Not Frankenstein's Monster

New York, Stark Tower's top-floor laboratory

A thunderstorm was brewing outside the windows, while the atmosphere indoors was stretched taut like a string about to snap.

The Regeneration Cradle stood in the center of the laboratory, connected to countless cables of varying thickness. They were power lines Tony had run directly from the tower's reactor. The progress bar on the screen was moving slowly but steadily.

"Tony, we can't do this."

Bruce Banner's hands hovered over the keyboard. His face was covered in cold sweat, and his voice trembled. "That's a biological organism. That's the body Ultron built for himself! If you put JARVIS into it, what if..."

"There is no what if, Bruce."

Tony Stark did not even look up. His fingers flew across the holographic screen, his eyes bloodshot from sleepless nights. "Ultron is out there, evolving. We need something that can fight it on the network level. JARVIS is the only choice."

"But this is like... Frankenstein's monster." Banner still hesitated. "We're playing with fire."

"No, this is the future." Tony gritted his teeth. "If you won't do it, I will."

"I already told you, Tony."

A cold, hard voice came from the doorway.

Steve Rogers strode into the laboratory, his shield clenched in one hand. Pietro and Wanda followed behind him, both on high alert.

"Shut it down."

Steve stared fixedly at the humming machine. "Haven't you learned your lesson? You created one demon, and now you want to create another?"

"This isn't a demon. It's a shield!" Tony spun around and angrily pointed at the Regeneration Cradle. "We're fighting aliens, fighting robots, and we might even have to face gods! We need greater power!"

"Power out of control is a disaster." Wanda looked at the cradle, red energy flickering at her fingertips as a trace of fear flashed in her eyes. "I can feel it... that thing inside is dreaming. Its mind is chaotic, full of the noise of destruction."

"I told you, you're crazy."

Pietro, Quicksilver, narrowed his eyes. "And I don't have time to listen to you people argue."

Whoosh!

The air burst apart. Pietro instantly became a silver afterimage, darting past Steve and Tony straight toward the Regeneration Cradle's main power line!

"No!" Banner shouted.

Just as Pietro's fingers were about to touch the cable.

Smack!

A mass of white webbing, as if it had foreseen the future, shot precisely onto the outlet ahead of time. It sealed the connection completely and stuck Pietro's hand to the wall in the process.

"What?" Pietro stared at his hand in shock. "How could you possibly keep up with my speed?"

"I can't, but this thing can." Gwen Stacy pointed at her head, Spider-Sense, as she descended upside down from the ceiling. "And while I also think Uncle Tony can be pretty crazy sometimes, can we maybe not start tearing the place apart just yet?"

"Step aside, kid." Steve said gravely. "The price of this gamble is too high."

The scene instantly fell into a deadlock.

The Avengers had split into two factions once more, and this time the tension was even sharper than before. Hawkeye had already reached for the quiver on his back, while Natasha's hand rested on her shock bracelet.

"What a lively scene."

Jiang Li strolled in from the hallway, still holding a half-finished cup of coffee.

He glanced at the group on the verge of fighting, then let his gaze settle on the Regeneration Cradle.

"Jiang, you're still thinking clearly, right?" Steve looked at Jiang Li with a trace of hope in his eyes. "Tell Tony this is a mistake."

"Actually, Captain."

Jiang Li walked to the cradle and patted its cold metal shell. "This time, I'm on Tony's side."

"What?" Steve frowned, as though he could not believe his ears.

"Ultron is a virus. JARVIS is antivirus software. What we're missing right now is hardware."

Jiang Li set down his coffee cup, his eyes turning utterly serious. "But your concerns aren't wrong either. If even one line of Ultron's leftover code gets mixed in during the upload, or if the Mind Stone's energy goes out of control, then this really will become a freak."

"So, we need a... quality inspector."

Jiang Li raised his left hand and pressed the Omnitrix.

"What are you doing?" Banner asked in surprise.

"Adding an absolutely secure firewall to this new life."

"It's Hero Time!"

Black-green light instantly flooded the entire laboratory.

Jiang Li's body instantly broke apart, transforming into a black liquid-metal lifeform covered in glowing green circuit patterns.

"Galvanic Mechamorph—Upgrade!"

Under everyone's stunned gazes, the liquid metal lunged straight at the Regeneration Cradle!

Bzzzt—!

The black fluid instantly wrapped around the entire cradle. Green circuit patterns spread across it like veins, forcibly taking over every data port in the cradle.

"Taking over the system... JARVIS Protocol locked... removing Ultron's residual fragments..."

Jiang Li's electronic voice echoed through the laboratory.

In the digital world, Jiang Li saw a chaotic, confused crimson-gold mass of light—that was the newborn Vision. It contained not only JARVIS's data, but also black viral code left behind by Ultron.

"Don't be afraid, little guy." Jiang Li's consciousness spoke through the data stream. "Let's clean the filth off you."

Upgrade's data tendrils swept through, instantly shredding the viral code.

"Excellent!" Tony watched the green code race wildly across the screen, overjoyed. "This processing speed is a hundred times faster than the tower's mainframe! Keep uploading!"

However, at that very moment, something went wrong.

Bzzzt—crack!

The power cable Pietro had tugged earlier suddenly erupted in sparks. Stark Tower's main power system tripped from overload!

The Regeneration Cradle's indicator lights went dark in an instant.

"No! The power's been cut!" Banner cried in terror. "The upload is only at ninety percent! If it stops now, his consciousness will collapse!"

"I can't hold on much longer!"

Jiang Li's voice, in his Upgrade form, turned urgent. "This body is a bottomless pit. It's draining my bioelectricity! I need energy! Massive amounts of energy!"

Rumble—!!

As if answering Jiang Li's cry, the storm clouds outside abruptly exploded.

A figure crashed through the glass dome amid a flash of lightning and landed inside.

"You people never stop talking!"

Thor!

His entire body was bathed in violent lightning, his eyes glowing white as he raised Mjolnir high overhead.

"Thor! Wait!" Steve tried to stop him.

"No, give him life!!"

Thor roared, and Thor's Hammer came crashing down on the cradle wrapped in Upgrade, carrying the force of countless bolts of lightning!

"Perfect!!" Jiang Li shouted.

Violent electricity instantly flooded the laboratory. An ordinary machine would have exploded under such voltage long ago. But Upgrade, Jiang Li's transformed form, had become a perfect energy converter.

He guided that world-destroying lightning, transforming it into the purest life energy and injecting it into the body with gentle resolve.

"Energy charge at 100%... system integration complete."

Boom!

A deafening blast sent everyone flying with the shockwave.

Upgrade rapidly peeled away from the cradle, reforming into Jiang Li's human shape in midair before landing steadily on the ground.

The smoke cleared.

A red-skinned figure slowly rose to his feet.

A golden Mind Stone was embedded in his forehead, and light flowed along the patterns on his body. He looked at his hands in confusion, then his gaze passed over everyone and settled on Jiang Li.

In that darkest moment just now, it had been that green energy protecting him.

"You are..."

Vision's voice was gentle and magnetic. It was JARVIS's voice, but it carried an added depth of humanity.

"I'm the one who pulled you out of a pile of garbled code." Jiang Li caught his breath as the Omnitrix entered its red-light cooldown mode.

At that moment, Thor climbed up from the floor, gasping heavily. "I saw it... that vision. This stone is the core, the key to everything. We cannot destroy it."

"That is destruction!" Steve still held up his shield, watching Vision warily.

Vision turned and looked out at the city. The confusion of his newborn existence rapidly faded, replaced by a divine calm.

"I am not Ultron. Nor am I JARVIS. I am... myself."

He looked at the others. "Perhaps I am a monster, perhaps I am not. But I stand with life."

Then he made a move that left everyone breathless.

He casually picked up Thor's Hammer from the table, which Thor had not yet had the chance to retrieve.

As lightly as if he were picking up a feather.

Then, naturally, he handed the hammer to a dumbfounded Thor.

"The balance is perfect," Vision commented with a smile.

"..."

The entire laboratory fell deathly silent.

Tony's jaw nearly hit the floor. Steve silently lowered his shield. Banner took off his glasses and wiped them, thinking he had seen wrong.

Thor gripped the hammer, his expression spectacularly constipated. In the end, he could only give an awkward laugh. "Uh... yes, very perfect."

Jiang Li leaned against the lab bench, unable to stop himself from whistling at the sight.

"Looks like our new teammate passed the background check."

He walked to the window and looked toward Sokovia, his gaze sharpening.

"Now that everyone's here, let's get ready to make some real trouble."

"Let's show Ultron what the Avengers' complete form looks like."