Tony was woken by pain.
The alien who had captured him dumped him roughly on the ground, and the jagged rock pressed against his broken arm—which now looked like a snapped branch, held together only by tough skin.
The pain had him drenched in sweat, nearly grinding his teeth to pieces, and the sweat plastered the dust from the ground onto his face.
After a while, it slowly went numb. He felt as though his left hand had completely lost all sensation, like something limp and floppy was hanging from his shoulder. He glanced down at it. The entire arm had gone black, so much stagnant blood pooled inside it that it made his head swim.
Even in this state, Tony knew perfectly well that if he delayed any longer, his arm would be beyond saving—and the arm might even take his life with it.
He immediately tried to call for help, his gaze darting around until he spotted several pairs of mismatched feet shoved together.
One of the Sakaarians, with blue-gray skin, looked at the scavengers with displeasure. "Mitchell, what are you bringing me trash like this for?"
After Sakaar entered its new era, the scavengers who had originally lived on this planet hadn't disappeared. There was still plenty of garbage around, and that garbage was both waste and wealth. If you got lucky and found something valuable to turn in to the imperial capital, you could rise to the top in a single leap.
But whether in the past or now, someone like Tony Stark wasn't worth much.
This kid clearly had no useful skills, and one of his arms was ruined. Whether you threw him into the arena or dumped him in the mines, he'd be worthless. No one would want to buy him.
A year or two ago, he might still have had some value—you could just kill him and give everyone a change of palate, barely enough for a meal of meat.
But now? The Sky Union ruled Sakaar, and they'd issued plenty of laws. Any being with higher intelligence was now off the menu. Besides, things weren't like before. Even scavengers didn't lack for a few bites of food. After the planet's revival, grain and livestock production had increased dramatically. No one would risk eating an alien of unknown origin.
Who knew if the other party carried some infectious disease, or if some part of their body was toxic?
That white pig looked like he'd been shot full of drugs anyway…
"You wasted your trip! Mitchell, I'm not spending a single coin on a cripple!" The mine owner was a Sakaarian, and he shook his head coldly, glancing at Tony without a shred of pity. "I guarantee that kind of goods won't be able to lift a finger in the mines, and I'd still have to feed him. A complete waste! Those prisoners are far stronger than him. Honestly, you shouldn't have bothered bringing him here at all!"
"Now, don't say that, Beck. I made the trip out there—I can't go back empty-handed… And since I'm already here… How about this: I won't ask for money. Just give me a bag of amber oki fruit. We'll trade fruit for him."
The scavenger Mitchell scratched his head, his messy hair looking like it was crawling with lice, with the air of a thief who never leaves empty-handed.
"If you don't want him, just feed him to the beasts. He fell out of a wormhole anyway—if he dies, he dies."
"A bag of amber oki fruit… Fine." The gray Sakaarian stroked his chin, thought it over, and put on a reluctant expression. "But Mitchell, let me make this clear: next time, if you find someone strong and sturdy, don't forget about me."
"Of course, of course… Hm, what's that noise… Is the kid waking up?"
Tony heard a commotion. The injury to his arm had left his body in terrible shape, and his vision was still blurry, but at least he knew his life was probably safe for now.
He lifted his head and saw the rows of feet shuffle into motion, walking toward him. The two in front were naturally Mitchell and the Sakaarian mine owner—Tony knew his days ahead would likely be spent working for the man.
Whatever price he paid, since he bought me, he probably won't let me die so easily…
He thought to himself that this was his chance to ask for help.
Next, he needed to prove his value, and then earn the opportunity to speak with the other party as equals.
Tony was very confident in this regard.
No matter the situation, a person's intelligence and genuine ability would never betray him. He could always find a way out through his wits.
If he seized this opportunity, he might be able to use their resources to contact the Sky Union, contact Banter, and save Earth!
His mind was growing foggier, but his thoughts remained clear.
Watching the two men approach, he opened his mouth to call for help, his voice weak and hoarse: "Help me… I can work for you… I'm a scien—"
Before he could finish, he was cut off.
The Sakaarian kicked him in the left shoulder, sending the already-injured Tony tumbling across the ground several times. His curled-up body sprawled open like a dead dog, and his left arm flopped to the side at an unnatural angle.
Then the Sakaarian grabbed a massive, rust-covered axe and raised it high above his head. The axe's shadow fell over Tony's agonized face.
"You were supposed to work for me from the start—you're my property!"
With that, he brought the axe crashing down—dark blood gushed out, and something no better than a twisted pretzel went flying.
"AHHH!"
Pain instantly crawled from the cut at his shoulder through Tony's entire body. He curled up, reaching out to clutch his wound, but there was nothing there anymore. Blood alone dyed half his body red in an instant, and his throat was so hoarse it sounded torn.
Beyond the physical pain, what tormented Tony even more, what he found hardest to accept, was that he had lost one of his arms forever.
"Annoying thing!" Beck glanced at him with disgust, pulled out a bottle that looked like bug spray, and sprayed a cold white mist at the wound on Tony's left shoulder with a "pshhh—" that instantly stopped the bleeding. Then he turned his head and ordered the others: "Get him an arm—just use one from the junk pile—and throw him into the mines!"
As he spoke, Beck even kicked Tony's severed arm aside with obvious distaste, making a "tsk tsk" sound.
Then some kind of alien dog-like creature darted out from some unknown corner, opened a mouth full of fangs, and in a few bites crushed and swallowed the arm, bones and all.
Tony just watched, helplessly, as that vicious dog devoured his left hand in two or three mouthfuls.
Then several red-skinned and gray-skinned people came over, grabbed Tony by both legs, and dragged him away. He couldn't even get out a complete sentence, but the look he gave that Sakaarian was filled with pure hatred.
…
After that, he ended up at a mine on Sakaar.
Here, many people wore prison uniforms and were crammed into the cold, damp cells of the mine, surviving on a single yellow fruit that the mine owner doled out each day.
The cells here didn't even have a wooden plank bed—just a layer of straw spread on the ground like a pigpen, barely enough to count as a place to sleep.
He was already exhausted. A rusty arm had been crudely attached to his left shoulder, making him look like a budget version of the Winter Soldier.
More importantly, he didn't know whether it was a rejection reaction, or tetanus from the rust piercing his skin, or simply inflammation—but half his body was in agony. If he could just pass out, it might be more bearable, but the pain and the hatred kept his mind terrifyingly clear.
He, the great Tony Stark—when had he ever suffered such humiliation?
Even back in the Middle East, the terrorists had needed something from him and had gone to every length to keep him alive and well. But this gray-skinned bastard treated him like a lowly slave, as rough as they'd treated Black slaves centuries ago.
Of course, Tony was also well aware that cutting off his arm had actually saved his life.
Otherwise, if the wound had gone untreated for long, it would have quickly become infected and killed him.
But his left hand had still had a chance of being treated. That man had chopped it off so brutally. In an instant, the heaven Tony had imagined turned into hell, and the hope he'd held turned into despair. It was hard to accept.
He bent his legs and leaned against the corner of the cell. Pain numbed his body. He said nothing, watching the other prisoners out of the corner of his eye.
Most were blue-skinned aliens, and some red-skinned ones looked similar to the people who had brought him here. To Tony, these aliens were all the same except for their skin color.
While Tony was observing the others, these images had already been synced back to Earth.
Seeing Tony Stark tortured like this—losing a hand, with no telling how much more suffering awaited him—people's hatred for him suddenly lessened considerably.
After all, setting everything else aside, many of them had gone to prison because of Ultron, but at the end of the day, Earth's prisons were what they were: balanced nutrition every day, regulated work hours, and as long as you behaved, nothing serious would happen until your release.
No matter how bad the prison environment, at least there was a bed…
But Tony Stark's situation was far worse. No one knew how many days he could even survive.
This was also why Pepper had specifically sought out Banter to plead on Tony's behalf.
She was genuinely terrified that Tony would die on Sakaar.
Just the first day alone had brought him such severe injuries. She couldn't bear to imagine how much more suffering Tony would endure in the days to come.
…
Earth.
Plemos.
After Ultron was dealt with, order had been restored here.
Wanda had lifted the mind control from everyone and made them forget the past in which they'd "obeyed Ultron's every word"—though, truthfully, Ultron had never given them any orders at all.
They weren't even worth Ultron's attention.
In any case, relying on her mind-control abilities, Wanda and Quicksilver had extracted themselves from the incident, to avoid being exploited and attacked by those with ulterior motives, and to prevent any rumors that might harm the Sky Union or Plemos.
One could say that no one had noticed anything so far—including a certain demoted god.
By now, Thor had adapted to life on Earth.
He had set aside the arrogance of a god and, with Jane Foster's help, was slowly coming to accept everything Earth had to offer.
This version of him wasn't the Thor of the main universe, half-ignorant of Earth. He was more like a native New Yorker.
He knew what email was. Using his wages from working as a security guard at Plemos, he'd bought himself a phone and a computer. After work, he'd crack open a cold beer with Foster, sit on the couch, and stay up late watching a large group of people fight over a black-and-white ball.
Lately, what he watched was the live stream of Tony Stark on Sakaar.
Seeing what Tony Stark was going through on Sakaar made him feel deeply sad.
"Watching Tony Stark again?" Jane Foster asked. Seeing him with his head down, staring at his phone, his face full of worry, she knew her big blond guy was watching the live stream again.
Thor nodded, downed a whole can of beer in one go, then crushed the can into a ball and tossed it into the trash.
Clang—
A basketful of crushed cans clattered together.
"If you keep drinking like this, I'd say you'll put on at least four hundred pounds of fat." Jane Foster glared at him, then perched on the arm of the sofa and vigorously ruffled Thor's short golden hair.
"I'm starting to wonder whether it's blood or beer running through your veins."
"I just feel like he and I are a bit alike." Thor sighed. He hadn't hidden his identity from Jane Foster, but he'd long since stopped being the prince of Asgard.
"Now that you mention it, that's true." Jane Foster nodded. "Both of you have noble backgrounds. You were the prince of Asgard, meant to inherit the throne. He was the heir to Stark Industries, one of the richest men on Earth. And now, you've been exiled to Earth, and he's been exiled to the universe by Ultron, ending up in his current state."
Thor nodded.
Watching Tony suffer truly gave him a sense of shared misery.
But then Thor smiled wryly and shook his head, taking Foster's hand and pressing it against his cheek, saying sweetly:
"But his situation is far worse than mine."
"At least I met you—that's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me." This big, burly, muscle-bound man said such cheesy words. "And I also know that Asgard is completely safe right now. Loki may have given up the throne, but he can pick up Mjolnir at any time to protect Asgard."
Just as he said, Thor had no worries weighing on him.
He had already accepted his current fate. As long as his father and mother were safe, as long as Loki was safe, then what did it matter if he stayed here?
But how could fate ever let his life run so smoothly?
/-\
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