The heroes hold their conference...

The bolt of energy came down out of the blue and slew them all in one strike. I knew Doom was listening in on their plans to resist, and I could only grit my teeth as he casually struck them down.

Well, he thought he struck them down.

Sunny dumped her Light Core and the Sunstone into The Pocket, and discorporated even as the bolt struck. With her went Darkstar, also dumping her Dark Core.

The Patriot pushed himself up from the ashes, his Shield humming on his back, subtle energies around it misdirecting the Cosmic Awareness looking for signs of life. Doom was satisfied all were dead, and went looking elsewhere.

Steve Rogers looked at Thor’s Hammer, the blasted ashen skeleton of the God of Thunder still holding onto it. Even the nigh-invulnerable icons of Team Gamma, the Hulk and She-Hulk, were totally unrecognizable.

That was a pretty big jolt, feeling everyone die like that. I couldn’t jerk all of their souls in, either, or Doom would have felt it.

General Rogers looked up as I materialized in the room. “Dynamo,” he breathed, closing his eyes. “Did they make it here?”

“Yes. Do not worry, General, I have this,” I replied to him in a soothing voice.

I snapped my fingers, and Sunstone materialized next to me, Duped out and ready to go again. She even had her spells ready, because she snapped HER fingers, and Darkstar materialized next to her as well.

Darkstar had died over four years ago, not long after she and Sunstone had first met. Stutgard the Hivemind had infiltrated her mind, made her a brainspawn, and she had died when the viral telepath was killed.

Sunny had taken her in with a Godmerge, Restored her mind and soul, and Duplicated her out. They were close because they were Duplicate and Prime, just like Sunny was to me.

It also meant that Darkstar had something no mutant could normally claim, and that was an Ultra Core. She had been filling it nonstop with Darkforce ever since Sunny had shared hers, and it had contributed greatly to their synergy and her own physical ability, making them much more equal.

“What do you need from me?” the Patriot asked softly, staring around the remnants of the table they’d been assembled at.

Glowing golden particle effects rose around my hands. “Very happily, there is no vivus active here, General, and I have cosmic power to use. I can bring EVERYONE back... and then, whatever you were planning to do against Doom, is what is going to be done.”

He gave me a hard smile as golden lights swirled around the barely-recognizable, warped body of Reed Richards, and flesh began to regrow on the corpse instantly. “This is a totally hardcore plan of yours, you know.”

“Don’t I know it. Sunny, obfuscate any Awareness coming this way. Ashes and skeletons, nothing to see here.”

“Got it, Dynamo,” Sunny said firmly, hands moving, and lights playing about them, resolving into Runes and Sigils of distinctly sacred aspect.

“You’re a sorceress!” Steve Rogers exclaimed, shocked.

“I prefer the term Divine Theurge, thank you, General,” Sunstone replied in her lilting accent, while Darkstar just looked on, waiting for Sunstone to nod before injecting a lot of inky black energy into the swelling pattern there. It expanded, turning invisible as it did, and the Awareness of the Cosmic was blocked and a convenient illusion substituted.

It wasn’t that it couldn’t be pierced easily by Doom, but he had to know it was there to do so...

“There is a machine in the next room that heals injuries. Reed said it could even restore the recently deceased. Should I start using that?” the Patriot asked after a moment.

“It would not hurt. I am using just enough power to keep their souls lingering here, and it is slowing the restoration of their bodies. Please, General.”

The Patriot carefully gathered together the body of Clint Barton, and headed for the machine. He’d seen Reed operate it, and would have no problems duplicating what he’d seen done.

Annihilated in an instant by a bolt from the blue, the heroes were going to return as strong as ever.

---------

Sometime later...

Lightmaster was sending waves of creatures made of silent light at the incoming heroes, his powers greatly enhanced by Doom, who was going through a mental breakdown. I could sense the subtle mental pressure infiltrating Doom, making his power uncontrollable, and his thoughts with it. Even if I had not restored the heroes, it was likely the lies spun by the Beyonder from Lightmaster’s head would have prodded Doom’s subconscious to do so.

-Now.-

Doom was collapsing. The Beyonder’s spark leapt out of Lightmaster, tearing its power away from Doom...

Golden claws came out of nowhere, and slashed through that spark. There was a moment of absolute disbelief that it could even die, and then the Beyonder hissed out of existence in a swirl of unwhiteness, slain by a Courtier of Death.

The released power gathered, swirled as Doom howled and tried to grasp at it, condensing, flowing down, gathering to a single point... inside a hollow Cube resting on a gauntleted hand.

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Doom gaped at the sight of his Master staring grimly down at him, a newborn Cosmic Cube in his hand, holding all the power that a moment ago had been Doom’s.

Endure tapped the floor once, and an archway opened in midair. A familiar walled building and landscape, with familiar flags atop the distant homes, waited beyond. “Go home, Victor,” the Great Bear said grimly, as his fist closed about the Cube.

“Master, you...” Doom could not even say the words.

Endure reached out, poked the stunned and motionless Lightmaster in the chest, and then Master Briggs, the Great Bear, faded from sight, as if he had never been there at all.

Doom heard the sounds of fighting and the rising voices outside, and shook off the gaping hollowness within him. He grabbed Lightmaster, feeling the flesh and heartbeat of a living man there, and half-led, half-hauled the restored man through that Portal. As it closed behind him, slamming a door on infinite power and infinite dreams, he could only wonder what the Great Bear had actually done, how he had been manipulated... and silently stoke his growing rage.

-----

The heroes, beaten and battered, entered the throne room, to find me floating there, waiting for them.

“Doom?” General Rogers asked shortly, glancing around.

“Back home, with nothing but hazy memories of what actually happened here,” I replied, and everyone there sighed in relief. The fighting outside had been pretty intense, and I waved my hand and restored all their clothing easily. A second spark of golden light took care of anything bleeding, and most of the bumps and bruises too, as it broke over them all. They all groaned in relief.

“Everyone ready to get the Hell out of here and back home?” I asked them.

The response was heavy in the affirmatives. “First, leave any technology you acquired here behind. It’s been touched by the Beyonder, and we don’t want that getting back to Terra. Mr. Rhodey, I’m going to be cutting that extra gear on your armor off.”

There was a general unhandling of weapons, Arrow getting rid of his bow and arrows after his own set had been ruined, Reed depositing all the alien tech he’d used to replace his own, and everyone else following suit, with everything from coms to water packs.

When it was all done, I powered up a Portal through my suit, leading to the back lot of the Baxter Building, and sent everyone on through.

----------

In another room, sharp-nailed hands touched a control knob, and a dark ball of strange matter appeared on a concave tray there. The artful hand reached down, and touched the black blob.

“Don’t try to fool me. I know what a Klyntar is.” The black blob that was starting to spread over her hand stilled as it sensed a dangerous power come over it, and an oddly white, mask-like set of eyes and a jagged painted mouth appeared on the surface of the ball as Sama Rantha lifted it up.

“I know what you are, and what you can do. You do not know the same of me. Your kind have a fell reputation, Klyntar, but also... some of you are trying. You, in particular, have a great destiny ahead of you, if you should choose to come with me. There is much you will have to learn to embrace that greatness ahead of you, but I think you will be able to become very great, indeed, if you do so.

“Are you ready to embrace that destiny, Klyntar?”

There was hesitation from the black ball, but it had been imprisoned for so long, and it had finally found its way out. There was an immensely powerful potential host sitting there right in front of it, with full knowledge of what was coming.

“Yessssss,” the blob of blackness whispered, more telepathy than voice, and began to spread up her arm...

----------

The storm came out of nowhere, startling the guards of the compound as it billowed up in front of them, clearly of unnatural origins. They struggled to close the open gates, but the winds blowing through defied them, and when the roars of powerful engines filled the air, they abandoned trying, hurling themselves to the sides to get out of the way as the incoming vehicles charged past them.

They were all in the master’s gold and green.

The vehicles blew down the long road, slowing quickly as they did and the master’s men assembled on the sides of the road, staring at the strange caravan driving past them.

“The Master! The Master is back!” shouted one of the guards, as they saw the man seated on the golden throne atop the monstrous truck with the gigantic wheels that loomed above all the other vehicles.

The Mandarin sighed, opened his eyes, and got to his feet.

His splendid robes were tattered and torn, burned by hellish flames and torn by the claws of wild beasts, desperate scavvers, and the Damned Riders of the Chase. His long dark hair drifted free, and there were scars on his face and bandages on his chest and shoulder.

But he was the Mandarin, and he would stand tall before his people.

His silent soldiers took in the signs of brutal battle damage, from the holes in armor plate, to the rending gashes of scars, the tearing flurry of saw blades, the punching rips of rams, and the dented sides of brutal blows and crashing cars.

But they had made it. They had ALL made it, even though some of them had been terribly wounded during the trip. The bright colors and mystical animals on their Rides were scarred and mangled, but they had finished their trip.

The Mick led the slowed caravan up to the great circle of the Mandarin’s courtyard, pulling around it and back, the other vehicles following in a line they kept to like iron, just like they had all along the Road.

The Monster Truck halted before the stairs leading up to his palace, the snarling, bull-like ornamentation on it rent badly and barely recognizable.

The Mandarin did not get down from the truck. He waited as the great forms of the Abomination and Cain Marko, still draped in ragged remnants of his own livery, dismounted from the carriers they had fought from, the sides of them peeled off and windows shattered, yet still running and intact despite the blood staining it and gore hanging here and there from shattered, riven metal.

The two huge men reached up to where the back of the truck had long been blasted away, and pulled forth the golden throne with steady hands. With no effort, the Mandarin and the throne made for him was lifted from the back of the Monster Truck, and carefully and cleanly brought down before his household guards, just touching the first stair up to his residence.

The Mandarin took his first and last step off the throne since he had mounted it, and was back home.

He bowed his head to his home, closing his eyes for a moment, and then turned to face the men and women who were standing in those bloody and battered vehicles.

None of them were Chinese, but all but the Mick were in his livery. They had all fought to deliver him home, and he, in turn, had fought to see that all of them came home, too.

He looked over them all, and said the only words he could. “Your contract is fulfilled! I thank you all for your service!”

Magic swirled in the air, and swept across all those in front of him. The remnants of his livery were swept away, revealing the bloody and torn clothing beneath. The wounded celestial animals wrought upon the vehicles vanished, along with their coloring and ornamentation, and the mangled, battle-scarred array of odd and strange modes of transport were left behind.

“A pleasure doing business with you, sir!” the Mick called out, standing by his Mustang, almost as battered and beaten as the rest of the cars. “Gentlemen, we’ve delivered our client home. It’s time we did the same. Follow me!”

He stepped back into his tired and battered car, yet it roared to life, as if it didn’t look ready to fall apart. The throaty roars of the strange vehicles circled behind him quickly joined him.

“Clear the road!” the Mandarin ordered, and his people hurriedly got out of the way as the Westerners who had delivered their Master home drove past them. As they did, the wind which had blown into the city earlier was now blowing the other way, and another odd cloud was rising outside of the compound. The caravan of vehicles entered it, and the noise of their motors rapidly died away.