“What’re you looking for, Mandarin?” Mr. Hill asked, ignoring the looks being sent their way by Mechanar, Apocalypse, Kang, Doom, Graviton, and Maelstrom. Modred seemed to be in his own world...

“Your protection and your obedience,” the Master of the Ten Rings replied immediately. “Those six are fools who believe they can survive on their own, and do not think they need aid or help, or are so brilliant they do not believe they need others. Until this... farce is over, I would like to buy your loyal service. In return, I offer guidance, direction, and I will value your lives as those of my family until our return to Terra.”

Mr. Hill eyed him coolly as he contemplated those words, turned them over in his head, and brought them back out.

“Mandarin, us Westerners have different ideas of what family means than the Orient does. We are not a father-led family, where one voice dominates, and loyalty and duty all flow uphill. I am completely aware of yer reputation, how ya deal with failure, and how ya expect service right up until death of yer servants, but don’t truly compensate them in return, except for occasional recognition and the inevitable promotions that happen when ya ace yer own people.”

The Mandarin’s lips thinned. He was not used to being spoken to so bluntly, especially by a Westerner and a criminal!

But then, he knew the Mountain.

“So, here’s the play. Ya want to be in charge. We all get that. You’re used to being in charge, yer good at being in charge, and best of all, you’re a Schmot Guy. You might, MIGHT, be able ta get us home.

“What we want... is ta get home. This lame farce of killing whoever is in the other ship over there is a joke. We accept we’ll have ta fight, but we’re not here to jump through hoops for some cosmic god-thing.

“You accept the job of getting us all home, and we’ll follow ya all the way.”

The Mandarin was about to speak, but the Mountain continued on, “This, however, is a seller’s market. Those yahoos over there are also Schmot Guys. They’re gonna come up with sumthin’, and then golly-gosh Mrs. Jones’ pantaloons, they’re gonna realize they need some muscle and some hands to get things done, imagine that.” Soft knowing chuckles broke out behind him. That was how it always was...

“Then they’re gonna ask us ta follow them, promisin’ we’ll all get home. At that point, either you and them are gonna have words, or there needs to be a contract.

“One million rubles, each of us, when we get home. If one of us dies, it goes ta our heirs. I’ll take care of that for ya.

“You make that contract, we ignore them when they come pandering for us. They deal with you. You’re the Schmot Guy. If what they say makes sense, fine, you tell us ta help’em, we’ll help ‘em.

“As you’re the Schmot Guy, you gotta be alive ta help us get home. We’ll protect ya in a fight, we’ll obey the smart orders, and if they might get us killed, well, them’s the risks we take.”

The Mountain drew himself up to his full height as the Mandarin considered that. “I got one last thing ta say about this deal.

“There’s a little lady back home I work with, and that girl is lookin’ fer me. She’s already spoken ta me, and she knows what’s going down.

“Ima tell her about this deal, and this contract, and if ya make it home, and we don’t, or someone breaks this contract so they can get home and we can’t, then ya better be playing with a full deck, because she’s gonna be comin’ for ya.

“If ya want some help on the other end, I can relay messages ta her. There’ll be a price ta talk through her, but that’s by the line.” There were murmurs coming up from behind him at the news he could talk with home from way out wherever they were.

“Mandarin, that’s the contract. I ain’t writin’ it down, ‘cause I gots no paper. You deal with us straight, I’ll make sure we deal with you straight. If someone wants to break the contract, I’ll make ‘em dead.” Without turning around, he lifted his voice. “That’s the contract I’m vouching for, ya mooks. Ya got a problem with it, ya step out now. Ya take his promise for the money that’s coming, yer on my rep, and my rep says if ya break that contract, I am going to kill ya.

“Now, either buy in, or flark off.”

There were a few quiet murmurs behind, and some wavering, but nobody moved.

“Hey, Hill, you mean Dealer, right?” the Abomination spoke up gruffly.

“I do indeed, Blonsky,” he confirmed, smiling grimly around his cigar, and his grey eyes gleamed.

“She can get me back on the Colosseum. Still don’t know how I ended up here. I’m all in, Hill. Nobody on the Colosseum fucks with Dealer, unless they want thousands of battlemad alien super-gladiators ready to chop them into a bloody mess. Hell, Champion himself might decide to pay them a visit. Who else is gonna make him Combicha Ten?”

The Abomination’s words even made the Mandarin realize that this was going to be a very serious contract, indeed. He had naturally seen the display the alien gladiator had put on, and of course the size of his ship and sheer danger inherent in his students... who had basically proven impervious to any kind of offers made them, of which there had been a great many. Terran rubes trying to buy the greatest fighters in the universe from under their peerless master. As if!

“One million rubles, each,” the Mandarin repeated. “You will serve me, and protect me, until we all get home. If I do not get home, you do not get paid. You will not transfer your loyalty to another. In return, I will use all my efforts to get us all home safely.”

Mr. Hill nodded slowly. “We shake on this, there’s a contract. Everyone ready ta be under contract?” He waited for the slow assents behind him before sticking out his hand. “Ready for a contract.”

It was a Western gesture, something between equals, but if he considered The Mountain a lesser being, the Mandarin did not let it show as he took the bigger man’s hand and shook on the deal.

“First recommendation, boss,” the Mountain said calmly. “Take possession of that killbot right now.”

The Mandarin shot him an interested glance, but didn’t hesitate. With a skirl of metal and glitter from one of his Rings, the inert Ultron robot was tugged away from the floor and deposited in Mr. Hill’s hands swiftly.

“Creel, give it a touch.” The Absorbing Man stepped forward to touch the grey shell of the robot, and his skin instantly took on the same shade of metal, transmuted to nigh-indestructible adamantium. “Awright, we’re coming up on the planet.” Startled, all the mercs there looked up, to see the land looming up ahead of them. “We ain’t braking, so I think we’re gonna get dumped. No one get spooked, I’ll lessen gravity and we’ll all float down nicely.

“Boss, you want ta reprogram this thing, or you want Octo-girl ta do it?” Mr. Hill asked evenly.

Mandarin considered the leering face of the killbot, and waved his hand. “I can speed the process if the parts can be put in place. I do not have the resources with me to do it myself.”

Mr. Hill just nodded. “Eight-legs, bot is yers. Tear out its core, fry it, and put in something ya can trust, with a kill switch on it just in case. Oh, and disconnect a digit or something so Creel can hold onto it.”

“You got it, Mr. Hill,” the Lady Octopus said, two of her mechanical arms reaching out to coil around the robot and lift it away from his hand. Mr. Hill had a rep, and part of that was that he didn’t touch the women. Pretty much all the Powered outlaw women knew it, and he got a lot of instant trust from them for it.

The ship came to a sudden stop, and as abruptly as they’d appeared in the ship, it was gone from around them.

The instinctive shouts stopped almost instantly, as everyone realized they were falling amazingly slowly from a couple hundred feet up.

Hill was still puffing on his cigar as he turned slowly over, putting his feet towards the ground. “Turn around, numbskulls, yer makin’ the boss look bad.”

The Swordsman had swung up behind the Dreadknight on his cyber steed, while the others not with them were flying under their own power, be it by anti-grav or rockets of some sort or another method.

Nearby was some sort of alien fortress or city or something, no doubt what they were supposed to use for their first base. Unconcerned about it, Mr. Hill headed slowly for the ground with the other mercenary villains around, the Mandarin leading the way under perfect control, one of his Rings gleaming and even tugging everyone into alignment so their descent behind him looked more impressive.

-------

While there were enough fliers to get everyone to the ground without issue, or they had their own means, Darkstar and Sunstone simply spun up a disk of golden light and darkness, easily big enough to carry everyone. The Patriot directed them to the fortress nearby, obviously put there for them, and the heroes headed off to it.

The Secret War of the Beyonder had begun.

Except, of course, there wasn’t much Secret about this one.

-------

“It’s time to consolidate you in Markspace, Dyna,” Sama said firmly. “Keep the Vaccine for the other parties, but this needing a relay to alert us is dumb. Get down here and synch up Marks.”

I just sighed. “Fine. Where are you at? You don’t show up on Cosmic Awareness.”

There was a flicker of a Presence that was abruptly impossible NOT to notice. It was the core of a reinforcement of Reality so hard it was like looking at a mountain of absoluteness extending out around her and backwards through time, growing and rippling as it did, locking in ever larger areas as those she’d met with interacted with others, and that interaction spread across space and time and Could Not Be Changed.

Man, no wonder the time travelers hated her. Her Temporal Presence was intergalactic in its intensity and ramifications!

“Be on top of the HQ shortly.”

Eternals could teleport at will, although they didn’t really like it, as they weren’t good at it. I... was very good at it, and had a lot more energy than any Eternal. There was a range limit to what they could do, but this was basically the equivalent of a Linejump for me, like spending a VIII Valence, and my Core could totally sustain it.

Since I didn’t need to bring others, no reason to use a Portal.

The Aakon base was smashed to bits, the typhoon worm decided that there wasn’t enough of the yellow-skinned creature-munchies to make it worthwhile, and under my glare headed back down to the planet from the small moon. It had no intention of leaving the planet again for some years, at the very least.

With a hiss of particle effects and bending of space, I Teleported off to Terra.

---

With a quiet pop, I forced the air out of the way, matched intrinsics, and materialized in the sky above San Francisco. Champion Tower was right below me, and I just power-descended there down to the top of it.

The defenses couldn’t normally read my appearance, but Specs did a handshake with their systems, and there was no attempt to Stillflight or pop up any force fields to stop me.

I saw Sama come out on the veranda around the top floor, kick off absently from it, and hop up on the roof with no effort, given her lightfoot.

I basically fell down from the sky right next to her, sighing as I did.

“You move like you’ve been doing that all your life,” she noted expertly.

“I’m an extremely quick learner,” I replied neutrally. “Very focused, you know?” A strand of my hair went up my nose, touched my Mark there, and calmly dragged it out of my nasal cavity along my skin. Sama’s eyes were only knowing as she watched it come out and plant itself on my cheek. The Demonic black Rune with the celestial energy empowering it certainly did look odd if you truly understood what both were.

“Hah!” She just pulled up her left sleeve, baring her tricep. Black Demonic Rune, just like mine, but lit by neutral white post-vivic energy. Mine was naturally Intellect, and hers matched it expectantly.

I bent down, touched my cheek to her shoulder, and submitted mine to hers, such as it was, allowing them to synch up.

They flashed and harmonized as they matched, and mine sort of became a derivation of hers.

I shielded myself somewhat, as did my Dupes, while the Markspace around us roiled and opened up.

It reminded me of Aelryinth’s Allegiance, just with more high-Level people, and people with higher Levels. Karma came easy in a supersverse, especially with only three tranches to use.

Sama and Briggs sat alone at the top. Nobody else born mortal had passed Twenty yet, although it looked like one of Briggs’ boys was really close, and basically probably holding himself back to spend his Karma on more foundation Chi Techniques, by the look of things. The glow of Briggs’ Sun and the hardness of Sama’s Null probably weren’t easy to see if you weren’t developed enough, but if you could see them, you could definitely tell they weren’t mortal any more.