"Finally, we can finalize the agreement and start the signing process." Ryan muttered to himself after finishing the discussion with the New World Executives inside the room.
"Mr. Knight." Skrull King Dezan walked toward Ryan and offered his hand for a handshake.
In the galactic civilization, even though the prejudice about the shapeshifting aliens had been deleted by the universal rewrite, the warring nature of the Skrulls had costed them a lot of broken relationships amongst their allies in the universe.
"King Dezan. So what do you think?" Ryan shook the king's hand and spoke casually with him. Dezan appreciated the gesture as he was forced to become a king, not because he wanted to become one. He loved it more when people treated him as an equal rather than an idol of worship.
"The ideas are implemented nicely. However, there are a lot of variables in the universe that you need to pay heed to." Dezan advised with a solemn tone. "This is Priestess R'Kill of the Skrulls." Dezan introduced his companion to Ryan.
"I thought she was your wife?" Ryan teased. Dezan's face turned embarrassed, while R'Kill still carried her ice-cold, poker face with no notable change in expression – even when she tried to smile at Ryan.
"I came here to meet you, the God of Life Avatar. I also come with a grave warning." R'Kill said.
Ryan's face turned solemn as his identity was revealed by the woman–although she had mistaken the facts. "What is the warning?" He asked.
"The calamity that had fallen into the Skrull world will soon rise again in the universe. His hunger soon will wake him up, and he will start feeding again. Earth had similar energy to the Skrull homeworld that he had fed onto, and destroyed before. I fear Galactus will come to Earth in his next awakening. Earthlings needed preparations in case he does come here."
"I see. I will start preparing for planetary evacuation." Ryan replied in a solemn tone.
Almost all advanced civilization in the universe had created their own planetary evacuation in case Galactus picked their homeworld for his next meal. The entity hunger was not a secret to the galactic civilization.
With eons of development of the universe, the galactic civilization had already adapted to Galactus' hunger. Some even considered it as a natural disaster in the universe and couldn't care less about where Galactus would feed next.
As Earthlings were entering the interstellar era, R'Kill felt the need to advise them in case they committed the same mistake a member of an upstart civilization did.
They shouldn't focus on only Earth and they should try to create a second or third homeplanet for the species so that they wouldn't be extinct in case something bad happened.
'This feels like a flag.' Ryan thought secretly.
'I wonder if there are any methods to stop Galactus' hunger in the trading site. I know I've read about it before, but the details are ambiguous.'
He fell into a deep state of thinking, and his mind started to fill with bad thoughts. A distant sound of explosion snapped Ryan back from his thinking state.
"Are you okay?" R'Kill asked.
"I think so." Ryan replied. "About your grandson. He's here on this planet. However, he didn't know about his ancestry." Ryan said.
Dezan had contacted Ryan to ask about his brother's grandson who was born from the love affair between a Kree and a Skrull – Hulkling.
The boy was living peacefully on Earth, and had kept his shapeshifting ability even after the universe rewrote. Ryan was only able to find the boy after a thorough search on the citizens of this world.
"It doesn't matter. I will teach him about our people." R'Kill said with a longing tone.
The boy was the only living relative she had left in the entire universe. Even Dezan knew that the boy could claim the throne from him as it was within his divine right – and Dezan was okay with it, as long as his abdication didn't interfere with the peace treaty that Dawn Everstar had created.
"You can go meet him after this. He's studying in Midtown high, so he's in Mars at this time for his school field trip." Ryan explained.
"Thank you. Mr Knight." R'Kill said, bowing slightly to Ryan.
Centurion Gia walked toward where Ryan and the Skrulls' emissaries were.
"Mr. Knight. As a representative from Xandar, I would like to convey our appreciation of Earth's willingness to enter a treaty with the Xandarians and the allied planets." Gia said, her hand on her chest as she bowed slightly.
"Gia, you don't have to be so formal with me." Ryan said. Gia smiled and replied, "We're in a formal setting, so I'm just adhering to the rules."
"Okay, if you insist." Ryan said. "By the way, you're now famous on Earth."
"What?" Gia asked in puzzlement. Ryan showed a holographic screen from his watch. Tweets about the alien visitor were shown to the guests from the galactic civilization.
@DrunkMeat: Ah why can't we be invaded by these types of aliens instead of the chitauris. I will surrender immediately if she was the one holding the collar. #BEAUTIFULALIEN #AGEOLDQUESTION
@alonelyguy69420: I want to die by Snu-snu. #CenturionGiaSuffocateMeInThoseThighs.
@DragonDisNuddonyore: Ah, is inter-race marriage legal yet?
@NoobMaster69: I want to lick ur foot (LickingEsdeathfoot.gif)
@AlabamaGuy: Can you be my sister? (SweetHomeAlabama.gif)
"Earthlings are sick… as usual." Dezan said. His tone changed into a happy one and he added, "It's good to see people are formally accepting other life in the universe."
"That's good. This guy even wants me to become his sister." Gia said innocently. Ryan shook his head slightly and decided on not to explain about the matter as to letting Gia keep her happiness, for a short while.
"There's even tweets about the Skrulls." Ryan said.
@Emogirl: CHOKE me ORC DADDY!
Dezan almost spouted his drink after reading it. He coughed heavily afterward as he was reeling himself from the shock.
"Like you said, Earthlings are sick." Ryan chuckled as he saw Dezan's colorful reaction.
"I wonder if it's okay to let these people loose in the universe." Gia muttered with a whisper.
…
Outside the hall.
"How the hell did the Age of Ultron start? Wait… Age of Vision now." Kai muttered as the battle entered his line of sight. He flapped his holy aura– white wings, giving him an extra boost in speed as he flew towards the battlefield.
Kai held a black katana in his hand, and started to cut off the remaining Scarab on the battlefield as he got to the Ultrons.
"Kai." Natasha called out as Kai was in her line of sight. Kai landed next to Natasha and used his left hand to pull her by the waist. He pulled her closer and shared a kiss with Natasha.
After a deep kiss, they finally separated from each other. Natasha and Kai gazed into each other's eyes, before Natasha wiped her mouth in shock.
"Urgh. Why do you taste like sulfur?"
"Ah sorry. I'm back from a lava planet. Forgot to brush my teeth." Kai replied. Natasha rolled her eyes and started to get back into the battlefield.
Tony said, "I designed the Ultron units to contain the disturbance in the city. Vision also hacked into my designs and plans.."
"Plans for what?!" Steve asked as he bashed the head of an Ultron unit with his shield.
Vision replied for Tony, "Plans for subduing each member of the Avengers."
"Stark. Seriously?" Steve asked angrily.
"What? It's the logical thing to do." Tony defended himself.
"Mind control, brain parasyte, illusion, hallucination..There are multiple ways to turn us into the dark side. I am just doing some preparation. I made armor plans to counter if something happens, but I never did any contingency plans for you guys. Trust me. I'm not Batman."
"Vision got into my files and upgraded the Ultrons with my plans."
JARVIS chimed in, "I can affirm that Mr. Stark never created the armor on his own. The satellite was built with Mr. Knight's 3D printing technology inside. Upgrading the robots was a simple matter for Vision. He also has blocked me from getting to the satellites and recovering the system."
"Okay JARVIS. I trust you." Natasha replied easily.
Tony turned toward her with an expression of disbelief. "Seriously?"
"What? JARVIS won't lie." Natasha shrugged her shoulders to dismiss the topic.
Thor smites the Ultrons unit with a destructive lightning he summoned from the storm clouds above them. Instead of destroying the robots, the lightning was channeled to the other Ultrons until it lowered the destructive capabilities to destroy the robot.
The Ultrons used the voltage to charge their plasma cannon from their Ant-looking mouth before it shot barrages of attack toward Thor. The god of thunder crashed into the streets as the cannons hit him.
"Damn you Stark!" Thor muttered as he was encircled by the robots. The other heavy hitter on the team was faring well against the robots, but then he found himself being encircled– the same as Thor.
Ultron's plan was to subdue the Hulk with a gamma-siphon – as Hydra did before.
"STARKK!" Hulk yelled at Tony as the robots started to hurt him. Tony's eyes shook and he tried to help the team, but the Ultrons wouldn't let him get near.
After Natasha connected her fist with the Ultrons, the part connected to her turned into restraining handcuffs and bonded to her fist. More than 4 Natasha's were restrained by Ultron's robots in less than a minute since the battle started.
Wanda and Strange fared well against the robots, but continuous attack would cost them if the situation continued.
"I will handle Vision. You handle the Ultrons." Kai muttered to Tony.
"Be careful. He's strong." Tony advised.
"Don't worry about me. Just worry about how you're going to calm down the team after this matter." Kai teased.
"..."
…
The heated battle started to produce some casualties.
Vision commanded his army of Ultrons and kept attacking Wanda using lethal attacks.
"Ugh!" Wanda was hit in her stomach by a mind blast using the gem on Vision's head. The Infinity stone couldn't exist outside of its universe, therefore Vision used his own energy source to power up the dead stone on his forehead.
Wanda fell on the ground, clutching her bleeding stomach.
Vision powered up another blast and shot it directly towards Wanda's head!
A winged angel interjected the blast and landed between Wanda and Vision. Kai cut the blast in half, causing two distant explosions at his back.
"Tsk Tsk Tsk, why are you attacking your wife? Does this fall under war casualties or domestic abuse?"
Kai summoned his corpse vine companion beast, and it wrapped itself around Wanda's stomach to provide her healing energy. The would quickly regenerate under the guidance of the healing energy and the bleeding would stop soon afterwards.
" Thank you. Also, what is this?" Wanda asked, touching the cute vine on her stomach.
"It's a companion beast. Retreat. You're done here."
Wanda gritted her teeth in anger, "I can still fight!"
"Not that I have a problem with that. Go fight the other robots if you want. This one's mine."
Kai stared off with the Vision and grinned. He stepped forward, causing a huge spider web to crack on the ground as he exploded into speed.
BOOM
The sword and the unbreakable Android's body clashed against each other. Kai smiled as the sword trembled violently when blocked with Vision's palm.
"Kai Vera. First Casualty by the END." Vision muttered as he scanned Kai using his spectral cameras.
"End? What's that?" Kai asked. Vision didn't answer and turned his hand permeable. He tried to break the sword using his permeability, but for the first time in his existence, he felt a sense of shock.
"I could not get through." Vision said.
"Of course not. Why would I let you?" Kai muttered and kicked Vision on the stomach. The android absorbed the kinetic energy of the kick as he flew 5 meters backward.
"Good to know you can't escape sword qi." Kai said mockingly. A yellow-gash opened on Vision's cheek. The robot touched the wound on his face, trying to comprehend what just happened.
On the other side of the battles, Tony was trying hard to fix his transgressions against his team members. His black and gold armor has the capability of the mark 42 Armor (in the comic), but added with a few special materials given by Ryan from the system.
"Magi-tech, Prototype 1." Tony muttered as he shot out multiple small missiles to Ultron's unit.
The robots activated their shielding technology, creating a translucent-honeycomb patterned shield on their body. However, before the missiles hit the shield, they vanished.
" Fuck! I Failed!" Tony shouted in frustration.
Steve could barely move in the encirclement. He said flatly, "Sure. Do an experiment now. We have all the time in the world."
"..." Tony sighed in defeat and knew that he would need to win them back with a grand gesture after this.
Suddenly, chaos ensued around Steve as the Ultron unit holding his shield suddenly exploded. The shield broke loose, and returned to Steve's arm once more.
"What? How?" Tony muttered in confusion. A few more explosions were created and it destroyed 5 Ultron units in the process.
"Study it later. Go help Hulk. I'll get Thor."
"Uhhh…Can you get Hulk?" Tony asked as he looked at the angry beast staring at him in his trap.
"No time to argue. Go!" Steve said.
"Damn it!" Tony yelled.
Kai and Vision trade blows with each other. However, they weren't actually trying to hurt one another.
Unlike facing Wanda, Vision had no desire to kill while fighting the members of the Avengers.
"I found it. I can shut down his permeability. But only for a short amount of time." Strange yelled out from afar.
"No need. Just help the others." Kai yelled back.
"..." Strange was in disbelief at the statement. "Don't you want to stop this as soon as possible?"
"Why?" Kai replied back teasingly.
"Kai. Don't play." Natasha chimed.
"I'm not playing." Kai changed into a serious expression. "Can't you feel it Strange?"
Dr. Strange widened his eyes as he sensed the fluctuation of temperature around them.
"This? BUT HOW?! NO ONE CALLED HIS NAME!" Strange yelled.
"No one needs to. He's here. The Devil of the Frozen Hell…" Kai said and aimed his sword at the empty space in the sky above him. "... Ikhtalon."
"Kai!" Steve called out in horror.
"Don't worry. He couldn't come in yet. He couldn't break the barrier created by the sanctums. He's waiting for something, and I need to find out what that is."
Vision replied to Kai, "It's simple. He's waiting for Ryan Knight to degenerate."
"That will be impossible." Kai said with a smile.
"Unfortunately. It is. The incident started. When Ryan Knight lost someone close to him."
Kai lost his smile and he raised his head up to the sky.
"Gwen." He said in realization.