35 The Speech

I thought I would be able to start the battle in this one, but there was a lot of talking ahead. I could skip it, but many would be left confused as they haven't seen the series What If.

So, to wrap this up, this chapter is almost 2 chapters in length.

The next one is really the battle.

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"What's the plan?" Peggy took the lead and asked.

"We believe the only way to stop Ultron is to separate his body from the stones." Doctor Strange revealed his and Uatu's idea.

"But this Ultron could be hiding anywhere in the Multiverse?" Carter asked helplessly.

"Yes." Uatu nodded in agreement.

"It's not as difficult as you all make it seem." A voice came out of nowhere, startling everyone, including Uatu and Strange, except Tony.

"Hah?! Ancient One?!" Strange exclaimed, surprised.

"How did you come here?" Uatu looked surprised at the bald woman who appeared out of thin air.

"I took advantage of the ride you gave to my husband. You were too preoccupied with things to notice." Yao said playfully as she walked to Tony's side with her hands behind her back.

"Husband?!" Strange exclaimed once again with widened eyes.

"''Impossible!!''" Strange and Uatu exclaimed, surprised. Uatu exclaimed because he couldn't believe he didn't sense Yao following, while Strange did because he saw Yao arrive by Stark's side and gently take his hand in hers.

Yao smiled at the two and said, "We're involved with the multiverse. It would be wise to avoid the use of that word."

"What did you mean by 'it's not as difficult'?" Gamora ignored their reactions and asked the unknown bald woman. She even ignored Strange's slack jaw and bulging eyes.

"Ultron is tethered to your universe through the stones and the rift he made to cross over other universes. Any display of a large amount of mystical energy will attract his attention." Yao revealed.

"Hmm... makes sense." Strange slightly regained his senses and agreed.

Yao looked at Strange and nodded slightly.

"You've become powerful, Stephen. But brute force isn't always better than subtlety. In your pursuit of greater power, you've forgotten what's essential for a sorcerer." Yao looked into Strange's eyes.

Strange raised his head and looked surprised at Yao.

"What is essential for a sorcerer?" Stephen murmured to himself in doubt.

"Knowledge and learning." Yao replied with a smile.

Stephen widened his eyes upon hearing that.

"*Gulp**Gulp* *Burp*" Thor ignored the conversation as he drank and burped, "Is the boring talk over? Um, excuse me, yeah. Is there a universe of Chinese food that has alternate dimension delivery? Tummy's getting rumbly Haha!" Thor said with a smile and laughed at the end.

Everyone looked at Thor helplessly.

...

Tony Stark P.O.V

We were all sitting, eating Chinese food that Uatu took one of us back to his dimension to get.

Unfortunately, Uatu doesn't know any dimensional delivery service, but it makes sense; after all, traversing universes isn't an easy task, let alone just for delivering Chinese food.

While eating, we discussed the plan.

"So we have to face a crazy robot wielding the power of a universe in the form of stones?" Carter sought clarification.

"Yes." Uatu agreed.

"Behind an army of killer robots?" T'Challa asked, shaking his head helplessly.

"Afraid so." Uatu nodded once again.

"And not just one robot, but two, who are wielding two sets of stones?"

"She's got a point." Strange said to Uatu.

"I never said it would be easy." Uatu said, looking at Strange, helpless.

"This is a suicide mission." Killmonger said with a frown.

"If we don't fight now, we'll die anyway shortly after." It was finally me who spoke, shrugging.

What I said seemed to wake them up.

There was no choice, either we did this, or we and everything we loved would be destroyed.

Everyone fell silent.

Then they looked into each other's eyes and agreed.

"Well, obviously the first step would be finding him." T'Challa took the lead and said.

"Well, I'm not one to brag." Thor joined the conversation and said with a smile as he threw the hammer up and caught it, "But I've been told that I excel at attracting unwanted attention." As he finished speaking, the hammer that had fallen into his hand discharged a surge of electricity and blasted a beam of lightning at the chandelier.

"We've got our bait." I said, smiling playfully.

Thor didn't mind being called bait and continued laughing carelessly.

"And after we recover the stones, we destroy them." This time it was Gamora contributing to the plan.

"How would you even go about destroying the..." Thor began to speak but stopped when he saw Gamora picking up a metal contraption, "Oh, you're answering my question. Sorry. Thank you."

Gamora smiled and ignored him, "The Infinity Crusher, designed to disintegrate each stone into nothing." Gamora explained as everyone crowded to look at the machine.

"Yep. That's the team I assembled." Uatu spoke to Strange with amusement and confidence.

I was about to say that the crusher might be useless, but Yao held me by the arm and smiled at me.

I widened my eyes slightly and looked amusedly at Yao.

Yao was simply telling me to let it happen, that it would be more beneficial for us.

Yao couldn't see what happened in other universes with her time stone, but she could see what happened in our universe. So as long as we returned to our universe in the future and talked about it, Yao could see and hear in the past our future selves.

That way, she could still foresee countless possibilities and maximize our profit.

...

After establishing the plan, we discussed the details a little more and decided to set out.

"Alright, folks, you all know what to do. You know the plan. Stark and Yao will handle one of the Ultrons. The rest of us are responsible for the other Ultron. Let's get the Soul Stone and bring it to Gamora. We'll hold him off, and then she'll unleash the Crusher. With a little luck, we'll be home for dinner." Carter summarized the plan in an optimistic and heroic atmosphere.

But as always, someone interrupted the mood. And that someone, as always, was Thor.

"Okay, wait. Slow down a little bit. There's a few people in the room that don't understand. Not me. I get it. But for them, maybe repeat it." Thor interrupted and said with a confident smile, but his stupidity was evident to everyone.

"Hmm. You're ready. Good luck, my friends." Uatu said, giving us a confident look, completely ignoring Thor.

Uatu then waved his hand and we were all sucked into a portal and appeared on a cliff.

We looked around, but everything was dead, there was no sign of life.

"This place is safe?" Gamora asked.

"Apparently, there's not enough intelligent life here to attract Ultron. Until we decide to." Strange, who was performing some spells, said after diagnosing the surroundings.

Then suddenly he doubled over in pain.

"Ugh!!" Strange held his wrist in pain and his hand transformed into grotesque tentacles, but soon returned to normal.

We all looked at him in surprise.

"Can I ask, what happened?" Carter asked with a concerned look.

"*Sigh*" Strange sighed bitterly, then straightened up and looked at Peggy and said with a sad smile, "Same thing that happened to you. Love."

Carter gave a soft smile and asked, "I take it you know the Captain Carter in your universe?"

"No. Captain America. In my universe, Steve Rogers received the serum." Strange gently explained with a smile at the corner of his lips.

Peggy looked at him surprised and smiled upon hearing that.

"Now, that would be a sight to see." Peggy said softly with a smile.

Separated from them, Killmonger was exploring the head of the Ultron sentinel that Thor had brought.

Gamora was further away, with me, Yao, and Thor. She was looking with narrowed eyes at Killmonger.

"Do you trust him?" she asked us.

"Nope." I said with a smile.

"Not at all." Yao added.

"I trust everyone." Thor said, smiling proudly in his stupidity.

Thor then approached the fire and proclaimed haughtily, "Hasten, friends. Tonight we feast. For tomorrow, we fight." Thor said solemnly and raised the hammer. Small bolts of lightning circled his hand and hammer.

"In that spirit, I propose a toast." Strange said playfully and summoned different types of drinks.

We all gathered around him and got a drink.

"Some mead. Wonderful." Thor said happily.

"Ooh. Now we're talking." Gamora also said with a smile on her lips, taking her favorite drink.

Seeing that everyone had a drink, Strange began to give a speech to boost everyone's confidence before the battle.

"A wise sorcerer once told me that to face death is part of the plan. To face death is to conquer one's greatest fear of the unknown of Uh... nothingless space, of the end of all ends. The... senseless nothing and the vast opening of... infinity to your…" He began speaking nonstop things that didn't boost morale, and it was kind of obvious that he didn't even know what he was doing. Fortunately, he was interrupted by Crimson Bands of Cyttorak circling his mouth, silencing him.

"Doctor Strange." Yao, who was responsible for the spell that silenced Strange, said with her eye twitching, "Please, do not distort my words of wisdom into meaningless ramblings." She said helplessly.

"Let me. You've done enough, Doctor." T'Challa came to reinforce Strange and embraced his shoulder. He then raised his glass and proclaimed, "To the Guardians of..."

"The Multiverse." Everyone completed, raising their glasses.

"Muffled**Muffled" Strange also said and raised his glass.

Thor also got excited and drank all of his beer at once, threw the glass on the ground, and raised his hammer.

"THE MULTIVERSE!" Thor shouted and unleashed a massive storm of lightning into the sky.

As soon as the lightning subsided, there was a brief silence before an immense hologram of Ultron appeared in the sky.

His body was that of Vision coated in Ultron's armor. In his chest, he had five Infinity Stones, and the sixth was on his forehead.

"So there is life in this universe, after all." Ultron said with amusement as he looked at all of us.

"There goes waiting until we're ready." Strange said, shrugging helplessly.

"In my defense, I did warn you. I excel at attracting unwanted attention." Thor said, not caring in the slightest.

Strange's cloak then drew everyone's attention when it patted Strange on the shoulder with its tip and then pointed to a spot in the sky.

Where the cloak pointed, the sky was split, and from it emerged two imposing Ultrons, each wielding a spear

I, who had been quiet in my corner until now, finally stepped forward with a solemn face and said,

"Well, showtime."