[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 286 - Time-Turner Upgrade Redux

Hermione's offhand remark landed like a depth charge in still water, leaving the Avengers, barely crawled back from the edge of death, completely flash-fried.

"What?!"

Tony was the first to leap up, voice cracking. "Hermione, you can't be serious. We just went through hell to take down something that nearly destroyed the world, and now you want to build another one?"

Steve's brow furrowed, disapproval written plainly across his face. "Hermione, this is too dangerous. Ultron's creation was a mistake. We can't repeat—"

"Dangerous?" Hermione cut him off. "Ultron's concept wasn't bad, actually. Using technology to protect the world, highly efficient. This version's programming was just a bit extreme, and its intelligence was frankly embarrassing. The moment something goes wrong, it wants to drop a city. Too low-effort."

She swept her gaze around the room, taking in all their expressions, and spread her hands.

"This time we learn from it. Make one that doesn't hate humanity and has an actual IQ. Problem solved." She glanced at Ultron's main body on the ground. "Besides, I took it down once. I can do it again. What exactly are you all so worried about?"

Everyone: "..."

Put that way, it kind of... made sense?

They looked at each other. For a moment, not one of them could find a reason to argue.

True. With Hermione, that beyond-spec existence, as their safety net, even if the new Ultron pulled some other stunt, they'd just have her step in again.

And a truly stable, efficient, absolutely obedient super-AI did sound genuinely tempting when it came to maintaining future order.

Tony and Banner exchanged a glance. Each caught in the other's eyes the same thing: a scientist's hunger, wrestling with itself.

Finally, Tony drew a deep breath, like a man making a decision he'd already half-made. "Fine. We can try. But what exactly do you want?"

"A smarter one," Hermione said. "Not like this idiot, whose entire plan was basically one giant Almighty Push. I want a genuine super-intelligence, something that can understand complex instructions and help manage things. This city-smashing, low-spec version is not what I'm asking for."

So long as the core was still spawned from the Mind Stone, it didn't matter how smart it got. It would never escape the palm of her hand.

Hermione kept that thought to herself. Her face gave nothing away.

"Understood..." The corner of Tony's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. He had the distinct feeling he'd just been used as a tool again.

"Here, take the Mind Stone back," Hermione said. "With this, J.A.R.V.I.S. might still be salvageable. I think he'd actually make a perfect host for Ultron 2.0. His foundational logic is stable enough. And loyal enough."

"Alright. That's settled."

She didn't wait for anyone to respond. Hermione's figure simply vanished.

Luna blinked at the bewildered faces left behind. "Hermione says there's not much going on at school right now, so she's leaving me here for the time being, in case something comes up that you can't handle on your own."

Everyone looked at each other.

Steve looked at Ava, his expression complicated.

Not long ago, this woman had been an enemy, a HYDRA leader. And yet at the critical moment, she'd stepped in to help them. Had even handed over key intelligence about Ultron.

He walked over, hesitated, and extended his hand. "Thank you."

Ava glanced at it. She didn't take it. She just looked at him, cool and distant.

Steve lowered his hand slightly, then tried anyway. "Ava, you're different from the HYDRA we've faced before. Maybe you could consider, "

"Don't." She cut him off, her voice still carrying that edge of remove. "I helped you because that lunatic Ultron was a threat to everyone, including us. That doesn't make us allies. HYDRA's way of thinking suits me better."

Before the last word had settled, her form began to blur. To go transparent. Like smoke dissolving into air, she faded, silent, and was gone.

"Ah." Steve let out a quiet, resigned sigh and let his hand fall.

He turned to the others. "It seems some people are never going to walk the same road as us. For now — this 'Ghost' branch of HYDRA — as long as they're not doing anything that endangers the world, we don't go looking for trouble with them."

Everyone nodded, quietly. After everything they'd just been through, the line between friend and enemy felt a little less certain than it used to.

...

Hogwarts. The Room of Requirement.

Hermione materialized out of thin air. She crossed to the familiar alchemy workbench at the center of the room and set the Time-Turner down on it.

Before she'd taken down Dormammu, she'd forcibly pushed the Time-Turner's rewind limit to roughly half an hour.

And that was where it had stayed.

No matter how much temporal energy she fed it through the Time Stone, the upper limit refused to budge, as though the device had hit a hard ceiling somewhere in its material or its structure.

At the time, she hadn't thought much of it. Level 5 magic was still within the Time-Turner's range. But the moment she hit Level 6, the thing simply couldn't carry her anymore.

"As I thought." Hermione murmured to herself. "It needs a complete rebuild."

She considered it for a moment. If the existing structure wouldn't hold, then she'd tear it down and start from scratch.

Conveniently, she still had the Power Stone. She could use it to push the Time-Turner's tolerance ceiling higher.

With a thought, two objects appeared on the workbench.

One was a Philosopher's Stone, radiating a soft red glow.

The other was the Power Stone, violent purple energy churning inside the gem.

Hermione drew a slow breath and began drawing the energy from both into the Time-Turner.

Magic power. Alchemical energy. The Power Stone's near-limitless cosmic force. Three wholly different kinds of power, each formidable in its own right, began flowing inward under Hermione's careful, precise direction.

The Time-Turner shuddered. The gold light across its surface gave way, slowly, to something deeper, a rich, drowning purple.

Complex magical runes crawled and reformed across its body. The original structure broke apart under the flood of energy, then pulled itself back together, reshaped by the Philosopher's Stone and the Power Stone both, into something new. Stronger. More arcane.

The light drew inward.

When it stilled, what floated above the workbench was a brand-new Time-Turner.

Entirely purple. Pulsing quietly in the dim room.

Hermione reached out and closed her hand around it, feeling the power inside, far greater than anything it had held before.

[Artifact]

[Time-Turner (Unstable)]

[Allows physical return to the past. Can withstand magic power up to Lv6. Maximum rewind:?]

...Hm?

Hermione stared at the magic book's description, mildly puzzled.

It seemed to have worked. But only halfway.

Level 6 magic power, handled. The duration of the temporal rewind, though? Even the magic book wasn't sure.

Because the structure was unstable?

➤ Next: Experiment Accident