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Summary: Ultron knocks on the Avengers doorstep to pick a fight.
Date: June 27, 2010
Log Title Uninvited Guests
Rating: R (V)
NYC- Avenger Mansion
The day started out so well too. It's a beautiful day out, but the odds of some people seeing that are slim… Anyway, the mansion is quiet until evening when the alarms start going off. There's just enough warning to start moving when something comes hurtling through the exterior wall of the house and impacts into the mansion itself. Something kind of small considering the size of the damage. It also appears to be on fire. The structure is reinforced, so there's little reaction to the impact, even though that portion of wall crumples.
Now, as to what started this? Ultron makes his appearance after the impact, looking just fine on the outside. His motions are unsteady however. That Adamantium frame makes for little outwards damage, but the machine wobbles somewhat as it lands, and his voice is somewhat garbled as he calls out, "Avengers! Now is your time!" Bold words for something that's listing to the left. It should be noted here that this isn't a redesign. In fact this appears to be an older model. Something that hasn't been seen in years and was thought to have been destroyed.
Thud? That's not really an appropriate and typical noise for the Avengers Mansion… at least coming from the outside on a nice quiet evening. Especially when the thud sets off an intruder alarm. Keld is in the Avengers' gym doing things with heavy objects, but this seems to be more immediately interesting so he yanks his costume top on over his head at somewhat high speed, and races up and out towards the source of the noise. It will take him a good 3-5 seconds to reach the scene without breaking things, but hopefully he can get there without breaking doors, bystanders, and the speed of sound.
Sleeping, it was highly over rated. Proof in point, Tony had been asleep for about an hour before the computer system awoke him with an intruder alarm. He rolled off the couch he had been sleeping on. In a flash the inner layers of his armor tear through his clothing leaving him standing in the parlor covered in the gold alloy from head to toe. Images began sorting through his mind as he summoned the rest of the armor to assemble about him. Metal boots can be heard clanking down the hallway and towards the front door of the mansion.
Jarvis nearly drops a load of linens that he was carrying due to that speed, but he's used to such things truth be told. Alarms and speedsters both.
As for outside, a portion of the outer wall has been demolished. There are some startled onlookers across the street, for not only the wall has taken damage. All down the street are the signs of a conflict in the form of ruined cars and damaged buildings. There's even a news helicopter heading this way. Yes, someone battled Ultron all the way here. A someone that is laying on the ground against the wall, and under the indent in said wall.
Ultron himself attempts to stand tall and proud, but he's leaning to the left more than he should be. "Come out and play, Avengers! Ultron has come to destroy you!" He is speaking as Keld appears. "Designation unknown, but of no concern. Die." Lifting a hand the robot blasts at Keld.
It should be noted that this is an old model of Ultron, not a new one. It quite literally has no link ups to any kind of communications systems. Certainly not the internet. Not even blue tooth. This this has to date back to the late 80s.
There is a squealing of tires as a car comes to park about a block away; far enough back that it will hopefully be ignored. It is a black minivan, certainly not government issued no really. Jumping quickly out of the driver's seat is Michael Pola, USMC in MARPAT camouflage fatigues and combat boots. He doesn't even pause, moving quickly around to the back of the truck and opening it up. "Let me see…" He says, looking to finally see Ultron down there. "This is tremendously above my paygrade." He offers. "Ok…so the grenade launcher too." He says, as he takes a very large rifle out of the back of the car. With a scope.
Once outside a scan reveals the damage that has occurred along the street, the law enforcement and news reporters closing in on the area, and what 'outfit' Ultron is sporting these days. /NYPD this is Iron Man. Please create a perimeter. Do not engage the target. If you could please have the choppers clear the area for their own safety. This guy can fly. I'd rather not have to save them if they get hit out of the sky./ Tony ends his communication with the police department in time to see Ultron fire at Keld. "Hey, Johnny-5! I know you missed me but all you had to do was call." Hopefully that turns the attention away from Keld and onto himself.
For light reading, Keld is known to sit down with the old Avengers mission logs and records, because they have (according to his reading) an alarming recurrence rate among their foes. That is to say, they keep coming back angry, do something rotten, and the innocents have to be avenged again.
In this case, the head gives it away, not to mention that it gave itself away by giving its name in the challenge.
The records say 'adamantium' which from the description is one of the starship-hull metals… this won't be easy, that stuff is hard to deal with on the best of days. Especially as ACK! It fires on him!
Keld shifts to invulnerability and is thereby knocked about ten feet back and into a tree. A stream of gibberish comes from his lips, fortunately. Nothing he's saying would be allowed on any FCC controlled radio broadcast if it was readily understood.
That scan will also reveal insights into the robot itself. There's nothing blocking the scan, and there are many inconsistencies in the design. Like the joints of each arm are different. There are spots inside of empty space like someone fit the wrong parts into a spare form. This isn't remotely a well thought out machine, even if it mimics a known foe in several ways. The scan would also show that aspects of those internals have been warped. Something changed them, warped them.
Having blasted Keld, and ignoring Michael for the moment, Ultron turns its attention to that voice. "..Ironman!" There's almost delight there. "You're number is unlisted. Rather hard to phone ahead." Not bothering to blast this time, the machine leans down and scoops up some rubble to launch it at Ironman. Pieces of the wall, fairly large ones, are chucked with little effort.
Michael takes the large rifle and begins to haul ass, a testament to Marine PT that he can still run so well despite being…well…old. He runs until he has a good view of the fight, and sets the rifle on the hood of a car with a little bipod stabilizing the front. His hands move expertly to adjust the scope and finish assembling the rifle. Clip in, move the bolt, round in, safety off. He has a throat mic, tuned to SHIELD channels…which he hopes Iron Man is monitoring. "Ironman, do you copy?" He aims.
The thrown pieces of wall sail through the air towards Iron Man. Tony raises a gauntlet to easily shoot down the wall fragments. The debris from the explosion lands harmlessly all around the open area in front of the mansion and some at the feet of Iron Man. "You sure you're up to this? You seem a bit patchy." Tony hears someone unfamiliar speaking to him from a SHIELD line. "I hear ya. SHIELD inbound?" Iron Man fires a low powered blast toward the left knee and follows with another short blast to the right knee. "Bit patchy there. Just stand down will ya? I need to get back to my beauty sleep."
"I'm all your going to get for the moment, sir. Paladin, and I've got your sniper support, but I think all I'm going to be is a distraction. You tell me when and where to hit him, and I'll do it." Michael says quickly as he fiddles with his scope a little bit, looking at the joints of the arms and legs.
Keld snaps back to the attack as the thing is flinging bits and pieces of WALL at Tony. Its actions makes very little sense to him as an attack tactic … if it wants to hurt Iron Man, it could simply grab him and presumably 'make a wish' - so there must be some sort of ulterior motive, and ulterior is ALMOST its name, so… time to be distracting. A shift back to speed and Keld is running back at the thing, leaping and lashing out with arms and legs, in a move that would seem familiar to anyone who's ever trained against one Natasha Romanoff. As he starts the apparent tumble, he switches from speed to super-strength, at a bit above 75 tons; an arm or a leg could grab or wrap its humanoid form, or at least strike for a joint or the head. He certainly won't break the armor but the insides, one hopes, aren't ALL ship-hull metal.
Ironman's blasts do very little obvious damage, but they do stop Ultron from throwing more rocks. "I…" If only because the machine rocks back a step and before it can right itself Keld is there. Smack! Ultron staggers with the super speed impact, but doesn't go down. Feet slide over grass and it manages, if barely, to keep itself upright. Arms lift to try and fend off the attack, and that's what Keld hits. "I…" The shoulder joint, already weakened on that side, crumples. The arm absorbers the impact, but goes limp. Ultron simply uses eye beams and zots Keld full force. Eyes blaze with light and then BLAST! "I want you -one!" Voice isn't sounding that great.
At the base of that wall a fire starts. A thin man in black begins to pick himself up off the ground, and he bursts into flame. He's bloodied and dazed, yet looks very determined as he turns his attention to the fight.
/He's unstable internally. I think the person across the way that's just turned into flames may be responsible for that./ He tells the SHIELD operative. With Keld being lasered in the face Tony charges toward Ultron. One of Iron Mans arms attempts to block the blast off of Keld while the other hand clamps down onto Ultrons armor. "This is gonna sting…" Tony warns as he releases an electrical charge from his armor.
Michael nods. "Well then I just hit him and see what…Lord that guy is fast." Michael, poor squishy human Michael, says. He can't throw lightning, or fly, or go super speed, he is just a human. But there is one thing he can do better than pretty much any other normal human alive, save one, and that is shoot. He peers through the scope, and takes aim. The moment that that blast from Ultron's eye stops, he will fire a .50 caliber rifle round moving faster than the speed of sound, precisely at that eye. An Ultroneye, since it isn't a bull.
It tried to say it wanted him gone, but Keld is fairly tough when he's being strong; he can endure the amount of damage he can dish out, and thus, the energy blast — some sort of high-speed pulsed concussion beam that would probably make a messy red spay out of a human, at that calibration — simply knocks him back about ten yards, and he spits faintly orange blood out and growls, preparing for another run, when Iron Man closes on the machine. So he waits for an opening to come in and strike again, and we'll worry about what got broken later.
Tony can't get there quite fast enough to stop the whole blast, but he can lessen the blow a good deal. The armor is sure to take some abuse though. Ultron can only take a moment to scream. It's a shrill, agonized sound for the combination of attacks. Electricity hurts! And now so does the machine's eye. A machine that hurts? There's that scream just the same. Pitched just enough to make one's skin crawl. )
Ultron flails with this, attempting to throw Ironman off. Keld was already knocked away, so that isn't the issue. What happens next could miss Ironman by mere inches depending on whether or not he's knocked away. *PHOOOM!* A tight blast of what appears to be fire tears through the air and hits Ultron in that damaged shoulder. P-TANG! Goes the metal the machine is made from. Now, it should be stated that this doesn't do any obvious damage. Jonothon's blast can't damage that metal, but he can mange Ultron go flying back to hit, and go through, another portion of the outer wall. As for Jono himself he's hunched over, and would be panting if he had the lungs to do so. «Wanker.» This is telepathic, so if you have shielding, you won't hear anything.
Iron Man, unfortunately for Jonothon, is telepathically shielded thanks to the lovely folks over at SHIELD. The blast of fire registers to Stark enough that he manages not to take too much of a hit from it, but it unfortunately breaks his electrical connection to Ultrons armor by sending him sailing into the air a few feet where he lands and watches the crash of Ultrons body going into another wall. "My insurance is going to kill me…" Tony moans to no one but himself. He checks to see that Keld is still functioning before approaching Ultron again.
Michael is, despite being one of those lovely folks back at SHIELD, not shielded. So he does indeed hear Jono, distantly; but he doesn't let it distract him. "That is simply too strange for words." He offers to himself as his hands automatically work the bolt, and chamber another round. He sees the crushing of the shoulder, and waits for a moment when he has the damaged side to him; when he does, he fires again, another incredibly accurate round that will do absolutely nothing against Adamantium except waste tax payer money.
Sensory assessment: One eye broken, one arm broken, a telepathic voice suspiciously like Keld's Drakonian friend from SWORD is speaking in his head, but that friend doesn't use telepathy… Keld files this all for later consideration. He is rising to his feet again as Iron Man checks on him, switching again to speed mode, as he's sure this will probably only work once more. Not to mention, that pain-scream was annoyingly sentient. What sort of bastard would program a sentient robot to experience pain?
His rush to attack is screaming fast again, and he moves in again, this time thinking to restrain the thing, trying to get to a start-position, switch to superstrength, and use a throw-and-lock. If it's experiencing pain, maybe it will surrender. If not, it might buy time for Tony or the fire-person to disable or deactivate the thing.
Bullets bounce off harmlessly as Ultron attempts to stand. This doesn't appear to be going well. One arm is useless and there's a low whine emitting from the robot now. Its voice isn't doing so hot. Keld's second attack means it doesn't have much of a chance to get to its feet, but neither is it without means. The throw doesn't work. The impact hurts the internals to be sure, but Ultron flies and prevents that throw from happening. So instead of Keld throwing Ultron, Ultron attempts to spike Keld into an imaginary end field. He has superstrength too you know.
«Stop bloodying messing around!» That voice Tony can't hear protests. Jonothon staggers a couple steps forward before managing to straighten. He's not doing that well. «He's made of something we can't hurt, but his internals are normal metals. Shove a bloody stick through his eye or something.»
Tony has a moment to think about all of the information available to him from the initial scan, the reaction to brute force and the electrical charge. As Ultron prepares to smash Keld into tomorrow, Iron Man looks at the gun shot to Ultrons eye. /Playtimes over./ Tony activates the repulsors in his boots, flies over to Ultron and activates a pulse blast into the all ready weakened eye socket. Poor thing was just asking for it, and the time for being nice was long past.
FLY? Of course it can fly, why wasn't that in the briefing? The thing manages to spin and throw him off, and unfortunately it's in a ground-wards direction with Keld playing the part of "person being flung at the ground" … now, it's a tradition among some races that one learns to fly by being flung at the ground and missing. Keld is not drunk enough to miss, and unfortunately, the velocity of the flinging means he doesn't have time to switch to flight or invulnerability. Fortunately he's tough, but his bell is rung, the breath is knocked out, and he's dazed… It'll take a good ten to fifteen seconds for him to be willing to move. Breathing will hurt. Oh, and "ow."
"Doing the best I can…" Michael says simply as he chambers another round with a precision that is totally, totally lost on the fact that the guy is made of Adamantium. Another bullet, another perfect shot…pretty much for the hell of it. It goes through one of the birds around Keld's head, the imaginary ones, just because he is /that/ awesome.
Of course, being Dakkamite, the imaginary birds are probably immune to the bullet too. Frickin aliens and robots.
Score! Ultron looks about to congratulate itself when suddenly Tony is there. Lifts its silver head to take a blast to the eye. The fight ends there fairly quickly. An imaginary bird dies a horrible, bloody death, and a robot twitches briefly before plummeting down.. on top of Keld. There's smoke leaking out of that ruined eye, but Ultron doesn't make it to smack on poor Keld. There's a rush of fire that protects the alien by catching that Robot. Jonothon doesn't attempt to hold that form though. He's too damn tired. Does look like he's on fire though,a bloody mess that's also burning, and a tendril of fire flips the metal form to the side. «Christ.» He has so had a lousy day. That save was the last of his strength and he plunks down into a flowerbed.
Iron Man lowers to the ground, deactivating the boots as he lands near Keld and the smoking robot. "Keld, status?" He glances over to where this yet to be identified man is laying sacked out in Jarvis' prized flowers. /SHIELD operative? If you've got any experience with handling the press and the police department please use it./ Tony needs to handle getting Ultron to a facility to deal with it/him and to figure out who this random guy is.
Breathing. Yes, breathing is good. Keld goes through the ritual of Am I Dead Yet? No Sir! Then Get Off The Ground, Soldier! and starts to roll to his feet. Starts. The thing is, this lovely earth-soil has formed a Keld-shaped indent about half the depth of his body and he's not sure he can get up yet.
A bullet kills a Blaszakna Morning Smiler (the fangy little yellow bird) as it circles his head looking for a place to bite, and then the rest of the flock scatters as the metal form comes crashing directly down on (INVULN! NOW DAMMIT!) him. "MRF!" Which is of course "There is part of a robot in my mouth and I cannot move."
Michael gives a nod. "Let me put away the big scary gun first." Michael says seriously, breaking it down as quickly as he can given the barrel is really hot. He takes the rifle and quickly jogs back to the car, locking it up and moving it off of the curb. Once he has done that he will grab his hat, since it looks official, and start moving over to deal with the press as best he can.
Ultron just doesn't move from where it lays. Tony fried some critical systems but good. The news copter, which has ignored the ban, now comes in for some better shots. Mainly of Ironman, but there are some of Keld too. Look, he's indented in the ground! Beyond the wall people begin to move over, but are stopped by the ever growing crowd of police. Michael can issue orders as he will and they will do their best. Already though, they have an excellent handle on things. Old hat this.
Tony bends down to remove whatever part of Ultron is in Kelds mouth. Fortunate for the Avenger the mystery man had deflected Ultron away at the last minute. Scanning Keld quickly he gets a medical readout telling him that it would be okay to lift him from the crater. "I'm getting you out of there." Iron Man goes about lifting Keld out of the ground. With a quick rise from the boots he carries Keld over to place down next to Jonothon who seems tapped out. "I've called in the cavalry to haul off what's left of Ultron." He notices the copter and growing crowd being held off by the police before he turns back to the two before him. "I may need to move the both of you indoors."
Michael is content for the NYPD to handle it, for the most part; they know what they're doing, and nobody likes some random Lt. Colonel coming over and telling them how to do their job. He just answers some questions when asked, and lets them work.
It could have been worse, it was just a part of the robot's hand, landing across his face, not the proverbial "bite my shiny metal" parts. With invulnerability in play, Keld is not in pain, and Tony removing him from the ground merely leaves an indentation and a bunch of mud on the back of his head and uniform. At least it wasn't face-down!
However, the "Hi, this doesn't work right" is still quite happily in play. Tony's scan reveals what SHOULD be a broken rib, on a human and a great deal of bruising, but that latter is repairing itself fairly quickly. Nothing makes sense in the attempted scan of the brain, but that's no news for anyone (not even Keld's medical support team back home.) He won't be finishing that workout tonight though.
Getting him out of there? Oh shit. That goes through Jonothon's mind as he realizes, finally, just where he is. Means that as Tony is helping Keld, the Brit is sitting up. He's wearing a black leather jacket, a tshirt, and jeans. All of which lack the signs of damage that they should be showing for the beating he took. And he barely looks in his twenties to boot. «I'm fine.» Jono replies to Tony, having no idea that his words won't reach the other man. «Just need to catch my breath and I'll be out of your petunias.» Regardless of what flowers they really are. «That the hell was that bloody thing?» Hope, doesn't know who Ultron is. Sorry.
Tony gets confirmation that SHIELD is arriving in 3 minutes. Seeing that the other man has sat up Tony diverts his attention to him. "Easy. Let me figure out if you're all right." Tony runs a scan on the man which causes all sorts of warnings to pop up. No life signs(though the guy was clearly alive), there were thermal readings and the guys psionic levels were off the charts. Tony weighs his options and finds that at the moment this individual had not attempted to cause harm to any of the Avengers or innocent people around. Strange as the readings may be, he was used to that sort of thing. He would play it cautiously for now. /I haven't caught your name yet but SHIELD guy you better get over here. I'm going to need your help./ Tony looks directly at Jonothon and speaks through the metallic sounding voice of the helmet. "You're obviously not with Ultron. Who are you?"
Michael is here. Oh…the /rest/ of SHIELD. Michael jogs over when called, nodding to Tony. "Lt. Colonel Michael Pola, United States Marines and SHIELD." He introduces himself to Iron Man (doobie doobie doobie doobie do), before he looks over to Jono, eyebrows raised.
Jonothon has a slow time climbing to his feet, totally having no idea he's being scanned. Yep, zombie here. Well, not really, but hey. Looking to that metallic voice, the Brit manages to straighten. He's not even above average height. Totally not impressive looking. If you don't count the flame anyway. He's still on fire. «Chamber. I'm with the X-Men.» Pulls his open jacket to one side to show a (X) of silver and gold at his collar bone. «McCoy can vouch for me if you need it.» Of course Tony might not hear that, but Jono doesn't know it yet.
Iron Man takes a protective step in front of Michael. He relaxes a bit when he sees the familiar symbol of the X-Men. Of course, that doesn't explain why this guy wasn't talking to him. "You're an X-Man? What happened with Ultron before he knocked on our door? I don't know who you are either. A name might be nice. Just saying." He glances down at Keld quickly and figures the big lump would be all right there for a moment or two longer.
Michael raises an eyebrow as he looks to Tony Starkman. "He just said his name is Chamber, and that McCoy can vouch for him?" Michael asks, with the tone of 'Does the suit have ear holes' audible in his voice for the moment. "Also, just for my records, what in the name of God is an Ultron?"
Keld tests his fingers and toes. Yes, they do move. No, it wasn't a good idea. "grade 4 whole-body pain," he observes quietly. "This is what happens when you forego your impact endurance training, Jonahl." Of course it would be even better if he could see the people who are talking, but hey, he's alive! Bonus!
There's a pause as Ironman chides for not giving a name, and Jonothon looks briefly dumbfounded. But.. but.. Then understanding dawns and the man facepalms. Tony can't hear him! There's a motion to Michael and a nod. What he said! However, that doesn't mean Jono remains silent. Through the comm there issues a British voice. "I'm unable to speak verbally, and was using telepathy. Ironman must be shielded." There's a rueful expression for that as he looks to Michael. "I was heading to a friend in town when that robot all but exploded out of the back of a rental truck. About three blocks that way." A point in the right direction. "It began tossing cars around, so I did what I could. Found that I couldn't hurt the shell, but I could bollocks up the internals. It threw me before I could do real damage." And you guys know the rest.
Tony nods in response to Chamber. "I am shielded." Before he can continue he hears the arrival of the SHIELD operatives. He nods his helm in their direction, and they cart off Ultron. "Ultron is a long story. Too long for telling out here." Tony bends down to lift Keld. To anyone else it looks as if Keld weighs nothing as Tony steps up to the door. "Come in, everything else will be handled by the others." Jarvis is there waiting to open the door when Tony reaches it. He carries Keld in to lay half on/off the couch in the parlor. "Now, let's see if we can't fill in the gaps for everyone involved. Jarvis, bring something to drink will ya? This is going to be a LONG story."
If Jonothon weren't exhausted he'd turn down that offer of the story, but he is. A wear nod and the Brit decides to follow them inside. "..I'm not thirsty, but thanks." That's the excuse he gives, and in fact Jono will turn down all offers of food and drink. This should be fairly obvious why due to the scans. He doesn't have internal organs. Can't eat. Oh yes, Hank will indeed vouch for him too. Honest!
Over a period of an hour Tony relates everything he knows about Ultron to date and finds out some interesting information about Chamber. The young man eventually has to leave and Tony apologizes for offering the man edibles when he was incapable of consuming them. Keld was still recovering which left him with Michael from SHIELD. Tony offers to converse with Michael for awhile after he goes and removes the armor and sees to it that people are called to handle the repairs to the mansion.
