"I said size didn't matter... but isn't that too small?"
Mario stared at Zela, pointing at the planet floating before their ship. At first, he'd assumed it just looked small due to the vast distances of space. But after the ship's scanner revealed the planet's diameter was less than six hundred kilometers, his brain completely stalled out.
Zela scratched his head awkwardly. "Yeah, okay, it's on the smaller side. But it's perfect for habitation. Complete ecosystem, no intelligent life ever developed here, and the sun's got a nice long stable lifespan."
Mario's eye twitched as he studied what he couldn't quite decide was a planet or a dwarf planet. He let out a long sigh.
"Whatever. Let's go down and check it out."
At minimum, the surface area was a bit over three times that of the entire Italian peninsula. Could be worse.
No wonder no one's claimed this habitable rock.
After piloting the ship to a suitable landing site, he stepped out and surveyed the surrounding vegetation. He walked over to what could generously be called a "tree" and ran his hand along its smooth trunk. The texture was oddly pleasant.
"From now on, this planet will be called Endstar. Gotta give my world some personal touch."
The planet felt surprisingly similar to Earth, which left him momentarily stunned. But then he remembered he was in the Marvel universe and quickly accepted the weirdness. If there could be living planets out there, at least the one under his feet was solid ground.
Turning to Zela, he said, "Thanks for your help with this. But I didn't bring the vibranium with me. You can wait here for a couple days if you want."
A bright smile spread across Zela's face. He'd brought Mario here on a hunch, hoping for a bit of luck. Besides being habitable, this planet had zero special qualities. Perfect for a nobody like Mario who probably couldn't afford anything better.
He wasn't worried about Mario skipping out on payment. After all, planets don't exactly grow legs and walk away.
"No problem. But Yondu wants to meet you."
"Sure. Tell him to come here."
Mario wasn't trying to hide anything from Zela's crew anyway. Yondu would hear about this immediately, and wanting a face-to-face meeting was only natural for someone in his position.
With that settled, he walked off to the side and began constructing a Twilight Portal. He needed to mine some vibranium ore, being broke in space was not an option.
He quickly found a good spot and rapidly assembled a small house out of obsidian blocks. Inside, he placed a bed in the optimal position, then set up his smeltery setup along with a furnace.
He deliberately didn't hide any of this from Zela, partly to demonstrate his capabilities. The Ravagers had some decent people in their ranks, sure, but they weren't exactly saints. If he hadn't hired these particular guys, who knew how things might have gone down.
"Take a break. I'll be right back."
He pulled a diamond from his inventory and tossed it onto the portal frame. Thunder cracked from the sky, a bolt of lightning striking down to activate the Twilight Portal. Without hesitation, he jumped through and vanished before everyone's eyes.
Zela and his crew exchanged glances. They stepped closer and stared down at the mysterious swirling portal beneath their feet.
"We ran into a sorcerer. And he's not bat-shit crazy. Lucky us."
Sorcerers didn't have the best reputation in the galaxy. Most had bizarre temperaments and wielded powerful, unpredictable magic that made ordinary folks deeply uncomfortable.
Zela had originally thought they'd pissed off someone dangerous. Instead, they'd stumbled onto a potential gold mine.
"Send the coordinates to Yondu and fill him in on what's happening here. I've got a feeling we're about to make some serious money."
One of his crew immediately pulled out a communicator and began contacting Yondu.
---
Mario arrived in the Twilight Forest. He pulled out a blank magic map from his inventory and activated it, watching the interface materialize.
But instead of following the map's directions toward the Hollow Hills, he simply started digging straight down.
Vibranium ore could spawn anywhere in the Twilight Forest, the spawn rate was just absurdly low. Fortunately, he had a hammer, specifically one with Efficiency V and Unbreaking. Basically, it would last forever.
"Let's mine some ore and smelt it fresh. I can't rely on just gold every time I leave the house."
He swung his hammer underground relentlessly. He just dug straight ahead without even bothering to change direction. The best thing about the Twilight Forest was the complete absence of underground lava lakes.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Soon his inventory was stuffed full of various ores.
Several hours later, he returned to the planet with a hefty haul of materials.
Not far from the portal, Zela and the others were sitting around a campfire, eating dinner and shooting the shit. The atmosphere was warm and relaxed, the Ravagers knew how to work hard and party harder.
Seeing this, Mario simply smiled. He combined the sand, gravel, and clay from his inventory into cement blocks, stashed them away, then walked over to join the group, finding a comfortable spot near the fire.
Zela noticed him and immediately grabbed a relatively clean-looking cup, handing it to Mario.
"Yondu will be here tomorrow. Come on, have a drink."
He didn't ask what Mario had been doing underground. A man in his line of work knew when to pry and when to keep his mouth shut. Yondu would arrive tomorrow anyway, then it wouldn't be his decision to make.
Mario took the cup, and Zela promptly filled it with a blue liquid that looked disturbingly like concentrated laundry detergent. He felt instinctively uneasy about drinking it.
"Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
"Bottoms up!"
The group raised their cups in a noisy toast. The Ravagers worked hard when it was time to work, and when it was time to relax, they truly let loose.
Mario frowned slightly but took a cautious sip. To his surprise, the strange-looking liquid tasted really good, sweet with a pleasant burn, like some kind of exotic liqueur.
"Zela, you know anything about the Chitauri?"
Zela took a couple swigs of his drink, then set the cup down with a grin. "The Chitauri? Of course I know them. One of the weakest military forces in the galaxy. But those bastards are maniacs, once they latch onto you, they never let go. Plus I heard they've completely pledged themselves to the Mad Titan."
At the mention of the Mad Titan, his expression flickered slightly. Clearly, Thanos' reputation had already spread far and wide across the cosmos.
Though Endstar's gravity and atmosphere were similar to Earth's, a full day lasted a surprising thirty hours, its rotation was even slower than Earth's.
Mario didn't rest at all through the night. He pulled massive amounts of netherrack from his inventory, smelted it all into nether bricks, and then used his construction wand to pave the ground.
The once-ordinary small plain transformed. The entire surface was divided into neat blocks of nether brick, looking very much like the superflat residential zones from a Minecraft server spawn area. Only when he'd completely exhausted all the netherrack in his inventory did he finally stop.
Looking at his night's work, he pulled out a slice of melon from his inventory and took a bite.
Ding!
His health bar increased slightly.
"This should work for now. But I need to figure out how to connect this place to Asgard. Wonder if Odin or the Ancient One has a method. A portal should work, I just don't know how much energy it would take."
He didn't want Kaecilius getting snatched away early by some so-called dimensional demon because of unpaid debts. After all, he was neither the Ancient One nor Doctor Strange, Mario couldn't exactly mentor the guy through a crisis of faith.
"If only I had a Waystones mod or something," he muttered to himself, half-hoping the mysterious voice in his head would respond. Of course, nothing happened.
"So the bad stuff activates automatically, but the good stuff never shows up? Fine, you know what? Give me the Zombie Apocalypse mod then. Or Lycanites Mobs. Even throw in the Wither Storm or The Titans while you're at it..."
The more he spoke, the less confident he became. If whatever entity had sent him into the Marvel universe actually heard that and decided to grant his request, he'd be completely screwed.
Leaning against the side of his smeltery, he looked up at the beautiful night sky. From this small planet, he could see a magnificent galactic ribbon, not as clear as the one visible from Asgard, but far superior to anything Earth's light pollution allowed.
"In a couple days, I'll head back and bring a sorcerer here. See if they can establish a portal connection."
Even Earth's sorcerers couldn't just teleport anywhere they pleased, at minimum, they needed a clear mental image of the destination. The easiest method was seeing the place with their own eyes first.
He pulled another exotic fruit from his inventory, and began munching on it while monitoring his smeltery.
The molten metals glowed orange-red in the furnace chamber. He drew out the refined ingots one by one, then fed new raw ores from his inventory back into the system for continuous processing. He'd accumulated a substantial amount of rare minerals at this point, enough to sell some on Xandar or Knowhere for decent money.
Time passed slowly. A pale sun rose from the horizon, and with it appeared a small black dot hanging motionless in the sky.
Mario squinted upward as several small craft detached from the larger vessel and grew steadily larger in his vision.
"Incoming ships."
At that moment, Zela emerged from the spacecraft, stretching lazily before rubbing his eyes at the drastically changed landscape.
"What happened here?"
Then, noticing Mario looking up at the sky, he followed his gaze and pulled a small device from his pocket, placing it over his eyes like a monocular scanner.
"Oh... it's Yondu and the others. They made good time."
Hearing Zela's words, Mario's interest piqued. Already? Guess my century-old ship really is slow as hell.
The fact that it still functioned at all was a marvel.
Before long, several small spacecraft descended toward his position. A large, boisterous crowd marched out of the ships. Leading them was none other than Yondu Udonta himself, blue-skinned, dressed in a dark red leather coat, wearing the Ravager insignia badge proudly on his chest.
His bald head was crowned only by a red mohawk-like fin.
Zela walked over to him and whispered a few words. Yondu's eyes shifted toward Mario, and he strode over.
"Hey there, friend! Heard you know that kid Star-Lord. You're from Terra too, huh? Your planet's tech really advanced enough for this kind of operation already?"
Mario studied Yondu. He'd always had a soft spot for this guy, especially remembering his sacrifice from the movies.
"That's right. I'm from Terra too. I know him, though he doesn't know me. Name's Mario. Nice to meet you, Yondu Udonta."
Yondu nodded, still grinning broadly. "Just Yondu's fine. I'm the captain of this crew."
He paused, his expression shifting to business mode. "So, friend, Zela tells me you need some help from us. You probably know that our services come with a price tag."
Mario nodded and repeated the tasks he needed assistance with, then added a new request.
"I also want you to help me find a raccoon named Rocket Raccoon. Actually, wait, never mind."
Rocket probably doesn't even exist yet.
Rocket might look like an ordinary raccoon, but he was deadly with weapons when needed, but equally capable of playing cute to manipulate people. He was the perfect mechanic and engineer for maintaining a space installation.
But since it was only 2009, Rocket might not have been created yet.
Though Mario stopped his request, Yondu had already filed the name away mentally. A raccoon with an name would stand out, he'd keep his eyes open.
"No problem with any of that," he said, then extended his hand.
Mario didn't hesitate. He reached into his inventory and pulled out a vibranium ingot, tossing it over. Yondu caught it reflexively.
"What's this?"
"Vibranium ingot. Zela said it's valuable, but I honestly don't know the market rate. Take this one, I'd like you to help me sell it. But I want to know what price it fetches."
Yondu tossed the ingot up and down thoughtfully, his grin slowly fading. He studied Mario for several long seconds, then suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Alright! But I'll be honest with you, it's been a long time since I've heard anything about vibranium changing hands. I'll need to ask around, might take some time to find the right buyer. This isn't the kind of merchandise you can just dump at a pawn shop."
Mario kept one eye on his mini-map throughout the conversation. Yondu's marker had been flashing between red and white earlier, but it eventually stabilized on white.
Good enough.
"Works for me. If you get any leads, just contact me through the ship's communicator."
Yondu pocketed the vibranium ingot and clapped Mario on the shoulder. "You got yourself a deal, Terra-man. Welcome to the big leagues."