Ultron had been noticing something peculiar about Prominent Leg's kicks—beyond their terrifying firepower. They struck with uncanny timing.
Naturally, Ultron's first talent ability had always been utility-based. He wasn't much of a fighter. His talent leaned toward practicality, not battle.
That was before he became a Paragon.
It had barely been a week since that awakening—he was still adapting to his new capabilities. Yet even in that short time, Ultron had already become this formidable. A tempest in the making.
Despite wielding a utility talent, life never spared him the brutality of conflict. He'd been hurled into the pit of hell more times than he could count—and every time, he'd crawled out with bloodied fingers and a heart that refused to stop beating.
He remembered the tier-7 rift shatter that swallowed his entire village whole.
He remembered the military ship tossing him overboard to lighten the load during a storm, left to survive in a sea swarming with beasts that reeked of bloodlust.
And he survived.
He clung to wreckage and drifted through the shrieking dark, surrounded by snarling horrors that tore each other apart in the water around him. He fought. He bled. He endured.
And now… now he was here.
There was no way some past-his-prime Drifter—clinging to fame and old strength—would be enough to take him down.
And now that he'd finished analyzing Prominent Leg's talent with his first ability, it was time to use it.
Ultron began to walk forward. Each step crushed broken stone and shattered metal beneath his boots. He moved with the calm detachment of a predator that had already decided its prey.
"Your leg…" he began, his voice low and deliberate, "has impeccable timing. As if you possess a talent that calculates footwork, distance, spatial drift, and time flow all at once."
Prominent Leg chuckled, arms crossed.
"Ohoo. Thank you for the compliment."
"I wasn't complimenting you," Ultron replied, tone flat. "I was stating the obvious. You have a luck ability, don't you?"
Prominent Leg's smile faltered for half a second. A flicker. His narrowed eyes betrayed the shift—only for a moment—then settled back into ease.
"And so?" he asked. "What does knowing that do for you?"
Ultron smiled. Not the kind that bore teeth or smugness—but one that mirrored the stillness of night after a storm. Cold. Quiet. Absolute.
"My name is Ultron," he said simply. "Figured you should know—before you die."
As those words left his lips, the battlefield quaked. Cracks spiderwebbed beneath his feet, the ground rebelling against the surge of power that leaked from his frame. His body began to crackle, lined with streaks of whitish essence, like threads of lightning tangled in his veins.
His eyes glowed with an eerie, soul-deep luminance—like ghostfire trapped in ice—and locked onto Prominent Leg with terrifying precision.
Then—
He moved.
The shift was seamless. Fluid. Predatory.
His speed—and the grace behind it—bore a striking resemblance to Prominent Leg's motion… but there was something more beneath it. Something colder. More terrifying. Like the calm silence before a city is swallowed whole.
Ultron's fist blurred forward, trailing an unseen force. It carried the same devastating "luck" effect—an inevitability baked into its motion—that ensured it would always connect.
Prominent Leg twisted aside just in time—but the air screamed as the punch grazed his ribs.
A glancing blow—just a whisper of contact.
And yet, bone splintered beneath it.
Prominent Leg staggered back with a sharp gasp, pain shooting up his side like wildfire.
Ultron didn't hesitate.
His elbow surged upward in a brutal arc, flames bursting around it—not just fire, but something darker, something hungrier—like the breath of a dying star.
Prominent Leg crossed his arms to guard—
The impact slammed into him.
He was hurled backward, boots gouging twin trenches in the dirt as he struggled to stay upright. His forearms burned, blistering from the unholy heat that clung to the strike like venom.
Ultron pressed forward.
Now his body was cloaked in that same distortion that once shimmered around Prominent Leg's legs—but it pulsed stronger. Sharper. Warped by something deeper.
"You rely too much on your legs…" Ultron said, voice low, unfazed. "I don't know if it's a flaw in your talent—or just a flaw in you."
Then—
His fingers snapped out like lashes, each movement precise, every strike laden with that "inevitable hit" aura.
Prominent Leg dodged the first.
The second swept past, just barely missing.
The third—
Blood splashed as Ultron's pinky finger sliced through Prominent Leg's shoulder like a blade forged from inevitability itself.
Prominent Leg hissed, staggering to the side, heart pounding. His thoughts scrambled for air.
This bastard... He's not just copying me. He's evolving it.
Ultron flexed his hands slowly, flames dancing between his fingers like serpents made of heat and intent.
"Fire is just combustion," he murmured, gaze never leaving Prominent Leg. "And combustion…"
His fist clenched—
And a nova burst forth.
Black-and-crimson flames erupted around him, the sheer heat warping the air, bending light itself in waves of searing distortion.
"…can be refined."
Prominent Leg gritted his teeth for a beat before he exhaled.
And suddenly… laughed.
It wasn't defiance. It was madness threaded with pride—a grin streaked with blood and fury.
"Hah! Hahaha! So what? You stole my tricks? Fine!"
His foot slammed down.
"Then let me show you how a real master uses them!"
The earth shattered beneath him as he lunged forward, a blur wreathed in blue-white fire. His legs moved like whips of divine fury, each step ripping trenches in the battlefield.
Ultron didn't flinch. He met him head-on.
And then it began.
Their clash was no longer a battle—it became a cataclysm. A storm of flesh and fire and force. Every kick Prominent Leg launched, Ultron mirrored—but not with legs. With arms, elbows, knees. Each strike of Ultron's landed harder. Cleaner. Deadlier.
Prominent Leg spun, his heel whistling through the air toward Ultron's temple—
Ultron caught it mid-spin.
His fingers locked around the ankle like steel jaws. Then came the sneer.
"Predictable."
He crushed the joint.
Prominent Leg screamed as bones popped and twisted beneath the grip—but even in agony, he didn't stop.
His other leg lashed upward in a brutal arc, an uppercut kick born of desperation and rage.
Ultron leaned back, letting the strike sail past his face—
But the flames didn't miss.
A geyser of yellowish fire burst from the kick's arc, engulfing Ultron in a searing, pulsing inferno that swallowed him whole.
Silence.
Just the crackle of fire licking through the air. Smoke billowed. Cinders floated like ash-winged moths.
Then a hand shot through the blaze.
Ultron emerged, body charred, blackened in patches like scorched armor. His skin steamed. His frame cracked.
But his eyes…
His eyes were still glowing with an eerie and dangerous light.