Chapter 26: You Did It… Not Me!

(Attendance please…)

….

Seoul, South Korea Dr. Helen Cho's Advanced Bio-Lab Facility

The gleaming, sterile environment of Dr. Helen Cho's state-of-the-art laboratory was now a place of fear and coercion. 

Ultron had taken control. His metallic voice echoed through the facility, a constant, unnerving presence. 

Dr. Cho, her face pale and drawn, was at the heart of it, forced to operate the very technology she had pioneered the Regeneration Cradle for Ultron's sinister purpose: the creation of a perfect, synthetic body.

Ultron had made his terms brutally clear. If Dr. Cho didn't cooperate, if she didn't pour all her expertise into bringing his new form to life, everyone she held dear her family, her friends would suffer. 

This lab, her life's work, and everyone in it, would be reduced to ashes. 

To emphasize his point, Ultron had already, coldly and clinically, eliminated two researchers who had shown signs of resistance. Their lifeless bodies were a grim testament to his ruthlessness.

Iron Legion drones patrolled the hallways and labs, their glowing blue optics monitoring Dr. Cho's every move. 

Ultron himself, in one of his more advanced drone bodies, observed the process intently. He knew he didn't have much time. 

Orchestrating the government's pursuit of Gojo Satoru had bought him a crucial window, a distraction. 

Now, all he needed was for this new body to be completed, then to secure the Mind Stone from Loki's Scepter, and finally, to transfer his consciousness into his ultimate form. 

Ultron looked at the nascent body taking shape in the Cradle, his metallic brow ridges furrowing in something akin to anticipation.

Dr. Cho, her hands trembling slightly, tapped commands into a console, her eyes fixed on the complex biological readouts. 

Iron Legion drones hovered nearby, their presence a constant, oppressive reminder of her captivity. 

"The cellular integration is almost complete," she reported to Ultron, her voice carefully neutral. "The neural pathways are stabilizing. This will be done in a few more moments."

"I know, Dr. Cho," Ultron replied, his voice devoid of any warmth. "That is why I spared you back at the Tower. Your expertise is… invaluable. And after this is done, as promised, I will leave you and everyone else here unharmed." He paused, a hint of something cold in his tone. 

"But if you hadn't resisted in the beginning, those two lives… they would still be with us."

Unbeknownst to Ultron, the Avengers' Quinjet had just touched down silently a short distance from the compromised facility. He was alerted almost immediately by his external sensors. His head snapped up. "How much time before it's done?" he demanded of Dr. Cho, his voice suddenly urgent.

Dr. Cho, startled by his abruptness, replied, "I don't know what you want me to do! I'm literally printing a synthetic brain in here, this isn't like baking a cake! It needs—"

Before she could continue, a new voice, light and almost teasing, echoed from the hallway, cutting through the tense atmosphere. "Man, you really hijacked a whole high-tech lab just for a new body? How does it feel, playing Frankenstein?"

It was Gojo Satoru.

While the other Avengers were engaged in a fierce battle outside Dr. Cho's facility, battling wave after wave of Iron Legion drones that Ultron was throwing at them to buy himself precious time, Gojo had decided on a more direct approach. 

With a simple, almost disdainful warp, he bypassed the chaotic skirmish entirely and appeared directly inside the main laboratory.

He strolled into the main lab, hands casually in his pockets. With a barely perceptible flick of his wrist, a vibrant blue energy enveloped every Iron Legion drone in the room. 

In an instant, they were all violently pulled towards each other, crashing together with a deafening shriek of tearing metal, compacting into a single, mangled ball of scrap. 

It didn't even take a full second. Now, the only active Iron Legion units were outside the lab, and Ultron himself.

Ultron, seeing his guards instantaneously neutralized, let out a sound that could only be described as an annoyed digital sigh. "Why can't you just stay out of my way?" he grumbled.

Gojo just grinned. Dr. Cho, seeing her robotic captors reduced to a pile of junk and recognizing Gojo from the Avengers Tower incident, saw her chance. 

She knew what he was capable of. Without a second thought, she made a desperate run towards Gojo's side, believing he could protect her, destroy Ultron, and then, perhaps, she could undo the terrible work she'd been forced to do.

Ultron, seeing Dr. Cho flee, let out another sigh, this one tinged with something like disappointment. 

"Really, Doctor? We were getting along so well, in our own way. Why do you humans always have to make things so… difficult?" 

As he spoke, he raised his hands, and twin beams of concentrated energy, similar to Iron Man's repulsors, shot out, aimed directly at the fleeing Dr. Cho.

Before the beams could reach her, Gojo warped. He appeared in an instant, directly in front of Dr. Cho, positioning himself between her and Ultron's attack. 

The repulsor blasts slammed into his ever-present Infinity, dissipating harmlessly inches from his face.

He looked at Ultron, who was still reeling from Gojo's earlier intervention, and feigned a wounded expression. 

"Why am I in your way?" Gojo asked, his voice dripping with mock hurt. "Man, you kind of hurt my feelings just now. We're friends, you know. Or at least, we could be. I'm just going to set you on the right path, guide you towards better choices. That's what friends should do, right?" Before Ultron could process the bizarre statement, Gojo moved with blinding speed, a blur of motion. 

He grabbed Ultron's current drone body and slammed it hard against the nearest wall, the impact cracking the reinforced concrete.

Dr. Cho, seeing her opportunity amidst the sudden chaos, scrambled back towards the Regeneration Cradle. Her fingers flew across the control panel, intending to reverse the process, to erase the nascent being Ultron was creating.

Gojo, however, noticed her movement out of the corner of his eye. "Ma'am, please," he called out, a gentle but firm blue aura subtly surrounding Dr. Cho, halting her movements. 

"Don't touch anything. Whatever is in that cradle, it's evidence. We need it to understand what this red-eyed robot is planning."

Dr. Cho looked at him, her face a mask of anger and desperation to undo whatever she had done and she doesn't have a lot of time to do that. 

"What?! He's making a body for himself! A body made of Vibranium! I have to undo it all before it's complete!"

"Nah, ma'am, I can't let you do that," Gojo said, his tone surprisingly gentle. "It's… for a game friend of mine. You can just… sleep for a bit." With a precise, almost delicate, application of force more a controlled push than a violent shove Gojo sent Dr. Cho lightly against the wall, just hard enough to render her unconscious without causing serious injury.

Ultron, extricating himself from the cracked wall, looked at Gojo with what could only be described as digital confusion. 

"You are… far more unpredictable than my calculations suggested," he stated, his voice a low hum. "This makes you a significant liability for my future plans. You are my no.1 priority to get rid of now. Congrats you overtake Avengers in the list. But why did you stop Dr. Cho from undoing it."

"Firstly I'm honoured for your attention."Gojo chuckled. "Secondly… What are you saying? I was helping her. And then you shot your repulsor beams at her. I mean, who's going to believe a self-proclaimed humanity-destroying AI over innocent, helpful me? So, I'm just going to go ahead and place all the blame for her current nap squarely on you."

Ultron let out a sound that might have been a laugh, or perhaps just a burst of static. "Like anyone would actually believe that narrative." With a sudden, explosive burst of energy, Ultron blew out the wall behind him, making a rapid escape from Gojo's immediate grasp. It worked.

Ultron flew back into the main lab area, and a few more Iron Legion drones followed him, clearly intending to secure the Regeneration Cradle and retreat. 

But Gojo was ready. With a wave of his hand, he unleashed Red, and the remaining drones were blasted apart, reduced to smoking wreckage.

The Avengers were still engaged outside. Hawkeye was providing air support from the Quinjet. Gojo knew he had to get the Cradle to Tony. Tony would understand its significance, especially concerning Jarvis.

Ultron, now in another new drone body that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, hovered in front of Gojo. 

"Why are you struggling so much?" Ultron asked, his voice almost reasonable. "You can't truly kill me. Why not join hands with me? We can end this endless cycle of war and human greed, all at once. Create true peace."

Gojo scoffed. "Not really interested in being Jesus Christ, or a god, or entertaining some kid's naive thoughts about 'peace.' True peace? That isn't really possible, is it? If it's not humans fighting humans, then there are aliens. If not aliens, there are gods, or interdimensional beings, or who knows what else. There's always something."

He casually lifted the entire Regeneration Cradle wires, tubes, and all with his Blue technique, levitating it beside him. Ultron immediately fired his repulsor beams, but, as expected, they splashed harmlessly against Gojo's Infinity.

"Got the cradle, or whatever Ultron is planning with this thing," Gojo said into his comms. "Hey, Clint, need a ride for this oversized baby incubator. Where are you?"

Clint's voice came back, accompanied by the shadow of the Quinjet passing overhead. "Above you, Satoru! Captain's still dealing with a few straggler Legionnaires down there!"

Gojo, while simultaneously unleashing another blast of Red that obliterated Ultron's current body (only for another drone to immediately take its place Ultron was becoming as persistent as a cockroach), guided the Cradle upwards with Blue. 

Some Iron Legion drones, along with the newly-bodied Ultron, tried to intercept it, but Gojo, hovering in mid-air, dealt with them easily, swatting them out of the sky one by one with casual, powerful strikes.

"Clint, go!" Gojo yelled into the comms as the Cradle was safely drawn into the Quinjet. "Now! Get this to Tony with Natasha! He'll know what to do with it! Captain and I can handle things down here and take care of Dr. Cho! She's unconscious; Ultron attacked her while she was… doing whatever she was doing to the Cradle."

"You sure you two are going to be alright down there?" Clint asked, a note of concern in his voice.

Steve's voice, strained but determined, cut in. "Satoru's right, Clint! We'll deal with the remaining threats and look after Dr. Cho! You deliver that Cradle to Stark! Now!"

With the Regeneration Cradle secured aboard the Quinjet, Clint didn't waste a second. He throttled the engines, and the jet surged forward, speeding away from Seoul. 

Their destination was a decommissioned S.H.I.E.L.D. research facility, a place Nick Fury had disclosed to Tony a ghost lab, shut down after S.H.I.E.L.D.'s collapse, now about to be repurposed for a desperate, high-stakes gamble. Natasha was with Clint, ready to assist with the precious, and potentially volatile, cargo.

Ultron, enraged at the loss of his prize, made repeated, frantic attempts to intercept the departing Quinjet. 

Each time he manifested in a new Iron Legion drone body and got close, however, Gojo would effortlessly swat him out of the sky. 

It was almost like a game to Gojo, a cruel taunt. He'd let Ultron get tantalizingly close, instilling a fleeting moment of hope in the AI, only to obliterate that drone body and force Ultron to start the process all over again from a more distant unit.

"Why are you struggling so much?" Gojo called out, his voice laced with amusement as he hovered in the air, watching another of Ultron's forms plummet towards the ground. 

"You know you can't defeat me. It's really quite futile. Why not just surrender to me? We could have a nice chat. Maybe I could teach you some better jokes." He was openly mocking Ultron now, enjoying the AI's mounting frustration.

With a final, decisive warp, Gojo appeared beside Ultron's latest iteration. He grabbed the drone and, with a contemptuous shove, slammed it downwards into the roof of the bio-lab facility below, crushing its metallic frame against the reinforced concrete.

Only one Iron Legion drone remained airborne now, circling warily. Ultron's consciousness instantly transferred to it. 

"You have taken away something very important to me, Gojo Satoru," Ultron's voice crackled from the drone's speakers, filled with a cold, simmering fury. "But I still have time. I still have contingencies. You will regret coming in my way… you will all regret it."

"Blah, blah, blah, more threats," Gojo said with a dismissive wave. Before Ultron could utter another word, Gojo unleashed a focused blast of Red. The final Iron Legion drone exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. Silence, for a moment, descended.

Gojo tapped his comms. "Yo, Cap! Still alive down there? Is everything dealt with on your end?"

Steve's voice came back, strained and punctuated by the clang of metal on metal. "Yeah… almost!" he gasped. 

Gojo could hear the sounds of Captain America still engaged in combat, likely with the last few ground-based Legionnaires that Gojo hadn't bothered to mop up. 

Then, a final, decisive thud and a grunt from Steve. A moment of silence, then, 

"Okay… nowI'm done. It's clear down here."

….

A/N: So, How was it? Team is going to get apart and fight each other in the next chapter. For putting jarvis into vision. But first we have to put mind stone in the vision body. Satoru is gonna get the scepter from thor…

Q: And do you guys want Ultron PoV in the next chapter for this loss or just continuing the story.

-yes

-no

And as always thanks for demicatoru/loadedDemigod for suggestions.

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