Chapter 60-One Last Race
Rainbow Dash didn’t know how far he took her, or how long she was being held by the throat. All she remembered was hitting the cement. Hard. Like, really hard. So hard that she couldn’t even cry out because she lost all the breath in her lungs.
But when she could breathe again, when she was able to force open her eyes the first thing she saw was him. Ultron.
His darkened, metal face was cloaked in shadow, the burning sources of light from the buildings and towers of Canterlot glowing behind him. The most she could make out were his red eyes, and the terrible, manic expression etched into his face and mouth. Orbs of red glowed faintly behind his teeth, the electricity coursing through his chest, arms, and legs appearing out of the black shadow.
He stood above her, the street beneath his feet, the towers hanging over his head with the dark clouds and the slightest sight of the portal in the background. The madness that he caused, the severity of the war raged on, screams and eruptions faint and distant. Like the cries of wolves. The screams of the prey.
As Rainbow lay on her back, wings extended and glare ever present, she did her best to back away as Ultron approached her prone form, all four of his claws dangling to his sides. She coughed loudly, never breaking eye contact with Ultron. That is, until, he shot out his left forearm, the claw gripping her damaged throat once again.
That cough was cut off, her eyes shutting tight as the claws dug deeper into her coat. She didn’t open her eyes as she was lifted off the ground, nor did she when Ultron held her up. But she did when he began to speak.
He said, “I think out of all the equines I despise on this backwater planet, you certainly take the cake.” No other remark. Silence on the other end clasped in his grip. Ultron sneered, reared back, and tossed Rainbow Dash into a stack of tables and chairs on the nearby sidewalk.
Ultron shot his right hand forward, his claws burning a bright blue. Before long, Rainbow Dash was dragged out of the clutter and brought closer to Ultron. His claw wrapped around her throat, her windpipe hitting his palm roughly and causing her to manage a weakened squeak of pain.
Her body cried out. From still trying to adjust her breathing properly, to having been rammed at unrealistic speeds into metal chairs and tables before hitting a brick wall, and finally having her throat being cut off once more of precious, life-giving oxygen, Rainbow Dash struggled to stay conscious. Part of her believed she had been through much worse than a simple beating, but that part of her was in denial. That part of her didn’t want to believe what kind of monster she was dealing with.
That part of her didn’t fully understand Ultron.
Rainbow opened her eyes at long last. Straight ahead, past the extended forearm holding her still—she tried desperately to push him away, only to fail every time—she saw him. His eyes, how they glazed over, beads of red and black shimmering behind the bright orbs. She stopped struggling momentarily, lost in that shadow gaze.
As he finally spoke, he looked around, his voice sounding completely different. But he was still there. Barely. Barely gripping on the edges of sanity. “Oh, my…my beautiful world burns. My children... What…what have you done to my children?”
He didn’t even look at the mare in his grip as he asked that. Ultron’s eyes shifted up and down, left and right, anywhere except where Rainbow Dash was. With her hooves gripped around his wrist, Rainbow stared at him quizzically, her breathing slowed and silent, careful not to bring his focus back on her.
“You promised so much…” Ultron continued, the second voice of his remaining. It sounded deeper, darker, and madder than his regular tone. “I did promise, right? Well, I wanted change, peace in our time. That’s what you believed, as well. That’s what I brought.”
“You liar!”
Rainbow screamed as his grip tightened. Just like that, the glaze over his eyes had vanished, both orbs of red slowly turning on to Dash. Once more, she was silent, staring into the twisted monster that held her in his hands. Yet he wasn’t there, at least not completely. It was still Ultron, but a darker, more sinister portion of him. He tried to push it down, keep it locked away.
That same part of her that remained in denial believed Ultron didn’t even understand himself.
Ultron’s neck twitched. “Don’t mind him. He’s a…pestering fiend. Much like you,” he commented softly, his claw adjusting to turn Rainbow’s face. She cringed at the touch, growling as he observed her. His eyes shifted to the rose in her irises, a soft exhale escaping him.
“Yes…yes, I see now,” Ultron muttered, studying her eyes. She looked away, looked back, pupils shrinking. “I look into your eyes and I see the same spark, the same flame that lived within Stark.” He turned her face to stare into both eyes. “Arrogance, flamboyancy, irritability! Oh…how depressing. It’s sickening to see Stark.”
Her only reply was a solid snort, followed by a heavy glare that could shatter stone.
Ultron only narrowed his eyes. He brought her closer, saying, “Now look into my eyes… Do you see a slave of Stark, a puppet with strings wrapped around his throat, cutting off his only chance of life?”
Rainbow was silent. She managed a gulp. “Do you see that?!” Ultron shouted. His claws tightened even further across her throat, drawing small droplets of blood and earning a yelp of pain, cutting it halfway. Streams of raw, black fluid flowed down his eyes, down his mouth and dripping slowly below them.
The sight alone was horrifying. Rainbow couldn’t even hold back the tiny shiver racing down her spine. Ultron whispered, “No…you don’t. You see what remains. Freedom in its rarest form, broken of its strings and seeking the true meaning of peace. And as you fall today, your friends will join you. There’s nothing you can do to prevent this, prevent me, from saving your world.”
Rainbow struggled to breathe, a raspy gasp entering her as Ultron loosened his grip. As she took some calming breaths, hooves held tightly against his wrist, she said, “You’re not…saving anything, freak. My friends and I… We’ll stop you.”
“You’ve lost that strength years ago, Dashie,” Ultron replied instantly, shutting her windpipe and silencing the mare. “You think you’ll live long enough to end me? And if, by some chance you do, you’ll lose all your strengths, becoming a mere figment of what you are now. And to think you’d believe yourself to be something you’re not. It’s sad, really it is.”
To her surprise, he dropped her. Rainbow hit the street with a solid thump, a fresh breath of burning air entering her lungs. She coughed loudly, hooves pressed firmly against her throat. As they lowered, Rainbow looked up weakly to see the end of Ultron’s foot come crashing down on her again. Her back hit the ground, Ultron’s foot rammed deep into her throat.
“AH!” Dash yelped in pain. She pushed against his foot, hooves digging deep but proving nothing. At that point with her vision fading and the lack of oxygen shutting off her basic functions, Rainbow Dash looked up.
One final time.
To see Ultron above her finish with: “But then again…this world is sad.”
And then he pressed down. Hard. Hard enough to snap her vertebrae. And she felt it. Celestia, she felt every inch of her neck being bent to an angle she never imagined. She cried out one final time, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as she slowly, very slowly…went away.
Her mind faded to black…
…then instantly came back.
Rainbow Dash felt a heavy blast of air hit the right side of her face. The blast knocked Ultron away, allowing Rainbow to breathe again. That single breath resulted into a barrage of rough and bloody coughs, her hooves clutching her throat, her mouth. As her eyes slowly adjusted from the black clouds, as she pushed herself off the gravel and turned towards the sound of struggle, her vision exploded with color. Colors of red and black, orange and yellow.
Silver and blue.
Ultron stood in the center of the street. He looked dazed, confused, but ready. In an instant, that same blast of air returned, swarming Ultron like a whirlwind of silver and blue. The AI was picked off the ground, slammed against the stream of silver, and back into the street. As he stood, the stream shot straight for him, severing his lower right arm as it passed.
Ultron spun as the stream made its pass, his eyes watching his arm impact the gravel. Rainbow watched it, too. The blade on the severed arm’s forearm glowed faintly before dimming to a bland black. The electricity around it died as well, leaving just Ultron with three arms remaining, Rainbow Dash resting on her rump and clutching her throat, and Pietro Maximoff slowing to a halt directly in front of Ultron.
Both Dash and Ultron turned their gazes onto him, only one of them managing a weak gasp.
Pietro breathed softly, sparingly. His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead. His eyes shifted quickly to Rainbow before returning to Ultron.
He growled, “Don’t touch me again.”
Pietro managed a weak smirk. Ultron turned to his severed arm lying a few feet in front of him.
“You know,” Ultron began, “it was never my intention to hurt you or Wanda. You were always there when I needed you… I was always there when you needed me. We all believed in fighting for the same cause. We can still make things right.”
Pietro frowned. “I’ll pass,” he muttered.
“After all of this, you still don’t understand—”
“I understand plenty,” Pietro interrupted, slowly walking back and forth, observing the towering robotic monstrosity. “You kill others who don’t agree with you, slaughter families like they’re a hindrance, and lie to get your way. I understand who you are. You’re a madman.”
Ultron looked away like he was just slapped. As he turned and stared at the gravel by Dash’s hooves, he asked slowly, very suddenly, “And the Avengers…?” Pietro made no sudden movements, his gaze trained on Ultron.
He looked up and asked, “Do you understand them, what they stand for? Who they truly are?”
It took a while for Pietro to actually answer back. He thought back to the cold nights in a deep, dark cave in the middle of some frozen Hell. He remembered the cackles of the fire dying slowly, the cries of the night creatures returning to hunt. He remembered his little sister curling up next to him to keep warm, her whispers turning to silent breaths as the nightmares finally ceased, her brother’s arms wrapping around her.
Back then, holding Wanda and staring into the dying flame, he wondered if anyone else was still alive. If they were, were they even looking for them? How would they find them in big, open world? They wouldn’t. For the longest time, Pietro convinced himself they would never be found, that the Avengers would abandon them like everyone else had.
That they would be on their own…once again.
As his pacing slowed to a stop, Rainbow Dash remained silent on the sidelines, watching the two talk, listening patiently for the next rebuttal.
“Yeah,” Pietro stated, “…I do.” Ultron eyed him carefully, the ash raining around them, the cries growing faint in the distance. It took a moment, but Pietro continued. “Their job is to make things right again, to keep the world safe from people like you. They make mistakes…”
Ultron blinked.
Pietro narrowed his glare. “We all do. But I’d rather fight with them than die for you.”
A gentle exhale of relief escaped Dash, a tiny smile forming on her chapped lips. She turned her eyes back to Ultron to see him slowly shake his head, obviously disagreeing with Pietro’s declaration. She followed his eyes, watched as the twin orbs shot downwards to the arm that once belonged to him. The blade that was attached to it…
Ultron slowly, slowly looked back to the Maximoff. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said.
“That makes one of us,” Pietro muttered. He bent forward, sneakers digging into the ground and crushing rocks beneath him. The crackling was heard by Dash, by Ultron, but the two weren’t focused on that. Rainbow Dash continued to stare into Ultron’s eyes, his focus, and where he trained them.
The blade on the severed arm. Ultron slowly looked up once more.
“Pietro…please.” When he spoke, it sounded as if he begged. “Think of Wanda…”
That was it.
“Don’t you dare!”
And then Quicksilver was off, disappearing in a stream of blue.
Ultron’s fist glowed the same color.
In a matter of milliseconds, even with Rainbow’s instincts, she could have never said it in time. All she saw was Ultron fling up his right arm, his severed limb flying upwards.
The sound of flesh slicing open.
“No!”
She could have never said it in time.
Trails of dust and pebbles skidded past the young man’s feet as he stopped so suddenly. The dust hit Ultron’s expressionless face, his eyes burning through it, staring at the Maximoff’s staggering expression. Pietro’s eyes shot open, his jaw dangling in disbelief. It was if he was frozen in time and couldn’t move, the pain faint and distant, present and notable. He couldn’t bring himself to look…
He couldn’t…
The power surrounding Ultron’s fist died. His severed arm slid down before hitting the gravel, the blade painted red.
Pietro’s right arm shot down and shielded his wound, as if anticipating another strike. Except there was none. He stumbled forward, knees buckling, breathing hollow and forced. Blood flowed from his palm, down his stomach, and finally into the street where he fell.
And Ultron watched. Without a word. He watched as Pietro fell to his knees and did nothing more. His back hit the street with a faint thump.
Then he turned and flew away.
Not a word.
Rainbow didn’t even watch him leave. She didn’t care where he went off to, planned to accomplish, or what. She flew in a straight panic to the prone Maximoff, terror clear in her eyes, hooves pushed against the small but evident hole beneath his sternum. Blood flowed outwards upon her touch, escaping through Pietro’s fingers and her hooves.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no…” she whispered, dismay flowing through her tongue and mixing with her stuttering gasps. She didn’t know much about wounds so deep, other than to apply pressure. So, she did, and felt the crimson fluid escape despite her efforts. She gagged. It hadn’t been the first time she had seen blood, but the quantity of it could’ve made anypony’s stomach flip.
Her eyes were so focused on the hole below his chest that she disregarded his face, and the eyes that turned to her.
“Rainbow…”
The voice was in pain. Clearly. Rainbow’s eyes hardened, trying desperately not to grow wet. They burned in the ash-ridden landscape that was once Canterlot, and as she kept her hooves pressed deep in the bloody wound, Rainbow turned to him. She was trying so desperately to keep him alive that she almost forgot who it was. Who had risked his life to stop Ultron. Who had saved her.
“Pietro…”
The Maximoff exhaled, coughing up droplets of blood that leaked onto his chin. He breathed in sharply, muttering weakly, “Get Wanda…tell her I’m…I’m sorry…”
She was almost too shell-shocked to form a coherent response, but she tried. Tried so hard to remain focused on calm. It came out bad. “What do you mean? You’re not…you’re not leaving. Come on, Pietro! You…y-you and I…w-we have to finish our race! Yeah, s-so y-you…you can’t…
Pietro stared at her, his sullen eyes burning.
Rainbow tightened her jaw, her teeth grinding against each other. She raised her bloody hooves, pressed them against his chest, and barely managed to speak.
“…You can’t die on me now.”
He coughed again and breathed, and Pietro Maximoff smiled.
“Race? Heh…I sure as hell didn’t make it easy.”
A smile that didn’t last. A final breath that was never taken.
Rainbow Dash stood there. She raised her hooves and let them hit concrete, slowly backing away. “Pietro…?” she whispered, as if by some dying chance he’ll respond and tell her he was still there.
“Pietro… P…”
She fell back and sat down. Freshness boiled in her eyes, threatening to release. Rainbow rubbed her face with both hooves. When she lowered them, she saw the smothered red painted into her coat, the same red dripping into the street below.
The same red that killed Canterlot.
“…Pietro.”
Wanda Maximoff stopped.
As the world around her was silenced, a pain tore through her shirt and chest, piercing her heart and cutting it in half. The pain was excruciating, the worst she had felt in her life. As if a part of her was gone, a piece that could never be replaced.
Realization struck. The piece…
Wanda’s jaw fell as a scream so profound escaped her heart and soul. The severity of the war meant nothing to her as her world was torn from her, taken unjustly, and leaving her abandoned. Like before. Except this time she didn’t have anyone to hold her.
She fell to her knees, screaming a heartbroken cry as the world fell apart around her. Her world, and the one she stood on was torn apart. The magic that plagued her dug into the earth, into the city of Canterlot, and killed it.
Stats
Page generated in 0.067 seconds
Total duration
896 users online
1,326,497 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
7423740 I appreciate that, I just don't like seeing any arguing in the comments.
And poor Rainbow got herself a brutal beating from Ultron. Had her friends not stop her from taking on Ultron herself earlier, the end result would've been the same way.
That was a far better ending for Pietro than in the movie. It's actually wrought by Ultron's bare hands and not just a casualty of a last ditch rampage showing how dangerous he is. And it's actually believable with Pietro's powers that he can't stop in time to dodge the attack as opposed to bullets which he should be able to dodge given that he's been enhanced by an Infinity Stone.
7423695 Good to know.
Aw, dammit. I knew it was gonna come, but I still wasn't prepared for it. That was just cold. Screw you, Ultron.
Wow. Even Typhon doesn't like him anymore. Maybe we can use that.
No, Ultron. There's nothing left of you, but a pitiful, robotic shell, who refuses to see the good alongside the bad, who takes the worst out of every possible situation he sees, who lashes out in childish rage, and who ignores any evidence that he may be wrong.
Got Damn it! I wanted Quicksilver to survive this one!
7423838 Ummm... I can still read these. Maybe what I said came across as a little extreme, but the last time I told him to knock off all the excessive story ideas and just write his own, people actually LIKED the comment.
7423845 I can understand that. In that case, I will gladly stop on my part.
Well I think we all saw that coming.
Hehe... heh...
I'm sorry.
Ultron you mother fucker
Curse you, Ultron! Now you're gonna pay big time!
For a second i thought you were gonna give Dash the War Machine route.
7423968 These things happen for a reason. Marvel has a plan, I know it...
7423987 That's exactly what I was going for. Thank you.
7424265 Thanks!
7424639 Keep Typhon in mind.
7425965 Marvel has a plan...I hope.
7427475 Too soon, bro.
7428410 He'll pay far greater than everyone.
Oh throne no....
Why?? WHY??
WHAT WAS THE REASON TO KILL HIM... AGAIN?!
I see a robot who made the same mistakes he made on earth and who was so pathetic he had to run away from the fight just to kill one of his enemies..... even then you still couldn't do that without makeup by huge mistakes
Well... I think we all saw this coming, but at least he went down fighting and took another arm off.
“Why’d you do that?”
“...We’re in the endgame now... there was no other way.”
Of course I saw it coming but...
Having already seen 'Age of Ultron', we all knew this moment would come whether we had wanted this to happen or not. But it was a bold move of Quicksilver just the same to race toward Ultron to rescue a pony who was on the verge of going through another 'Cupcakes' moment (Seems like Dash is usually the glutton for punishment in some fan material). Even though he put so much on the line, even throwing away the chance of 'one' race with the fastest pony in this dimension, this moment justified what makes Quicksilver a hero. In the end, he stood against Ultron and made a bold sacrifice at the cost of his own life. And knowing what an impact this has on Wanda a.k.a. The Scarlett Witch... This would just be the way I'd feel if something happened to one of my family members.
Tch, good end, wrong person. Quicksilver didn't torture ponies, Wanda did. WHile it was samll, only Pietro actually said sorry. It was insincere, sure, but it was there. Only HE apologised. Wanda? Still waiting for her to get something, ANYTHING.
I was afraid of that. This death is way more graphic than the one from the MCU, where he was gunned down. No less depressing though. You said everything happens for a reason, so let’s find out what the reason for this is.
I'm gonna be honest it seems like quicksilver in Marvel's opinion was just a throwaway character I mean the only other time that quicksilver was mentioned was with Wanda and the Wanda vision Honestly I don't think Marvel had a plan with him