Chapter 62: The Stark Expo Incident (2)

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"What? Blow something up? I already did that." 

- Tony Stark, (Iron Man 3)

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<(Omniscient POV)> 

"I think we should run now." Natalie Rushman muttered to Vanessa as her eyes searched for the billionaire idiot responsible for this and her well-mannered boss who was supposed to stop a situation like this.

"Yeah, I think that would be for the best. After all, my powers are better suited for close-range combat and fighting organic beings made of flesh, not sentient armors with advanced weaponry. Plus, I still have PTSD from the last time I had to fight robots." Vanessa nervously responded with a bitter smile as she gestured for Kurt and Kitty to follow quickly. "Ironman can take care of the mess he has himself created by letting his designs leak. We shouldn't do anything too big to warrant any attention before Atem returns... Wait, aren't you going to escape with us, Natalie?" Vanessa inquired as she looked at the redheaded 'secretary' who looked like she had no intention of escaping with them.

"I think I saw a couple of people trapped there, might be a trick of my mind but I should go and have a look, just to be sure. I know my way around computers a bit as well, so maybe I could help them shut this down too." Natasha answered as she tore the bottom of her long and tight one-piece dress and began to quickly run in a certain direction.

"Wait, I know a lot about computers as well, so maybe I could..." Kitty tried to offer her help along with Kurt who looked somewhat excited to finally have a chance to prove himself as a hero who could fight and save the day even without a team or backup.

Unfortunately for him, however, it simply wasn't his lucky day as Vanessa directing a hard glare at the two, made it pretty clear that immediate escape for them was the number one priority as well as an order for them. Any attempt to defy the order or any further argument would not be entertained at the least and would only be met by harsh punishments.

Truthfully, Vanessa knew that they with the help of their powers could help salvage this situation and minimize damage but that could result in some evil politicians or certain idiots in online communities and social media somehow pinning the blame on them as well. So, she wisely decided to keep their presence there a secret since Ironman was already here to handle it. They would probably save one or two in their passing, but they wouldn't go out of their way to help everyone.

And as for Natalia, Vanessa already had an idea about her true identity. Although not completely aware of Natalia's past as a Black Widow, Vanessa was still able to guess that the red-headed secretary was actually a spy from Shield since not only had Zoya hacked Shield's servers countless number times to 'borrow' their data but also, she herself had infiltrated their base a couple of times to get different types of info and intel with no one there being the wiser. So she had heard of Natalia, aka, Natasha who was one of their best agents in the last few years.

That was why Vanessa wasn't at all worried about Natalia putting herself in danger by going close to the drones because she knew that if the red-headed spy was really as good as advertised, then just this much danger wouldn't be enough to kill her. Hence, she let her go to try doing whatever she wanted. 

Leaving behind the group of metahumans, Natasha directly headed to the control center where the armors or drones the Hammer tech team were apparently controlling them from. She was extremely stealthy in her steps and made sure to avoid all the drones in her route. She knew that with her current 'load out' and attire, she could barely survive a one-on-one confrontation with a single-armed drone, much less win against a horde of them. So, even though she picked up a small handgun from one of the guards' dead bodies who died in the stampede, she was determined to not have to use it... at least not on a non-human target.

But as Natasha reached the control center, she was shocked to discover that the situation at the control panel was much more complicated than what she had initially imagined. Tech guys wearing t-shirts with the logo of Hammer Industries on them were indeed diligently working on the various computers in the control panel but Natasha doubted it was what she originally thought it to be for because just near the control panel, about a dozen Hammer Industries defense personnel had placed the current CEO of Stark Industries, Virginia Potts and her bodyguard Happy Hogan under their watchful eyes. 

Not just them, the 'goons' of the Hammer Industries were even holding Natasha's direct superior and colleague, Phil Coulson, and a few other Stark personnel at gunpoint while Justine Hammer was encouraging half of his tech team to hasten their hacking attempt on the Stark Industries' servers as well as pressing on the other half of his team to do their best to regain control of their drones.

"Wow, that guy is desperation incarnated." Natasha could not help but mutter to herself. She was almost impressed by how Justine Hammer despite being absolutely desperate, never failed to take advantage of even a single opportunity..., the key word being 'almost'.

She closed in on one of the guards who was a little further away from the main control panel and swiftly took him out by snapping his neck.

The next events that transpired might have happened a bit too fast for a normal person to register appropriately through their eyes, but if someone were to pay attention, they would have been able to see that Natasha instead of wasting time thinking too much, jumped into the situation with just her instincts and two handguns in her hands and were able to swiftly take out more than half of the Hammer guards with headshots. The rest who were lucky enough to avoid being shot were knocked out by Natasha with simple hits on their necks and shoulders.

Hammer's tech team on the other hand which was just comprised of a bunch of harmless-looking IT guys and recent college pass-outs surrendered on their own by raising their hands without Natasha even having to threaten them at the least.

"What the fuck just happened? How did you defeat my fiercest boys? I paid millions for their training." Justine Hammer questioned with a face full of disbelief etched on it as he struggled to believe that his most elite guard team could be wiped away by a single random woman so fast and easily that they would even fail to respond to the attack.

 "You are not supposed to be here, you know. You have your own mission which is much higher than this on Director Fury's priority list." Coulson interrupted and silenced Hammer by simply aiming his gun at her after Natasha freed him from his bounds.

"We can talk about everything else later, we need to vacate this place, right NOW." Virginia, aka, Pepper Potts uttered in a panic as she rushed to quickly untie the other Stark employees.

"Why? Can't we stop these drones directly from here?" Natasha questioned as she tried analyzing the computers but a quick look at them was enough for her to answer her own question. "... This is not the main server, is it?"

"No, it is not, unfortunately. The main server that is controlling the entire... armor army is back at Hammer's headquarters and if we were to believe his words, it is no longer under his control. Some employee of his that he recently hired betrayed him and hacked his entire server to take revenge against Tony Stark. That was why Hammer was trying to directly hack into Stark's company servers to steal his company secrets and technologies because he knows that he is going to go bankrupt tomorrow if he doesn't pull off a miracle." Phil said with a bitter smile as he stared at the billionaire weapons maker with a disappointed gaze.

"I don't think your guilt-tripping is going to work on a billionaire asshole who made his entire fortune by ripping off the successful products of another billionaire asshole making weapons..." Natasha said with a shrug. "... No offense to Stark by the way. Anyway, why do we have to leave this place? Did Hammer set some sort of explosives here to get rid of the evidence after he is done?"

"He wishes he was that smart. No, that is not the reason." Miss. Potts denied it while ignoring Natasha's comment about Tony being an asshole. "Our guys did a scan on all the armor drones that Hammer brought in for the show today. Turns out that all the drones contain a small self-destruct mechanism in them in case things go wrong or something. Those mechanisms have already been activated. If the drones lose connection to the main server or if they are individually taken out somehow, those mechanisms will activate and this entire block will more or less get completely annihilated at the minimum if we are lucky."

"We are rarely that lucky. Even now as we speak, those drones are moving into civilian space to spread destruction. Triggering a self-destruct in them will be akin to a big terrorism attack succeeding on American grounds." Phil gulped as they quickly prepared to leave the building.

"That means, everyone here is more or less fucked since there is no way we will be able to completely vacate this place of civilians..." Natasha concluded grimly. "*Sigh* I'll go to Hammer Industries and see what I can do. You call for backup and try to save as many people as possible. Maybe I could hack into their self-destruction sequences with Stark's help once I reach the main servers." She still didn't completely give up hope.

This wasn't exactly her mission but as a human being, Natasha could not just leave everyone to their fates. She might not be a hero or even close to being anything like a hero, but she certainly still had humanity in her. She knew that she could not give up so easily, at least, not when it concerned the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians.

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<(Atem POV) >

"What the fuck is happening here? Did I time travel to the Terminator universe... or did Ultron get created sooner somehow while I was absent because I don't remember Vanko making so many armors at all in the movie.?" I thought out aloud to myself as I exited the Hush tube and observed the hundreds of militarized Ironman armor replica drones doing their best to conduct a genocide on the panicking crowd as I stood on the top of the building where the Stark Expo was supposed to be taking place.

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