Poison

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Avengers, time to work for a living"

Christine grabbed ahold of her knives and twirled them around her fingers. Her shoulder ached from the movement, but she forced herself to push through. Taking a deep, calming breath she focused on any other part of her body. The familiar sound of metal scraping against each other brought Christine back to the battle, she saw the carnage around her as a good sign. Seeing as it was robot debris and discarded parts.

She looked around her and saw her colleagues holding their own against the menacing robots. Tony approached her after leaving his post at the core of the flying island. She gave him a brief greeting before honing in on a lone bot. She followed its movements and saw that it was planning on jumping in the fight between Vision and Ultron. Christine pulled one of the knives off her hand and used it to whistle at it. The robot responded to her by glancing. When it saw her beckoning it, it fell for her tricks and proceeded to come closer.

Christine decided against taking her time and summoned a lasso to appear. She held the robot in it's grip and tightened it. She could see the metal begin to warp and the robot struggled against it's nearly invisible restraints. The more it struggled, the more Christine tightened her grip on it. When the robot slowed it movements, she could see the warped metal begin to concave in. Christine snapped her fingers and the lasso sliced through the robot like butter. Both halves on the robot slid from the lasso's grip and fell to the floor.

Christine turned towards the group to see that they had paused their fighting to watch the interaction. Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she tried to play off her embarrassment with a shrug.

"Romanoff? You and Banner better not be playing hid the zucchini" Tony said jokingly.

"Relax shell-head" Natasha warned. "Not all of us can fly"

Turning towards the approaching woman, Christine couldn't stop herself before she pulled the woman into a bone crushing hug. Natasha groaned but wrapped her arms around the young woman. Christine almost sobbed at the familiar scent of her friend. Soon enough, the others began to embrace the two until they were all wrapped up in one hug. Christine ignored how much physical pain it was causing her to be in this embrace.

"Alright, that's enough" Natasha called out. "We can catch up after we kill this son of a bitch"

The team made noises in agreeance and removed themselves from the embrace. "What's the drill?"

"This is the drill" Tony gestured to the core in the middle of the church they were standing in. The blue light illuminating anyone that was close enough. " If Ultron gets his hands on the core, we lose"

A loud crash sounded along with a familiar roar. Nobody had to look up because they each knew who it was before they even arrived. Hulk came stomping into the church with the rest of them and stood beside the core. Not a minute later, Ultron arrived causing the team to turn towards him. At the sight of him, Christine grabbed a hold of Natasha's spare magazine and reloaded her gun. Natasha didn't even spare her a glance before she prepared herself.

"Is that all you got?" Thor yelled at it.

Ultron didn't respond, instead, he reached his hand up and beckoned his army forward. In the distance, Christine saw robots crawling from the debris and towards them like ants. Soon enough, the church was filled with his army and they were surrounded.

"You had to ask"

"This is the best that I can do" Ultron answered. "This is exactly what I wanted, all of you, against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?"

"Like the old man says, together"

Hulk roared loud enough to shake the city. Christine would have covered her ears if she hadn't had her weapons drawn. She took that as a sign to start, so Christine mustered as many shadows as she could think and sent them forward. Her shadows were the first to start the fight and everyone followed suit. Christine shot holes in neighboring robots and then used the darkness inside to cause their metal to damage itself.