Chapter 139 – Unstoppable
139
The Fortress
Capital of the Ultron Empire
Year: 2021
10:14 p.m.
The shining beacon of Ultron’s mighty world empire hovered over the remains of his former master’s home. New York lay in a shroud of ash and darkness, the fires of the sky sending a light upon the earth that the sun no longer could bear. All of it fell under that shadow of the Fortress, the head of the treacherous serpent crafted by the mad AI.
Its size was insurmountable, unchallenged by any other. It dominated the skyline and covered half of Manhattan. The gargantuan repulsors that kept the Fortress afloat shimmered a brilliant blue and white, the brightness so painful it emanated that of the sun itself. Perhaps that was the new sun for the new world. However Ultron deemed it, the world would accept it. One way or another, it had. The Fortress hovered still amongst the ashes of the old world, the golden armies flying and returning to the capital of the Ultron Empire.
Within it, darkness and light clouded every corridor and every room. The Ultron Sentinels flew from the outside world and entered the landing bay to perform their various sweeps throughout the Fortress. If any invading force had entered their domain, they would find them. The Sentinels were very, very thorough. As droves stomped through the winding hallways, they made their way past the throne room of which their lord and master resided, studying and examining their newest guests…
Along with their previous guest.
But they never knew it. All their prisoners knew was that they were alone, trapped in their cages like the flesh-covered, disgusting animals they were. Though they were resting in the laboratories, they never knew their fellow human was with them, several rooms away and currently being examined along with the familiar scepter he brought with him. They did not need to know of it because Ultron willed it so. He was cautiously examining the scepter through the eyes of his Ultron Sentinels, each golden machine walking around the table the scepter hovered upon.
In the distance, a certain Scott Lang lay hovering from a similar table, various Ultron Sentinels examining him and his suit all the while. Especially his belt. Especially his Pym Particles. Lang could do nothing, the force field of energy he was trapped in keeping his mind locked in a forever state of unknown darkness. He was unresponsive as the Sentinels tapped away at his GPS and examined the red vials closely, carefully.
As for Carol Danvers and Sunset Shimmer, they were granted a minuscule inch of freedom more than Lang. That alone made them a little more thankful.
But it was not much in reality. Both Carol and Sunset were trapped in a cage for each of them. Clear glass, hardened, steel exteriors, and robotic eyes and machines locked on every inch and corner of their cells. While the constant spying was a problem, the worst of it came from the machines radiating an invisible force of energy into their cages. Just after they came to, they already found themselves trapped in the glass cells, an Ultron Sentinel explaining to them of the research Ultron had finally finished for the famous Captain Marvel.
He made sure her energy field had been examined, nullified, and used against her in a way that did not strengthen the Avenger… but instead left her even weaker than before. It seemed as if the energy within her was draining as those machines continued to unleash those invisible waves of energy into their cells. Sunset wasn’t forgotten. Like Carol, her magic was studied and a counter force was created to literally suck the strength from her horn, leaving her as a wilted, wounded pony leaning against the glass wall of her cell.
For several minutes, that was how it was. Just them, alone, forgotten, abandoned… and utterly defeated.
Sunset Shimmer knew much about defeat. Most of her life—even as of recent—had seen nothing but it. Their failure to stop Thanos, five years hiding in denial of herself, and now finally given the chance to turn it all around, to possibly prove something to herself again… and there they were. As low as they could possibly be with Scott, their team, and the Mind Stone nowhere to be found. Sunset had only felt so low one other time in her life, the very moment she turned away from Celestia and entered an entirely different, innocent world, hell-bent to enact her rule upon it. That… and one other time. She lay with her back pressed against the glass, shifting her weary and bag-covered eyes behind her. Directly behind her.
Carol Danvers sat scrunched up against the glass, her back facing Sunset’s. Unlike the unicorn in question, Carol was not laying in a defeated, weary posture. She was curled up, forehead on her knees, arms tightly knitted around her legs. Her golden blonde hair lay in disarray upon her head, leaning out in various strands over her knees and arms. Her suit was torn, covered in soot, dirt, her own dark blue blood. And she was silent. Deathly silent. Unnaturally silent for her especially. For the almighty Captain Marvel, Sunset had never seen her so small. So motionless.
So unlike her.
Finally, through whatever willpower she had left, Sunset mustered up the courage to speak out against the horrid silence that constrained them. “Carol…”
Nothing. The bright lights that infected their cells showed Sunset more than enough. No form of movement from Carol’s cell.
“Carol, I know you can hear me,” Sunset said with a frown, keenly remembering the two of them having a short discussion moments after they awakened. After that, nothing from either of them, the literal energy being sucked out of them every second since. “Are you okay?”
It was probably the wrong question to ask, but it was all that could come to Sunset’s weakened mental state. Despite that, she got something in return. Carol’s only response was a weak sniffle.
That’s something at least, Sunset mentally said, frowning at that response. Regardless, Sunset tried to move to face her, but just didn’t have the strength to do so. She eventually gave up and kept her back pressed to the glass, staring ahead and letting her ears do the picturing for her. She spoke out, not even caring if they were watching her, “Look, there’s gotta be something we can do. We’re in his ship, so that’s something, huh? I think I heard one of those robots talking about the scepter, so maybe they know…”
Another sniffle. Much louder than before. Carol even moved, only to wipe at her eyes. Sunset’s twisted neck could only catch so much, but it was more than enough for the unicorn to tell her what Danvers must have been feeling at the moment. At one point, she even felt the same way. Being manhandled by those robots, subjugated to their testing out of their power, and placed prisoner in whatever ship they were in did get to her. Sunset hated the fact that she could do nothing but sit there and let the strength fade from her, but one way or another… she needed to find a way out. She couldn’t do that without Carol’s help.
And it looked like Carol couldn’t do a thing without hers.
Leaning her head back, Sunset grunted as the back of her head hit the glass. It didn’t break her away, the pony muttering, “Look, Carol, it’s not your fault. What happened… we can’t change that… at least not anymore considering we don’t have enough Pym Particles, but still…”
To her surprise, Carol actually spoke. She followed up on Sunset’s trail of words that were headed nowhere, ending the path with an abrupt and powerful: “It shouldn’t have happened.”
Sunset was silent. Silent and staring dead to her right, Danvers in the corner of her vision.
In that corner, she could see as Carol lifted her head once more. She did not see the tears painting her cheeks, leaving a red streak of pain flowing down her face. Carol was absolutely shaken to the core, a painful shiver escaping her breath as she stared dead ahead, turned weakly to her left to where the unicorn sat in the corner of her eye. It was all she could offer in her state, the Raw Soldier appearing like anything but. She was disheveled, weary, and a mess of tears. Sunset’s eyes widened to see those tears flow from her.
So unlike her.
Despite that shock, Sunset remained quiet, listened as Carol began in a quivering tone. “I shouldn’t have lost. We shouldn’t be here in these damn cages. We should be out there looking for Scott and the Mind Stone, but now… because of me… we lost.”
Her head fell again. “Don’t beat yourself up,” Sunset responded quickly, shaking off that shock to return to what mattered. “I don’t know how the Kree built you, but you were born human. You were born to make mistakes like everyone else.”
Memories flushed in like a horrifying reminder of her past life. Maria Rambeau sending that signature smirk her way before the canopy closed over the jet’s cockpit. A fiery explosion encompassing her field of view as her jet crashed to the earth. Little Monica’s smiling face to see off her Auntie Carol one last time for one last flight. Never to see her again until her return to Earth, only to leave her again for more than twenty years. Mar-Vell’s final words as she died in her arms…
Carol’s face scrunched up while hidden under those same, bloody arms, more painful tears falling free from her tightly-shut eyelids. “I’m not supposed to be like everyone else,” she whispered under a shaking breath.
“And that alone defines you?”
Carol raised her head, barely turning it left so she could whisper. It came out sharp, shaking, almost as if Carol couldn’t believe it herself, especially after her failure. “I’m supposed to be unstoppable.”
“Who says?” Sunset asked.
“Who else?” Carol said with a frown, facing the glass wall ahead of her. “The universe, the galaxy, Earth, the Avengers… me.”
Her eyes dropped after that, gazing to her blue and red boots for what could’ve been forever. It should’ve been forever, but Sunset wouldn’t allow it. The second she started to speak, all it did was make Carol’s heart fall lower, further, faster. Though she spoke to Carol, her eyes were gazing to the ceiling, to the wall, to any direction she could as she let her mind wonder and let her heart speak for what was needed. It was all she could really offer in her state, all the power she could give to bring her friend out of that darkness.
She spoke, and her voice echoed against the glass that encased her. “That’s your problem. You’re living as others try to envision you: some unstoppable force of good when… you’re not that. None of us are. Maybe that’s what makes us all imperfect in the end, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We try to do good, to be good… and the world works against you, tries to ruin everything you’ve built. Everything tends to work against what we’ve tried to accomplish. Can’t call myself a liar and say I hadn’t experienced the same.”
Sunset chuckled, tried to ease the mood hanging over them. Carol didn’t even move.
From what she could see, she was still as curled and shaken and unwilling to open up any further. Sunset’s expression fell, too, the darkness overcoming the light and her smile fading into nothing. She laid back, head hitting the glass as she gazed to the bright lights upon the ceiling. The machines whirred and continued to suck the life out of them, and still Sunset continued to talk to her. Danvers furrowed her brow to that resilience.
“Even when the universe told you who you were for all those years… their protector… their guardian… their light… their hero… all you think you can do is strive to be that. But you don’t have to. You just be the best that you can be.”
“The best I was…” Carol whispered, her voice littered with whimpers, “… wasn’t enough.”
Sunset tilted her head to the right. “You wanna know why?”
Carol looked back only slightly, just enough for her tear-filled eye to see the unicorn.
“Because you always try to do everything by yourself,” Sunset stated softly, watching as Carol did not turn away. At least not at first. She continued with as much time as she was given for that prolonged eye contact. “You let that mindset cloud reason. You need to realize, Carol… there are battles we can’t win alone. And I know that goes against everything you’ve done the past twenty years, being a lone wolf when you protected the galaxy and saved countless lives, but listen. We need to learn to work as a team. To trust one another. Just like I did with Twilight all those years ago when she offered her hand in friendship to me. Facing the school, all those students after everything I did to them… it was impossible to earn their trust back alone. But with a few friends by my side… I changed that. We changed that as a team.”
Danvers turned away about halfway through her statement, but it didn’t deter Sunset from the point she was trying desperately to push across to her. Even with the back of her head faced to Sunset, the unicorn still laid a hoof over her heart, still stared directly towards her, and still said, “Just like you should’ve done… with me.”
Carol’s face broke, Captain Marvel shaking her head slowly as her face scrunched and more tears leaked free from her eyes. She knew exactly what Sunset was talking about. No matter how much she continued to deny it, there was no running from what happened. No flying faster than the speed of light. No matter how far she could fly, she could never escape the reality of it all. She couldn’t deny the past because the past was real. As real to her as it always had been. Even if they were just flashes, they were a part of her. Every fall, every friendship, every rise… and every failure. More tears fell. It was probably the hardest she had ever cried, and she didn’t hide it.
She couldn’t. Sunset said nothing as her whimpers echoed and her body quaked.
Finally, she said it. She admitted it, everything that needed to be. “All I’ve done is let you all down. I wasn’t able to stop Thanos… I couldn’t defeat Ultron… and I failed to find the Mind Stone. All I am is just what the Tesseract gave me. All I am is just a Stone!”
She punched the glass beside her with the side of her fist, a punch that would have normally crushed warships only hurting her instead. But the pain was nothing. Her head struck the glass behind her and still the pain was nothing to her. More hot tears flowed from her eyes and rained from her face, that same expression contorted into unknown levels of suffering for her. For all the pent-up years of grief and regret finally crashing down and drowning her in it.
She gave in. Her head fell back into her knees. “And even that failed.”
For so long, she could only hear her own pained whimpers and cries echoing across the glass walls and hitting her again and again. Relentless. Unforgiving. Every second continued to batter her further and further down, leaving the once flourishing, proud, valiant, and all-powerful Captain Marvel as just a human. Just that and all its faults.
“And that’s okay.”
Carol raised her head, a shaken gasp entering her lips upon that. Turning her neck around, she could barely see Sunset staring her way, the unicorn fully facing her now, sitting at attention and pointing a hoof directly to her. And she spoke, taking Carol’s breath away with her words. “You failed. Okay. You tried again. Okay. You’re here now… at the lowest point you can be… wondering why you should even bother. Why try again if you’re just gonna fail again? At one point or another… I was in the same exact place as you are now.”
Carol’s lips quivered the same moment Sunset’s had, but not for the same reasons as the unicorn. For Sunset, all she could recall were the memories that gave her meaning to push on every day. The same smiling faces of her best friends; of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Spike all waiting for her back home. Every single person she left behind for Celestia knows how long. Before she could let the pain overcome the joy, Sunset continued.
With tears in her eyes, she continued and faced that Marvel. “They helped me. My friends. They helped me realize I could be more than what I once was. They helped me to become something better than the past. They helped me become more.”
She pressed her hoof against the glass.
“You, Carol… we need you… because you’re more than just a Stone to me.”
It was there where she stopped talking, not having the strength to continue a syllable more. She didn’t have to. The message had been sent and fully received by the recipient. All Carol could really do as the weight of the pain, the suffering, the failure, and everything else she endured tried to crush her… was turn around. Breathe again. Finally come to terms with Sunset’s words and herself.
Mostly… she turned around to face that friend. The one she needed more than ever.
Carol turned around fully, on her knees, and faced her. Faced the reality of it all and stood against it. Despite what had happened, despite her failure, there she gazed upon the image of the only friend she had in the world, the only one who had stood with her through those failures and convinced her… to try again. Sunset Shimmer remained where she was, that hoof pressed to the glass, the lone image of the unicorn fading away…
Only to be replaced by the reflection of Captain Marvel. Both of them one in the same.
And Carol stared into it, into that star, that uniform, that meaning of what she was and what she stood for. The tears stopped falling and a frown emerged, a rising expression of raw determination glowing against the dark. She raised her hand slowly, pressed it to that reflection of her star. Pressed it directly onto Sunset’s hoof. Her gloveless fingers touched the soft gold of her hoof, and for a second—just a second—Carol felt that warmth against the cold glass. She smiled to her. Through the tears and everything, Carol Danvers smiled again.
Sunset returned it, just as bright and strengthening as Carol needed it to be.
Breaking the silence with a cry of static, Carol flinched to the sound of her comms finally coming back to life. She flinched once again to the voice screaming in her ear. The same thing happened with Sunset, the unicorn pressing a hoof directly over her ear to listen in.
“… Danvers! Sunset! You read me?! This is Daredevil! Come back!”
Carol’s eyes shot open. “I-I’m here, Matt!” she said, turning to Sunset with that incredulous expression. The unicorn was silent, letting her speak for them. “We both are. Where are you?”
“You first.”
Carol shot up to her feet, wobbled a bit from the weakness encompassing her knees, but stood regardless. She turned about, eyeing every corner of her massive, glass cage and even towards the outside world. “I don’t know, uh…” she mumbled, finger still pressed to her ear.
“Better hurry, ‘cause we’re no doubt getting tracked by our comms.”
Carol shook her head, shrugging in the end. “Some kind of laboratory in Ultron’s ship.”
There was silence for a moment, then Murdock came back with a reassuring: “Got it. Hold up where you are; we’ll be coming in hot.”
Seeing the look of desperation from Sunset’s end, Carol quickly shook her head and responded with, “No, listen, you need to go dark now. If Ultron finds you, you’re all dead.”
“Ultron won’t have time to react by the time we get in there, get the Mind Stone, and get out.”
What Murdock responded with made both Danvers and Shimmer have a double take. Furrowing her brow at that, Carol kept her finger pressed firmly into her comms as she stared off towards the floor. Sunset did the same, but it was Carol who asked, “Wait… the Mind Stone is here?”
“That is correct, Captain.”
She knew that voice. That voice simply took her breath away. It wasn’t Matthew’s. It wasn’t Frank’s. It wasn’t Daisy’s. Yet it was someone they knew. Someone… Carol knew. She gasped, frozen in time and unable to breathe until he spoke again. She very nearly started crying when he did.
When Nick Fury’s voice in her ear said, “Show ‘em what we got.”
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Finally Carol breaking free from the shitty SJW corruption of the Disney Company
Well , that chapter sure was less intense than the last one . And not by a little , more like a Everest-to-sea kind of change but I don't really mind so it's ok . And it was pretty much necessary to develop Captain Marvel (and indirectly Sunset too) so either way , I can't say it was bad (not that I would have anyway) . The next chapter looks like it's gonna be freaking hell , and not for the Avengers for once .
Has a side note , for someone like him , Ultron sure isn't very original when it comes to naming cities.
Anyway , I think I found some small faults in the chapter :
Pretty sure it's "laid".
Same for this one.
I think the "in" should be a "is".
I'm looking forward to the conversation between these two, and I really liked the talk between Sunset and Carol. It was a very necessary development for Carol.
Good on Sunset being a motivational shoulder for Carol to lean on. Reaching out to her like what Twilight and the Rainbooms once did for Sunset herself when she reached her breaking point when she was all alone when really she was not, she just didn't see or understood it then.
I don't blame you for that mindset Carol. I blame Yon-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence for drilling it into you and stealing away your humanity.
Forget for the good of all Kree. No one likes them anyway.
Sunset Shimmer, the Unofficial Princess of Motivational Speeches!
She relit the fire within Carol. And just in time, too. With the cavalry moving in to rescue them, they’re gonna need all the strength they can muster to take on Ultron.
Great chapter featuring great depictions of Sunset Shimmer and Carol Danvers. When will starlight's team and Tempest's appear again?
Kind of setting up the ladies team up here, huh?
Nice a bit of Age of Ultron call back.
Looking forward to see what they got.
9931543
A bit harsh to Larson isn't it?
Leave it to a true, true friend to give a real pep talk, and even the darkest days will have a ray of sunlight!
Looks like Frank Castle had a point after all.
I'd love to see Batman, Wolverine and maybe Raphael give Carol a TED talk on the importance of a team. As funny as it sounds, I swear that would hold some gems.
Speaking of which, I think you told something interesting and got across a very good message! Probably one of my favorite chapters.
9931549 Naming cities? All he really named was The Fortress. Everything is the same as it is.
9931581 Very necessary.
9931613 And now, Carol knows what she needs to do. One step closer...
9931644 Kree sucks.
9931719 Feels more like a title of royalty than friendship, I'd say.
9931798 In a few chapters.
9932038 I suppose you can look at it like that haha
9932107 The Punisher. The hero no one knew we needed.
9932468 Thank you! This was one of my favorite chapters to write, and one of the most important!
9933084
And that's the thing ! The bloke has ONE city to name and gives it the most unoriginal one EVER !
You disappoint me , Ultron.
Poor Carol, this has really been a blow to her self-esteem. On the bright side, she learned a valuable lesson.
I'm proud of Captain Marvel for realizing the error of her ways.
9933652 Only place to go now is up...
9933742
Alright things are looking up in the Ultron timeline for now. Nice moment between Sunset and Carol.
9931543
Give it a rest
9931543
Quit that bandwagon Anti-SJW politicrap already. Larson made a mistake. She's not an SJW, just a woman who makes mistakes. Jesus you.
And quit the shit with Disney already. If they were corrupt so is Marvel.
(Either that or you're joking, I don't know)
There's Sunset working her empathy magic once again. I guess Captain Marvel demonstrates here the down sides of being considered "unstoppable" or "the strongest being in the universe". All that pressure, being expected to live up to that title, it can really get to you when you finally fail. But she needs to understand there are some things that not even she can do alone. Heck, The Avengers, which in the MCU were named after her, we’re formed to specifically fight the foes no one single superhero could on their own.