"Pietro!"
Wanda lunged forward, her black knee-high socks streaked with dust as she threw herself beside her brother. She cradled Pietro's head in her trembling hands.
"You're okay? You're alive? You're really alive!"
Her voice cracked between disbelief and relief, her sorrow melting instantly into joy.
Pietro was all she had left—her last family in this world.
If he had truly died, she would have been completely alone. She imagined herself walking down empty streets, haunted by the echo of a familiar voice, turning around only to find no one there to argue about who was the older twin.
Tears welled up in Wanda's eyes, brimming with happiness.
But Pietro looked confused. "Alive? What are you talking about? I just went to save Hawkeye… and then suddenly, I'm here."
When Malrick reversed time and removed the bullets from Pietro's body, he had pulled him back to the exact moment before he was shot. Pietro's memory froze there—right before his death.
"Oh right—where's Hawkeye? Is he still alive?" Pietro pushed Wanda's hands away, trying to stand.
Hawkeye, firing arrows into the swarm of Ultron drones, turned his head in disbelief. "I'm alive… Kid, I didn't see that coming. You… it's good to have you back."
Because of their playful rivalry, "Didn't see that coming?" had always been their catchphrase. Pietro had thrown those words at Hawkeye right before taking the bullets meant for him.
This time, it was Hawkeye's turn not to see it coming.
"Hey, what do you mean? I saved you, didn't I?" Pietro said, shaking out his wrists as he spotted the robots closing in again.
But Wanda grabbed his arm. "What do you think you're doing? Dying once wasn't enough?"
"When did I ever die? Wanda, don't—wait, what are you—?"
Before he could finish, Wanda's Chaos Magic flared. Bricks and debris lifted off the ground, encasing Pietro's body until only his head remained above the rubble. His muffled protests were cut off completely.
"You stay right there," Wanda said with an exasperated look, brushing off her hands before turning back toward Malrick.
Her brother's resurrection filled her with relief, but that didn't mean she wouldn't scold him.
"I think I should interrupt before this turns into a family reunion!" Tony's voice cut through the chaos. He shoved a drone off his armor, blasting another apart with his repulsor cannon.
"Before you two hug it out, how about introducing this Clark Kent lookalike you summoned? Those muscles could really help with the Ultron cleanup!"
Malrick's battle suit, infused with dark mystic energy, did carry an emblem that vaguely resembled an S—enough for Tony's sarcasm to kick in.
"Tony's got a point," Captain America called out while crushing a robot's neck with his shield arm. "We could use some extra hands."
"Hulk!"
"Mjolnir!"
The two powerhouses were locked in constant motion, smashing and hammering through drones without pause. They didn't have time to comment.
"Yes, yes!" Wanda shouted quickly, gripping Malrick's arm. Her crimson aura flickered around her.
"Malrick, Ultron's trying to wipe out humanity—we need your help! Please!"
Her voice trembled slightly with desperation. "Ultron was Tony's creation. It's evolved, built itself a new body, and—"
Malrick raised a hand, stopping her mid-sentence.
"The details can wait until after this is over. For now, we focus on the battle."
The fight had clearly been raging for hours. Wrecked drones lay piled high around them, their metallic husks glowing with sparks. The air was thin—Sokovia was already thousands of meters above ground.
It was the moment during Avengers: Age of Ultron when the city had been lifted skyward. Ultron intended to drop it and trigger an extinction-level event. But in this version of reality, Ultron had succeeded in claiming Vision's body.
The Avengers were being crushed.
Malrick noticed Thor guarding Mjolnir closely. In this universe, perhaps Ultron had already stolen it once. Beyond the battlefield, wrecked jets and fallen soldiers littered the floating city. An army had tried to intervene—and failed.
Nick Fury's crashed helicarrier sat half-buried beneath the ruins, its remaining agents trying to protect trapped civilians. Somehow, despite the chaos, civilian casualties were still low. Ultron's focus was purely on the Avengers.
Sokovia continued to rise higher and higher. Ultron waited, patient and confident, for the perfect altitude. When it fell, the impact would rival a meteor strike—an apocalypse.
Humanity had no answer left. Ultron's code had infected every network. The world's governments were blind.
Only the Avengers stood between survival and annihilation.
And now, Malrick stood with them.
He floated into the air, surveying the devastation below.
"This is a good test," he murmured. "Let's see how much order my clone can bring through justice."
Captain America pointed toward the collapsing defense line.
"My friend, we need to hold that sector! Please, help them!"
That was where Hawkeye and the others were barely standing their ground. Beneath them was the thruster core lifting the entire city. If that fell, so would Earth.
But Malrick didn't reply. He simply looked around, his eyes beginning to glow a deep, burning red.
Then came the Heat Vision.
Twin beams erupted, expanding outward in a searing arc.
He turned slowly, sweeping the field in a single motion.
In seconds, the Ultron army—thousands of machines that had forced the Avengers to the brink—was obliterated. The battlefield fell silent, filled only with the hum of melted metal cooling on the wind.
Only one enemy remained.
Ultron, his body infused with the Mind Stone, hovered in the air, unharmed—he had phased just in time to escape annihilation.
Every other threat was gone.
The floating city trembled as residual heat from Malrick's attack warped metal and shattered glass. Dust swirled around the Avengers, catching the faint sunlight that filtered through the thick clouds above.
Wanda exhaled shakily, her grip on Pietro loosening as she looked at the battlefield in awe and terror. She realized the stakes had never been higher—Malrick's power had just rewritten the rules.
Even Ultron seemed unsettled, his usually unshakable composure faltering slightly as he assessed the man who had just wiped out his army with a mere glance.
The silence was deafening. Every Avenger took a moment to catch their breath, the weight of survival pressing down on them. They knew this was far from over—Ultron had the Mind Stone, and now, Malrick had shown just how terrifyingly capable he was.
Malrick floated higher, his gaze piercing the horizon, as if calculating the next move in a game only he could see. The battle for Sokovia, and possibly the world, had entered a new and unpredictable phase.