The Mandarin paused for a moment, confusion in his eyes before the lightning streaked towards Ezekiel as he yelled, "Stop with the stupid jokes!"
Ezekiel threw a single kunai with a chakra string attached through the lightning and towards the ground. The chakra string wasn't attached to him and only lasted a few seconds but worked perfectly as a lightning rod. As the lightning attack arc'd towards the kunai, Ezekiel smirked slightly as he said, "That was a pretty decent light show, do you have anything else you wanna share?"
The Mandarin raised his arms towards Ezekiel as he snarled, "Die!"
A vortex of ice and fire erupted from Mandarin before it flew towards Ezekiel who didn't move as it passed through him and slammed into the door behind him. Ezekiel calmly glanced behind him at the destruction caused by three rings being used in combination before he turned back towards Mandarin and said in a sarcastic tone, "So scary, that almost hit me."
The Mandarin shot out more attacks from his rings towards Ezekiel that all passed through him like he didn't exist. After a few moments Ezekiel disappeared into the cloud of debris that was kicked up by his attacks. For the next couple minutes The Mandarin continued his relentless assault as he used most of his rings to attack where Ezekiel was. When he finally stopped his attacks to let the air clear he said, "Stupid fool."
The sound of a thousand chirping birds filled the air behind The Mandarin and his eyes widened as he realized he couldn't move at all. A lightning covered hand punched completely through his chest and pulverized his heart a moment later as Ezekiel said, "That you are."
The Mandarin's eyes widened even more and blood leaked from his mouth as he gasped for breath before Ezekiel ripped his hand out of his chest. The Mandarin clenched his fists together as he dropped to his knees and a moment later Ezekiel noticed his heart being rebuilt. Ezekiel frowned as a kunai appeared in his hand at the same time before he swiped it through the man's ghostly neck.
Just before The Mandarin's heart could fully reform, Ezekiel used his other eye to look into the future. He saw The Mandarin's heart fully reform and his chest start to heal before his body disappeared. Ezekiel immediately cast a spell to see invisible objects before he looked into the future again. This time he saw The Mandarin turn invisible as he stood up before the man seemed to blur as he sped away from Ezekiel before the vision finished.
Ezekiel paused as he waited for the right moment and right as The Mandarin disappeared Ezekiel moved. Although The Mandarin thought he was invisible, Ezekiel saw him clearly as his kunai sliced clean through the man's neck and decapitated him. The Mandarin's face wore a stunned expression as his head spun through the air and his body fell completely forward onto the stairs and slid down them.
Ezekiel followed along a second later before he stopped by the corpse and gingerly collected the rings before he stored them in a special scroll for safe keeping. After he placed the scroll in his pocket dimension, Ezekiel moved away from the body before he used fire release to burn it to ash. About a minute later Ezekiel exited the room and said, "I'm done here, you guys can clean up."
Ezekiel headed back out of the secret base and once he arrived he found the fighting over. The firepower on the new suits made it ridiculously easy for the two men to completely dominate the area. Tony and Rhodey were both off to the side, still in their armor as they watched Ezekiel's men bring out their prisoners. While a good portion of the terrorists were killed, Ezekiel's team selected over a thousand people worth checking. Whether or not they passed the following checks were another matter, but Ezekiel was fine with that.
Tony noticed Ezekiel first and waved to him as he walked over before he asked after his helmet opened up, "What happened? I thought you were gonna join us?"
"I did, I was just underground fighting their leader." Ezekiel said as he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.
Tony's eyes widened as he noticed Ezekiel's blood stained arm and asked, "Hey, is your arm okay?"
Ezekiel moved his arm over glance at it for a moment before he chanted a spell and waved his other arm over it. A second later an orange and gold light covered his arm to clean it as Ezekiel said, "My arm's fine, I just stuck it through the leader's chest."
"You killed The Mandarin?!?" Rhodey asked in surprise as Tony frowned slightly and asked, "Didn't you say we would fight him together?"
Ezekiel shrugged as he said, "He didn't leave his personal chamber in the bottom of the base. You would have had a terrible time fighting him down there so I took care of it."
Tony actually pouted at Ezekiel, who rolled his eyes as he said, "Don't make that face, it's gross. Save that shit for Pepper."
Rhodey chuckled slightly before he glanced around and asked, "So what now? Are we just waiting for the clean up to finish?"
"Pretty much. We just need to finish cleaning out everything of value and then we can leave."
Tony glanced at the rows of prisoners for a few moments before he asked, "Aren't these guys all terrorists? Didn't you say the plan was to wipe them out?"
"We did… At least the main branch. We'll need to process all the data we collected before we can completely finish them off."
Tony gestured to the prisoners as he asked, "What about those guys? What are you gonna do with them?"
"They will be screened and if they pass, they'll be able to live and hopefully do something worthwhile with their new lease on life."
Tony glanced around one more time before he asked, "I guess me and Rhodey are done here, wanna send us home?"
Ezekiel pointed towards a large cave off in the distance that disappeared into the mountain side as he said, "There's a slightly disassembled alien space ship over there if you wanna check it out."
Tony's helmet snapped closed and he took off without another word which made Ezekiel chuckle slightly before he asked, "Wanna check it out too or head back?"
"I have nothing else to do." Rhodey said before his helmet snapped closed and he followed after Tony.
Ezekiel didn't even bother to run and opened a portal before he stepped into the cave directly. Once inside he used magic to light up the place before Tony arrived a few seconds later quickly followed by Rhodey. The cave itself was pretty massive which is why it was easily visible from the base. A few thousand feet from the entrance itself and partly hidden behind rocks, stalactites and stalagmites that developed over the years was a hidden space ship.
The ship was partly disabled, but it didn't look like The Mandarin trusted other people to touch it since it was mostly intact. Off to one side of the cave was the alien who originally owned the ship and his corpse was surprisingly still in one piece. If the sword stuck the creature's head wasn't a dead give away, Ezekiel would almost think it was sleeping. Ezekiel walked over to the creature he knew as Axonn-Karr, a peaceful Makluan explorer who wondered if intelligent life existed outside of his own galaxy, only for it to end in tragedy.
If only he arrived later or didn't come to Earth at all he would have probably lived. But his ship crash landed on Earth a long time ago and the people attacked him thinking he was some type of monster when all he wanted was help to fix his ship. Mortally wounded he retreated to the cave where his ship crashed and hid for centuries. The locals never explored the area because of local superstitions and its extremely remote location. The Mandarin was the first person to actually explore the cave and that was where he found the rings and killed Axonn-Karr.
Ezekiel shook his head slightly at the poor alien's fate before he removed the sword from his head and sealed him away. While there wasn't much he could do for them now, he could at least give them a proper burial and maybe make them a nice monument to go with it. Axonn-Karr did give him ten unique power rings, it was the least Ezekiel could do even if he didn't use them.
Tony watched what Ezekiel did with the alien and excitedly asked, "Was that an alien corpse? What are you gonna do with it? Study it?"
Ezekiel shook his head before he explained what he knew about Axonn-Karr to Tony and Rhodey. After learning about the alien and Ezekiel's idea he nodded in agreement as he said, "He might not be human but I think that's a great idea. Maybe even place it on Mars in one of the parks or something."
Ezekiel frowned at Tony as Rhodey asked, "What do you mean by placing it on Mars?"
Tony glanced back at Ezekiel with widened eyes before Ezekiel shook his head and said, "We've been terraforming Mars for… A few years at this point and people can live on it already. We still need to ship in food and stuff, but otherwise it's liveable."
Rhodey glanced between the two of them for a few moments before he asked, "Wait, you're both serious? How the hell does no one know about it?"
"A mix of magic, science and hacking every electronic device capable of looking at Mars. As for normal telescopes that's where the magic comes in. Earth already has a magic shield built to protect it from magic threats… I copied that design and placed it on Mars with some help after I added a small enchant rune that makes Mars look like it used to."
Rhodey frowned as he asked, "Why didn't you guys tell me sooner?"
"It's ultra top secret… Honestly only five people even knew about it when we started the whole project." Ezekiel said before he quickly added, "Even now it's less than a hundred people who know and they are all working on the project directly."
Ezekiel patted Tony on the shoulder as he said, "Tony hasn't even told Pepper or Happy about the project yet."
Tony glanced away from Ezekiel which made him frown as he asked, "Tony… You didn't tell them right?"
"I might have, maybe, brought it up during dinner one time… When Anna was visiting. But I told Pepper before that when we crashed my car on Mars."
Ezekiel face palmed as he said, "And this is exactly why I told Pepper you would never be able to keep your Ironman identity a secret…"
Rhodey nodded in agreement before he asked, "So when can I visit Mars?"
Ezekiel let out a sigh before JARVIS said through one of the suit's speakers, "You could take him and Tony tomorrow so we could collect data on how the suits handle in different gravity. We could also check how they handle flying through space since the suits are shielded and hermetically sealed."
"Fine…" Ezekiel grumbled as he shot a glare at Tony who didn't even pretend to look guilty.
A few minutes later all of them were on the partly disassembled space craft as Ezekiel looked it over. It definitely wasn't in the best of shape, time had eaten away at parts of it and others parts were completely missing. As they walked through the ship, Ezekiel would randomly create a clone to check different parts of it. While he didn't have much hope, he still wanted to double check the ship for anything that might be important. Once he finished searching the ship, he planned to have it completely disassembled and melted down to be reused.
It wasn't like he was in serious need of alien technology anyways, he would randomly visit Sakaar whenever Tony needed new stuff to research. It wasn't too often, but at least once every six months he would pick up a load of stuff for Tony to play with. Part of it was junk, part of it turned out to be different versions of stuff Tony already figured out and the rest was either new tech or new broken tech.
The broken tech wouldn't be fixed, but Tony would still disassemble it to figure out what it was and how it worked. Tony would then take that knowledge and if the technology was worth the effort he would make a working version. It was something that most people would think was impossible, but it was something Tony's already done multiple times over the years.
After exploring the entire ship with the help of clones, the only thing really worth anything were some massive data storage racks. They were currently powered off, but Ezekiel determined they were still in good condition and might work if hooked up to a proper power source. Once they were all stored away, they exited the ship and Ezekiel used a special portal spell to transfer the ship to Mars where it could be fully dismantled.
As they walked towards the exit of the cave Tony glanced towards Ezekiel and said, "Since Happy, Anna and Rhodey all know about Mars… You think Happy and Anna can do their wedding there?"
Ezekiel rolled his eyes before he asked, "Really? I thought the plan was to do everything on Genosha?"
"That's the current plan, but I know Happy and Anna said it would be nice to have it on Mars. And wanted me to ask you if that would be possible…"
Ezekiel glanced towards Tony for a few moments before he realized something and said with a smirk, "You know what? Since it's Happy and Anna, we can do that…"