“I’m going to bring in DiDi Ouilette and Uhura Monroe to oversee all this. If you want to know why, consider the fists you were just using to punch all these demons and stuff? Well, that’s what they do with money. They are just as good with it as you are at fighting, and they work with and for us too-responsible types to help save the world.

“Clean-up and prep are two of the things they are MONSTROUSLY good at.”

“British government is going to want to look over everything,” Peter Wisdom popped up.

I just looked at Union Jack and Lady Libre, who both frowned. “So... those people are going to take responsibility for the one thousand souls sacrificed to Mephisto every year for the past thousand years?” I asked archly.

Peter Wisdom blinked. “Uh...”

“They have the wisdom and knowledge to deal with the supernatural evils, dark magic, catastrophic genetic experiments, radical magical weaponry, and other stuff we are bound to find when we go digging through this multi-national corporation?” I pressed further, staring at him.

“Blighters are lucky if they can tie their own shoes,” he admitted after a moment, clearly dying for a cigarette.

“And some of them were doubtless bought and sold by the Nine,” Lady Spitfire murmured, and everyone nodded at that.

I pointed at Jack. “You’ll be in charge of finding those people. Your loyalty is to the people and the country, not the government, as much as they might think otherwise. We will be starting with the company’s lawyers, who I am absolutely sure have been magically compromised in numerous ways.”

“Ah, cracking Geases has always been fun,” Medea admitted with a smile. “The Crux and the Askar use that twattery all the time...”

“I have the feeling that dealing with the clean-up is going to take much longer than it did dealing with the Nine,” Lady Libre murmured, hand on the hilt of her ancient Blade, now in its equally ancient Scabbard.

“That is entirely normal,” I agreed with her. She was the bearer of Excalibur, which technically made her Queen of England, and really trying to look like it with the Munroes pulling the royalty vibe off so effortlessly.

Levels, luv...

“So sayeth the Sorceress Supreme?” Royale smiled, and everyone laughed despite themselves, while Levy obligingly billowed dramatically.

“Betsy, I’m putting you in charge of communication. Brian, you’ll be in charge of security for the inspection teams, which I’m sure will be quite interesting, as well as financial oversights. Find out what everyone here wants, let’s get something drawn up that is agreeable enough, and lo, if we have to vivisize some infernal cannons powered by hellfire instead of saving them for a rainy day because some paper-pusher likes the thought of having them, that’s what is going to happen, right?”

Captain Britain did hesitate for a moment. “Ah, what of... higher news?” he asked. “You are a member of the High Guard,” he pointed out reasonably.

“The High Guard, the Hag, and the Great Bear all know everything about what’s been going on. They’ve supplied intel, cleaned a few barriers away, and...” I tilted my head as DiDi relayed something, “they’ve got all the financing lined up to buy the whole company for us if we need it. You’ve got some family foundations to keep going, so go get your ducks,” I pointed at Spitfire and the Captain. “Everyone here has expenses. DiDi and Uhura will make money off this, and you’ll get something. The legions of forensic accountants are already being mobilized.

“Questions, concerns? Get them out there now.”

---------

Not too many days later, White Sands Desert, the Tribal Nations...

I drifted down to watch the confrontation.

There he was, another of the cross-time, cross-dimensional misplacements. Big fellow, eight feet tall, hyper-muscular, jade as the day was long, but with white hair and beard instead of the dark green stuff.

He was standing at the edge of a big gouge in the landscape, exactly like someone who’d been swatted across several miles, bounced a few times, and then plowed to a stop.

Standing in front of him was Sama Rantha, NTS chest back in force, arms crossed and looking up at him with a complete lack of fear.

“Mornin’, Sama,” I said, coming down from above, the gamma-guy’s head whipping around to take a look at me. “You’re at it a bit early today?”

“Hey, Dyna,” Sama said, glancing my way. She pointed at the guy in front of me. “Know who this is?”

“He’s a denizen of Earth-964-4AZ7, from about forty years down-time. One of the Bruce Banner alternates. White hair and beard makes him a, hmm, Maestro variant?” I asked reasonably.

“You’ve been reading the AW reports!” Sama wagged her finger at me.

Technically, part of me had been writing a lot of them as Dupe Tatyana, intrepid explorer of the Alternity Watch! “Horribly conscientious of me, I know.” I knew the timeline via magical observation, it wasn’t one we’d ventured into.

“Who ARE you people?” growled the Hulk from the post-Apocalypse Earth, a thoroughly ruthless and pragmatic fellow who seemed to have gathered all the various personas of Bruce Banner into a malicious central one, the better to survive the nuclear fallout and war among supers that had spurred it. “I don’t remember you from the past...”

Ho, speaking American English, too...

“That’s because this is Earth-1832,” Sama replied easily, still speaking Human. He probably didn’t even realize it. “Now, I’m very aware of the things you did back in your time and place, but you haven’t done them here, and I didn’t give you time to start making demands of the locals. Your alternate here has a good reputation, and I’m not going to let you tarnish it, even if he does fly off the rage meter some times.”

“He keeps a couple devoted construction companies in business,” I agreed with a nod, watching the glaring fellow and his red-purple Aura. This likely wasn’t going to go well, but Sama was clearly not worried.

The Maestro was a Hulk version with all the top-end passive power, and all the Banner brains, with the mentality of a tyrannical genius who would and could do just about anything to have his way. He was studying Sama intently, trying to figure out what her power was and how to counter it, while likely dismissing me as another Paramount-type he could handle confidently if he got his hands on me, and since I was the heroic-type and he wasn’t, he had all the edge.

I could drop him into the sun, sure, but Sama was here. I didn’t have anything to do but watch the show.

“So, you’re saying this isn’t my Earth.” He ran his big hand through his thick beard, his green eyes gleaming.

Sama pointed behind him. “There’s no military base there, nor has it ever been a gamma bomb testing range. The explosion that created the Hulk here was way over in Georgia. You’re probably considering that you can’t mess up your future by being here, giving you carte blanche to do whatever you want, right?” She only seemed more amused at the idea. “So, declare your intentions to me, and don’t bother lying, I’ll know.”

He stared at her, pondering what to say, clearly many ideas flashing through his head. “I want a territory to rule,” he stated bluntly, grinning widely at her, definitely a sinister expression, and clearly not thinking she could do that.

“How big?” she asked reasonably, making him blink.

“The world?” he guffawed, looking at her with his huge arms crossed, and she just arched an eyebrow.

“You don’t have the mental chops or power to rule this world,” Sama replied calmly. “I could set you up on another planet if you like, but you’d have to scare up your own population. Pretty sure nobody wants to be your slaves here.”

There was a ripple on his face at the idea she could actually do that, and he actually looked shrewd. “Do you have any idea of how dangerous I am?” he asked, flexing his massive hands. “That little swat you gave me was impressive, but it didn’t actually hurt me.”

Sama laughed softly, keeping his eyes. “The reports we have on the various iterations of Bruce Banner across over twenty thousand alternities are extremely complete, Dr. Banner. You needn’t fear a lack of information on cross-planar travels and variant realities on our part, thank you.”

His expression changed again, clearly wary now. “That... is quite a claim,” he acknowledged.

“We get guys like you wandering in all the time,” I informed him kindly. “Our Terra is like a dumping ground for time travelers and planes-walkers who shouldn’t be doing this stuff. Have we had a Maestro here before, Sama?” I asked her.

She held up three fingers, and this Maestro lifted his bushy white eyebrows. “Interesting. What happened to them?” he asked, torn between curiosity and disbelief.

“They started trying to throw their weight around, and I killed all of them,” Sama answered readily. “You all keep popping up in the same damn place out there.” She waved her hand at the New Mexico desert.

Huh, I’d had no idea. Briggs probably felt them skimming down the non-existent timeline, and let her know so she’d be there to ‘greet’ them, as these were her lands.

Russia had its own set of problems dealing with radioactive nonsense and mutants and things from other Russias. It was one of the reasons Briggs had started the Alternity Watch, trying to find out where all the damn shit was coming from and why. The 1908 Tunguska explosion had SO many different causes, depending on which alternity you were from...

“You could really give me a whole planet?” the Maestro asked, interested despite himself.

“Now that she’s here I could send you right there. It’s called Whoberis. Formerly genocided by the Badoon, then resettled, then they were genocided off it in turn by her.” His eyes turned to me, eyebrows rising again, and his calculations on how to handle me became a bit more complex. “She checks on it now and then to make sure they’ve not tried to resettle it, which they’ve tried... twice?” She glanced casually at me to confirm.

“They keep trying to get spies into the freed slave territory, normally hired Skrulls, too,” I confirmed.

“So, a whole planet empty of sapients, save a peninsula the size of Michigan with the sole spaceport. The ones we didn’t send home are basically rat bastards like yourself, I’m sure you’ll get along just fine with them.

“You stay here on this planet, you’re probably gonna try something stupid like trying to manually conquer a territory of your own, not giving a damn who doesn’t want you there, and I’ll ace you in a heartbeat. Whoberis is actually a good fit for a ruthless ass like yourself.”

He looked down at her, trying to restrain his disbelief. “You know Captain Marvel?” he finally asked.

“The Kree? He’s dead. What about him?” she asked.

“Carol Danvers,” he clarified himself.

“Oh, she’s called Comet here. Serves up in the High Guard, one of the Planetary Protectors.”

“Are you more powerful than her?” he asked, daring her. “Because she isn’t any match for me!”

I rolled my eyes as Sama looked at me helplessly. “Seeing is believing, Sama. Just flick him and be done with it, would you?” I snorted, amused.

“Flick me?” the Maestro repeated, and blinked down at Sama, now right in front of his chest, her thumb and forefinger curled. He instinctively tensed his chest and braced for a Big Hit, and she flicked him.

Null Strike.

It was a sound without sound, reality intruding into where it had been bent, and shuffling the aberrant stuff back where it came from. On the Maestro, that meant basically everything.

Almost half a ton of meat and bone that had come out of nowhere went back there instantly. Reeling back in front of us was a skinny guy in oversized black pants, stumbling and then falling down as the residual force of her finger flick still sent him sprawling.