Bant was somewhat surprised by the relationship between Wanda and Eunice, but he didn't find it too strange.
Compared to Vision with his colorful skin and big bald head, Eunice at least looked human, didn't she?
Besides, Felicia hadn't described it clearly at the time. The two of them had been fully clothed when they were pressed together—it was less about grinding and more like they were sensing each other's energy fluctuations.
Wanda's chaos magic was fused with celestial energy, but the chaos magic hadn't fully awakened yet. Due to the experiments, it was normal for her to have a resonance with the energy frequency of the Infinity Stones.
And he had no intention of interfering in his employees' personal lives.
Mary Jane and Felicia rested for a while, each took a shower, and then left Primos. After all that time, it had long since gotten dark.
But time on Sakaar didn't sync with Earth's.
It wasn't that time flowed faster there. Actually, after Bant had sealed off those wormholes, the time flow on Sakaar had gradually stabilized.
But the planet's size was different, and it orbited a different star, which meant Sakaar's day-night cycle didn't align with Earth's. At this moment, the region where Stark was located was still in daylight.
He lay sprawled on crimson-red rock, staring up at the sky with unfocused eyes.
His body was covered in wounds, his face caked with filthy mud and blackened blood. His lips were cracked from thirst, his hair greasy and matted together. The once-expensive clothes on his body were now tattered beyond recognition, and his hands and feet were bound in chains, his wrists and ankles rubbed raw and blackened... he looked like he'd been wandering for over a decade.
It was laughable, really. Just a few days ago, he'd thought he'd witnessed a miracle—that wormhole that appeared out of nowhere hadn't crushed him and his spaceship into dust, but instead had brought him to a living planet.
"Heh, I thought a miracle had appeared..."
He laughed despairingly, his mouth twisting into an ugly arc that split his lips and sent blood trickling down again.
But he didn't care, as if he hadn't noticed at all. Those eyes, filled with regret, were lost in memory.
——
A few days earlier.
Above what was originally Sakaar's junkyard, a small wormhole opened.
Tony was stuck halfway through the wormhole, head pointing down, like a constipated turd that couldn't quite drop.
Gravity slowly pooled his blood toward his brain. Tony's face flushed bright red—half from the blood rushing to his head, half from excitement.
Because through the glass in front of him, he could see the outside world—a planet! A planet full of technological artifacts!
His eyes reflected the mountains of garbage piled on Sakaar.
This was something Sakaar had always had.
In the past, because of those cosmic passages, countless civilizations had dumped their waste onto Sakaar, turning it into a literal garbage planet.
After Bant took control of Sakaar, as the Child of Sakaar, he had awakened the planet's life force and resolved the deep-rooted pollution, revitalizing the planet. But the garbage that already existed wasn't so easy to clear away.
Although he'd already turned several of Sakaar's moons into processing facilities for hazardous waste and recycling, a planet-sized area couldn't be cleared that quickly—there was still a vast expanse covered in garbage.
Recently, because of the Korbinites joining Sakaar, the Celestial Union had accelerated their garbage processing efforts, but progress was still slow.
Mainly because Kaela believed most of that garbage contained usable technology. After all, any civilization capable of dumping trash into cosmic wormholes couldn't have poor tech. Throughout history, the Sakaarans had always depended on this garbage for survival.
And precisely because of that, Bant had been able to prepare an authentic Sakaar experience for Tony.
But the moment Tony saw that garbage, far from being disgusted, he got excited.
In his view, where there was garbage, there was probably life. And even if there wasn't, it didn't matter.
When he was stuck up in the sky, he'd already seen it—those mountainous piles of garbage contained plenty of metal constructs and many high-tech items that seemed damaged. With those, he could build something with his own hands and create a legend!
For a genius like Tony, who could forge the Mark armor in a cave, he didn't fear harsh environments or having nothing but scrap metal around him. What he feared was not even having scrap metal. If he'd crashed on a primitive planet with absolutely nothing, that would've been the worst.
"Even if there's no one on this planet, with that stuff and by tearing apart this coffin of a ship, I can build a real interstellar vessel!"
With that thought, Tony threw himself against the metal hull with all his might, desperate to crash down faster.
He had to hurry!
No one knew when Ultron would start slaughtering all of humanity.
At that thought, anxiety surged through him again, making it harder to breathe. He gasped for air, muttering reassurances to himself: "Don't panic, don't panic, Tony Stark. It's not that bad yet!"
"Ultron didn't tell anyone its plan except me, because no one is truly on its side..."
"Those two kids just wanted to deal with me, so they cooperated with it. If Ultron exposed its plan, they'd definitely rally the other heroes to fight back!"
Tony reasoned that he still had time, and the anxiety slowly receded like a tide.
He even fantasized that once Wanda and Quicksilver achieved their goal, maybe they'd abandon their cooperation with Ultron and relay Earth's situation to Bant at Celestial Union headquarters.
But he quickly dismissed that unrealistic idea.
In his view, Wanda and Quicksilver were already traitors to the Celestial Union. Unless absolutely forced, they were unlikely to contact the Union voluntarily. And according to Ultron, it had already cut off communications between Earth and the Celestial Union—even Peter couldn't reach Bant, so they probably couldn't either.
"I can't put my hopes in others!"
Tony gritted his teeth and kept slamming against the hull.
Soon, the small ship began to shake, then with a crash, it plummeted heavily into the garbage pile below.
"Sss..."
Despite the massive cushioning from the garbage, Tony was still knocked senseless. His head cracked open, blood flowing into his eyes, and his body felt like it had been rammed by a heavy object—dull and aching.
"Ah... I knew that unfilial brat wouldn't be kind enough to install a shock absorption system." Tony spat blood from the corner of his mouth and kicked hard at the ship's door.
He suspected his arm might be fractured from the fall, and he probably had some internal bleeding too.
"Click."
Tony kicked the ship a few more times and fumbled around, and he actually managed to find the button to open the door.
Ultron hadn't welded the ship's door shut. Perhaps it never imagined Tony could be rescued. In its view, opening the hatch could only hasten Tony Stark's death—it was pure suicide.
"Hah!"
Tony immediately scrambled out. The air that greeted him wasn't foul-smelling like he'd imagined. On the contrary, it was incredibly fresh, and even his Earth-born body felt no discomfort.
He knew he'd been reckless. On a planet with unknown atmospheric composition, acting so rashly could mean suffocating the moment he opened the hatch, or being poisoned by toxic gases.
But he had no choice.
Staying inside was just a slower death. What was the difference?
He greedily breathed in the oxygen, dizzy and disoriented, while his eyes constantly scanned left and right. The surroundings were garbage like crater rings—the ship's crash had gouged out a garbage pit.
He looked up again: "Luckily the wormhole wasn't too high, or I'd have died on impact."
Then, Tony scrambled up the garbage mountain on all fours.
In an instant, the camera pulled back—an endless ocean of garbage spread out before him, vast and undulating like waves upon waves. And he was like a tiny ant in the middle of the sea...
No sense of direction, no end in sight.
Looking at that boundless expanse of garbage, Tony first felt a suffocating helplessness, but then his heart stirred with excitement again.
"With this much garbage, there's bound to be what I need in here!"
"I can build a communicator first, see if I can connect to this planet's civilization channels and call for help... no, I can't rely solely on them. I need to start on an aircraft too!"
He quickly made plans for both contingencies.
"But first, I should figure out how to splint my hand, then find something to eat..."
He hadn't eaten in days, hadn't even had water. There were no kind-hearted terrorists here to bring him food.
Tony was just about to turn around and see which part of the garbage caught his eye when a massive engine roar came from the sky.
He froze instantly, looking up like a refugee, squinting to see the distant sky.
There, a black dot was rapidly approaching!
He was elated, his heart like a long-parched desert finally meeting nourishing rain.
Saved!
He couldn't believe his luck was this good. He'd thought being sent into space by Ultron meant suffocating in the vast cosmos, his corpse drifting thousands of light-years before anyone found it.
He never expected the turning point to come so quickly!
He squinted and waved frantically.
The black aircraft was fast—clearly very advanced.
Judging from the garbage here and that aircraft's technology, Tony concluded this planet's tech level was high, at least not inferior to Earth's.
Normally, he'd never be so rash without knowing an alien race's temperament, but right now he couldn't afford caution.
No one knew what was happening on Earth. He had to seize any opportunity!
And Tony figured that with his intellect, he could persuade them to keep him alive—at the very least, he'd be more useful alive than dead.
The ship had indeed spotted him, or maybe it had been headed for him from the start. Its speed was already slowing.
Tony thought to himself.
'Maybe they detected the wormhole?'
Whatever the case, he had to seize this chance!
"BOOM!!"
The engine and thruster sounds grew louder and louder.
He gradually made out the ship's appearance—very peculiar, like something out of a sci-fi movie on Earth. It looked full of advanced technology, yet also extremely old. The hull was weathered and battered, without a single patch of intact paint.
Only then did he notice the ship wasn't actually black—the surface color had oxidized beyond recognition, making it appear black.
Tony blinked.
He knew this "worn battlefield" tech style!
Back in the Middle Eastern terrorist stronghold, every truck you pulled out looked like that—rusted, dust-covered.
A bad feeling suddenly rose in his heart, but before he could think further, the ship was already hovering above his head. Its movable flame thrusters angled toward the ground, blasting wave after wave of scorching heat at him, as if trying to evaporate every drop of moisture from his body!
Tony raised his arms to shield himself slightly, but his foot slipped and he tumbled back into the pit, rolling all the way to the bottom.
Solid metal slammed into his broken left hand, worsening the injury. But he couldn't feel any pain now—his mind was filled with the desire to find the Celestial Union and strike back at Ultron. He crawled toward the ship.
The thrusters' flames slowly died down, and the ship descended halfway. The hatch opened, and a crowd of aliens in various colors—but all dressed like beggars—surged out. The one in front looked like a Somali pirate chief: fierce and menacing, missing his right foot and using a mechanical prosthetic in its place.
But Tony couldn't see clearly. Both his eyes were swimming with blood, and everything before him was a blur.
He only saw a group of people emerge from the ship and surround him. The leader approached, seemed to size him up, then turned back to the others, shook his head, and chattered something unintelligible before turning back.
Tony couldn't understand, but that didn't stop him from pleading for help.
"Do you know the Celestial Union? An interstellar organization, very famous! My friend is a security officer for the Celestial Union. If you can help me contact them, I'll definitely repay you!"
Earth was probably unknown in the cosmos, so Tony cleverly waved the Celestial Union's banner, hoping the organization that could scare off even Thanos was famous enough.
Sure enough, after he mentioned the Celestial Union, those people seemed to become much friendlier.
The leader even extended a hand toward him, as if to pull him up.
Tony breathed a sigh of relief and quickly offered his still-working right hand. Then he heard a "pfft"—a gunshot—followed by an electrified net instantly enveloping his face.
"Take him away!"
"This kid doesn't look like he can fight. Sell him straight to the mines!"
"Damn, what a loss! A white slave garbage like this won't even fetch enough for rice! Two years ago, we'd have just stewed him for meat!"
The man looked thoroughly disgusted as he dragged the convulsing, electrocuted Tony back to the ship.
/-\
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