25 Chapter 25) – Do It Right

During the flight, to return to the Expo that we first visited when we arrived in the universe, Mara was sat on the seating installed along the inner Quinjet walls, on 1 of the seats closest to the cockpit.

Mara initially thought that since the transport was so high up in the sky, the communicator might need a couple of attempts to connect to Natasha. However, the call went through without issue on the first attempt, "Nat, can you hear me? It's Mara."

Even though the Quinjet was flying through the sky at quite a speed, the communicator's signal was surprisingly strong as Natasha replied, "Crystal clear, Mara. I didn't expect you would need to contact me, but I assume there's a reason considering your handler should be with you to resolve most of the queries you have?"

Not wanting to delay the necessary information, Mara got down to business straight away, "As much as I would love for this to be a call for a casual conversation, we believe that an attack on the Stark Expo is almost guaranteed to happen sometime soon. Tony said that Pepper would be there, and considering you're her assistant, I take it you're also there with her?"

Noticing a subtle shift in Natasha's tone of voice to a more serious note, the agent responded, "Give me all the details, Mara. Anything you know about the attack and how you found out about it."

Over the 5 or so minutes that followed, Mara proceeded to explain all the requested information to the Black Widow. From Hammer Industries being the ones that had broken Vanko out of prison and were most likely using him to replicate Tony's Arc Reactor technology. To the call with the Russian himself, whereby he explained that he was still after Tony like Mara had 'predicted' when her and Natasha had their tourist day, just under a week prior.

After my host was finished with her exposition, Natasha took half a minute to digest everything before she spoke, "It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Hammer wants to do a talk at the Stark Expo shortly after smuggling Vanko out of prison. He most likely intends to show off whatever it is that he had the Russian working on for him. There's a high likelihood that the presentation Hammer plans to give will contain the means of attack. Since you're telling me all this, I take it you're on your way to the Expo?"

Smiling to herself, my host enthusiastically responded, "Of course! If there's even a chance of a fight, I want to be there. Me and May are in the Quinjet on our way over as we speak. Tony needs to upgrade or build a suit that is compatible with his new Arc Reactor, so he'll arrive a little later. But considering how small the suit is, and how much power he outputs, his travel time will be a lot shorter according to him. Oh, and not like I need to state the obvious, but Tony told me to tell you to keep Pepper safe."

Although we couldn't see Natasha, both my host and I could guess that she rolled her eyes at Mara's last line as she retorted, "Of course he did. Well, fortunately for him, my assignment is still to protect her, so unless explicitly ordered otherwise I'll continue to protect her. Do you have an E.T.A.?"

Not sure of the specifics, Mara turned to May, "May, what time are we expected to arrive?"

Stood between the back of the pilot and co-pilot's seats, May turned around and answered, "We should touch down a few minutes before the Hammer presentation begins. We can't land on the Expo grounds though, so we'll have to make our way over on foot. Just remember, I don't do combat now. Don't rely on me to do anything other than help the civilians evacuate, understood?"

Acknowledging what the handler said, Mara replied, "Copy." Before she looked back at her communicator and asked the Black Widow, "You catch that Nat?"

Natasha thus confirmed that she did, indeed, hear May's answer, "Loud and clear. We don't have specific seats, but we do have a designated seating area. So, once you arrive, contact me again so we can prepare for the evacuation. Since May is your handler, she's in charge so follow her orders. See you soon."

Giving a quick, "See you shortly." Mara ended the call as May made her way over to where my host was sat.

Sitting down on the left of Mara, May informed her, "Mara, although Vanko and whatever weaponry he's developed alongside Hammer Industries are a threat, the priority will be the safety of the civilians. I have contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. higherups and they have despatched numerous agents for evacuation, but you need to make sure there are civilians TO evacuate. That means you are free to destroy the weaponry, but not at the expense of casualties. Is that understood agent?"

Dropping her usual fun-having persona, my host became uncharacteristically serious at May's words as she nodded once, "Yes, Ma'am. I won't let you down."

It wasn't entirely clear if May had a slight smile on her face or if it was a trick of the light. But either way, she seemed to appreciate the seriousness in which my host acted, or that Mara showed genuine conviction, "Good. I know you don't have to prepare much, but maybe spend the time devising a battle plan with El or something. Having 2 consciousnesses in one body means you can completely split your attention like you did when you first fought Vanko. Maybe delegate El to saving people while you destroy the weapons, or vice versa. Oh, and you 2, no cosmic horror until myself or agent Romanoff give the all-clear. The civilians would more than likely believe that you're the threat to their safety and that the Hammer weaponry is protecting them from you, rather than the other way around."

Leaving Mara and I to discuss what she had advised us on, May headed back to stand behind the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit.

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The Expo itself was massive, and since it was part of the vast cityscape of Queens, there weren't many places for the Quinjet to quietly land nearby. As such, the clearest area to land, whilst also keeping as hidden as possible, was a grassland that was signposted as MacNeil Park.

As the Quinjet touched down onto the ground, I transitioned Mara's playsuit clothing into our agent form so that we were prepared for the mission ahead.

With the rear ramp lowering, Mara was about to start walking down it in order to leave when May called out to us, "Mara, El, you 2 go ahead first. Meet up with agent Romanoff and begin the evacuation. Hammer's presentation is starting soon if the schedule is accurate, so we need to kick everything off A.S.A.P. Take this badge and make a scene if you feel like you have to. We want people to believe there is a threat, but don't let them panic otherwise it'll just make everyone's job harder. While I'm not present, agent Romanoff is the leading agent so follow her orders until I arrive. She'll be able to make reactive decisions instead of you having to contact me for everything."

Doing exactly as she had said, May handed us an FBI badge, identical to what we witnessed Natasha using back at the donut place.

Placing the badge into the thigh pouch, that seemed to have permanently replaced the baton that was originally intended to go there, my host replied to the handler, "Got it. We'll see you there."

Since the Quinjet's ramp had finished lowering, we made our way out of the jet and oriented ourselves in the direction of the Expo.

Throughout our brief time of studying the animal encyclopaedia S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided for us, I learnt several things about Earth's animal kingdom. The most important of which, in my opinion, was that although some animals can perform impressive feats, it is mainly due to their specific set of circumstances.

Take a Gazelle, for example. It has long, thin, legs that allow it to run at impressive speeds while also being flexible enough to change direction in a split second without harming itself. Now, if a Gazelle were to increase in size, it's circumstances would change and, unless its body composition changed with them, it would break its bones just trying to function normally. It could either change to make its legs short and thick, like a Rhinoceros, such that each gram of weight has about the same area of bone to support it. Or it could stretch out its legs length ways, making it taller to gain stability like a Giraffe. Either way, it would lose the specific circumstance that made it so unique in the process.

For a more mathematical example; take a male Onthophagus taurus beetles, a.k.a. dung beetles, that can pull up to 1,141 times their own body weight. An incredibly impressive statistic but only in their specific circumstance. The encyclopaedia had upper approximations for the size of every animal, so going off the upper limits; the size of a dung beetle would be at most 170mm and weight up to 100g. The key points for the beetle's strength are that it pulls the weight, and that the amount they can pull is relative to their body weight. Using a similar example, last year in this universe – 2009 - the world's strongest man pulled an aeroplane weighing 70-tonnes, or 70,000kg, whilst he himself weighed 170kg. Rounding down, this example puts the upper limit of a human body's estimated strength at 411 times their body weight.

Unfortunately for the dung beetle, strength doesn't scale well with size. This is going to get a little technical, so bear with me. See, through mathematics, humans have been able to somewhat explain the fundamental laws of their universe, or at least the laws on their own planet. The law that is needed for this example is known as the Square-Cube law. It states that; 'When an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier.' Clear as mud, I know, but the simplest way to explain it would be that if a dung beetle was made 10x bigger, it would be 100x stronger, but it would weigh 1000x more. Using the values I previously stated for the beetle; if the size of it increased 10x, to 170cm or 1.7m, then it would weigh 100,000g or 100kg. However, since its strength only increased by 100x, then rather than have a 1,141 strength to weight ratio, it would be 114 strength to weight. Directly comparing the human ratio of 411, of which the average male size is 1.7m, with the now 1.7m dung beetle's ratio of 114, it becomes clear why circumstances are important. That's not even taking into consideration the fact that the beetle would suffocate due to its passive respiratory system not being cable of supporting something of that size.

The first thing Mara was interested in when we had received the encyclopaedia was to question if there was some way for us to fly. Her query was what led me to discover what I had about the animals on Earth all being the size they were for a reason.

Someone might think that just studying something like an Eagle, and replicating their biology while increasing the size would be the correct solution, but that is far from the truth. Even an Eagle itself doesn't stay in the air by moving its wings and is predominantly airborne through the use of updrafts. Essentially, it glides more than it literally flies. For a human to develop wings with the same power, weight for weight, as an Eagle, it would require a breast surpassing 1 metre in length just to house the muscles to operate the wings. That's not to mention that weight would need to be economised, and therefore the legs would need to be reduced to twigs, like an actual bird's legs. Thus, changing the conditions and making it closer to a bird than a human.

The entire definition of Earth's natural animals can be summarised as; everything is exactly the right size it should be, and any major deviations are instead a different species rather than an altered version of the initial animal.

Unfortunately for my host, this meant that just copying the muscles and limbs of an aerial animal would not allow us to fly. That was only if the muscles of the avian were replicated exactly the same. With the strengthening I received from Mara, and conversely provided to her, flight could be achieved, but it would be very energy inefficient. Instead, we followed the example of nature, with its millions of years of evolution. More precisely, we decided to imitate the Eagle's gliding - something human's had been doing for a while with hang gliders, but we ourselves hadn't tried.

Crouching down to compress my mass and Mara's muscles, we launched ourselves into the air, in the general direction of the Expo.

Unlike all our other times sailing through the air, we didn't try and traverse a large distance. Rather, we focused on getting as high as possible, as the distance between the MacNeil park and the main Expo stage was less than 3 miles according to the co-pilot of the Quinjet.

Therefore, jumping like we normally would and trying to travel 3 miles would result in us being close enough to the ground whereby the air we distributed would affect any civilians and buildings nearby.

That didn't matter to us, but with May and S.H.I.E.L.D. explicitly stating that civilians were not to be harmed during the mission, doing precisely that before we even arrived at the Expo would not have been taken well.

Reaching the apex of our take-off, I created several large tendrils starting from the top of Mara's back, and travelling most of the way down to her lower ribs, before merging them together to create roughly shaped, giant, Eagle wings.

Each wing was 3 metres in length, when outstretched like they were, giving us a total wingspan of over 6 metres. The size was definitely overkill with how strong my form was, but for our first time trying to glide, I didn't want to risk our plan failing.

As usual, Mara thoroughly enjoyed any action that would have otherwise been impossible for her, or any other human, without our bond, [Wow El. All the lights and the sights look so mesmerising from up here.]

Just as Mara had stated, the sight of the city from such a vastly different point of view made even my young consciousness stare in wonderment, <Indeed. Humans are unintentionally impressive at times.>

As we both enjoyed the view, we were gradually gliding towards the brightly lit Expo grounds and spent the remainder of the journey in silence. Soaking in the sight that very few, if none at all, had seen before - from the perspective we were seeing it from.

Due to us being in the air, we didn't need to repeat our previous method of 'permanently borrowing' an access pass, and instead just sailed over the Expo perimeter, into the grounds.

As we got closer to the main stage, I began to intermittently relax the wings so that we would begin to fall and then made them rigid again to resume gliding. This rapidly reduced our altitude until we were in the secluded area behind the main stage where Tony and Happy were handed a subpoena for the Iron Man hearing.

Once we were at a suitable height, I absorbed the wings back into my form as we descended to the ground in a freefall. Freefall might have been a bit of a stretch as we were only falling for a handful of seconds before we landed on the ground.

Mara, seeing an opportunity when no-one was watching, decided to practice the superhero landing she had always wanted to try.

Hitting the ground with her right knee and left foot first, she brought her right fist down almost immediately after the initial impact and used her left arm to try to stabilise herself. With the 3 points of contact with the ground she kept her balance fairly well, but her left arm waved around a little to find the right angle, so it looked like a superhero landing while waving at someone.

That was what practice was for though. To get the kinks out before the real thing in front of an audience.

I also made sure to transfer the force of the impact through my form to dissipate it and prevent any damage to my host or the ground. The action also muffled the sound, so although the landing wasn't perfectly silent, it was still at a reasonably low volume.

As my host stood up from her pose, she looked around to check no-one had appeared during the time she was looking at the ground in her landing position, [Well that was embarrassing. I didn't expect to get it right first time, which is why I practiced it here in a secluded area, but getting the angle on the free arm was more precise than I thought it would be. At least I know now that Tony must have practiced a lot in his spare time to get it right in preparation for his Expo entrance. Though I suppose that makes sense, what with him being a show-off and all.]

Resuming our mission, we went through an adjacent building to make our way towards the secluded VIP area from where we had landed.

As we made our way through the building, the Expo announcer's voice came through the PA system, getting clearer the closer to the VIP area we got, '…Justin Hammer. His presentation will begin shortly in the main pavilion.'

Speeding up, Mara exited the building we were passing through, [Shit El. We need to hurry to catch Nat and Pepper before they make their way into the main arena if we can.]

Halting in her tracks as soon as she exited the building, however, both my host and I noticed an eye-catchingly dressed Natasha seemingly waiting for us outside the entrance of the main pavilion.

And by eye-catching, I mean she was in her form-fitting Black Widow attire that highlighted all of her 'assets', "You 2 are late. Hammer's presentation is about to start so we'll have to find a way to stop it mid-show. Where are May and the other agents?"

Since my host took a second to recover from the surprise, I created a head to continue the conversation and provide the spy with what she asked, "The Quinjet had to land at a nearby park a few miles away, so we went ahead first while they made their way over. May also said that additional agents will be coming to assist in the evacuation, but we aren't sure what kind of timeframe they are on. She informed us to follow your direction while she's not present."

Rather than Natasha replying, Mara recovered from her stupor and questioned, "Where's Pepper, Nat? And why are you in your Black Widow outfit?"

Following the order in which we spoke, Natasha first responded to me and then my host, "Thank you for the update, El. We'll have to make do on our own for now until reinforcements arrive. Regarding Pepper, Mara, I sent her and Happy out of the Expo for now. The best way to keep them safe is to have them as far away as possible. They'll either have returned to the airport to stay with the jet or gone to a hotel to wait for things to be sorted out. I gave Happy a communicator so he should update me on their location when they've decide on where they're staying for the time-being. I'll send some agents to watch over them just in case something goes awry, once I know where they're bunkering down."

Making sure that she knew all the details, my host asked for clarification, "Did you have to give up your cover to get them to leave? I doubt Pepper, as the new head honcho of Stark Industries, would leave just because her assistant had an unconfirmed source of a possible attack."

Lightly smiling and nodding once, Natasha replied, "Correct. Pepper was already aware of S.H.I.E.L.D. thanks to Coulson, so after the director had given me the greenlight to expose my cover, as the original mission was considered a success, I did so. I was assigned my mission to watch over Stark and evaluate him, as well as keep Pepper safe. The first part had been resolved, and the second part could best be achieved by revealing my true identity. Now, enough about me, what are we going to do about this presentation? Do you have any idea what kind of weaponry we'll be dealing with?"

As I pulled the head back into the agent form, Mara responded to Natasha, "I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that the Arc Reactors will be involved, so maybe it'll be something similar to the whip harness Vanko used in Monaco, but more advanced. Hammer would give Vanko better equipment and better materials so even if the design is the same, the end product would be better. But that doesn't take into consideration any of the weaponry Hammer was already working on and just had Vanko improve it with the Arce Reactors. Rhodey might also be involved in the show since he took 1 of Tony's suits and Hammer is the military contractor, so they might show off that they've got a working Iron Man suit now."

Bobbing her head in agreement, Natasha laid out her game plan, "That makes sense. For now, we'll get into an overwatch position and evaluate what the weaponry is before we decide how to evacuate. Depending on what it is, we might not even need to evacuate the civilians and we can destroy it ourselves. Guessing what the danger is, and knowing exactly what we will face are 2 completely different game plans. Let's go. Hopefully Stark doesn't arrive too late or fucks around on purpose to make a dramatic entrance in order to stroke his ego."

As such, we proceeded into the main pavilion to watch Hammer's grand reveal and decide on the best course of action from there.