Inside Job
Scene: A nuclear power plant. Captain America leaps down and hurls his shield, which nails Ultron in the neck sending him staggering back. Wonder Woman rushes towards him, but before she can land a punch Ultron grabs her by the fist and hurls her at Cap.
Loud Speaker:
Core meltdown in one minute.
Ultron:
Hear that, Captain. I would advise you to run for your lives.
Captain America:
Not a chance, Ultron.
Ultron:
I’m surprised at even your irrationality…
He starts firing multiple energy blasts out of his eyes and hands and Cap and Wonder Woman begin blacking and deflecting.
Even assuming you can defeat me, or evade me and get to the reactor, there’s no longer any time to stop the meltdown. Of all the life in this town, only myself and select species of insect will survive.
He powers up the energy beam from his mouth and fires. Cap and Diana scatter and the beam melts through every wall behind them and fires out the side of the power plant.
Loud Speaker:
Core meltdown in thirty seconds.
Ultron:
Rushing at Cap:
Thirty seconds left, Captain.
Starts pummeling Cap with his fists and then charges up another beam in his mouth.
But will you survive long enough to die at the hands of the meltdown?
Wonder Woman:
Hands off!
She lassos him and yanks him back into her fists. She pins him face down and starts to beat on him, but to no avail. Ultron sends out an energy pulse that sends Diana flying back towards Cap.
What is that thing made out of anyway?
Captain America:
Adamantium.
Wonder Woman:
It’s enough to make Hephaestus jealous.
Loud Speaker:
Core Meltdown in 10, 9, 8, 7...
Ultron:
Goodbye, heroes.
Loud Speaker:
…6, 5...
Wonder Woman:
Do we look concerned to you?
Loud Speaker:
…4, 3... Core stabilization achieved. Meltdown averted.
Ultron:
What?!
He turns around to look at the reactor, as the Atom is growing off of the main console.
Atom:
Sorry guys, I don’t usually cut it so close.
Ultron:
No!
He fires a beam from his hand at Atom, but Cap’s shield makes contact and throws off his aim. Ultron turns back towards Cap and Wondy, already charging up several more blasts on his hands, eyes, and mouth.
This ends now!
Atom:
Hey, gruesome!
Ultron glances back.
Catch!
Atom hurls three miniature cars and grow as they travel towards Ultron. The cars break through the entranceway to the reactor and smash Ultron into the far wall. Atom joins the other two.
Captain America:
Nice work, Atom.
Ultron blast through all the cars, causing several small explosions.
Atom:
Thanks. But do you think we could kindly ask him to take this away from the reactor?
Wonder Woman:
We’ll work on it. You know what to do.
Atom:
It’s what I’m best at.
He shrinks.
Ultron rushes back towards Cap and Diana, surging with energy.
Ultron:
I will obliterate you all!
The three of them trade blows for a while, and eventually Ultron manages to let loose a deadly mouth-beam at close range on Cap. Cap blocks the brunt of it with his Shield but it knocks him back into some equipment. Wonder Woman tackles Ultron and dives through the floor with him, smashing him down into a sub-basement.
Cap sits back up and rubs his head, some of his mask was burned off, and his hair is sticking out in places. Wonder Woman flies up out of the hole she made.
Wonder Woman:
Mind if I borrow this?
Pick up his shield off the ground.
Captain America:
Be my guest. I’ll be with you just as soon as I can remember my name.
She flies off and as Ultron flies back up out of the hole she whacks him back down again with Cap’s shield and flies down after him.
Atom:
Appearing on Cap’s shoulder:
We’ve got a slight problem, Cap. All the traditional entry points on Ultron’s latest incarnation, namely the joints, are thick with some pretty high tech synaptic reflex circuitry. I can’t get through there without getting fried.
Captain America:
Let’s try to avoid that.
Atom:
There is actually one entry point that I’ve concluded is safe about seventy percent of the time.
Ultron and Wondy appear out of the hole again. Close up on his gaping mouth which is currently firing one of its super hot energy beams at Wonder Woman, who blocks it with Cap’s shield.
But I’m not too keen on that way the other thirty percent of the time.
Ultron finishes his beam and Wonder Woman beats him back down again.
Captain America:
Standing back up.
Keep thinking. We’ll buy you all the time you need.
Atom:
Thanks. If only there was some alternative means of entry…
Nightcrawler teleports in.
Nightcrawler:
All civilians have been evacuated, Captain.
Atom:
That’ll do nicely.
He grabs Nightcrawler by the shoulder and the two of them begin shrinking.
Nightcrawler:
I think I missed something.
Captain America:
Dr. Palmer will explain, Kurt.
Atom and Nightcrawler disappear. Cap looks around and finds a partially demolished console that he picks up.
Cuts back to Wonder Woman and Ultron fighting below. She and Ultron are wrestling at arms length, his hands are glowing with energy pulses that are burning Diana’s hands.
Wonder Woman:
Hera… give me strength!
Ultron:
There is no hope for you, pitiful human--
Cap crashes down on top of Ultron with the chunk of console.
Captain America:
Back-up’s here.
Wonder Woman:
I’m glad. So what is your name anyway?
Captain America:
Steve.
Wonder Woman:
A blond haired, blue eyed World War II soldier named Steve…
Ultron pops up out of the debris and Cap flips him up into the ceiling. Wonder Woman hurls Cap’s shield at him and it ricochets back onto Cap’s arm.
Ultron starts firing beams at them which they dodge.
Cuts to Nightcrawler and Atom watching from a distance.
Atom:
On my mark…
They watch closely between blasts for when Ultron’s mouth is clear.
…now!
Nightcrawler teleports them inside Ultron’s mouth. The back end of the mouth starts glinting with electricity.
Quick! Again! Past those conduits!
They teleport again.
Once more through those cylinders!
They teleport again and reach a safe point.
Nightcrawler:
Somewhat annoyed:
You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not terribly adjusted to all of this.
Atom:
I thought you X-Men were ready for anything.
Nightcrawler:
Well, there are no shrinking X-Men. And I cannot teleport anywhere I cannot picture.
Atom:
Not a problem. We’re clear of the jaw. We just need to get past the neck to Ultron’s nerve center in his chest. Once there, I should be able to paralyze him. It’ll be a piece of cake.
A look of fear crosses Nightcrawler’s face.
What?
From behind a nano-bot fires an electrical spark at them. Nightcrawler grabs Atom and teleports behind it avoiding the spark.
Nightcrawler:
Never say “piece of cake” while shrunk and invading the body of an unstoppable android!
Atom:
These must be Ultron’s equivalent to an immune system. They’re probably designed to exterminate foreign substances.
Cuts back to outside where Ultron is preparing to fire a beam out of his mouth again. Cuts back inside where Nightcrawler leaps onto the back of the nano-bot and teleports it and himself into Ultron’s mouth. He teleports himself back to safety just in time for the bot to get fried in the beam.
Nice work, Nightcrawler. Now…
Gestures to all the orifices in the cavity where antibody nano-bots are swarming out.
…could you do that a few thousand more times?
Cuts back to outside where Cap and Wonder Woman are still battling Ultron. Ultron is raging now, firing energy blasts and energy pulses relentlessly and turning his power on anything and everything in the room. Cap and Diana are mostly on the defensive.
Wonder Woman:
What’s happening?
Captain America:
Just a hunch, but I think we’ve ticked him off.
Wonder Woman:
I thought robots were beyond emotion.
Captain America:
Well… not the bad ones.
Ultron blasts the support structures of the sub-basement and the roof comes crashing down on them. Cap grabs Diana close to him and attempts to protect them both from the collapsing architecture with his shield.
Look out!
Cuts back to inside, where Nightcrawler and Atom are evading the pursuing army of Ultron’s “immune system” with a series of teleportations.
Nightcrawler:
Can’t we get any smaller than this?!
Atom:
Of course we can, but not only would we be completely ineffectual against Ultron, I’d probably lose track of where we are.
Nightcrawler:
And where are we anyway?
Atom:
Very close to where we want to be. Follow those wires.
Cuts back outside. Ultron searches the debris and finds Cap and Wonder Woman, weakened.
Ultron:
Prepare to be obliterated!
Cap gets up and struggles in futility with Ultron while he powers up his mouth beam.
Captain America:
Diana! Get out of here!
Wonder Woman:
Waking up, slightly dazed:
I won’t leave you Steve…
She falls back down, exhausted.
Cuts back to inside Ultron. They continue to evade the nano-bots and eventually come across Ultron’s power core. Nightcrawler teleports around the bots drawing them into energy surges and forcing them to crash into one another until he finally lands by Ultron’s power core, which is a matrix of energy flowing into a massive glowing sphere. Atom pulls out a small device.
Atom:
Here’s hoping a fairly crude energy dampener will snuff out whatever power source this guy runs on.
He hurls the device into the power sphere and it absorbs all the energy into it.
Cuts to outside where Ultron freezes in place and his mouth beam powers down. Cap collapses onto Wonder Woman.
Cuts back inside where all the nano-bots power down and fall lifelessly. Atom and Nightcrawler teleport away. They reappear outside already growing back to normal size.
Nightcrawler:
Shaking Atom’s hand:
Not bad.
They glance over at Cap and Wonder Woman who are laying down together in the rubble. They wake up again and look over at the other two.
Atom:
Um… we didn’t mean to interrupt.
Wonder Woman and Cap realize the situation they’re in and then quickly get up and back away from each other.
Captain America:
Uh… nice work, Wonder Woman.
He salutes and she bows.
Atom:
I’ll bet… how’s the reactor?
Nightcrawler teleports away, then back again after a few seconds.
Nightcrawler:
It’s still stable. So what do we do with him?
Wonder Woman:
I think he’d make an excellent addition to the trophy room.
Captain America:
I think he’d make an even more excellent addition to the center of the sun.
Atom:
Good idea, let’s see if Green Lantern is up for a little errand.
He shrinks Ultron to a hand held size and carries him off. Cap and Nightcrawler start to follow.
Wonder Woman:
Captain…
He stops and looks back.
…I think you could use a few pointers.
Captain America:
Huh?
Wonder Woman:
Care to meet me in the training room later tonight?
Captain America:
Oh… well, I suppose I could always learn a thing or two.
They walk off together.
END