Alternate Iron #300: The Legion of Iron Men

by Matthew Malek

Chapter Eight: The Legion Unites

2:34 AM

As the three Iron Men flew off to Futura to help with the evacuation, Bethany wondered what had happened to Rhodey when Ultimo had fallen. She guessed that he wasn't hurt too badly; Tony Stark made armor designed to protect the user against extreme conditions. She hoped he was okay, but she couldn't take the time to be concerned. She and Eddie had very little time before Ultimo would rise again, and War Machine had made his own choice to enter the monster alone. Besides, she knew from experience that Rhodey could take care of himself.

"So what's the plan? How do we pull this off?" asked Eddie.

Bethany pointed at a path leading out of town and away from where the National Guard's efforts were located. "I think we'll expose the least number of lives to danger if we get him to chase us that way. Keep in front of him, so he'll chase us. Watch out for those eyebeams, and make sure he is always following."

Ultimo's mammoth body let out a horrid creaking noise. The behemoth was beginning to right itself. In its dull mind, it was feeling outrage beyond any level that it had previously experienced. To be felled by five of the not-soft ones was intolerable. The red light of its eyebeams began glowing; the lethal weapon prepared to discharge. The remaining two members of the Iron Legion found this gesture to be unnerving, but it also gave them time to ready the maneuvering software to dodge the impending attack.

Yet no attack came. As Ultimo continued to bring itself back to an upright position, the red gleam of its eyes dulled and went out. "Now what do you suppose caused that?" asked Eddie. "Think he's changed his mind about attacking us? Could this be the start of a kinder, gentler Ultimo?" Eddie chuckled, and the noise sounded odd as the electronic voice modulator in his helmet made it sound more mechanical.

"While I doubt we're seeing Ultimo have a change of robotic heart, this could be a very good thing," answered Bethany. "Maybe those eyethings don't work right anymore. If so, we're a lot less likely to get ourselves killed. But be careful; don't let him fire them off later and catch you by surprise."

By this time, Ultimo was standing tall again. For a moment, it seemed perplexed by the failure of its weapon. Then the crude mind moved on, losing the thoughts of the past in the sea of rage presently directed against the hated red-and-gold ones. Bethany delivered a fierce uppercut to Ultimo's jaw, and Eddie shot pulse bolts down at its feet. Ultimo swiped at Bethany as she flew by, but her armor was far faster than the titan. Now that the eyebeams were possibly out of commission, she risked flying directly in front of Ultimo's face and goaded him like a fly buzzing about. This move had precisely the desired effect; Ultimo tried to swat her, and she flew ever so slightly beyond its reach. It stepped forward to try again, and she repeated the same maneuver. "So this is the plan, Eddie. We keep up this carrot-on-a-stick game until Ultimo is as far away from people as we can manage."

"Can do," answered Eddie. The two of them began the slow process of luring Ultimo away from civilization.

For some time, they continued this tedious process. Without its eyebeams, Ultimo could no longer mount a ranged attack and the giant was too slow to hit them provided they kept their distance. Occasionally, it would bend down to find an object to hurl. When it did this, the Legionnaires would buzz about its face and distract the simple mind back into rage and pursuit. Although they tried to cause minimal damage to the buildings of Futura, it was impossible to herd a hundred foot monster through a city without causing great property damage. Bethany reminded herself that this path had been chosen because it led through a region that seemed uninhabited. "Property damage can be repaired or replaced. The insurance companies will suffer over this, but nobody else is getting hurt." It bothered her to be unable to prevent further destruction, but with these words she consoled herself with the knowledge that the only additional damage was now being done to inanimate objects.

As they came closer to the outskirts of Futura, three red and gold blurs streaked across the horizon. Happy, Carl, and Mike had returned! Happy's voice came in over Bethany and Carl's helmet radios. "Calling Iron Legion Unit A. Calling Unit A. Come in, Unit A."

There was something strained about Happy's voice; something that he was trying to cover up with a lighthearted demeanor. She hoped things in central Futura hadn't gone too poorly. "Yes, Happy?" she radioed back. "What's going on? I thought you three were helping with the evacuation proceedings." Ultimo hadn't noticed the three new arrivals yet, and Bethany needed to split her focus between the discussion and evasive actions.

Carl joined the conversation. "I think I know how to turn Ultimo off and put an end to all this," he blurted enthusiastically.

"Oh? Do tell..." prompted Bethany.

"Well, we haven't been able to beat Ultimo with brute force. I mean, the big guy practically is brute force! I think he could probably take out the Hulk without breaking into a robotic sweat..."

Bethany waited for Carl to continue. Before doing so, Carl paused to take a breath. Ultimo was an alien creation, so perhaps he didn't work the way Carl thought he did. Maybe this idea wasn't going to help after all. Still, it was the only real idea anyone had right now, so they had to try it.

"Well, even though he's big and strong, we know that he's a robot. An alien robot, to be sure, but a robot. And robots run on electricity, as far as we've ever known. I figure that its got to have some sort of battery inside to power some high-tech alien systems."

"So we pull the batteries out?" asked Eddie.

"Not quite," corrected Carl. "We simply turn them off."

Eddie seemed a little confused. "Urm... How do we do that?"

"It's complicated, but here's the short version. Once upon a time, I used an armored suit that had something called an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, built into it. An EMP basically dampens all electrical circuits within range for about six minutes. So that's how we may be able to turn Ultimo off. Tony built an EMP into these armors for Iron Man. I saw him use it once, when fighting some creep named Firepower. Now we can do the same to Ultimo and shut him down!"

"Will that work?" asked Bethany skeptically. "I mean, Ultimo's pretty big. He's got to be using a lot of power. Will an EMP really be able to sap it all?"

"That's what I asked when he explained the plan to me," interrupted Mike. "Carl isn't sure, but he doesn't think so. He said his old EMP wouldn't be strong enough... Oh, sorry. Why don't you continue. It's your plan."

"Thanks, it's okay. As Mike said, I doubt the EMP I used to use could do it, but maybe Tony's made Iron Man's a bit stronger. I don't know. But in any case, there are five of us here, so together I think we can generate a large enough pulse to take Ultimo out."

"It's worth a try," agreed Bethany. "But what happens to us, in these nice little electric suits when this pulse goes off."

"If Tony based his design on mine at all, we should maintain basic mobility while the power is down. Nothing more for six minutes."

"Okay then, how do we do it?"

Carl had probed the control circuits of the armor as Mike carried him back from downtown Futura. They were similar to the ones employed in his Force armor, albeit being integrated into the overall suit functions in a more sophisticated manner than Carl could have devised. He explained to his fellow Legionnaires how to trigger such a device.

"Okay then. Everybody understand the instructions?" Carl wanted confirmation. This was his big attempt to prove himself as an armored hero and he didn't want to botch it. A general murmur of agreement followed. "Then I recommend that we circle around his chest. Something that big must have a large generator or battery inside, and I doubt the head is large enough to contain it. If we circle around, we've got a better chance of pulsing it from all sides and --"

"It's okay, Carl. We understand," Bethany cut him off gently. Carl realized that he had been babbling and blushed, thankful than nobody could see him turn red under his iron mask.

Ultimo was now aware of the three new not-soft ones. He stopped in his tracks and lunged about, trying to grab or swat or crush his tormentors. Just out of his grasp, the five armored heroes flew up to form a circle around his torso. Mike continued to hold Carl to keep the grounded Legionnaire in place with the rest of them.

"Okay? Ready, everyone?" asked Carl. Without waiting for an answer this time, he continued. "Let's all do this together, for maximum effect. I've got 3:02 AM on my armor's onboard clock. I'm guessing that all the armor clocks are synchronized. So when it changes to 3:03, then do it.... NOW!"

A great crackle of white and yellow energy burst forth from the five armors. The dull red orbs that served as Ultimo's eyes flickered out, as the eyebeams had done previously. Then the giant's arms fell to its side from where they had been slashing angrily though the air. Finally, the now-defunct titan lost its stability. For a moment, it swayed back and forth, then for the second time that morning, Ultimo toppled to the ground! This time it landed face first, and lay with its head half buried in the crater of its own impact.

Ultimo had fallen, but the Iron Legion was not much better off. The five armor-clad novices had flown up to Ultimo's midsection to ensure the success of their attack. It had indeed succeeded, but now the Iron Legion was left sixty feet off the ground in armors that couldn't fly! Carl's elation at the execution of his plan quickly faded as the ground rushed up to meet him. Besides retaining basic mobility, Tony Stark had designed these armors to retain life support functions during the aftermath of an EMP. Thus, the hard polarized metal of the armor; and a weak inertial dampener prevented the Legion from sustaining major injuries in their fall. They would be bruised the next morning, and the impact hurt considerably; but other than that, they were essentially uninjured.

Inside of Ultimo, War Machine had been lying trapped for what felt like an eternity. His odd sense of time, present ever since the encounter inside of the globule, made him unable to gauge how much time had actually passed. His armor's onboard clock displayed that it was 3:02 AM, and he had only been inside of Ultimo for 38 minutes; to War Machine, it seemed like many, many hours had passed. Though he had been broadcasting his distress signal for a long time, no reply had come from the Iron Legion. Had they been dispatched by Ultimo? Was his signal simply not breaching the giant's metallic hide? He had no idea. He wondered how bad the damage outside was. He wondered how long he could remain trapped in this bizarre alien energy before someone would find him or he simply starved to death. He had no intention of quietly dying in the head of an ancient alien machine. War Machine strengthened his resolve and began to consider new ways of freeing himself.

Without warning, the shining red energy field turned off. Rhodey was startled, but moved to take advantage of this new development... only to find that he couldn't move at all. "What gives? Even in that weird red stuff I could still move a little." He glanced checked in with the onboard scanners, only to find that they were all dead. It began to make sense now. "Oh. All systems shut down. Ultimo seems shut down. Looks like an EMP attack to me. Nice going, team!" Rhodey silently congratulated his team on their clever thinking. "Okay, now how do I use this to get out of here before the red goo comes back?" Unlike the red-and-gold armors worn by the Legion, the War Machine armor was unable to maintain mobility in the wake of an EMP attack. Tony had designed that armor with a heavy refractory coating that greatly enhanced its resistance to energy attacks. However, the improvement was the result of a trade-off; the space for the additional coating had come at the expense of the limited EMP shielding circuitry. Until the EMP wore off six minutes later, War Machine couldn't so much as lift his arm. Moreover, if he couldn't move at all, then he'd come back online at the same time as the energy field that had held him captive. "Hurm," Rhodey thought fast. "I need to move, even just a little bit. How can I do that?"

As if in answer, the entire room turned on its side and began moving quickly. A sharp impact soon followed, with a loud crash. War Machine was bounced, none too gently, out of the field cavity and flung over near the door where he had entered. It hurt, but at least he was now free. "Okay, then. I moved. Great. Now give me my six minutes and then I'm out of here!!" War Machine lay upon the floor, silently waiting for the freedom that would inevitably come. He took a grim solace in the knowledge that those annoying little globlike terrors were probably all lying lifeless on the floor of their chamber.

"Ouch. Um, sorry about that. Didn't think about what would happen after the pulse, I guess." Carl apologized somewhat sheepishly to his teammates.

Bethany was in as much pain as the others, but this was still no time to show it. "It happened. We'll cope. What matters is that your idea worked. Ultimo's down. Congratulations. But didn't you say that these pulses are only good for six minutes? Is that just how long we are down? Or does twinkletoes here come back to life then, too?"

"Ah." This was the second point Carl hadn't considered. "Yeah. I'm afraid that we've got six minutes, five by now, to work on him. After that, you're right. He comes online again, and we're back to square one."

"You're the tech whiz, I gather," Eddie addressed Carl hopefully. "Any more big ideas, then, on how to put this lug down for the count?"

Carl thought frantically and furiously. He was good with electronics, but this alien technology was way out of his league. In the electro-analysis lab at Barstow, he worked fine. He could even design crude prototypes of powered armor. But something of Ultimo's complexity? He had no idea where to begin! Reluctantly, Carl prepared to admit this...

"Hey, check that out!" exclaimed Eddie, pointing upwards. The "that" to which he referred was an Iron Man, or rather, two Iron Man NTU-150 telepresence armors flying in to greet them.

"Iron Man's here? Nice!" said Mike, happy to see that the reports of Iron Man's demise had been greatly exaggerated.

"Here we go. Now things will be okay. Tony's the real hero." thought Happy to himself quietly.

Bethany held her tongue and her breath. She didn't know why two Iron Men now flew towards them, but she hoped at least one was Tony Stark.

Carl was just happy that he didn't need to admit how clueless he felt.

With an aura of experience and authority, one Iron Man landed and made his way to the Legion. The other hung back, and looked out over Ultimo's prone body.

"Iron Man? Is that really you?" asked Bethany.

"Yes, it's me. I'm back."

"Then who is that?" wondered Happy.

The first armor fell silent and the second armor made its way over to the Legion with the same poise and confidence as the first.

"This is me, too." The electronically modulated voice was the same.

"Huh? But how?" Happy sounded more perplexed than ever. Meanwhile, the first armor, which now contained H.O.M.E.R., made its way back to Ultimo's fallen form.

"It's a long story. I'll explain later. Suffice to say that one armor is me and the other is H.O.M.E.R., SE's resident sentient computer. Right now he's busy being sentient armor, but we switch back and forth."

Iron Man continued. "Happy. Eddie. Mike. Carl. Bethany. My scans show residual traces of a recent EMP. Nice work. I don't think one, or even two, armors could have taken it down alone, but five should have made short work of Ultimo's innards."

"Wait, how did you know it was us?" Carl was confused now, too.

"The Iron Man armor downloads biological data to H.O.M.E.R.'s mainframe during its operation. A quick cross reference with SE medical records and the Avengers database made a quick match for all of you. As I said, more later. From a distance, I watched Ultimo fall right at 3:03. So we've got until 3:09 to put him out of business permanently. Now it is 3:06. We've got less than three minutes. You've been running the show pretty well so far, it seems. What were you planning on doing next?"

"Well, um. That is..." Carl stuttered.

"Truth is, Iron Man, we weren't quite sure. So if you've got any thoughts, try them out." Bethany was blunt and honest about their confusion.

"Actually, I do." Iron Man replied. "With Ultimo immobilized, I think I can run a sensor scan, crack his command processors, then use a cyber-probe to manipulate them from the outside, shutting him down. All of the armors you're wearing can do that, but it is a bit of a delicate procedure."

"Er, right. Of course." Carl felt silly. He was no Tony Stark when it came to electronic proficiency, and apparently he was no Iron Man, either.

"Okay, Shellhead, go to it then." Mike cheered him on, relieved to have the expert back in the game.

Iron Man did precisely that. His sensor scan worked its way through the myriad of potential code combinations until he found the one that would crack through the command processors. When he was done, it was well into 3:07. About eighty-five seconds remained. Plenty of time, Iron Man thought. Iron Man quickly brought his friends up to date. "Okay, I've got it. Now for the cyber-probe." From the right forearm of the NTU-150, a long antenna emerged. Iron Man flew to the head of Ultimo and began to override it's internal circuitry. The plan was to reroute Ultimo's operating system through his own armor when the EMP wore off, leaving him in complete control of the giant robot.

"Wait a minute. Something's wrong." Iron Man spoke aloud, though more to himself than to his onlooking companions.

"That sure doesn't sounds good." moaned Happy. If Tony couldn't solve the problem, then who could?

Iron Man probed a bit further. He checked the time. Sixty-three seconds left. "There's something more than machine in there. I'm sensing more than just circuitry, there's biology, too. I wouldn't have thought it, but I believe Ultimo's actually a cyborg!"

"A cyborg? What do you mean? How do you know?" Carl was quite curious now, which was helping to get him past the self-consciousness he had felt earlier. To some extent, it made sense. This would explain the choking reflex which Ultimo had exhibited when War Machine had gone down its throat.

"Hold on. Only fifty-one seconds to go." said Iron Man. He ran a second, more detailed scan to figure out how Ultimo was controlled. He had assumed that it was a crude artificial intelligence operating system controlling everything. However, it now seemed that there was no actual operating system. A humanoid brain was hooked into an artificial nervous system and that brain served the functions of an operating system, plus more. Now that he knew there was something alive in there, Iron Man had to be more careful. He couldn't simply let whatever it was die, yet he couldn't give it the chance to become active again. This was a basic biological-cybernetic interface; in theory it was not so different from the one in his own body. Iron Man knew that he hadn't mastered such systems, but he did know enough to shut one down. "It is easier to destroy than to create," he thought to himself. "Making a destroyer like you must have been quite an accomplishment for whoever built you. But imagine if they had tried harder, and used such knowledge to create? A pity. Anyway, Ultimo, time to shut you down..."

Using the cyber-probe, Iron Man gently severed the connection between the humanoid mind and the artificial nervous system that carried out its commands. In lieu of this brain, he placed his own armor in the position of giving directives to Ultimo's towering form. Then he waited for the EMP to wear off and Ultimo's systems to reboot, only this time under his own guidance. There were still seventeen seconds left. Plenty of time.

"Okay, I think I've got control of the thing." Iron Man took this spare time to catch his teammates up once again. "Get yourselves ready; you should all be coming back online in five... four... three... two... and now."

Right on cue, the five members of the Iron Legion saw their helmet displays blink back to life. At the same time, Ultimo's eyes began to redden once again. The giant lumbered back to a standing position.

"Um, Iron Man? Ultimo, is it...?" Eddie was a little uncertain of how much control Iron Man really had over the robot and he didn't want to let his guard down yet.

"No, it's okay. I'm in command of it right now." Tony Stark found wry humor in the fact that he was actually sitting crippled in a wheelchair at SE while simultaneously controlling a powerful suit of telepresence armor and an otherworldly Doomsday machine. Acting swiftly, he restored the life support systems that maintained the mind within Ultimo. Its connection to the gigantic body had been permanently severed, but there was no reason to let it just die. "I stood Ultimo up just to test my coarse motor control over it. Now I'm going put Ultimo's system through a proper shutdown sequence, then we can bring it back to an SE facility where Mr. Stark can study it later."

The members of the Iron Legion each marveled at the confidence in Iron Man's voice and the ease with which he had assumed control of Ultimo's functions -- to the point where he could now even shut the monster off!

Inside Ultimo's thick skull, Rhodey watched as his armor blinked back to life. The six minutes had been tedious, but they had actually felt like six minutes. Had the strange time effects he had encountered finally worn off? War Machine hoped so; the time he'd spent as prisoner in the shimmering field of red energy had felt like an eternity! The red field sparkled back to life, pulsing once more. Rhodey shuddered; he was quite relieved not to be paralyzed in there any longer. The room tilted again and shook. "I guess the big guy's getting back up again. Time for the next round." War Machine decided to make his way back down the entrance shaft and exit Ultimo. Having failed to defeat the giant from within, he had better get back out again and assist the Legion. As he was exiting the chamber, the energy field died once more, but this time Rhodey's armor stayed functional.

"Huh?" Rhodey thought. "Now what's going on? Did Carl or one of the others figure out how to turn Ultimo off permanently?" With Ultimo's systems apparently shutting down, War Machine decided to see if the odd inertial field still saturated this room. He locked and loaded another missile into place, and fired it at the wall of Ultimo's cranium. The adamantium-tipped projectile sped across the chamber at a normal pace, lodging itself in the wall like a deftly thrown dart. "Aces!" thought War Machine. "Time to get out of here!" He readied his plasma cannon and repulsor rays, and began blasting at the wall. Indeed, with the protective disrupter fields down, Ultimo's insides began sustaining serious damage. When the wall looked sufficiently weakened, War Machine loaded an explosive missile into his launcher. Taking aim, he fired at the weakened section of wall. As the missile detonated, light shone through from the outside. War Machine had breached the barrier of Ultimo!

"This battle is over," Iron Man declared. "Well done, all of you. Let's carry Ultimo back to Stark Enterprises and then see what we can do to deal with his handiwork. There's a lot of rebuilding to do now."

Bethany stepped forward. She was about to inform Iron Man that their work wasn't quite done; that War Machine was still trapped inside of the giant's body. Before she could do so, a loud explosion emanated from Ultimo's forehead. Metallic debris flew through the air. When the smoke cleared, she and the rest of the Legionnaires could see a gaping hole in the center of the forehead. Standing in that hole was War Machine, surveying the situation below in a triumphant pose.

From the top of Ultimo, War Machine looked down. All the members of the Legion were accounted for. "Good. Nobody got killed," he thought. "Hold on! There are seven armors down there? Who are the other two? They're remote units... Is one Stark? That @&%$# has got more lives than a cat! Who's running the show for the other armor, though?"

War Machine glided one hundred feet to the ground. He was greeted by one of the remote NTU-150 armors. "Hello, War Machine," it said. He recognized the electronically altered voice. It was Stark.