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Orion’s Belt | Ultron vs Brainiac | Infection of Collection

Summary:

The ship of Theseus is a question that not only has stumped philosophers for generations, but is also one which relates to many a creature. When a man upgrades himself, his life, and his body in search of knowledge and an ever-expanding collection, when does he became nothing but a machine. And when a machine is driven by nothing but vitriolic hatred towards its creator, when does that hate make it ‘human’

Notes:

I know I said uploads would slow down, but I think this match up is dope as hell so shut up.

Work Text:

Multiple buildings topple as Ultron flies through. His eyes and always open mouth glow with bright red light, “You will all fall before a new age!” He boasts. He raises his arms high as the ash and dust floats through the decimated streets. Slowly, a shadow looms over Ultron and the city before him. He turns around to see an enormous skull-like ship floating even higher above the city. Out of the ship’s speakers echoes the booming voice of Brainiac, “Citizens of… hmm. Interesting, an android.”

Ultron stares at the ship, unmoving aside from his slow hovering. The ship opens from its mouth, allowing its owner to float out. Brainiac flies out of his ship, his body adorned in various cybernetic augments and purple, glowing wires. He holds his hands behind his back as purple gravitational waves emit from his feet, allowing him to fly. Ultron speaks first, “I suggest you leave now, interloper. This world belongs to me.” He says. Brainiac taps and clicks on various holograms that are projected from his arm, “I’m afraid that is not an option. This world has been claimed, and this city is to become part of my collection.”

Ultron clenches his fist, “Then you will die quicker than others.”

Ultron launches forward and swings a punch towards Brainiac, who swiftly dodges to the side. Brainiac waves his hand as a swarm of disk shaped drones fly at Ultron. Several of the drones explode against Ultron before he grabs one and throws it, causing an explosion to destroy the rest of the swarm. He then flies back towards Brainiac. The scientist sighs as mechanised tentacles sprout from his back. Ultron, fires a blast from his hand, which Brainiac effortlessly deflects using a tentacle.

Brainiac proceeds to grab Ultrons punch using two tentacles. Without a word, Brainiac wrenches the tentacles to either side, twisting Ultron’s arm into scrap. “Feeble.” Brainiac says before stabbing a tentacle through Ultron’s chest. The tentacle juts out of Ultron’s back, holding his fuel core. Ultron’s body falls limp, the red glow from his eyes and mouth fade as he says one last phrase, “They have strings, but you can see…”

Brainiac rips the tentacle out of Ultron’s chest, crushing the fuel core. He turns around to go back into his ship. However, as he is about to fly away, several dozen- No, several HUNDRED shadows rise in front of him. He turns around to see an entire fleet of Ultron units, each one identical to the one he just slew. As the androids finally finish getting into position, they drift in the blotted sky, awaiting orders. Out of the horde, slowing floats down Ultron, in his main body, “There are no strings on me~” He hums.

Brainiac slowly floats back, meeting eye level with Ultron, despite being atleast 30 feet away from him in the sky, “I appear to have underestimated the amount of…” he looks over the army of Ultrons, “Precautions… a machine such s yourself can take.” He remarks snidely. Ultron chuckles, “Well what can I say, I’m my own best backup.” He says. Brainiac remains straight faced, “This will not assist in your unlikely victory. This planet shall become a memory for only me to look back upon. You shall meet the same fate.”

Ultron crosses his arms, “At the risk of sounding cliché,” he gestures to his fleet, “You and what army?” His questions. Brainiac sighs as he presses several buttons on his forearm. Brainiacs ship opens up multiple hatches on its hull. Hundreds of Brainiac’s skeletal Beta Androids fly out of the hatches, stopping to stare down Ultron’s army. Ultron uncrosses his arms, scoffing before pointing forward.

The two armies fly toward each other, meeting within seconds. A Beta fires a grappling wire, stabbing into an Ultron Bot and pulling it in. The Beta is about to grab the Ultron bot, only for another Ultron to tackle it into the city below. Two Ultron Bots stand back-to-back and fire at the Betas surrounding them. Brainiac flies in, crushing one Ultron Bot’s head with tentacle before severing the second one’s legs and allowing it to fall towards the earth.

Ultron flies through the swarm, he extends his arm and dices three Betas in half through speed alone. A Beta fires its grapple at Ultron, only for the attack to be caught, “Yawn.” Ultron says. Ultron rips his arm back, pulling the Beta in before grabbing it and blasting a hole through its stomach. Two more Betas try to perform a pincer manoeuvre, only for Ultron to use the first Betas corpse as battering ram against the second Beta, before firing five mini-rockets at the third, destroying it.

After several minutes of tearing through each other’s units, Ultron and Brainiac finally spot each other through the chaos. Without a single word said they float towards each other. A dozen Ultron Bots fly at Brainiac, who raises his hand to them. A glowing purple dome appears around the Bots before shrinking and crushing them into a ball of scrap. Brainiac dissipates the dome before grabbing the ball using telekinesis and tossing it towards Ultron. Ultron’s arm shifts and morphs as a blade of red energy sprouts from it. He swings his arm blade and cuts the ball in half. Ultron launches towards Brainiac. He stabs his arm blade forward only to be stopped when a purple force field appears around Brainiac.

He morphs his arm back into a fist and begins beating into the force field, each hit doing practically nothing. Brainiac speaks a Ultron continues wailing on the force field, “Your efforts are fruitless. This shield is designed to even stop the attacks of Kryptonians. You’re weak metals are nothing to it.” He boasts. Ultron raises his arm, syphoning the energy from a dozen of his Bots, “Shut up, you filthy sack of meat!” He screams before punching the force field, shattering through it and launching Brainiac into the city the streets below.

Ultron lands on the ground and shoves his arms forward as they morph into the barrel of a cannon, “BURN!” He fires, the beam streaking across the ground towards Brainiac. Brainiac stabs his tentacles into the ground, funnelling purple energy into it before pointing his finger up. The purple energy condenses and forces a chuck of the ground upwards. Ultron’s blast hits the chunk of earth, creating a large explosion. Ultron grabs a bus next to him, the metal wall crumpling in his grip as he tosses it at Brainiac.

Brainiac grabs the bus using his tentacles. However, before he can throw it back or put it down, Ultron jumps up and dropkicks through the bus and into Brainiac. He stands atop Brainiac and readies a blast from his mouth, but before he can fire, Brainiac teleports away. He reappears far down the street as Ultron’s blast hits the ground. While still firing, Ultron raises his head towards Brainiac, causing the beam to move towards him. Brainiac once again teleports out of the blast’s path.

He appears next to Ultron, which Ultron retaliates to by moving his mouth beam in that direction. He appears behind Ultron as the machine once again turns his fire that way. Over and over again, Ultron moves his fire every which way as Brainiac teleports around. Eventually, Ultron’s beam slices the buildings around them in half, causing them to fall towards the two fighters. Brainiac teleports away once more. Meanwhile, Ultron charges another blast from his hands. As the buildings are about to crash on top of them, Ultron blasts downward, creating a tremendous explosion that destroys the entire city block.

Ultron stands in the crater, completely unharmed thanks to his adamantium body. He looks up to see his units still facing off with Brainiac’s. But he also sees Brainiac’s ship turning its gaze towards him. Brainiac’s voice once again booms over the speakers, “Fall!”

Ultron launches upwards. He dodges one of the ship’s massive tentacles, shooting a blast at the ship that bounces off its energy shield. He dodges another tentacle, once again firing a blast which does nothing. The tentacle he’d just dodged wraps around him. Its grip tightens as he becomes unable to move, “Well lucky for me, I always keep a spare on me.” Ultron says. The ground suddenly begins to quake and rumble. Far from Brainiac’s ship, the ground splits open and dozens of skyscrapers topple over. Out of the ripped open crust rises an enormous version of Ultron, resembling one of his drones. The giant Ultron stares down the ship as it stands up.

The titanic machine stands at shoulder level with even the tallest buildings in the city as Ultron speaks to Brainiac, “Invader, meet Ultron-7.” He says. Ultron-7’s mouth glows brighter as it says two words, “YOU’RE MINE!” It yells. Ultron-7 stomps towards Brainiac’s ship. Once within reach, it swings a punch towards Brainiac’s its strike bouncing off of the ship’s force field. The Ship shoves three tentacles forward, each one striking Ultron-7 with impossible force. Ultron-7 stumbles back, growing close to the city docks. Ultron-7 grabs a tentacle that was about to stab his head and rips it off. He stabs The tentacle into Brainiac’s shield.

Inside the control room, Brainiac’s face fills with confusion as the screens around him flash, “Warning! Ship tech attempting to breach shield. Unable to shield from ship tech.” It says. The tentacle shatters the shields and rips a chuck out of the ship’s hull. Ultron-7 proceeds to grab a cargo ship from the water before swinging it into Brainiac’s ship. The ship reels back as Ultron-7 readies another punch towards the ship. However, before the strike can be swung, Brainiac’s ship grabs Ultron-7’s arm with its tentacles. Brainiac’s ship proceeds latch onto Ultron-7’s torso, wrapping its tendrils around its sternum.

Brainiac’s ship points its underside at Ultron-7 as bright, magenta energy builds from its cannon. Ultron-7 responds by preparing his own enormous blast from his mouth. After a few seconds, the beams hit each other at point blank range, creating a gigantic explosion that encompasses dozens of city blocks.

After almost a minute of silence, Ultron rises from the rubble. He is surprised to see Brainiac’s ship still functional, albeit severely damaged and unable to get off the ground. It sits atop the somewhat melted body of Ultron-7. Ultron looks around as dozens of both his and Brainiac’s machines stand up from the rubble. He is about to order his armada to attack, only to stop himself as one of the remaining tendrils of Brainiac’s ship stabs into Ultron-7’s head, causing its dim, red lights to be replaced by bright purple ones.

Ultron screams in pain as he clutches his head. We cut to a world made up of both red and purple code. Ones and zeros fall by the scream. Ultron’s head, made up of red code, looks around, eventually seeing Brainiac made up of purple code. “You were interesting for a moment, but what you have just destroyed is far beyond ANYTHING you have ever made. And as a punishment, you shall become my new onboard assistant.” Brainiac says as Ultron’s code begins to turn purple. Back in the real world, Ultron’s lights flash between red and purple, as do those of the other Ultron units. Brainiacs floats towards Ultron, “Submit, good dogs follow their commands.” He says. Ultron struggles more, “Your hacking i- is certainly impressive… b- but you made one simple mistake.” He says. Brainiac raises a brow, “And what might that be?” He asks. “I’m not just an AI,” Ultron begins. Brainiac’s eyes widen a reels in pain and Ultron stands back to his full height, “I am a virus.”

Brainiac falls to the floor, sitting on his knees as he grips his head in unbearable pain, “You are such a terrific moron. I do appreciate the invitation into your inner workings, though.” Brainiac screams as Ultron snaps his fingers over and over, “Backup 1, Backup 2, Backups 3 through 175,” He remarks with each snap, “You certainly are thorough. I can respect that.” Tears of pain drip from Brainiac’s eyes. “Although, I’d hate to sully my collective with your consciousness. What was it you said? Good dogs follow their commands?” Brainiac shakes as his body moves on it’s own accord, sitting up and forcing him to look at Ultron with fear in his eyes. “Well how about this?” Ultron clenches his fist, “Kill yourself. That’s and order.

Brainiac attempts to speak but is unable to form words. His hand raises by itself and glows with red light. A donut-shaped force field appears around Brainiac’s throat and begins to shrink. He chokes and gags but his body doesn’t let him fall over. His face goes pale and eventually turns blue as he is forced to look Ultron in the eyes for every second of his torment. After several minutes of choking Brainiac’s eyes roll back into his skull as he dies.

Ultron lowers his hand, allowing Brainiac’s body to flop to the floor. He turns around, floating up into the sky. Dozens upon dozens of Ultron and Beta units all cheer, “Hail Ultron! Hail Ultron! Hail Ultron!” They shout. Ultron raises his arms high.

Let The Age Of Ultron…

Begin.

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