[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 280 - Thor Gets Flashed and Headshot
The night was ink-black. A brightly lit cruise ship moved slowly across the water, a lone island of light in all that dark.
A fighter jet hovered in the shadows nearby.
"Ship belongs to Ulysses Klaue — arms dealer, black-market lifer."
Tony's voice came through the comm, tinged with knowing amusement. "My guess? He's sitting on some very nice merchandise. Vibranium, for instance. That's what Ultron came for."
Dr. Banner was quiet a moment, then:
"Not surprising. Ultron can't risk a head-on fight with us yet. It needs a stronger body, and vibranium is the obvious choice. It has to get stronger before it has any real shot against the Avengers."
No one disagreed.
"Alright. Move out."
Steve's voice was steady and clipped. "Banner, stay on the jet — intel support. Tony, Skye, Thor. The four of us are going in."
They slipped onto the cruise ship without a sound. The air carried a faint, almost imperceptible smell of blood.
Several empty corridors later, they stopped at the entrance to a storage hold.
The room was a disaster. Ulysses Klaue was face-down in a pool of blood. He wasn't moving.
Two figures stood over the body.
One was Ultron, unmistakable, its metal frame throwing cold, hard reflections under the lights.
The other was wrapped head-to-toe in a skintight combat suit and mask. The build read female.
"Yo, Ultron, you little troublemaker — you actually recruited a partner?"
Tony broke the silence first, tone easy. "Your old man brought backup too, though. Smart move would be handing over little Hermione's Mind Stone right now. Otherwise we drag you home and you get a spanking."
Ultron's optical sensor flickered. Its voice came out flat and cold.
"Stark. Your humor is as insufferable as always. The Mind Stone is mine now. No one is taking it."
Tony's threat didn't register at all.
Ultron had shown up specifically to draw the Avengers out. A fight was exactly what it wanted, and a convenient chance to field-test its new ally while it was at it.
The words weren't even finished when Ultron snapped its hand up. An energy beam drove straight at Tony's face.
"Come on, then!" Tony didn't fall back. His armor sealed around him in an instant and he charged straight into the blast.
BOOM!
The explosion was violent. By the time the shockwave cleared, Ultron and Tony were already trading blows, energy beams crashing against repulsor fire, sparks spraying everywhere.
The shockwaves chewed through the already-wrecked hold. In seconds, both of them had punched through the hull and were streaking across the night sky, two blurs of light still swinging at each other as they went.
The hold went quiet.
Steve, Thor, and Skye stood on one side. The masked woman stood on the other.
"Hey." Skye raised both hands, palms out. "We're not here to hurt you. Ultron is bad news, don't let it use you."
The masked woman didn't respond. Didn't hesitate, either. Her figure blurred and she came straight at them.
"Whoa!"
Skye stumbled back a step.
Thor and Steve were surprised, too. This woman had nerve, three Avengers in front of her, and she was the one attacking first.
"Skye, Thor, keep her breathing." Steve made the call instantly, voice dropping. "She shows up out of nowhere, that doesn't add up. I want answers, which means I need someone to answer."
"Copy that." Skye thrust both hands forward. A concussive blast tore through the air, aimed dead-center at the masked woman's chest.
It was about to connect.
Then something impossible happened.
The masked woman's body went translucent, rippling like a reflection in disturbed water. Skye's blast passed through her entirely, punched into the wall behind, and blew a chunk of concrete into rubble.
The masked woman didn't even flinch. Her speed hadn't dropped. She kept coming.
"She's enhanced!"
Thor's voice was sharp, but he wasn't panicking. If Ultron had recruited an ordinary human, that would've been the real surprise.
What came next, though, that was something else.
The masked woman moved through the three of them like smoke. One second she was solid; the next she wasn't. Steve's shield throw cut the air where she'd been standing. Thor's hammer swings connected with nothing. Skye's follow-up blasts passed straight through her.
Nothing landed.
Meanwhile, the three of them were the ones taking hits, pulling their swings to avoid friendly fire, paying for the restraint with a punch here, a kick there. The force wasn't devastating. That wasn't the point. The point was that they couldn't touch her, and she was touching them just fine.
It was infuriating.
Thor caught a kick to the shin, THUD, and stumbled.
His jaw tightened.
He was the God of Thunder of Asgard. He had just been kicked by someone no one had even heard of. Getting knocked around by the Hulk was at least comprehensible. This was something else entirely.
He exhaled through his nose. Electricity crackled over his skin. Lightning began building on Mjolnir, bright enough to throw hard shadows across the hold.
The masked woman felt the shift. She didn't back off.
She disappeared.
One instant she was in front of Thor, his lightning a fraction of a second from detonating, and then she simply wasn't there. She reappeared directly behind him. In her hand, materialized from nowhere, was a large-caliber pistol, matte black. The barrel pressed cold and steady against the back of his skull.
"Look out!" Steve called.
He wasn't panicking. Her phasing ability was a headache, sure, but her raw hitting power had seemed limited. Thor's durability should handle a gunshot just fine.
Then she fired.
The blast was deep and massive. The muzzle strobed with blinding violet light and the full force of it drove into the back of Thor's head.
Thor's whole frame jolted. He didn't make a sound. He went straight down, forward, hard, and hit the deck with a crash that shook the floor.
"Thor!"
The chill that hit Steve and Skye was instant and total.
The masked woman was already gone. She blinked into position behind Skye, pistol rising again.
Skye felt the muzzle against the back of her head and her blood went cold.
The woman's finger tightened on the trigger,
Then stopped.
She looked up.
Out past the hull, cutting through the dark, a red-and-gold streak of light was racing back toward them. Fast. Getting faster.
Iron Man.
So Tony and Ultron had already settled things between them.
➤ Next: Ghost