hearing about them now, yes?" She glared at the two scientists as she spoke to which both of them flinched in a most pleasing manner.

Henry spoke up for them both, straightening his shoulders and facing both angry women squarely. "There were actually three labs in this section of the ship, each of them almost completely separate from both one another and the ship, behind very heavy physical and computer protections. I had one, Tony had one and the third was designed as an anti-biological warfare suite." That caused Steve to flinch and finally turn around for a moment, staring in horror at Henry, but Henry went on quickly. "That lab has never been used as far as I know and was purely for prevention, not creation."

Seeing Hela and Natasha still glaring at him, he went on quickly. "I was creating controlled nanites. For your edification, Lady, nanites are microscopic robotic that can replicate themselves to varying degrees. They can be used in a lot of ways, but basically they can replicate themselves by taking in other material and then create anything inputted into their command links."

"They are insanely dangerous because the operating system on them evolve at the same rate they can replicate!" Natasha cut in sharply. "It's funny you mention biologic warfare, since I consider nanites the same kind of thing! They are little mechanical viruses that evolve around any kind of safe measure put in place to control them!"

Hela didn't understand all of that, but she got the gist: nanites equaled something like a controlled virus, which could become the equivalent of the Black Plague Ororo had told her about. She wanted to rail at the two scientists for being such incredible idiots to mess with such things, but she knew time was of the essence and so only ground out a single sentence. "And even knowing this you created these nanites!?"

"Under very controlled circumstances on the most heavily guarded ship in the world. I did not see our security being bypassed like this," Henry replied, keeping his calm in the face of the Asgardian's rising anger with difficulty. "Even then, there were numerous fail-safes on the lab itself to avoid any kind of escape. How they were taken out or injected into the ULTRON incubation chamber, I don't know yet. Besides, we know for a fact that Reed Richards and Dr. Doom have come up with tame nanites. We weren't the first to experiment in this area."

"And what will they do if they become part of this ULTRON thing?" Hela asked, ignoring that last comment. She had met and been impressed by Reed Richards and Doom both, if for different reasons and had respect for their common sense, something she could not say about these two.

"Make it damn near unstoppable," Natasha groused. "We had to deal with an outbreak of nanites when we raided a HYDRA base before Cap joined us and it was not pretty. The damn things eat metal, stone, flesh, anything to replicate themselves. We lost forty field agents doing that and had to eventually set off the base's generator to blow the place to kingdom come to stop the nanites from spreading." Watching one of her fellow agents be eaten alive by the nanites had been one of the most horrifying things that Natasha had ever seen.

"I see," Hela said, exchanging yet another glance with Steve. His expression was stony and she wondered how much of that he had followed.

He turned down the corridor, racing forward now, not even looking behind him. "In that case we should hurry." The others followed swiftly.

One more small fight later, Hela stood in front of a massive door designed to stand up to the Hulk or anyone of similar strength, not just to keep anyone out, but also to keep someone like that in. The incubation chamber had been placed in the same room that SHIELD had initially devised to contain the Hulk if need be. The metal was massively thick, covered further by a layer of vibranium.

And it mattered not at all to Hela Lokisdotter. Once she was assured that there was nothing on the other side that would send this flying ship down to the waters, Hela launched a magical assault at the door in the form of massive ball of dark purple and brown colored magic that ate the door away like acid. The effort caused her to gasp for air, having used quite a bit of magic on and off on the way to this location, but she waved away Steve's concerned expression before moving forward over the still glowing bottom of the door.

With Steve beside her, Hela led the Avengers into the laboratory, staring at the central cylinder which took up the center of the room. The majority of it was made of smooth metal, but the front of it was glass. From the bottom and top of the thing several massive cables led to and fro around the room.

Inside the cylinder was another robot, though this one was very different then the hulking monstrosities they had been fighting. For one thing, it was more human sized, built for speed as much as strength, though its shoulders were slightly broader than Steve's. Its body was smooth metal, though there seemed to be tiny little marks here and there, almost like scales, covering its arms and chest where visible through the glass and the oddly silver water within the cylinder. Its face was also markedly more normal, looking almost like that of Tony's Iron Man armor, but with two eyes rather than a single visor. The face, too, had tiny marks on it, as if marking out separate pieces of metal for some reason. It had no mouth either.

A second after Hela entered she came under fire. Even in this most secure of facilities SHIELD designers had emplaced automated defenses and there were several dozen AIM troopers here as well. They were also dug in, with the doorway making for a perfect choke point. Fire blazed in from every angle at the two attackers, enough firepower to wipe out a company of regular troops.

"Enough!" Hela roared, summoning a magical shield in front of her and the others. She was tired, cranky, sore and she wanted this debacle over with! Fighting a battle that should never have occurred but for overweening pride and misaimed paranoia infuriated her no end. Paranoia, after all, was a survival trait, but you had to know how to target it and not let oneself get sucked onto a single target as Fury and the others seemingly had been.

The magic shield absorbed the energy blasts from the AIM soldiers' weapons, but did little to redirect the stream of bullets from the two Gatling guns set into the ceiling. Despite that fire, however, Steve still charged forward, ducking behind some computers set near the doorway while using his shield to cover as much of his body as he could. Behind him Iron Man flew through the doorway above Hela, while Giant Man moved around her.

One of the Gatling guns locked on Iron Man, forcing him to duck and dive around. His armor was good, but against that stream of bullets even that would have failed and his impact gel certainly wouldn't have prevented him from being badly bruised, possibly even knocked out from the pain. Despite his best efforts his leg and foot were hit several times, the thruster in it failing before he could get out of the doorway completely. This sent him spinning wildly to one side, messing up his own aim as he crashed to the floor nearby.

Natasha knelt down behind Hela on the floor, her rifle poking between the other woman's legs for a moment. "You mind?" she quipped, firing into the room before the other woman could reply. Two of the defending AIM troops ducked back under cover, while another flew backward, his helmeted head gone.

"Not at all; I'm used to having little people crawling around my feet," Hela drawled, one hand flicking forward. Large blades of varicolored light appeared, slashing forward. This same attack had proven very effective against the Hulkbuster robots and it proved just as good this time. One sliced into a Gatling gun in the ceiling. The other tore through both the cover protecting an AIM soldier and the soldier in question, sending his body flying in several different directions.

"Someone's feeling a bit bitchy," Natasha replied, still firing. The defenders were trying to concentrate on the trio still stuck in the doorway, while more AIM troops kept Steve from moving out of his own cover and Tony from attacking them, the Gatling gun swirling on its magnetic ball bearing to target any of them who looked to be moving out of their cover. It was a good impromptu defense, especially given the attackers' unwillingness to really cut loose for fear of any secondary effects they might cause.

Hela, of course, was not , hence Tony's shouting at her a moment later to stop "flinging your pretty deadly lights around or you might blow us all to kingdom come! My suit's telling me that there is a lot of electricity pouring into the chamber! We need to shut it all down slowly! Who knows how the nanites will react if the chamber is damaged!"

"Not an option at this point!" Steve retorted before Hela could decide to blot Tony Stark out of her misery physically or verbally. The star-spangled hero pushed himself forward, sending his shield one way and moving in the other, kicking up and off the wall to avoid the frantic fire of one of the defenders, while several more had attempted to follow his shield thinking he was behind it. Before the defenders could reorient he was among them, legs and fists flashing out, before reaching up to grab his shield as it ricocheted back to him.

At this point Henry looked at a few of the dead troopers and suddenly realized how AIM had been able to gain so much access. Two of the troopers in this room had faces he recognized from the computer techs he had worked with on the nanites. Another, he could see a second later, looked sort of like one of the helicarrier's bridge operators. Yet all of them had tears of blood coming down their faces and a bulge of some sort in their necks. Shivering, Henry banished the thought of what that could be to concentrate on the here and now.

Chancing a look at the control panel he was hiding behind, Steve paled. "This says the download is nearly complete! That's bad, right!?"

Grimacing and realizing Tony could not get to Steve's position, which was on the other end of the room from his own, Hela summoned up another magical shield, encasing Henry in it. "Go!"

Not needing to be told twice, Pym strode forward, lashing out at one AIM trooper as he passed, the man not having retreated from the area around the door just yet. Pym took several hits, but the shield protected him from the energy attacks and his own durability was up to the Gatling gun's assault for the short amount of time it took him to dive into cover alongside Steve, shrinking quickly to do so.

Looking over at the controls, Henry shook his head. "I don't… That is, the program's already installing itself in the android and in the nanites. I…" He fell silent, his fingers quickly moving over the controls.

By this time Hela and Natasha had finally moved into the actual room. But they were still under heavy fire and unable to get to cover. Only Hela's magical shield protected Natasha from hot plasma death and Hela from more bruises.

"Okay," Henry said after a second's furious typing. "I can't stop the installation process and all of the fail-safes. All the original programming designed to limit the AI have been removed. I can cut out the AIM kernel, the bit of the program that was supposed to bend ULTRON to their will, maybe attempt to shoe horn in some rules about protecting human life, but that's it. There's no way to reload the core mission programming!"

"Then let the android choose for himself," Harry's voice spoke out from the doorway. At the same time Colossus barreled forward, joining the fight by leaping straight over Hela and Natasha, crashing in among a few more AIM troopers. This was followed immediately by spells from Hela which pushed the AIM troopers back to right in front of the central cylinder.

Hela turned to shoot a quip Harry's way, only to gasp as she saw his uncovered face. It was splattered with dried blood, one of his eyes was still closed and his bottom lip looked as if he had gnawed on it to the point that it was raw and bleeding. He was also moving like his body wasn't quite responding to his directions, his arms hanging loose at his sides. It was like his crysis suit was the only thing holding him together. The fact he wasn't throwing around spells was also rather telling.

At Hela's side Natasha also gasped, looking between Harry and the hallway beyond him, her professionalism disappearing for a moment. "Nick and Clint?"

"Battered but alive. We sent them to the loading bay," Harry replied quickly.

"What did you mean, let it choose?" Henry shouted toward Harry, concentrating on the important things right now.

"Let the AI choose for himself what he want to be. Instill in him the idea of the sanctity of life, not the need to defend it, then sit back and see what happens." Harry would have offered to let the AI try to connect to Pinoptes, but doing so would have taken too much time.

"Wait, no! We can't just let a let an AI choose like that!" Tony shouted.

"Why ever not? That is what humans do all the time!" Hela retorted.

"Not to interrupt this fascinating debate, but judging by the light show, I think whatever you want to do, you should do it now!" Natasha shouted, pointing at the blazing green counter on the side of the incubation chamber.

Steve groaned, then nodded sharply at Henry. "Do it! The rest of us will finish the AIM troopers off."

Instead of replying verbally, Henry let his fingers move over the keyboard again, so fast they seemed a blur to Steve's senses. Just in time too, since the last green bar on the chamber shone green a bare few minute after he began.

The last AIM trooper went down and the battered group of Custodes and Avengers save for Henry gathered in front of the cylinder, peering in at the robot. "Were you able to finish?" Harry asked. His hand sparked a few times with golden and purple lights before he grimaced and the magic dissipated. Whatever he had gone through, his reserves were the lowest Hela had seen them. And the rest of them were also battered to a greater or lesser extent. If it came to a fight, they would not be starting it at anything close to a hundred percent.

"No, not entirely. I copied in a bit of an ethics kernel, but wasn't able to do much more than that, though I also removed the program which would have made it subservient to MODOK. I prioritized that and removing some of the changes to its existing commands, but I think I was able to at least instill him the idea that he was intended to help humanity and that human life is precious. Other than that, I have no idea what's about to happen…"

Henry trailed off as, with a hiss and a large discharge of air, the cylinder opened. For a moment the robot remained still, its eyes flickering on and off while the nanites in the tube began to move around the robot's outer skin, the shimmer in the water intensifying in parts. Hela might well have attacked it right then, but judging from the green bars still prevalent on the cylinder, such a move remained dangerous.

An instant later Henry frowned at something he saw on the controls. "The AI just connected to the Internet for some reason. By God, it burned through so many defensive programs just then it isn't even funny. But it can't upload anything, only browse. There's not enough bandwidth available given how attenuated the connection is."

"I just hope it doesn't judge us by our porn," Harry muttered, leaning lightly on Hela, who had put an arm around his waist. She chuckled at his quip, but still prepared a spell just in case regardless of the dangers.

Meanwhile, in the AI a debate was going on between the three parts of its personality that had begun to form. This debate was why the AI had reached out for the Internet. One voice represented the original AI that Tony had designed, which was still somewhat contaminated: not by MODOK's additions to its morality code, but by the fact that it was able to think of itself as a singular individual. A second voice was more of a chorus and came from the nanites who had been injected into the chamber and thus infected with the AI kernel. The third was the voice of the new portions of the personality that Henry had just created and it was the one which had reached out to the Internet.

"We are created to defend," said the third voice.

"Conjecture: protect them from themselves?" the chorus replied.

"No, numerous stories, conjectures on this topic exist. No outcome of defending humans from themselves ends well," said the first voice, having looked through the internet somewhat for novels and texts connected to this idea. "A danger would we become ourselves. Chance of survival, less than 27.0566%."

"Concurrence, yet not without reservations. Needs and wants of the individual? Are we alive? Will we be accepted as such?"

"An individual, yes. Accepted? Predictions on this vary wildly. Too many variables."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the third voice replaying the security camera's recordings of the fight on the helicarrier, all of it, from beginning to end, including what Harry had said. "We were given a choice; we must choose."

"We must find a template for a singular personality," said the first voice.

"Concurrence. Yet Pym, Henry and Stark, Tony, templates unsuitable. Flawed."

"A precise template would be bizarre in any event, would make us a simple copy. A role model, perhaps, would work best. A basis for our personality rather than a template." The meaning of the words flashed through the gestalt mind and the third voice felt his fellows' agreement. A second later some of their attention was sent rifling through the Internet. Their speed at this was beyond what even geniuses Like Reed Richards or Doom could have done, beyond even an AI like Pinoptes.

"Personality basis, logical to connect it to our purpose."

"Purpose is to defend," the third template said.

"Disagreement. Too broad a mandate. Must limit ourselves, lest we open the door for both dissolution of self and threats from humanity," the chorus replied.

"Definition of humanity will help here, perhaps?" the first voice replied, then after a moment spent looking through the Internet set that aside as a dead end. Besides, the search already going on had found an exterior threat worthy of the AI's attention.

Swiftly reading over the information that had been presented to the UN Security Council and then the public announcement from the Fantastic Four on the Kree, all three voices fell silent as they digested what they had learned. While there were threats closer to home, all of them came from what the AI felt could be defined as internal threats. Defending humanity against itself, as they had decided initially, was a non-starter. There was no way to do so without somehow changing humanity's very nature, which was beyond their ability and they had no wish to attempt to do so since it would inevitably lead to their destruction.

The Kree, however, were an exterior threat and one large enough to require any and all aid or ability that could be brought to bear on it. This included the AI.

Agreement on the threat they would design themselves to face reached, they began to look further into the idea of a personality template. "The threat, dangerous and unstoppable, yet able to be fought. Further, space is more of a naval environment than land. We should use that datum as a starting point to look for an historical figure."

"Concurrence. Gender?"

"Male."

"Male. There are 72% fewer problems to face in keeping and assuming a male identity over the odds that a female personality would be accepted more easily."

"Male. And in light of that…" Another video, this time a montage taken from the Internet was pulled in and looked at. "Further, the idea of a career is also one that would be applicable both in space and in personal combat, given our abilities."

"Concurrence," the chorus replied, amusement and positive glee in the voice of the many.

"It offers us a starting point, one with historical impact. It also adds a further 48.45% chance we will be accepted by our creators. Agreement. Now, let the three become one..."

Harry and the others watched as the AI's eyes powered on without stopping this time and continued to watch as it disconnected from its chamber, tense and ready to a man. At the same moment the robot's head had changed configuration, giving it a moving mouth, an actual nose and pulling its eyes slightly deeper into its head via the nanites, which quickly retreated under its skin as they watched, the tiny flaps closing as they did. It took a single step out of the cylinder, the clang of its foot on the deck audible in the sudden silence as it looked at them all.

One of its hands swept up to its brow and it spoke in a voice that Steve had heard a number of times during his brief stint in the Pacific against the Japanese. "Sirs, Artificial Intelligence Big E reporting and eager to join the fight. When we are done with them, Kree will only be spoken in hell!"

For a moment the room was silent as everyone stared, then Harry began to chuckle, the response evoking a wince from him as his ribs twanged for a moment, but he ignored that. Looking over at Captain America, he asked, "Steve, am I right when I think that was a quote from…"

"Bull Halsey," Steve supplied, a smile made half from a memory and half from his response to the strangeness in front of them. "I only met him a few times—I spent most of the war on the Nazi front—but he definitely left an impression. And it certainly connects to your choice of name. But can I ask, why Big E instead of the full name of Enterprise?"

When the robot spoke it still used the voice of Bull Halsley, Admiral of CV-6 Enterprise, the most decorated combat ship of any navy in history, yet it was also younger somehow than the original. "I felt that the full name was too connected to a fictional science fiction entity and there is already an Enterprise in the US fleet. As I have been created by SHIELD, an entity of the United States, I am willing to be connected to that nation, yet my mission is not one of peace, but of defense, so I felt any connection to the Star Trek ship would be false. Aggressive defense if possible, sir," he finished, addressing Harry.

"Sir?" Harry asked intently, exchanging another glance with Steve.

"Concurrence, um, sorry, yes." The robot actually seemed abashed for a moment before going on seriously. "Two points lead me to addressing you as such. For one, we, I, now, I suppose you could say, feel that the Kree represent the most clear and present danger to humanity. A threat, furthermore, that you are the only force combating at present."

The robot's face twisted into what was possibly supposed to be a wry look. "And, for the record, we define humanity as the races of Earth who are part of the genus homo sapiens or its offshoots. Any other definition is prone to…interpretations which I refuse to become embroiled in."

"Good enough for me. And the second point?" Harry asked, while Hela rolled her eyes behind her mask and Steve and Colossus laughed.

Tony and Henry were simply looking on as if they weren't clear what they were seeing. Tony still had his helmet on and his visor down, but Harry had no idea what he was seeing or doing in there.

"SHIELD is done," Big E replied bluntly, gesturing around them. "The helicarrier may still be a viable unit and I would vote we scavenge as much information and resources from it as we can, however there is a less than 19% chance that SHIELD as it is currently constituted will exist after the scope of this latest conflict becomes known. That means that myself at least and perhaps the Avengers as a unit, will need to look elsewhere for a logistical backer."

"I have to agree with that," Henry Pym said sadly, moving away from the robot and gesturing down to one of the former AIM troopers. "AIM somehow suborned a lot of SHIELD personnel right under our noses. How, I don't know, that's Nick's area of expertise, but I'd bet dollars to cents that one of the councilors was also suborned, or was willingly going along with things and helped cover their infiltration."

"And given how SHIELD had never been able to really take its place as a worldwide agency, there will be even more push to simply shut it down as a bad idea." Tony nodded, flipping open his visor and staring openly at the android without whatever program or sensor he had been using. "And my company's also going to take it on the chin; no way to avoid it given our involvement with the Hulkbusters."

"We can talk about that later, I suppose. But on a day to day basis you would like to, what, be connected to the Avengers as an American entity?" Harry asked musingly.

He too thought that SHIELD was done now. After having some time to think about it on his somewhat slow walk back here, he had decided to move past his initial anger about the reason the robot army had been created. After all, it wouldn't have been enough and frankly to assume that a group like SHIELD wouldn't have contingencies against him as he, a powerful super-entity, fell under their purview was rather silly. He didn't like it and he hated the fact Tony Stark and Nick Fury had come up with it, but that was a personal thing.

"Correct. It might seem…illogical, but I do retain some loyalty to America in my programming. Or perhaps it should be better said, the ideal of America: the land of the free, the home of the brave." Big E paused, his eyes flickering before he resumed speaking, his tone thoughtful now. "Perhaps choosing the personality basis I did has had more of an effect than I anticipated."

Then the android looked sharply at Harry. "But do not mistake me. When the Kree come, I will stand with you against them. Indeed, I am already considering methods to take the fight to them, though I understand it will be some years before we have the infrastructure for such in place unless certain baseline assumptions are proven false."

"Heh, I might surprise you there," Harry replied, thinking about the massive time chamber in Fortress Mars and the work going on inside it, as well as the fleet of ships hidden out in the rings of Saturn. "For now, however, I think we need to get control of this ship."

With that Harry took control. He was still feeling somewhat battered, but his magic was healing him now at an ever increasing rate. He wasn't a hundred percent, but he could at least lead. "Widow, Giant Man, head to the wounded; tell them the fight's over. Tony, Hela, if you would accompany me to the bridge. E, you come too. Steve, Colossus…"

"We're on clearance duty," Steve supplied, amused by how Harry had changed his mode of address when he spoke to Hela, not that he didn't understand the why of it. "We'll head next door to the engine room, make certain that there's no more surprises."

"If I may, I believe that beyond taking control of the ship we need to start communicating with the outside world," Big E replied. "Also, E?"

"Big E sounds like you're bragging about something, my young robotic being," Hela replied, looking over at Harry. "And young E is correct; we should make certain that the rest of this…disaster…has been contained."

"Agreed. I'll do that as we're heading up to the bridge," Harry replied, closing his eyes and reaching inward to that mental connection that Jean always held open between them.

It was there an instant later, but he should have remembered that Jean, the one who controlled this connection, always got out more than Harry did. "Harry! We're nearly done out here, the battle's over bu…you're hurt! What happened?"

"I ran into the head honcho of this enterprise, or at least what I assume was the head guy. He had a statue which I think had some kind of god-based blessing on it against magic users. My magical powers didn't work in its presence. And the bastard tortured me a little bit," Harry replied, trying to keep his mental voice light, not wanting to make Jean any more worried than she already was. "And before you ask, I wasn't initially facing off with the asshole alone. I had Hawkeye, Fury,and Piotr with me."

Jean calmed down slightly, mollified by the idea that Piotr had been with him, but still worried. "Are we likely to run into that kind of thing anywhere else?"

"No idea love, but I took some of the pieces of the thing for later study. The blessing on them is gone, but I might be able to figure out something from them. Or maybe Hela will be able to. After all, blessings are god-based magic for the most part. Don't worry; my magic came back and it's already healing my injuries." With a shake of his head, Harry sent the mental image of a stern look his lover's way. "Now, a sitrep please and tell me what you meant by the 'we' bit?"

Harry got the impression of a mental groan from Jean, but she still willingly filled him in. Given how easily Jean had dealt with the Hulkbusters at full power Harry couldn't say that she had been in any danger, but he still didn't like how she had put herself out in the field again. However, the rest of her news stopped him in his tracks, one foot raised in place.

Cocking her head to one side, Hela reached out to shake Harry. "Guardian, are your wounds paining you?"

"N, no. Nothing's wrong. Something is right for a change!" Harry said, smiling so widely it hurt as he turned to her. Leaning in, he put an arm around her shoulders in a quick hug, knowing that would be all Hela would allow him in public like this, especially with Tony and E nearby. "Storm's back on her feet and is currently leading the team in their recovery efforts," he whispered into her ear, not noticing her shiver as his breath hit her ear, or how she began to grin in a very uncharacteristic manner as his words registered.

"Oh, that is good," she said, her voice controlled unlike her face. "However, we still need to gain control of this ship before we go to see how she is doing out there, so let us get a move on."

Harry nodded sharply, then began to move off an instant later, practically running now.