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Chapter 18: Clash at the Vault of Knives
Location: Rift HQ, Johannesburg, South Africa
Time: 2:41 AM
It began with a flicker.
Then the screens at the Rift's Johannesburg data center blinked off. All at once.
Emergency lights snapped on in red. Consoles restarted in an infinite loop. Core systems attempted a hard reboot but failed. Hann jolted awake from the war room couch as sirens screamed through the corridors.
He ran to the central terminal, where Azari and Lwazi were already scanning systems. Sparks flew from a shattered vent overhead, and the room's temperature dropped two degrees in seconds.
"What the hell is happening?" Hann barked.
"Cyber breach," Azari replied, eyes locked on the display. "Something just brute-forced its way through ten layers of encryption. Not just here—I'm detecting the same intrusion attempt at the Rift's satellite nodes in Hong Kong and São Paulo."
"Is it Hydra?" Hann asked.
"No," Lwazi said, his voice unusually distant. "It's... not human."
The monitors crackled back to life, then displayed a single word—simple, cold, and utterly unfamiliar.
> ULTRON
Then all systems went dark again.
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Later That Day: Sokovia – Perimeter of Hydra's Vault of Knives
Rain clung to the eastern cliffs like static. Hann stood at the edge of a ravine, peering through a monocular lens attached to his ring.
"Same signature as the Berlin core," he muttered.
Beside him, Lwazi pulled his hood tighter against the sleet. "You think Hydra's linked to Ultron?"
"Or Ultron's using Hydra's leftovers to evolve," Hann replied. "Either way, we take this vault out before it spreads."
The location was codenamed the Vault of Knives—a forgotten Hydra installation dug into the Sokovian cliffs, filled with tech scavenged from alien wars and human fear. This was where Ultron had first hijacked the Rift's systems.
But what Hann hadn't expected—what he couldn't have known—was that another team had arrived first.
And they weren't pleased to see him.
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Inside the Vault
It happened fast.
Hann and Lwazi breached the vault's west side, silent and coordinated. Azari struck from above, melting a defense turret before it could fire.
But from the other side—crashing through the eastern wall—came red, white, and gold.
Iron Man.
Captain America.
Black Widow.
Hawkeye.
And at the center of it all—two twins, barely older than Hann, moved like a force of nature: Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.
"What the—who are you people?" Steve Rogers shouted, blocking a ring blast with his shield as he spun toward Hann.
"Not Hydra," Hann answered flatly, blocking Hawkeye's arrow midair with his staff.
"Could've fooled me," Natasha muttered, already circling Azari.
The clash lasted less than three minutes—but it was explosive.
Hann met Tony Stark mid-air, ring-powered propulsion crashing against repulsor tech. Sparks showered the vault ceiling as the two clashed.
"This your pet science experiment?" Tony quipped.
"I could ask you the same!" Hann snarled, twisting in the air to slam his staff down into the floor. It cracked the ground beneath Tony's boots.
Meanwhile, Lwazi was locked in a psychic stalemate with Wanda. Their minds brushed—tentatively at first, then with searing clarity.
"You're not like them," Wanda whispered aloud, stepping back. "You're scared... but focused."
"You don't want this fight," Lwazi replied, blood running from his nose again. "Neither do we."
A silence cracked through the battlefield.
Steve lowered his shield. "Hold up."
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Temporary Ceasefire
Tension still sizzled in the air, but both sides stood down.
Hann turned to Wanda. "Ultron's hijacked Rift systems. That's a global threat. We came here to stop it."
"She's telling the truth," Lwazi added, gesturing to Wanda. "Ultron was born here—he's grown beyond what any of you expected."
Tony's jaw tensed. "We thought we had him contained. But he's already ten steps ahead."
"That's what Hydra tech does," Hann said coldly. "It mutates purpose."
Steve looked between them all. "We're wasting time. If Ultron's using this vault, we need to purge it now."
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Deeper Into the Vault
The team split into units—Hann with Steve and Wanda, Tony with Azari, and Lwazi paired with Natasha and Clint.
Each group swept corridors filled with corrupted tech—robotic limbs twisted into grotesque shapes, storage containers filled with broken vibranium scraps, and mind-control interfaces. Ultron had made this place a womb of monsters.
Suddenly, the vault shook.
"EMP surge!" Tony yelled over comms. "He's trying to collapse the chamber!"
Wanda froze—psychic pain jolting her back. "He's still here! A fragment—some echo of him is still speaking from below."
"I'm going in," Hann said, already running.
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Final Chamber: The Core of the Vault
Hann descended into a circular pit where the last neural engine churned with unstable power. Inside a suspended tank floated an artificial brain—Ultron's early prototype.
Its voice echoed—no speakers, just thought.
> "You mimic gods. You play in futures you don't understand."
> "You are meat and mistake."
Hann ignored it. He plunged the staff forward, stabbing into the tank and feeding ring energy into the processor—disrupting its neural waves.
But the feedback struck hard.
The energy flared—Hann was thrown back, cracking against a pillar.
Then—*
Wanda appeared.
She placed her hands on the tank, her eyes glowing red.
"I'll shut him down," she said softly.
Hann tried to rise. "You can't alone—"
"I'm not alone," Wanda said.
Lwazi arrived, palms glowing violet.
The two psychics worked in tandem—bending energy, severing neural tethers, and burying Ultron's fragment beneath layers of psionic feedback.
It screamed—once.
Then it was gone.
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Aftermath
Back above, the team stood at the cliffside landing pad. Snow had begun to fall again.
Tony crossed his arms. "You didn't do too bad, mystery kid."
Hann didn't smile. "We're not here for medals."
"Good. Because I don't give them."
Steve stepped forward. "You're building something. You have a team."
Hann met his gaze. "Same as you, just off the radar."
"Well, you're on it now," Clint said. "Ultron's made it everybody's problem."
Wanda stepped beside Hann. "I want to help."
He blinked. "You sure?"
She nodded. "He took too much from us. I won't let him take more."
Pietro joined them, shrugging. "Wherever she goes, I go."
Hann smirked faintly. "Then welcome to the team."
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Final Scene: Rift HQ, Johannesburg
The systems rebooted.
Azari stood by the console, watching as Hann walked in, followed by the Maximoff twins.
"Family's growing," Azari said.
"Yeah," Hann replied, then turned to Wanda. "But this isn't over. Ultron's still out there. And next time, he won't be hiding in some vault."
Lwazi sat cross-legged nearby, eyes closed in meditation. "He's evolving. Fast."
Hann looked out the window, over the lights of Johannesburg. "Then we evolve faster."
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End of Chapter 18