"Is that so? Thanks for your concern, but I'm not your opponent this time. I'm only providing tactical support."
"Tony, you're up." Russell's voice cut through the surging energy and the aftershocks of explosions, reaching Tony's ears clearly.
"Defend your Earth. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do."
Tony didn't like Russell, but when Ultron dismissed him, he chose to answer with action.
The five stones on the Infinity Gauntlet lit up at once. His fist, wrapped in the interwoven power of five Cosmic Laws, drove straight at Ultron.
The purple mechanical head twisted aside at an unnatural angle in the final instant. The beam skimmed Ultron's shoulder armor and carved a molten spatial rift across the sky.
Ultron's voice remained steady, as though he were stating a fact he had calculated long ago:
"With five Infinity Stones empowering you, you are countless times stronger than the Tony from my universe. Unfortunately, five are all you have. No matter how powerful your attacks are, they can still be predicted."
Tony said nothing. His second punch was already coming, faster than the first and from a trickier angle, as though he had anticipated how Ultron would anticipate him.
The X-Gene Russell had activated inside him adjusted his neural output hundreds of times a second, pushing his reaction speed beyond human limits and ever closer to what his body could withstand.
It helped him bear the strain the five Infinity Stones placed on him.
Ultron tilted his head and raised an arm to block. The Spatial Folds released when their powers met spread outward like ripples from two stones thrown into a still lake at the same time.
Waves of the same frequency rebounded when they reached the edges, interfering with one another in a chaotic resonance.
Dark Strange turned