At the Bottom of the World...

[Fate]

And so it was that the final pieces fell in place to herald the end of one reality.

The beginning of another.

Circumstance....Fate if you like...had given the mutant master of magnetism called Magneto a gift. A chance to shape everything according to his whim. His desires. His dream of perfection.

Sadly, that vision had offered much, much less to the man who had dreamed it than he had ever suspected.

Than he could ever admit.

Humanity was on its last legs, but a surge of rebellion began to take shape. As the sides formed for what would be the final battle many were ready to fight. To die. To preserve one dream. To pursue another.

A massive mutant army raced southward toward Antarctica. Toward a hidden realm - The Savage Land - where the powers of time and Magneto's whims had taken the least foothold.

Dinosaurs roamed the primeval jungle. What desperate little remained of free humanity readied their own army.

A land....a people...thought long extinct by most...

...ready to receive the master of the world and draw blood with tooth and claw to preserve their own existence.

A leader stood on high on a plateau and scanned the swirling white mists that masked the horizon. He was a symbol of what had been. Of what might be. He was among the very best of his inferior race. He held a gleaming shield of red, white and blue emblazoned with a star.

Another symbol of another time. Another possibility.

It reminded him of friends long gone. Of his responsibility. Of what was at stake.

"Here it comes", said Nick Fury aloud. It was conversational. Matter-of-fact. It was only the way that he lifted the shield a little higher and flexed the fist that held its leather strap that betrayed any of the tension he might have felt.

[Fate]

Arrayed behind Fury were dozens of metal soldiers - the Savage Land being one of the few places on earth that held the key to their near invulnerability.

Vibranium. When alloyed with other more common metals it became something indestructible. Adamantium.

Fury's metal army was made of it. His Ultrons.

It might have been that the very presence of so much of this metal in this place was what kept Magneto's telepaths from having so much influence here.

It didn't hurt that the humans had a telepath of their own. Ready, Nicholas, Christine MacTaggart's voice said from somewhere inside Fury's brain.

"Bring it on", echoed another, more metallic voice. This one emerged from the glistening metal ranks and stood at Fury's side.
Unlike the others, this metal soldier was a man in a suit. Tony Stark slammed a metal-encased fist against his other palm. "They're gonna get a lot more than they bargained for", he added. Somehow, he managed to convey the grim smile hidden beneath his helmet on its neutral features.

[Fate]

The metallic brigade behind Stark echoed his words and his actions. The resulting crash of metal on metal was near deafening.

"Sorry!", called out Henry Pym from behind the rows of Fury's minions. He was the scientist who had created the humans' robotic defenses...with more than a handful of assistance from Stark. "My fault....", Pym said hurriedly, "...I'm still making last-minute adjustments...."

[Fate]

"Get yer gears in gear, Perfesser", Fury chided quietly in the same conversational tone. The fact that it wasn't barked in the old warhorse's usual snarl made it even more embarrassing to Pym than it would have otherwise.

Pym knew that Fury was happiest when he sounded his absolute worst. This calmness was just...eerie. It meant Fury was on edge. Hank would have felt a lot better if Fury had just yelled at him.

And he would have felt a lot better if the damn robots would cooperate. Indestructible, pretty much.... but not infallible. Something about the Ultron matrix was unstable. The fact that the artificial intelligence that drove the robots was based on Pym's own personality made their creator even more embarrassed. Clearly, it implied something about Pym himself.

"Okay", he responded as he typed hurriedly into his laptop computer. He couldn't help whispering the arcane computer language to himself as he wrote. "I think that's got it."

Silently, Pym hoped that it had.

[Fate]

"It better", grumbled a man-shaped pile of rocks as it stomped past Pym and the robotic ranks and joined Fury and Stark at the plateau's edge. Pebbles scattered in panic at Ben Grimm's approach and lept toward their deaths in the jungles far below. Following closely, as always, was the teenager - Johnny Storm.

Heavier, louder steps seemed to answer in the mists amongst the sounds of breaking trees.

Whatever it was, it was a lot bigger than a T-Rex.

Dimly, a pair of pale yellow eyes shone through the swirling whiteness. Then another. And another. Enormous robotic human-hunters emerged from the clouds and began striding across the valley toward them.

"Sentinels", hissed Stark. The Ultrons repeated the word.

Grimm was about to say something about avenging Reed and Sue, but he'd never been really been that articulate. As it was, he barely got what he did say out of his stony lips before he was over the cliff's edge and crashing through trees in an uncontrolled descent.

"It's Clobberin' Time.....", echoed back toward the plateau.

Within a fraction of a second of Grimm's....attack....Johnny burst into flame and went after him leaving a bright trail of fire in his wake.

Stark also stepped from the edge and flew toward the incoming giants with a blast of boot rockets and a surge of jet backlash. With a roar, the Ultrons followed.

For a moment, Fury and Pym stood alone at the cliff's edge. Fury didn't speak.

"Well, shit", Pym managed.

For whatever reason, those damn robots always followed Stark instead of their creator. Worse, instead of Fury. He was about to remove the cybernetic control helmet - it wasn't working anyway - when something unexpected happened. Pym was quite literally engulfed in flying and crawling insects.

He wasn't really in a position to be too analytical about it as he trashed about and screamed obscenities, but if he had been he would have realized that the helmet worked better than he thought.

It didn't phase the Ultrons worth a damn, but the insects were doing exactly what Pym had silently been attempting to command the metal soldiers: "Form on me".

[Fate]

In a way, Pym was lucky that the insects understood the intent of his thoughts and not the meaning of his words. If they had, he would have been smothered in breeding and....secreting bugs. Instead, the helmet broadcast what Pym really wanted them to do.

He wanted them to get off.

So they did.

The swarm backed off and sort of...looked at him. Expectantly, somehow. It was a lot of bugs.

Pym was still shuddering and stared gape-mouthed at them, unconsciously brushing off what were no longer there. It hadn't yet occurred to him that they really had done him no harm.

"Shoo!", he said and gestured at them feebly. Obediently, the swarm coalesced and started drifting away from him. "Wait!", Pym cried out when he realized they were somehow aware of what he'd said to them. It was only just dawning that there was something going on beyond yet another stroke of Pym bad luck.

The swarm stopped drifting. In fact, it waited.

As the realization hit him, Pym cast a glance at Fury who was still looking at his helmeted companion with a rather horrified expression. Hank didn't notice. He was already studying the swarm with a beaming, delighted grin as though it was made of diamonds instead of six-legged living creatures.

"C'mere", he said quietly.

The swarm became a swirling, buzzing wall that moved back toward Pym and stopped within inches of his face.

"Cool....", he said, grinning as he held out a tentative hand and stroked his new "pet".

His new army.

[Fate]

Scientists, Fury thought to himself.

Being left out of the fight wasn't sitting well. Having the troops run off like a bunch o' yay-hoos made him plain angry.

"Christine", he said aloud, though he knew he didn't have to. "Link us up."

Yes, Nicholas, the telepath responded.

Where ya at, Nick?, came Stark's smart-ass voice in his head. You're missing out on all the....fun. From the stress in his mental "voice", it sounded like Stark was having anything but fun.

Father, said a softer voice, What would you like me to do?

"I got somethin' special in mind fer you", Fury answered. "Meet me at th' compound."

He could tell from the banter between Storm and Grimm and Stark that despite lacking his direct leadership the three men and the few dozen Ultrons were holding their own against a growing number of giant human-killers. Fury knew that they were only the beginning. The real fight wouldn't start until the transports arrived.

Until Magneto's goon squads came to wipe their little colony off the face of the earth.