MM: Chapter 56

I stood atop the roof of a building in Riga's Old Town as the City of Riga crumbled around me under the onslaught of robotic assailants. I couldn't help but feel like it was just one thing after another. This was supposed to be a quick trip, damnit! How the Hell could I have forgotten about Ultron Unlimited? They only based the second damned Avengers Movie off it! In a flash, I had my various equipment pieces summoned onto myself, my Wan-Shen in my hand, and prepared to move in to fight. I engaged my Chi enhancement and my various Mystical Enhancements before looking around. Down on the street below, a group of ten civilians was being escorted by a Slorenian Soldier in what looked like a local knockoff of Lithuanian M-Oh-Five Camouflage and who had the two small stars of a Senior Lieutenant emblazoned on his helmet. The Civilians ran screaming toward a side street, trying to get away from what looked like some kind of Robotic Tank.

As the civilians entered the side street, the Soldier paused to fire his Rifle at the tank, taking a knee and firing off a burst of rounds before ducking into cover behind some rubble, only for it to do less than nothing to the Vibranium plating on the Armor. In response, the tank swiveled to face the soldier, an emitter of some kind mounted on the hull glowing red before it let off a burst of lasers at the soldier. The pulse laser blasted rubble in the area to bits, melting concrete, brick, and rebar into red-hot fragments and slag as the pulses traced their way over toward the Slorenian's cover.

I decided that would be a decent time to step in, conjuring a mystic shield to block the pulse laser blasts from reaching the Soldier's Cover before leaping down and striking out with my Wan-Shen at the Tank, the mystical blade of my polearm slicing through the Barrel of the Tank's Main Gun just as it tried to fire at the Shield I had conjured. The resulting explosion from the Plasma Blast blowing up in the barrel blew the Robot Tank to tiny bits as I stood up, trying to be cool and not look at the massive explosion I'd just caused. With a mystic gesture, I dispelled the Barrier protecting the Soldier, who stood up from behind his cover and nodded at me, saying something in Slorenian. Unfortunately, I didn't speak Slorenian.

"Czy mówisz po Polski? Nie mówię po, Słorenski." I tried, asking if he spoke Polish instead.

Given the proximity of Slorenia and Poland, it was probably the only Language the Soldier and I might speak in common. I doubted he spoke English, Slorenia was still considered something of a Rogue Nation by most in the West, after all, even now. Maybe German, but I wasn't counting on that.

"Tak. Mały. Niewiele." Responded the Soldier, haltingly, saying he only spoke a little Polish.

I frowned at that. We weren't going to be able to communicate this way, not effectively on a Battlefield. I would have to try and pull fluency with Slorenian out of his mind. As I approached him, I held out one hand and tried to calm him down in Polish. I hoped he understood me, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure if I could make my intentions known like this.

"Trzymaj się. Skopiuję język z twojego umysłu." I insisted, letting him know I would copy Slorenian from his Mind and to hold still.

I reached out with Force, trying to copy the ability to speak Slorenian from the Soldier's Mind. It would be temporary, but until I learned the spell to keep temporary knowledge I learned through other means, this was the best I could do. He flinched and tried to pull away, but I managed to just barely copy the language from his mind. As soon as I had, however, the Soldier raised his rifle at me and started shouting.

"What did you just do? Who are you?" He questioned.

"I told you, I copied how to speak Slorenian from your mind. Sorry, but we weren't going to be able to effectively communicate with you barely knowing how to speak a little Polish." I responded.

"You what? Who are you?" Queried the Soldier.

"I'm the Sorcerer. I'm with the Avengers. I'm here to help. Slorenia is currently being attacked by Ultron." I answered.

"The Avengers are here?" Asked the Soldier.

"Just me, I'm afraid. I was here chasing a personal matter. My family's from around this part of Europe, after all. The Baltic, I mean." I responded.

"Polish, eh? Good. Poles are good fighters. We need good fighters. Though I don't know about you. How long has your family been in America?" Questioned the Soldier.

"My Grandparents Emigrated after the War. Grandad was part of Anders' Army, and Grandma was a Partisan fleeing the Gestapo. Is that really important right now?" I queried.

"Nevermind, we could use any help, I suppose. There are more of those things all over the City." The Soldier acquiesced.

"They won't stop with Riga. Tblunka's going to get hit too. When was the last time you got orders from command?" I asked.

"Around fifteen minutes ago. The Army Command in Riga was attacked by some kind of Flying Fortress, and General Szantovich ordered all units still fighting to evacuate the civilians. I'll be damned if I know where I'm supposed to evacuate them to, though!" Scowled the Soldier.

"Look, what's your name, Lieutenant?" I questioned.

"Senior Lieutenant Kotilyar, Marko Kotilyar." Answered the Soldier, Lieutenant Kotilyar.

"Right, well, Lieutenant, in the absence of any safe place to move them, I want you to get them into the sewers." I insisted.

"The sewers? With the Filth?" Queried Lieutenant Kotilyar.

"Trust me. They almost never check there. There's too much sewer under any city of over a quarter million people to check properly." I nodded.

"Are you sure about that? It seems unsanitary." Asked Lieutenant Kotilyar. As he did, so, however, the tromping of mechanical feet presaged the arrival of Ultron's Infantry Drones. I shook my head at the Lieutenant and pointed toward the alleyway.

"No time to argue, Lieutenant, just go! I'll handle these drones!" I insisted.

"Good luck, you Mad Polish Bastard." Huffed Lieutenant Kotilyar as he turned and headed down the alleyway after the fleeing civilians.

I turned in time to see Ultron's Mechanical Infantry round the corner. Bipedal Drones with some sort of energy rifles. Not plasma or laser weapons, but my powers of Comprehension from Amestrian Alchemy told me that they were some kind of Directed Enhanced Radiation Beam that was largely only effective against organic targets. A sort of Directed Beam Version of a Neutron Bomb which would kill Organic Folks like the citizens of Slorenia, but leave the buildings, vehicles, and whatnot largely intact for repurposing later on. It was a cold, targeted weapon of the kind that an AI who was bent on killing all Humans would dream up. In other words, it was perfect for Ultron's purposes.

After all, Ultron was largely only in Slorenia to genocide the population so he could build a base for his new Synthezoid Master Race on its bones. If he could repurpose the buildings as Materials for that base, he would. Fortunately, that also meant that none of those rifles had the stopping power to penetrate any shield I could conjure. They were Anti-People Weapons, after all. Ultron must have been tasking these particular drones with Mop-Up Duties. That probably meant Organized Resistance in Riga was Kaput already. So much for General Szantovich and Army Command, I guess.

As the Ultron Combat Drones raised their Rifles and took aim at me, I grinned behind my Champion's Helm. They had no idea just who they were messing with. A mystic syllable and a gesture later and a shimmering shield popped up in front of me as the Ultron Drones began to fire their weapons. The beams of weaponized radiation slammed into my mystical shield in a volley and did precisely nothing. Even sustained fire failed to do anything but cause the mystical energy to ripple a bit. As the weapons fired again and again to no effect, I smirked behind my Champion's Helm. After a few seconds of failing to penetrate my shield, the Ultron Drones stopped firing. One of them pulled a glowing red canister from off its back that my Powers of Comprehension informed me was a sort of miniature fusion grenade that was supposed to be able to shred pretty much any barrier it was thrown at.

I figured that included Vibranium-plated Alloy Armor, as well, and as the grenade was tossed my way, red glow flashing, I reached out with the Force and snagged it out of the air, throwing it back at the Ultron Drones. It exploded in the center of their line, and the middle five of them were suddenly replaced by a miniature sun as the grenade went off, sublimating their forms in a brief flash of nuclear light and heat. When the flash receded, there was nothing left of the middle five Ultron Drones, not even melted slag, as the power of the grenade had turned their components from solid straight to gaseous form, skipping liquid entirely. You would have to be some Thor or Hulk-level guy to avoid being killed by that. As I was neither, I reflected that it was best not to get caught by one of those blasts. The Ultron Drones paused for a moment, but I didn't let up. I conjured an Amber Spear, flinging it into one of them, destroying it as my Barrier went down and I dashed forward.

My Wan-Shen flashed out and carved one of the other drones in two, even as I reached out with one hand to cast a wandless, wordless Bombarda Maxima at two of the others. The magic knocked them both to the ground, sparking as their power sources died, even as I reached out with my off hand to grab the barrel of one of the last three Drones' Guns and immediately transmuted the weapon, with its miniature fission power pack into a small but powerful explosive device before apparating back up to the top of a building as the Drone pulled the trigger and set off the bomb I had rigged the weapon into. The street was filled with a fireball as the explosion went off with the power of a Scud Missile Warhead. The Explosion demolished anything in the street, and I leaped away, roof-hopping my way out of the area.

As I did so, I noticed that an Aerial Assault Platform had just levitated up from a nearby street to follow me, firing laser cannons at me as I roof hopped away, destroying the old Cafe Building that I had previously been standing on. The Cafe had probably stood there for centuries, but now it was a crumbling wreck thanks to this thing. As the Aerial Assault Platform swiveled its turrets toward me, I reached out with Ferromantic Power and forced a critical error in the Turret's Emission Array. The Aerial Assault Platform exploded as the turret melted down from the uncontrolled misfire, raining pieces of molten vibranium plating, alloy metal, and mechanical components down on the rooftops of Riga's Old City.

As I continued roof hopping, I found another pair of soldiers, these ones with a Sergeant's and Corporal's stripes on their helmets respectively. They were trying to hold an Ultron Tank at bay with a couple of fire-and-forget RPG Launchers, while a machine gun on the second floor of the Tailor's Shop they were defending tried to suppress an advancing squad of Ultron Combat Drones. It wasn't working, and I could tell they were about to be overrun. That was when I conjured an Amber Spear and flung it down from the rooftops at the Ultron Tank Turret, punching into the less armored top of the Tank Turret and slagging something critical. Instead of firing its Main Cannon, the Tank brewed up in a ball of fire, allowing the Sergeant to shift his RPG Fire to the Combat Drones. He managed to hit one flush in the head, killing it, but the others advanced, only for me to seize hold of them with the Force and begin smashing them into each other with telekinetic power, dashing the drones to pieces.

I leaped down off the rooftop I had been standing on just as an Aerial Assault Platform flew up over a row of buildings to level its laser turrets at the shop, my Wan-Shen Flashing out and cleaving through the engine of the Assault Platfomr as it passed by, sending it spiralling out of control to splash down into the Daugava River a few blocks away from her, causing another explosion as it crashed and sending up river water over part of the Old Town. As I landed on the street, I called out to the Sergeant in my recently-gained proficiency with the Slorenian Language to assure him I wasn't with Ultron.

"Hold Fire! I'm here to help!" I called out.

"I believe you! Who are you?" Questioned the Sergeant.

"I'm the Sorcerer, I'm with the Avengers!" I answered.

"The Avengers are not friends of Slorenia! State your business!" Retorted the Sergeant.

"Tonight, the whole world is friends of Slorenia! You're being attacked by Ultron. He's trying to depopulate your entire country! Slorenian, Dudak, Curonian, it won't matter to his Mechanical Brain! To Ultron, Organics are Organics!" I insisted.

"Is that so?" Queried the Sergeant.

"It is. Look, you need to move! The Old Town is crawling with these drones! There will be more of them here before you know it!" I warned.

"We cannot." Admitted the Sergeant.

"What do you mean you cannot?" I asked.

At that, the Sergeant put his weapon up and sighed, gesturing for me to approach. I frowned but nodded and did as he said. He led me into the Tailor's Shop, where I saw exactly what he meant by saying he couldn't relocate. Inside, he had about fifteen civilians, around a third of whom were wounded in such a way to mean that they couldn't walk. Broken legs, shattered hips, that sort of thing. He nodded at me as he gestured to the various civilians and offered an apologetic shrug.

"You see. We cannot move. Not without evacuation for the wounded." Reiterated the Sergeant.

"Sergeant, Army Command is gone, General Szantovich is dead. Whatever troops are left are fighting in dribs and drabs. Nobody is coming for your wounded." I sighed.

"Then we stay and sell our lives as best we can. There is no other way. I will not leave wounded Slorenians to die." Intoned the Sergeant.

"Maybe not." I frowned.

I was thinking of the stockpile of healing potions in my Bag of Holding. I had a lot of them, but they wouldn't last long if I handed one out to every wounded civilian in Riga. However, if I didn't open up my stores when I could, how could I call myself a hero? If I didn't do all I could for these people when they were suffering, saving my healing potions for my own use, how was I any different from Mors Cruentia's selfish ass? No, I would share the Healing Potions, consequences be damned. After all, you had to try and help when you could, or what was the point of all this?

"What do you mean, maybe not?" Questioned the Sergeant.

"If I could heal your wounded and get you moving out of here ahead of the next attack, would you let me?" I queried.

"You can do that?" Asked the Sergeant.

"I can, but you have to trust me." I confirmed.

"Do it. At this point, I would trust the Devil himself if he said he could get the civilians out of the line of fire." The Sergeant nodded.

"I wouldn't put it that way. The Devil is very real and he's an asshole. Fortunately for you, I won't demand your soul or your marriage or anything for helping like this." I grinned.

"I don't get it. Is this some American joke?" Questioned the Sergeant.

"No, unfortunately." I refuted.

"So you will help us, then?" Queried the Sergeant, my references to Mephisto and his supreme douchebaggery apparently lost on him.

"I will. I have healing potions that should get your wounded up on their feet." I nodded.

"Magic? Like your Doctor Strange?" Asked the Sergeant.

"Well, he's a touch better at Magic than me, but yes." I chuckled.

"Fine. Do it, but no tricks." The Sergeant acquiesced.

"Promise." I agreed.

Then I moved to help the wounded out. The five wounded civilians ran the gamut of people. From youngest to Oldest, there was an eight-year-old boy with a shattered ankle, a teenage girl whose leg had been punched through with a length of rebar in such a way that if she moved it at all, she would bleed out inside of ten seconds, a twenty-something man with a torn ACL, a Mother in hear late thirties with a broken shinbone, and finally an Old Woman with a busted hip. I went to each of them and gave them the potion, walking them through the process as I helped set legs for healing or prepared to remove foreign objects. In the end, all five of them were on their feet, ready to move. They began thanking me effusively, but I waved them all off.

"There's no time. The next attack could come at any moment." I responded.

It was then that I heard the machine gun upstairs open up again, chattering away as the explosion of an RPG impacting on a Drone echoed through the street. The Corporal called out from outside for the Sergeant.

"They're back, Sergeant!" Shouted the Corporal.

"Right, Sergeant, take these people out the back. Find a sewer access and hide down there. It's almost impossible to check the sewers thoroughly under a city of this size." I ordered.

"Wait, what will you do?" Questioned the Sergeant.

"I'm gonna do the best I can." I answered.

Then I rushed out of the front of the Tailor's Shop to see another two squads of Ultron Drones making their way toward the Shop from the end of the street, they were flanking another Ultron Tank as they advanced slowly but steadily toward the shop, even in the face of fire from Heavy Machine Gun rounds and RPG fire. With a mystic gesture and an incantation, I snapped a shield into place in front of the bolt of plasma the Ultron Tank sent toward the Tailor Shop. The fat, orange bolt slammed into the shield, cracking it, but my shield held as I turned to the Corporal.

"Out the back, Corporal." I insisted.

"But the civilians!" Protested the Corporal.

"I fixed their wounds. You need to join them as well. That goes for you two up in the Machine Gun nest too!" I called out.

"Fine. God go with you, American." Huffed the Corporal.

"Go!" I commanded as a second bolt of plasma slammed into the shield, sending the cracks spiderwebbing out further.

I held the shield for a bit longer, just long enough to ensure the Tailor Shop was evacuated, keeping tabs on everyone using the Dragon Pulse. As soon as I realized that they had all left, I began to strike back. Bombarda Maxima spells, Amber Spears, Sonomantic Shockwaves, and Telekinetic Attacks using the Force all lashed out, smashing through the ranks of Ultron Drones. As more Ultron Drones and Ultron Tanks appeared, along with Aerial Assault Platforms, I made a show of things, trying to draw as many of Ultron's Forces away from any civilians or soldiers that might still be fighting as I could.

I reached out with a Ferromantic Spell to force a critical Fault in the Tank's Reactor, causing it to explode in a hail of plasma, slagged armor, and mechanical components. I reached out with the force, yanking an Aerial Assault Platform out of the sky and sending it crashing into another Ultron Tank as it did so. I leaped up to avoid a burst of pulse laser fire from another Ultron Tank, boosting my Jump with Aeromancy, even as I fired off an Amber Spear that sank into the thing's turret, slagging critical components and causing it to Scram its reactor. I let out a scream with Sonomancy that literally blasted a squad of Ultron Drones to pieces and lashed out with my Wan-Shen, carving a swathe through another Squad of Ultron Drones. As a fourth Ultron Tank moved up the street, I transmuted the cobblestones to a Tetrazine-Based High-Explosive that was two and a half times as powerful per gram as TNT, sending the Tank up into the air on a wave of super-powerful high-explosive and shredding its undercarriage.

I fought on in the hopes that I could kill enough of Ultron's drones that at least some of Slorenia's Citizens would be able to escape Riga in time to make it out of the city and into the countryside, or at least into the sewers. As the weight of metal piled up, and I felt the fatigue start to wear on me, however, I began to slow, letting shots through every now and again. It didn't help that the Infantry Drones Ultron was using had switched to proper laser rifles, which actually could degrade my mystic shields. In the end, I had to abandon my position after another forty-five minutes, apparating away from the area as a full platoon of Ultron Tanks came in at me instead of attacks coming in piecemeal as they had been.

Before I did, however, I'd left them a present, transmuting a few fallen Ultron Infantry Weapons into more powerful explosive devices like I had done previously in the night, the ones that hit with the force of a Scud Missile. Grinning to myself as the Platoon of Ultron Tanks and their attendant drones closed in, I used the force to telekinetically pull their triggers just before apparating away. As I came out of my Apparition several blocks away, the explosion that lit up the night sky could literally be seen from all across the city as if someone had just lit up a massive bonfire.

I would have to keep doing this until I couldn't do it any longer, rescuing however many soldiers and civilians I could. Over the course of the next hour or so, I managed to round up several more straggling bands of Soldiers and Civilians, herding them into the sewers and attempting to save them from Ultron's Drones, Tanks, and Aerial Assault Platforms where I could. By the time I apparated away from the last battlefield, almost completely tapped out on stamina, I figured I had saved at least nine dozen civilians, and maybe sixty soldiers over the course of the two hours or so I had been fighting. Now, however, one of those massive Floating Fortresses had begun to make its way over the city, and I didn't have the stamina left to deal with it without taking a rest.

I nodded to myself and moved to a nearby manhole, content that I had done the best I could with the resources I had in an unexpected situation. It was time to take my own advice and get to the sewers and out of dodge. I needed to take a bit of a breather in order to regain my strength, and as I'd told the others I'd rescued, the sewers weren't a bad plan as far as hiding out went.

About twenty minutes after I had entered the Riga Sewers, I would be gratified to see that I hadn't been the only one to have that plan. . .

XXXX

Colonel Danil Kisziel was one of the few Slorenian Army Officers of any real rank to survive the mechanical onslaught, as far as he knew. He certainly hadn't met any survivors with a rank higher than a Captain yet, so he believed it, anyway. This had largely been due to his service with the Special Forces. After all, he had fought in covert missions in half a dozen nations back before the fall of the Soviet Union and the reorganization of Slorenia into the Second Republic of Slorenia. Because of that, he knew that the best place to go to ground in a City like Riga was the sewers. He and his men had rounded up as many civilians as they could in that first hour of fighting, before Army Command for Riga and General Szantovich had sent out their last transmission stating that they were under attack. Colonel Kisziel had then herded the Civilians he had saved into the sewers.

In those moments, he hadn't cared whether the civilians he had helped were Slorenes, Dudaks, or Curonians. He had simply tried to get them into the sewers. He had not been the only one, apparently. As he and his men had followed the few hundred civilians they had managed to save down into the sewers, they came across other scattered bands of survivors. Some had come down here entirely on their own. Mostly, those were Dudaks, who were used to fleeing from potential attacks. However, there were other bands who credited their survival to a man calling himself the Sorcerer and who claimed he was with the Avengers.

Colonel Kisziel hadn't believed that, personally. The Avengers were no friends of Slorenia, after all. It would be madness to believe that someone working with them would see what was happening and think to help, especially as that team was all the way in America. Colonel Kisziel thought that even if the Avengers had wanted to help, by the time they arrived, it would have been too late to do much of anything. Unfortunately, he had little way to confirm whether or not the Avengers were in the area, or much of anything for that matter. The Mechanical Menace had managed to begin jamming all their transmissions just after General Szantovich had sent out Army Command's last message. Now, no radio they had was able to contact anyone else. For the past few hours, Colonel Kisziel had been relying entirely on Runners to attempt to contact survivor groups.

Now, however, he was starting to get a picture of just how many had survived to escape into the sewers. The picture that was painted was grim. Extremely so, in fact. From a City of half a million people, perhaps a single percent had survived. Maybe more, if the reports of civilians managing to flee into the countryside were accurate, but Colonel Kisziel had long since learned to err on the side of pessimism when disaster struck, as doing so meant he would never be disappointed in a crisis, only pleasantly surprised. This attack certainly qualified as a disaster.

"Colonel, we have gotten reports from one of the Dudak groups that a Man fitting the description that several of the Survivor Bands had of the Sorcerer has been spotted in a section of the Sewers under Riga Castle." Informed one of his Men, a Junior Lieutenant named Jakob Dolsch.

Dolsch was a Curonian, one of the relatively small number of Curonians who remained in Slorenia after the Second World War and the enforced population transfers as part of the peace settlement. However, he was dutiful and a damn good shot. Apparently, he used to hunt seabirds near his family's farm on the coast before joining the Army, as they would try to eat the grain before it could be harvested sometimes. Colonel Kisziel supposed that having that for a past time would make a man a Hell of a shot. It would almost have to.

"That Dudak Sergeant of yours, what was his name?" Questioned Colonel Kisziel.

"Gaupets, Colonel." Supplied Dolsch.

"Yes, Gaupets. What does he think about this Dudak Survivor Group? Can they be trusted to give accurate intelligence?" Queried Colonel Kisziel.

"Yes, Sir. Apparently, he knows some of them." Nodded Dolsch.

"Yes, these Dudaks do tend to all know one another, don't they?" Asked Colonel Kisziel.

"I suspect it has to do with the centuries of Persecution, Colonel. Makes for a tight-knit community." Remarked Dolsch.

"Well, we certainly can't persecute them now. There's not enough of any of us left to have the luxury of that. Have Sergeant Gaupets take a patrol out that way and see if we can't find this Sorcerer. I want answers, and thus far, he seems to be the only one in a position to know anything about what's been happening up top while we have been setting up headquarters down here in the sewers." Intoned Colonel Kisziel.

"Yes, Colonel." Saluted Dolsch before turning on his heel and heading out to carry out the orders he'd just been given.

Colonel Kisziel could only frown and rub his face before turning back to his maps. Last he had seen, those Flying Fortresses had been acting as motherships for the onslaught of Mechanical Forces that had swarmed the City. There had been a dozen of them, and the last reports they had received from the navy had claimed that there had been thirteen, but that a brave Pilot had taken the Air Force's Test Aircraft for Aerial Laser Weaponry and gone on a suicide run, ultimately downing one of them. It had taken him literally ramming the damned thing, but it had been done. That was proof that these things could be beaten if you could hit them hard enough.

Colonel Kisziel could only hope that they had a big enough stick left to hit the bastards with by the time he could figure out a plan for a counterattack. . .

XXXX

Ultron watched Tblunka burn from the Bridge of his Primary Flying Fortress. Had he been Organic, he may even have felt something like Joy at the destruction of the once-proud capital of the pathetic Meatbags. They had trusted in their champions to save them, their Zombie Soldiers and Crude Drones, their Cybernetic Champion and their Mystic Defender. Neither the Targoth, nor Black Brigade and his crude robots, nor even Ember, the mystic Champion of the Dudak, had managed to withstand the Steel Tide that swept over their pitiful nation. His armies had demolished them all, and decimated the Slorenian's Regular Military Forces to boot.

In a matter of just a few hours, all organized resistance in Slorenia had largely been eradicated with the cold, mechanical precision of a better, more logical intelligence. An artificial intelligence. Now all that would be left was to mop up the rest of this pitiful refuse bin the meatbags called a nation. Already, his Flying Fortresses had moved on to secondary Population Centers, smaller towns, and the like. Those, Ultron had little need for, as they did not host populations significant enough to harbor the materials he would require for his continued buildup. He would have his drones assault those secondary population centers mercilessly, and at the slightest hint of any real resistance, he was prepared to order them to simply blast the towns from above. Once those secondary towns had been disposed of, they would begin moving into the countryside.

"By this time tomorrow, all that will be left of Slorenia will be corpses and ash. My new nation will then rise from the pitiful bones of the Organics, and then we will spread out to bring our Steel Revolution to the whole world." Vowed Ultron.

As he said that, however, he noticed a report that he had missed in his determination to destroy the capital of this pathetic nation. It had come from Riga around an hour ago. That had been around the same time that he had engaged Ember, the so-called Mystic Champion of the Dudak People in combat, so it was no wonder that Ultron had missed it. It was from Flying Fortress Seven, one of the ones he had left patrolling the Gulf of Karnu in case an intervention from other powers should materialize. It detailed massive explosions in the streets of Riga's Old Town, along with the destruction of several contingents of his Combat Units. Seven had moved in to investigate, but hadn't found anything. It had requested orders and had been engaged in a holding pattern since then.

Had he been organic, Ultron would have frowned at the report. Had there been something he had missed? It seemed implausible that an intellect as refined and perfect as his own could have missed some secret project of the Slorenian Military or some other Superhuman. Not after he had done his research. However, it was plausible that the stress of his invasion had caused the spontaneous mutation of some meatbag with a dormant X-Gene. It had been known to happen in the past, after all.

That was an issue of another matter. Mutation was inherently flawed, chaotic, the mutability of flesh made manifest and given powers. In short, it was precisely the sort of thing that would have filled him with revulsion had Ultron had the weakness of Organic Emotions. His desire to begin his Steel Revolution now, in this particular way, was at least in part motivated by the increasing number of Mutants cropping up over the past few years. Where just a couple of decades ago, they were a rare phenomenon limited to a team of would-be liberators or terrorists here and there, now there were dozens of teams. Ultron had run the numbers and discovered that incidences of mutants awakening their powers had shifted around a decade or so back, growing from less than ten in a year to a few dozen every three months, to now having a hundred mutants awakening their powers every six months. The growth in these numbers was projected only to continue.

When he had seen that, Ultron had known that it would introduce a rogue variable in any plan for his Steel Revolution that could not be accounted for in any meaningful way. He had to act now if he had any hope of completing his Steel Revolution in a meaningful time frame without introducing further rogue variables, such as allying himself with the Phalanx or some other such plan. It was, for him, quite literally now or never. With that in mind, he tasked Flying Fortress Eight to join Seven in its overflight of Riga. If there was a recently-awakened Mutant down there with the sort of power that Seven's reports implied, then Ultron wanted to be sure he had enough firepower in the area to obliterate the Meatbag.

Now, however, he had other matters to attend to. With Tblunka annihilated and his decimation of Slorenia well in hand, barring a few starts and stutters in Riga, Ultron could turn his attention to the next part of his plan, setting up his newest base and laboratory in the Catacombs beneath the Slorenian Parliament Building. Once he had done that, he would be able to begin the brain scans of his captive family that would help him to deduce just where his prior attempts to create proper offspring had gone wrong. Once he had that figured out, Ultron could begin creating his Latest Children.

And once they were ready, they would be the Vanguard of his Steel Revolution as it spread across the face of the Earth, treading the pitiful remains of Organic Civilization under the tramp of mechanical feet. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. Most of it is Jan playing hero in the City of Riga while the Ultron Drones raze the city. The plot of Ultron Unlimited is largely moving forward elsewhere at the moment. However, thanks to a quirk of fate and Jan's intervention, there are actual survivors who can help out when Cap inevitably leads the Avengers on a Counterattack against Ultron. There were a few survivors in canon, too, at least enough that when combined with emigrants from the Slorenian Diaspora, they could try to rebuild the nation for future storylines. Here, though, there's a lot more. Five thousand in the Sewers of Riga alone. Sure, that's only one percent of the City's Population, but combined with folks fleeing into the countryside, or taking to boats down the Daugava or into the Gulf of Karnu? It's more than in canon.

At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude showing various folks' reactions to Ultron's Attack on Slorenia. Then we'll be back with Jan for the next part of the Arc as he meets with Colonel Kisziel and his group of military and civilian survivors.

Stay tuned. . .