The Emerald Witch - Melanie Maximoff - AOU

Chapter 5

Several days later Ultron sent us a communication to go to the lab where he was holding Dr. Helen Cho hostage. I think she was under the control of Loki's scepter. God, do I know what that's like.

We arrived and there was this tube - tank thing that was filled with gas and had wires connected from it to Ultron.

Wanda walked closer and said, "I can read him. Melanie come." She smiled and me and waved to come over. 

As I took a few steps forward she said, "He's - dreaming."

"I wouldn't call them dreams. It's Ultron's base consciousness. Informational noise. Soon- " Dr. Cho said.

Ultron interrupted, "How soon? I'm not being pushy."

Dr. Cho said, "We're imprinting a physical brain. There are no shortcuts. Even your magic gem-"

Wanda had been getting closer to the tube while she was talking and eventually screamed out.

Pietro and I ran to her side and held her. She was panting, her eyes squeezed shut.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She looked over at Ultron and asked, "How could you?" 

"How could I what?" 

"Y- you said we would destroy the Avengers, make a better world." Her voice was laced with panic.

"It will be better." 

"When everyone is dead?" She asked.

"That is not-" He took a pause, "The human race will have every opportunity to improve."

Pietro piped in, "And if they don't?" 

"Ask Noah." 

"You are a madman." I said.

"There were more than a dozen extinction-level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs. When the Earth starts to - settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, he's winding up. We have to evolve. There's no room for - the weak." He began caressing the tube.

Wanda slyly threw a spell at Helen Cho to free her and Pietro said, "And who decides who's weak?" 

"Life." Ultron chuckled. "Life always decides."

There was a sort of noise outside and Ultron said, "There's incoming. The Quinjet. We have to move."

"That's not a problem." Dr. Cho said as she paused the update on the tube.

Ultron scoffed and blasted her with lazers. 

Pietro said, "Run!"

He grabbed Wanda and took off, and I followed.

We stopped running in some small street and made sure Wanda was ok.

"What'd you see?" Pietro asked.

"It was- it was the end of the world." She looked at the ground.

I rose my hand up and asked, "May I?" 

She nodded and I saw the image of it in her head. I then shared my new memory of it with Pietro. 

That's something we do when we don't want to talk about what happened, but we want all of us to know. Sometimes it's tricky though because I can only really read minds if the thought is in their conscious right then. If it isn't, then I have to fish through their memories and it really hurts to do that. 

"It looks like an asteroid." Pietro said.

"Well he brought up the dinosaur extinction, maybe that's what he's envisioning." I said.