𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3²³} {FIRST, YOU SURVIVE}

∆ {3²³} {FIRST, YOU SURVIVE} ∆

THAT MOMENT OF tranquillity didn't last long. While she no longer fought because she needed to, she was fighting because she had hope that they could win. As soon as the first airborne lifeboat positioned itself at the side of the new island, Roxi tore herself away from the view, spinning around and running in the opposite direction of the crowds to try and help marshal people and pick up or help any stragglers. It was a kind of awfully controlled chaos, with the people stampeding as orderly as possible towards their safe asylum. She could hear their terrified yells, though just barely over the noise their feet made against the floating rock. As she moved between them, weaving through their jostling bodies as she tried to get to the edge so she could move more quickly, she felt oddly isolated, which was most definitely unusual, especially with the pure amount of people that made no move to flow past her easily. She collided with someone every few steps, and by the time in the edge of the crowd, guilt was beginning to inflate like a balloon in her stomach. If only they could've got these people out earlier. She was strangely glad that she was feeling the self-condemnation.

Within the seething mass of bodies, she barely felt human. Their terror had been so raw that it seemed to have made the air ten times thicker and to have made it almost impossible for Roxi to move through quickly. And yet, all she felt was fear. She wasn't screaming, running for her life like a normal person would. Her fear didn't go much further than some horrible nerves, and that - to her, at least - wasn't natural. She didn't feel like a person here, surrounded by so many boiling, twisting emotions while she remained almost inappropriately calm. She'd dealt with fear before. Pure, raw, terror. Well, she hadn't felt that in years, and she wasn't planning on starting now.

It took her a moment to process that for now, while they were fighting a psychopathic (if you could even attribute a hunk of Vibranium and wiring that label) AI in a body made out of the strongest metal on Earth, that feeling was a disadvantage. She needed to be thankful that her demons weren't screaming at her to run, to cower in safety. She needed to fight, for herself, for her team, for these people. First, she would survive, then she would get her humanity back.

"You think you're saving anyone?" Ultron's whirring, chillingly smooth voice slid through the comms in Roxi's ears just as she helped up a woman who had tripped over something, though the Sokovian pushed away from her quickly and continued whatever path she had been taking to try and get to the lifeboats. Roxi stared at her back for a second, feeling suddenly thankful that she had grown up the way she did. At least now she didn't have to experience dread like these people were feeling.

"I turn that key and drop this rock a little early, and it's still billions dead," Ultron threatened as Roxi tore her eyes away from the mass of people, making her way further into the heart of the city. She needed to get them out. It was her job.

"Thor, I got a plan!" Tony reported urgently a minute or so later, in which time Roxi had run a few blocks and helped a dark-skinned out from under a block of rubble. They hadn't, somehow, been injured badly. It would bruise nastily, but the boy would be all right.

"We're out of time, they're coming for the core," Thor replied as she stopped to catch her breath, her chest aching at the speed she had run. She took the time to turn around and take out whatever robot she saw in the sky. There weren't many, but the ones who did were crushed into hundreds of small shards that would've been no bigger than a ring pull. In all honesty, Roxi was glad that she had been given the opportunity to release her pent-up power on something that wouldn't harm her teammates. Not directly, and hopefully not in another way. The conversation where Tony had found her file and she'd snapped seemed so long ago now, even though it had only been days. She'd threatened him because her anger was brewing inside her, and now, she could wreak havoc on these robots because she was saving the world while she did it. It seemed that violence, war, battles; they were the best way for her to let out her emotions without anyone getting hurt. Anyone innocent or on their side at least. But she hadn't been fully in control against HYDRA, and these robots were simply shaped blocks of metal with coding flowing through their wires instead of blood running through their veins. So Roxi felt no remorse as she scrapped another robot, sending yet another into wall and impaling it on a piece of exposed rebar, leaving it to dangle gormlessly in the air that seemed to be getting colder by the second.