The Mick had told the Dreadknight to head for the green light on the horizon, and they would come out in France, near Paris. Modred and the Swordsman even managed to offer salutes to the rest of the drivers despite themselves as they veered off.

Graviton and Maelstrom stuck around long enough to say their goodbyes, and departed as rapidly as they could, saying little more after the harrowing experience of The Road, where for all their power they could still only kill their enemies one at a time...

Apocalypse turned his personal Chariot in the direction of a golden sun and rode off, tired and burned by energies not of the mortal world, and seriously considering his place in things now...

The rest of them gathered around in the lot of that warehouse, and held a wake for their vehicles. The machines made on an alien Battleworld and rippling with cosmic energy that was ready to come to life were set on mystic flame by Dealer, and they all watched as the fires consumed them, and then she held up six glittering jewels.

It wasn’t a trick of the light as they watched the vehicles that had carried them all this way begin to twist and run and melt in the fires... and also grow and writhe and change in ways something on fire simply shouldn’t. The shifting things in the flames spat and screamed and twisted, and yet they died as the fires took them, melted them, and reduced them down.

The gleaming jewels before Dealer took in the threads of light that came off the dying cars, battlevans, and carriers, and glowed anew.

With great solemnity, she went up to each person who had driven that vehicle, and handed them the jewel. Modred had been told to put down their ride, but it was the Dreadknight driving it who held the jewel he planned to place in his cybersteed.

“You’ve all ridden a hard ride on the Road. In there is the spirit of the vehicle you drove.

“You want to give that spirit a new home, you do it right. You don’t buy it off the rack. You put it together yourselves, you make it unique and custom, like no other ride upon the world, and it will serve you, and you alone, like no other machine ever will. Do right for it, and it will be right for you, now that we’ve taken it out of those twisted shells,” the Mick told them all.

Nobody doubted him. Their rides had taken them through hell, through more punishment than they’d believed a machine could take.

They had brought their riders home along a Long Road. They would remember the trip forever.

----------

I came down next to them as they watched the last of the villain-types drive on off. Mechanar had a private jet nearby he could use to bring back the others going back to the Coast. Mr. Hill could have brought them back and dumped them somewhere in LA, but he didn’t offer, and they didn’t ask.

Dealer had even Worldjumped Blonsky right back to the Colosseum. It was more a home than any the Abomination had here on Terra.

Besides that, all of them just wanted a good, long bath, some real food, and probably twenty hours of sleep at this point.

“All the heroes make it back?” Mr. Hill asked grimly.

“Most of them died once,” I replied, earning me some startled looks, “but yes, otherwise alright. We got back just an hour ago.”

“Doom, that ironhead?” the Mick asked, shaking his head tiredly, but smiling slightly. There’d been some close calls, but nobody had died, AND they’d beaten the heroes home.

“Back in Latveria, dreaming of the power he lost, probably. I see Thundra has a new entourage.”

“The newbs did good, and she’s a good teacher. They’ll be fine with her,” Mr. Hill grunted. “As fer Crazylegs, she found some friends who actually give her some respect and she don’t need ta act so crazy around.

“They might be doing some work for Grimm Construction pretty soon.” He sounded satisfied with that.

Crazylegs was the new nickname for Lady Octopus, whose mechanical arms had brought her all over the caravan’s formation to reinforce people in danger and rescue those who needed help. Since nobody could fly, her ability to move between multiple vehicles in motion had basically been unrivaled.

If anyone had been the hero of the hour and the trip, it had been the half-crazy apprentice of Otto Octavius, oddly enough!

Titania and Volcana were also tagging along after Thundra and Serenity, the former definitely looking forward to learning how to be a superstrong woman in a man’s profession.

Redheads rool, I guess? “How long you need to recover from all this, Mick?” I asked him, and he sighed and looked at the mangled shell of his Mustang.

“Give me a week, I should be good. Just gotta take it slow for a couple of days,” he yawned, swaying on his feet. He and Jennifer Kale basically leaned on one another for a moment to stay upright.

“Frank says it’s time.”

The Mick’s dark eyes opened slightly. “Well, it’s been long enough. I’ll lead him in, as I promised.”

“We’re all in,” the weary Chopsaw promised, and the other two crews nodded as well.

A point of light washed over them from my finger, and they all blinked and stood up straighter as new energy filtered into them, banishing their soul-crushing fatigue.

“You’ve got an hour. Get home, wash down, climb into bed, and get all the rest. You earned it,” I told them all, and they nodded happily. They definitely had done just that.

---

We watched the Mick, Chopsaw, Wheels, and Bunny grind it out of there, the scrapings and clashing of their vehicles growing louder by the minute as they headed out of there.

“I don’t say this often, but I’m gonna fall dead off my feet when we get home,” Mr. Hill said tiredly. “This has been some trip, and that’s saying something.”

I swept out my arm, and the Portal opened to the front room. Mr. Hill didn’t hesitate, stepping through, and Dealer was yawning right behind him.

I had a few key moments, but in the end, I was mostly useless. Except for maybe the part where the Marks kept everyone able to talk and coordinate shit, even working with Galactus again to get shit done.

Briggs now had a Cosmic Cube. I could only believe that Sama had the one the Crux had put together.

They were master tool-users, and now, they definitely had the Tools...

--------

A hand of will reached out to a certain patchwork planet sitting alone out in the void. It grasped the planet, compressed it down, and moved it elsewhere before anyone else found it.

The place was still infused with the last vestiges of the power of the Beyonder. No, they weren’t stupid enough to leave it sitting there for someone else to find. It was a place that could literally respond to wills and wishes, and where that could lead was all kinds of bad.

It would be stuck somewhere safe, drained of power, and used as raw materials for something else. There was a new world being made out of another, and some life energy to make the World Spirit there something more than Earth and Fire would be very useful... and the Xandarans were eager to see what they could make of that power, too...

=============

The Secret War is over. Some trivia for you all:

The Secret War was the first big multi-issue comic event that spanned heroes from multiple books, and whose events were reflected in ALL of them (the Contest of Champions was the first multi-hero standalone book, but it basically meant nothing in their own books). It started a new era in comics, that of overarching storylines, and a truly shared universe.

Titania, Volcana, another Spider-woman (because Jessica Drew was now a D-lister, right?) who went on to become the new Madame Web, and especially Venom and the Beyonder, were all introduced in Secret Wars.

The black and white Spider-man costume that was actually Venom was the biggest thing that came out of the series. For a time, She-Hulk replaced the Thing in the FF, too, as he stayed behind to do some soul-searching or something. The Thing’s storyline basically made the point that the Beyonder’s Battleworld was a place that responded to the wishes of those living on it. YOINK. Leave that not out in the void!

There’s a retcon that includes Deadpool, which I am totally ignoring (he wasn’t invented for another eight years). Most pointedly, it made sure that Zsaji the Healer lived, a very important minor alien character in the original story with her ability to heal the heroes, and even bring them back from death. NPC uber clerics for the win!

The players I included were quite different, and were much more united in many ways. I can only assume the planet was dimensionally closed, as Thor could have sent everyone right back home without any trouble with Mjolnir’s ability to create Portals or Summon the Bifrost.

Even Marvel acknowledged that the whole snuffing out a galaxy opening act was probably an illusion. I just made it canon, and those involved too smart to be fooled, including Galactus.

This series truly unlocked the power of the Molecule Man, where he both dropped a whole mountain range on the heroes, and peeled off a section of the whole planet to throw the heroes out of the way as he made to fight Doom... and in return was enlightened to his real potential as a truly cosmically powerful character. He ended up bringing the stolen city of humans and all the other villains all the way back home to Earth.

In an amusing aside, Magneto was brought there with the heroes. He was promptly attacked by the Human Torch and driven away. Even more amusingly, Professor X decided to abandon the rest of the heroes and instructed the X-Men to join Magneto, and even mindwiped Spider-man so they could do it quietly. Mutantkind before heroes, rah rah. Deeds, not words, Professor (and you wonder why I write him the way I do)! You could say it hardlined the mutant solidarity movement for Marvel, clearly drawing a line between them and the rest of the heroes, despite their cooperation.

Hawkeye drives an arrow through Piledriver’s bulletproof skin, and the shock knocks the villain out. This was a guy who fought Thor regularly!

The Wasp gets lasered through the chest from ambush by the Wrecking Crew and killed outright. No fear, Zsaji brings her back. It does set up how ruthless the Crew can be...

Literally ALL the heroes die, and then are back the next issue. Talk about Death has no teeth...

Titania beats up She-Hulk, and then Spider-man beats up Titania. The first sets up a huge rivalry that is still ongoing over strongest woman in Marveldom, and the second also took years for Titania to get over.

The story really starts the shtick of proving you are powerful by being able to beat up Galactus. It also clearly establishes that Beyonders are stronger than both Galactus and the Molecule Man (the latter reiterated during Secret Wars II, which can’t happen now that the Beyonder is dead). Secret Wars II also made it plain Beyonders can trounce Celestials like toys.

Despite Taa II being devoured during the story, it’s all fine and dandy in a later storyline, despite having taken Galactus millennia to make originally. Like it wasn’t destroyed at all...

==========================

--------------

I suppose it was a good experience for putting me in my place, in the end.

Doom figuring out a way to power up to be as strong as Galactus, and then stealing the Beyonder’s power... that was pretty impressive. Arrogant, sure, and daring, even if Galactus helped by configuring the power so a human could actually be enhanced by it and start things rolling. Doom was manipulated from the start and did not even realize it...

All the buffed-up muscle I had was, in the end, not worth much. As a matter of fact, I lost all of it and had to go through the process of regaining it after I came back. Sersi’s power was still there, of course.

I also hadn’t sunbathed for days, so I borrowed the Atom’s power again, now that I didn’t need to slot for Flux, and was doing a prolonged absorption period for mindless rest down in the photosphere, sucking up what the Sun was casting off.

I could’ve used the M’Krann Crystal, but eh.