Theo was training when his phone started ringing as it played Ironman. Theo picked it up a few moments later as he asked, “What's going on Tony?”
“Come over, I want to show you something.”
Theo glanced down at the fuinjutsu he was practicing before he said, “Be there in five minutes.”
Theo quickly cleaned up his work area before he changed into Ezekiel and created a portal. He stepped out into Tony's workshop to find him next to a car with a tablet in his hands. Tony glanced up from the tablet and smiled as he said, “Check this out!”
“Welcome Ezekiel.” JARVIS said at the same moment the car next to Tony lifted a few feet off the ground and hovered in place.
“Thank you JARVIS.” Ezekiel said as he walked closer to the car before he asked, “You finally figured out how it works?”
Tony nodded with a big smile on his face before he said, “It was a pain in the ass since I didn't know the exact science behind it. But these were made from common materials found on Earth after I figured it out.”
Ezekiel nodded slightly before he asked, “And the other project you're supposed to be working on?”
Tony waved off the question as he said, “I said two or three months. I'm currently waiting on some of the materials I ordered to be delivered and threw this together as I waited.”
Ezekiel studied the car that floated in the air for a few moments before he placed his hand on the bummer and pushed down. There was a groan of metal as the car barely moved from the effort which made Tony frown slightly before he said, “That shouldn't happen… Something must be off with the anti-grav units.”
Ezekiel glanced up as he asked, “I almost put my full strength behind that and it barely moved. It's that a good thing?”
Tony shook his head as he said, “It should be able to withstand thousands of pounds of force and not move.”
Ezekiel pointed down at the bumper that had his hand print pressed into as he asked, “You know I am stronger than a normal person right?”
Tony glanced at the bumper before his eyes widened and he said, “You just ruined my bumper!”
Ezekiel rolled his eyes before he said, “It's not hard to fix and you're rich anyways.”
“That's a nineteen sixty eight Shelby GT five hundred I rebuilt from scratch with new old stock parts!?! Do you have any idea how hard that was to do?” Tony said in a frustrated tone as he checked out the damage to the car.
Ezekiel shrugged as he said, “At least the frame isn't bent from me doing that. At least I don't think it is…”
Tony's eyes widened again as he dropped to the floor to get a look at the bottom of the chassis and frame rails. After half a minute he got up and said with a frown, "You owe me a new front bumper and it needs to be new old stock!”
Ezekiel waved off the comment as he said, “Fine, give me a few days to find one.”
Ezekiel glanced back at the car before he asked, “So is this all you wanted to show me?”
Tony who was still focused on the bumper remembered something before his eyes lit up and he said, “No, I called you over for something even more important.”
Ezekiel glanced towards Tony who smiled widely, all thoughts about the damaged bumper gone as he said, “We need to take this thing for a test drive!”
“Really? Didn't you just finish these things? Shouldn't you test them in other ways before taking a test drive?”
Tony waved off the questions as he said, “It's fine, if my calculations are correct. And they always are, this will work perfectly.”
Ezekiel glanced at the floating car and knew Tony would test it alone if he didn't join him… Ezekiel let out a helpless sigh before he walked over to the passenger side and said, “Fine, let's go try this out.”
Tony happily climbed into the driver's seat before the car started to move forward towards the exit. It was totally silent and super smooth as it hovered off the ground. For what the car was actually doing, Ezekiel was surprised that the car was controlled by the steering wheel and gas pedal, so he asked, “You connected everything to the original controls?”
Tony nodded while they pulled out of the garage before he grabbed the stick shift and said, “It wasn't hard. I just disconnected a few things for now and added some sensors in place that talk to a computer.”
Tony shifted the car into second gear which caused the car to float up to around thirty feet in the air before he said, “I used the shifter to set the altitude for the anti-grav units. The steering wheel acts to control the direction of the units and the gas pedal is used to control speed.”
Tony pushed on the gas pedal and the car took off and went from zero to sixty in less then a second. Even with the change in speed, Tony and Ezekiel didn't even feel it and if it wasn't for the blur of objects below them. Well, Ezekiel wouldn't have thought they were moving at all. As they flew past massive mansions that dotted the area Ezekiel asked, “You installed an inertial dampener?”
Tony nodded as he said, “It wouldn't have made sense otherwise, the acceleration of the units is too much even with these ones being limited.”
“What are you using to power everything?”
Tony wore a smug smile as he said, “I modified one of those ship power cores I disassembled and placed it in the trunk. It only runs at five percent of its original power, but it's one thirtieth its size.”
“How much fuel does it take and how long can it last with a full tank?”
“It takes about a pound of those energy crystals and should last for about six months or more… Depending on how far you travel.” Tony said as he flew the car into downtown LA.
As they approached some taller buildings, Tony shifted the car into third gear which shot them up to just over sixty feet in the air. Just enough to fly over most of the current building and other obstacles that dotted the landscape below. Since they entered LA, Ezekiel couldn't help but realize something important so he asked, “Did you hook up a radio in this thing?”
“A radio? Of course I did.” Tony said as he reached over to the stereo and turned it on before a second later Black Sabbath started playing.
Tony started bobbing his head slightly to the music as he shifted the car into fourth gear. As the car raised up to over a hundred feet in the air Ezekiel said in a deadpan tone, “Tony… I was talking about Airband radio.”
Tony glanced over as he asked, “Why would I need one of those?”
Ezekiel pointed towards the ground far below as he said in a controlled tone, “We're basically in an airplane…”
Tony waved off Ezekiel’s concern as he said, “It's fine, we're below three hundred feet.”
“This is a car, not a drone.”
Tony shifted into fifth gear which made the car rise to almost two hundred feet as they flew above the Hollywood hills. Ezekiel quickly noticed the elevation change as he asked, “Did that last gear double our height?”
Tony nodded as he shifted the car into six gear which made it shoot up to over four hundred feet. He smiled slightly and pressed down on the accelerator as he said, “This is the best feature of the flight system.”
A sonic boom was left in the car's wake as it hurtled out over the ocean before Tony turned the car so it followed the coastline towards Mexico. Ezekiel raised an eyebrow as he asked in an incredulous tone, “Did you not place a restriction on this thing's top speed?”
“It's the prototype and my personal car.” Tony said it like that explained everything as the landscape below blurred by at increasing speed.
“Do you even know how fast this thing can go?”
“It should hit at least mach three without issue.” Tony said then frowned slightly as he added, “At least that's what my calculations determined with its current aerodynamics.”
Tony glanced towards Ezekiel with a smirk before he said, “But that's what this test drive is for anyways.”
“Do you even have anything that can check our current speed?” Ezekiel asked as he pointed towards the gauge cluster the speedometer that was on zero.
“JARVIS, what is our current speed?”
“Mach one point nine, sir. Also the local news channels are currently talking about you and your flight over LA.” JARVIS said which made Tony smile even wider before he added, “By the way sir, the US Air Force just launched two jets because you flew over secure air space and aren't responding to radio communication. They should catch up to you in six minutes at your current rate of speed.”
“Why didn't you tell me sooner?” Tony asked in an annoyed tone.
“I believe your words before Ezekiel showed up for the test flight were, “If something happens during the test flight just ignore it, we'll figure it out afterwards.” JARVIS said in a happy tone.
“I was talking about the car itself and its capabilities… Getting chased by the air force is a totally different matter!” Tony said as he pushed the accelerator to the floor.
As the car started accelerating to its top speed and the coastline below blurred even more, JARVIS said, “I would caution against increasing the speed so abruptly, the car might not be able to handle it.”
“It'll be…” Tony started to say before the sound of groaning ripped throughout the car.
Ezekiel started to weave a protective barrier around himself and Tony before the hood ripped off and slammed into the windshield. The windshield shattered and glass along with some metal flew everywhere but the magic shield did its job. The hood itself crumpled slightly just moments before it was completely ripped off the car and sliced apart the roof. With the window missing and the large gash in the roof the window that was rushing by them flooded into the car itself.
At first it just slowed them down slightly, but that was only for a second before it started ripping the roof off the car. It wasn't able to finish though because the back window was ripped because of the wind pressure and flew away. All of which happened in less then a few seconds and before Tony could even register what happened. When Tony caught up to everything that happened he glanced around at the damage with a discouraged look.
Ezekiel was about to make a joke when an alarm rang out in the car over the wind. Ezekiel frowned and glanced towards Tony who was wide eyed in panic as the car slowed down instantly and started to fall out of the sky. Ezekiel started casting more protective spells as he asked, “What the hell is happening?!?”
“We… We ran out of fuel.” Tony said in a surprised tone.
“Ran out of fuel? Didn't you say it would last for months?” Ezekiel asked as the car started to tip forward as it fell towards the ocean below.
“It should have, I double checked everything.”
“I found a minor rounding error in the formula that you used to calculate fuel consumption. It wouldn't have been an issue if you stayed around mach one, but the higher speeds caused the fuel to be used up within a minute.” JARVIS chimed in as the car started flipping towards the ocean which was closing in fast.
Tony, who was death gripping the steering wheel, asked in a panicked tone, “You're getting us out of here, right?”
“Yeah, just hold on a few more seconds.”
As the car flipped back over and Tony saw the ocean that was closing in fast he said, “I don't think we have a few more seconds!”
Just before the car hit the ocean a large portal opened below them and they disappeared through it as two jets flew past overhead. On the other side of the portal the front of the car touched the ground but with its speed and rotation it caused it to flip forward. The car flipped dozens of times in a row before it came to a stop on its side. It tittered on its side for a few moments before it dropped to the ground right side up.
Besides the area where Tony and Ezekiel sat, the rest of the car was completely totaled. Ezekiel unbuckled his seat belt and hopped out of the car and looked backwards the way they came from. A trail of car parts was left in their wake and Ezekiel shook his head slightly before he glanced at Tony who was still death gripping the steering wheel with wide eyes.
“I guess that counts as the first car crash on Mars.”
Tony seemed to snap out of his shock as he turned to Ezekiel and asked, “What?”
“I said that is technically the first car crash on Mars… Congratulations.”
Tony unbuckled and jumped out of the car before he frowned as he looked it over. Ezekiel came around to join his as he said, “I hope you learned a lesson from this.”
Tony nodded as he said, “Never test anything unless you're with me.”
Ezekiel gave him a flat look before he said, “No, it's to triple check everything and to install fail safes in case something fails in the first place. You should also do small tests and make sure everything works before you push things to the limit… If I didn't join you, you could have died.”
Tony nodded slowly before he looked directly at Ezekiel and said in a serious tone, “Thanks for saving my life.”
Ezekiel waved it off as he said, “If I didn't save you Pepper would have killed me…”
Tony's eyes widened and he looked even more panicked than when they were falling towards the ocean. He quickly grabbed Ezekiel by the shoulders and said, “You can't tell Pepper about this, she'll kill me!”
“Tell me about what?!?” Pepper's slightly annoyed voice questioned.
Tony quickly turned around to find a portal opened up to his living room with Pepper standing on the other side. Her face started to pale as she noticed the ruined car behind Tony before her face contorted in anger and she asked in a furious tone, “Just what the hell happened here?”
“Don't sweetheart me! Anthony. Edward. Stark. You better tell me exactly what happened here.”
Ezekiel pushed Tony towards the portal as he said, “Hopefully this will help you remember this lesson better…”
As the portal started to close Ezekiel said in a cheerful tone, “By the way, since the car is totaled I'm not replacing the bumper!”