Tony had no idea he'd just unlocked the achievement of flashing his little bird to the entire world. If he had known, he probably would've chosen to slam his head into the nearest wall and call it a day.
This was a secret he'd guarded for decades. He'd paid a small fortune in hush money to keep every cover model he'd ever had a one-night stand with from running her mouth. And now, all of that—gone. Wiped out in one humiliating stroke.
But honestly, Tony probably didn't have the bandwidth to care about any of that anymore.
There was something far more life-threatening to worry about.
"I have to win *three* matches before I get to see the Red Wind Queen?" His vision went dark. The entire world seemed to dim around him.
Before this, he'd assumed that the moment he entered the Champion's Challenge, he'd be face-to-face with Luma right away. All he'd have to do was casually drop the name Ben Parker, and she'd realize they were all on the same side. No need for any challenge at all.
But now, reality had decided to diverge sharply from his expectations.
He was completely, utterly stunned.
"Hold on—nobody said anything about three matches beforehand!"
"You didn't ask, either."
One of the Sakaaran girls kindly draped a towel around his waist, saving Tony from any further public indecency.
But it was too late for that. His tiny little caterpillar had already achieved legendary status, sitting right alongside Chris Evans' baby arms as a beloved landmark by the bathhouse.
You really had to hand it to them—Captain America and Iron Man. Doing the exact same thing, yet producing completely opposite results.
Truly seeking common ground while preserving differences.
Another girl chimed in: "The Champion's Challenge is our tradition. Everyone knows the rules."
"How the hell was I supposed to know? I'm not even from around here!" Tony wiped his face and grimaced so hard it looked painful.
Right now, the hardest thing on his entire body was his left hand. Everything else was genuinely, pathetically soft. Without his armor, he had zero sense of security. Fight in a Champion's Challenge with what—his bare skull?
And the first match was only one week away.
"Mind if I ask—what kind of opponents does the Champion's Challenge usually throw at you?" Tony hauled himself out of the pool, grabbed a few sheets of paper in a frenzy, and started sketching on the steps.
One week. He had one week to build a suit of armor from scratch.
"It varies," one of the girls said, rattling off the info like a tour guide. "The last person to challenge for the championship was our great Sakaaran King. He destroyed Sakaar's most terrifying creature, the Great Maw, in the very first round."
"It was a massive monster that lived inside the lava. Before it was killed, the Red King had to throw countless people into the Great Maw's pit as feeding tribute on a regular basis. Otherwise, it would trigger volcanic eruptions and destroy everything."
Tony: ???
The kid's eyes went wide as saucers.
Wait, seriously?
Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined that a single opponent in the Champion's Challenge would be *this* heavyweight.
A monster that controls volcanic eruptions? Why not just go ahead and summon Buddha Tiga from the Western Paradise while you're at it?
Tony's face looked like he'd just eaten something that belonged in a sewer. Honestly, given enough time, he could probably build a suit capable of taking down the Great Maw. Worst case scenario, just carpet-bomb the thing.
The problem was, he had *one week*, no laboratory, and building even a bare-bones Mark I would be a stretch. Getting it to shoot fire was the ceiling. For all he knew, he'd end up charging into the arena with an axe. How exactly was he supposed to manufacture missiles?
"So... what about the second match?"
"Deathfire and Spikes."
The girls took turns explaining: "Those are the Red King's secret weapons too. The tyrant used Deathfire and Spikes to wipe out anyone who resisted him. A single Deathfire shell can level a small town. And Spikes—they're these horrifying organisms that burrow under your skin and take control of your body."
Tony felt despair creeping deeper with every word.
Deathfire shell?
That was just a nuclear bomb by another name!
Maybe without the radiation fallout, but the destructive power probably rivaled a low-yield warhead at this point.
And it wasn't just Tony. Across the globe, countless Earthlings were watching the livestream, getting a firsthand look at just how powerful the leader of the Ten Ben truly was. What they didn't realize was that their understanding was built entirely on the *old* Ben.
As of now, several of Ben's strongest alien forms had undergone a qualitative leap.
"How did he even win?"
Tony genuinely found it absurd. And he was starting to accept that clearing the Champion's Challenge might be beyond him.
Hope had been right there, within arm's reach. Was it really just going to shatter like this?
He refused to accept that!
Thankfully, another girl spoke up: "Don't worry too much. The monster inside the Great Maw has already been destroyed by the Sakaaran King. The Spikes have been eradicated too. And the remaining Deathfire shells are sealed away by the King—there's no way they'd use them against you."
"Exactly. The Red King only deployed those weapons because he was trying to destroy the great Sakaaran King. As for you... it shouldn't require that kind of firepower. My guess is they'll just match you against other gladiators."
"...Thanks for the comfort."
Tony let out a breath of relief, though a small sting of indignation prickled at being underestimated. He sat down on the ground and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
"I'm not comforting you. The warriors in the arena are all battle-hardened veterans. Someone like you? One swing of a hammer and you're done."
"Who's the most popular fighter right now?"
"Two blue-skinned ones. One's Supergiant, the other's Ronan the Accuser."
Both were prisoners of the Ten Ben. But Ben had no intention of feeding idle mouths. If you were a prisoner, you either went to the mines or you served as a beast in the arena—entertainment for the people of Sakaar.
Of course, prisoners like Ronan and Supergiant—war criminals turned gladiators—held a different status than your average Sakaaran fighter.
They had no personal freedom. Normally they were chained in the dungeons beneath the arena. Even when they fought, they were restrained with shackles and obedience discs to prevent any loss of control.
Tony should've received the same treatment. But his decision to enter the Champion's Challenge had bought him a small mercy at the cost of his likely death. In his final week of life, he could at least eat well and sleep comfortably.
The girls couldn't possibly know Ben's arrangements, but thinking it over, they all agreed that Tony Stark's first match would most likely be against either Ronan or Supergiant. Ronan seemed the more probable choice.
Tony knew both of them.
Supergiant had been one of the Black Order members who attacked Earth. As for Ronan, Tony had heard about him from the others after Steve returned.
The good news: Ronan the Accuser no longer had that matter-manipulating hammer of his.
The bad news: even without a weapon, Ronan only needed one punch to cave his skull in.
"I remember that big-titted gray-skinned lady saying I can use any weapon I want?" Tony figured he could at least put up a fight. He wasn't about to give up this easily.
Just Ronan.
Was he, a genius, really supposed to lose to *Ronan*?
"You mean Supreme Warrior Kaira?" One of the girls nodded.
"That's her. Magnificent. Spectacular." Tony held his hands up in front of his chest and drew an enormous circle. "Does she keep her word?"
"Of course. I'll take you to the armory right now."
"No."
Tony stood up, his eyes burning with the kind of conviction usually reserved for swearing a party oath. "Skip the armory. Take me to a laboratory!"
...
"This is the armory."
In the end, Tony followed one of the girls to the armory after all.
It wasn't that they refused him access to a lab. It was that without enough materials, building a suit from zero would take far too long.
He needed to scavenge. Find something usable in here—armor plating, at the very least. Even if he couldn't build a full suit that encased him completely, he could at least cobble together an exoskeleton.
On top of that, as insurance, he planned to try injecting himself with the Extremis Virus.
The thing was, Ultron's very first opponent after being created had been Killian. Except Killian ran into Ultron, and his little tricks turned out to be completely useless.
Tony also recalled that decades ago, he'd scribbled out the Extremis formula for a woman named Maya. He'd never had much interest in biology himself—he'd only shown off to get in her pants.
Who would've thought that, all these years later, it would become one of his lifelines?
Of course, with so little time, Tony couldn't refine the virus. The result might be even more unstable than the original. But he had no choice but to try.
"This axe is nice. Rusty? Doesn't matter. Ever heard of tetanus enchantment?"
"This helmet looks decent. Taking it."
"This arm blade's pretty useless. Whatever, grab it anyway—melt it down for parts."
"And this... a groin guard? Absolutely essential. Non-negotiable!"
Tony picked through the pile like a man possessed, wheeling over a cart and tossing every weapon with even a hint of metal onto it after a quick appraisal. The other gladiators watching couldn't help but twitch.
A massive stone man lumbered over and clapped him on the shoulder. "Dude, seriously? You doing a bulk purchase in here?"
Korg. The rock creature who used to rant about revolution every single day in the underground fighting pits. These days, though, he'd become a regular at the arena—not as a fighter, of course. He just hung around the other gladiators, spinning tall tales about his glorious past.
His explanation: he was simply reminiscing about the days he'd spent following the great Sakaaran King in revolution.
While Korg rambled on, Tony had already clocked him.
He jammed a longsword into the pile of weapons, turned around, and looked at Korg. "So you know this place pretty well, huh? That Sakaaran King of yours—he was the champion here too?"
Korg thumped his chest proudly, sending flakes of stone raining down. "Absolutely. Back then, nobody gave the Sakaaran King a chance. He looked so scrawny. But I saw his potential right away. I gave him care, support, encouragement—told him he *had* to enter the Champion's Challenge."
Tony genuinely could not picture Four Arms looking scrawny.
Korg picked up a hammer, his expression softening with nostalgia. "Back then, this place was filthy. Reeked. Every weapon was rusted over, covered in old blood and fur. That idiot Red King never bothered to clean anything. But the great Sakaaran King was different. He had the place swept regularly, replaced all the weapons with fresh ones."
"Hey, buddy—I heard you're planning to do the Champion's Challenge. For real?"
"Something like that." Tony was still digging through the materials, half-listening to Korg.
He figured Korg's stories probably had about as much reliability as a weather forecast on Sakaar. But the guy did know more than him, so asking around couldn't hurt.
"You've got guts, I'll give you that." Korg studied him for a moment, mentally comparing him to Ben.
Both were Earthlings—that was one similarity. But that was probably where it ended. The Sakaaran King's transformation abilities weren't something just anyone could pull off.
And apparently Tony Stark had been dragged in from the mines. Even less hope.
"Any idea who my opponent might be?" Tony spotted something interesting and hurried toward a corner of the armory, where a mountain of scrap metal lay scattered. He immediately started rummaging through it.
His metal left hand meant he didn't have to worry about cuts.
"Hard to say. Could be Ronan or Supergiant." Korg's answer matched the girls'. "They're basically the rising stars of the arena. Just two days ago, Ronan caved in some poor guy's skull with a hammer. That dude's pretty much lost it—went after his own former comrades from the Accuser corps without blinking. Word is the Kree Empire's been trying to buy him back."
Korg shook his head, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
"And Supergiant—if she entered the Champion's Challenge, it'd probably take Captain Bill to handle her. Hard to say, though. Captain Bill might lose too. He's too gentlemanly. He'd never use that hammer properly."
Tony's stomach dropped another notch.
He really didn't need to hear about other people's prowess right now.
"Hmm, what's this?"
He yanked something out of the scrap pile—a completely twisted metal frame. It looked like it might've been a suit of armor once, but most of the metal was gone. The few remaining plates were cracked and shattered.
"Oh, that..." Korg blinked, then paused. "That's the Red King's old exoskeleton armor. Used to have an energy shield—nearly indestructible. Even the Red Wind Queen back then couldn't scratch him while he wore it. Took the Sakaaran King thousands—*tens of thousands*—of punches to break it. Nearly drove it down to the planet's core."
Tony's eyes lit up. He held the frame aloft.
"*This* is what I need!"
"Bro... it's got less coverage than a bikini right now," Korg pointed out helpfully. "You put that on, and you'll be crowned this year's Miss Sakaar for sure. Plus, you've got that sexy little mustache going for you."
"I can fix it!"
Tony said it with genuine delight.
One week. How much he could actually repair was anyone's guess. But it was something. A safety net, however thin.
Ronan was an unknown variable—he didn't have a handle on the guy's power level. But Supergiant, as a member of the Black Order? Tony knew exactly how strong she was.
Back during the Battle of New York, a single warlord who didn't even qualify for the Black Order had beaten the entire team so badly they couldn't tell up from down.
/-\
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