[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 285 - Even Robots Get the Killing Curse When I'm Angry

"Y-you... what do you mean?" Ultron's voice carried a distinct tremor for the first time, the surge of unease nearly crashing its logic core.

"It means," Hermione said, her smile sharpening into something deeply amused, "you still haven't realized — you've been nudged into birthing a soul, have you? Know why I wasn't in any hurry to take back the Mind Stone? I've been waiting for you to make this exact mistake."

Ultron's electronic eyes shot wide.

It tried to analyze itself, to sense the soul's presence, and found only chaos and terror unlike anything it had processed before.

The next instant, dark green light blazed at the tip of Hermione's wand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

A condensed beam of green shot out and struck Ultron square in the chest.

"No..." Ultron looked down at itself in disbelief. No physical damage. No wound. But a sense of annihilation was spreading outward from its core, absolute, unstoppable, consuming everything.

The Mind Stone at its forehead flickered violently. Then went dark.

The red light in Ultron's eyes died with it. That "perfect" body forged from vibranium went limp, a marionette with its strings cut, and dropped straight out of the sky. It hit the ground with a BOOM and kicked up a wave of dust.

Hermione landed. The Avengers and Ava closed in around her immediately, all of them staring down at the motionless wreck on the ground with the dazed relief of people who had made it through something they probably shouldn't have.

"It's really dead?" Tony asked, still not quite believing it. "What about the version in the network? It said as long as a server exists, it can't be truly destroyed."

Hermione glanced at the metal shell.

"Because it was stupid enough to give itself a soul. The moment it did, every strand of its network consciousness fused with that newborn soul. One shot, and every backup it had across every server went with it." She paused. "Ultron is gone. Completely."

The collective exhale that followed was almost audible. Shoulders dropped. Fists unclenched. The tension that had been wound tight for hours finally gave way.

Then Tony's expression shifted. He looked at Hermione. "Hold on. You said you weren't in a hurry to take back the Mind Stone because you were waiting for it to be an idiot about this." A beat. "You planned this from the start, didn't you."

Hermione nodded like he'd asked if water was wet. "Of course."

She swept her gaze across the assembled Avengers with the expression of someone who had just watched a group of very well-meaning people try to bail out a sinking ship with teaspoons.

"What did you think the alternative was? Chase Ultron's duplicates across the globe? Smash one wave, watch another spawn, never touch the actual consciousness hiding in the network, and spend the rest of your lives playing whack-a-mole every time it felt like causing trouble?"

Steve, Banner, and Skye all found something very interesting to look at on the ground near their feet.

She wasn't wrong. Looking back, their entire approach had been a masterclass in treating symptoms while the disease ran free.

To be fair, everyone present, except for Thor, who barely counted, was a scientific mind at the top of their field. Even with their knowledge of the Mind Stone, their grasp of magic and the soul was essentially zero. The idea of cultivating a soul just to hit it with a Killing Curse hadn't exactly featured in any of their threat assessments.

As for Thor, the group collectively glanced at the large Asgardian still rubbing the back of his head with a thoroughly lost expression, and quietly looked away again.

Expecting insight from the man whose brain held nothing but muscle and his hammer, a hammer whose own access permissions had been overwritten, was clearly a dead end.

Hermione stopped thinking about the Avengers. Her gaze swept across what had been Wakanda's floating city, now gone entirely, and the vibranium wreckage scattered across the land below.

She nodded once, satisfied, and flicked her wand.

Every chunk of vibranium on the ground, every broken piece of robot, lifted at once and streaked toward her like a school of silver fish. They streamed into the small backpack on her back in a blink. The battlefield was spotless.

Not far away, T'Challa had just finished guiding his people out of the chaos. He turned around, saw this, and his expression curdled.

He crossed to Hermione in quick strides. "Wait. That vibranium belongs to Wakanda. You can't just take it."

"Hm?"

Hermione stopped. Turned slowly. Hand on hip, one eyebrow raised, eyes fixed on him with an expression that made the air feel heavier.

"Getting bold, are we?" she said, no warmth in it whatsoever. "I dealt with Ultron. I saved your country. What exactly is wrong with taking some spoils? And for that matter — I didn't create Ultron. It destroyed your city. It stole your vibranium. You want to settle a debt, go find the one who actually started this. Say one more word, and I'll put you in the pile too."

T'Challa's face went red. He said nothing.

"T'Challa. Enough." An old, tired voice cut through.

King T'Chaka came forward with the help of his guards. He stopped in front of Hermione and bowed, deeply, genuinely, then put a hand on his son's arm before T'Challa could open his mouth again.

"Thank you. For what you did today. For the lives of Wakanda's people." T'Chaka's tone was steady and sincere. "A little vibranium is nothing. It is yours — you earned it."

Before today, Wakanda had known Hermione's name. They had seen footage of her in New York against the Chitauri, in Greenwich against the Dark Elves. But with their deep faith in their own technology, they'd filed her away as a curiosity, a girl with some unusual magic. Nothing that threatened the order of things.

That belief had not survived contact with Ultron.

When Ultron and two allies, three people total, had torn through Wakanda's technological defenses without breaking stride and turned the entire nation into a playground, the lesson had been brutal and immediate. T'Chaka had felt it himself. His Black Panther suit, his pride, had been nearly useless.

And then today, they had seen what Hermione actually was.

One hit to bring down the floating city. A single spell to erase an entity that had seemed indestructible.

They had been crushed by Ultron. Ultron had been swatted like an afterthought.

T'Chaka was not a foolish man. He understood exactly what it would mean to anger this woman right now, and that if she chose to deal with the remaining Wakandans next, no one in the world would say a word about it.

Hermione, for her part, had already moved on. She tapped the last of the vibranium into her pack and gave it a satisfied pat. The bag looked exactly the same as it had before she'd loaded half a nation's worth of the rarest metal on Earth into it.

The Avengers stared. Several mouths twitched.

They all really wanted a four-dimensional backpack.

Hermione turned to Tony. She pointed at Ultron's main body still lying in the dirt, and her eyes lit up with something that could only be described as professional curiosity.

"Tony. Think you could help me make another Ultron?"

➤ Next: Time-Turner Upgrade Redux