The epic battle between Jon and the Super Skrull hadn't been going well, at least not from Jon's perspective. The the Skrull hadn't managed to actually hit Jon with one of his devastating blows, Jon was getting rather worn out from all the dodging. Henchman, ever the grand stander, jumped down to Jon's side in some misguided effort to save him. Several Skrull guardsmen, rifles drawn, rushed into the fray. Then the cavalry arrived. Sort of.

Vegeta and his Sayian warriors leaped over the fifty foot tall walls of the stadium and down onto the arena floor. Loud explosions, obviously the Sayian's handiwork, boomed through out the city.

Things got very confusing down on the floor. Through the melee and dust and bright flashes of light I could see bodies flying in all directions. At one point I saw a Sayian beating Henchman with his own robotic right arm. So much for the cavalry.

"Professor," said Dark Jedi Kriss, "don't you think we should do something?"

All around our box seat was chaos. People, mostly Skrulls, were screaming and either running towards the riot on the floor or towards the exit.

"Yeah man, we should definitely do something," Hudson said in a loud voice.

"I have to agree Hot Wheels," Mr. Bennet offered. "It's time to take a course of action and I suggest that course of action is to get out of here."

With that the entire stadium shook again. A deafening roar grew louder, filling the air around us. We could see buildings collapsing over the wall of the stadium. Something the Sayians were doing seemed to be making the very planet itself unstable.

"I'm with you," I said. "Let me call our ride."

I reached out telepathically for Blink but was having trouble making a connection. The rumbling quake around us was growing. The sheer panic from all the minds around us was creating a strong feedback disturbance that was interfering with my powers. The walls of the stadium started to crumble and fall over as a giant rift split the arena in two. Tall geysers of steaming molten lava exploded into the air all around us. Someone screamed. It was Hudson.

I reached Blink just as Jon and Henchman rushed up to us. Henchman's right arm was nowhere to be seen. With a terrifying blast, the floor of the arena burst into flames.

Blink looked around for a moment, stunned by the devastation.

"Get us out of here!" I shouted.

Just as waves of lava erupted through us, we were gone. I quickly patted out the small fire on my sleeve and then looked around. We were back on Hacknor. All of our party was accounted for and we were all in one piece. Well, except for Henchman's arm, of course.

The epic battle between Jon, the Intergalactic Gladiator and the Super Skrull got off to a fast start. Jon, weaponless, knew he was out gunned so he tried to get an advantage by striking first. He did a forward roll, springing up and giving an over handed karate chop to the Skrull's neck. His hand bounced off without much seeming effect. The Skrull's torso had turned rocky orange.

"Pitiful human!" the Super Skrull bellowed. "You are a gnat I shall enjoy crushing!"

The Skrull's right hand turned into a heavy, orange rocky fist and as it stretched improbably out towards Jon, it became covered in flames. The fist hammered down straight at Jon's head. He managed to dive out of the way of the devastating blow, ripping his shirt in the process.

Jon rolled backwards across the dirt ground, trying desperately to avoid the Skrull's unyielding punches. His rocky fists smashed into the ground multiple times, narrowly missing Jon.

Dark Jedi Krill turned to me. "We have to stop this," she said urgently.

"I think it's probably going to stop shortly even if we don't do anything."

"Well I'm not just going to sit here and watch this anymore!" Henchman said, leaping to his feet.

Jon was on his feet, jumping back, trying to escape the flaming rock fists, when he suddenly came to a jarring halt. It was if he slammed into an invisible wall. With a maniacal laugh, the Super Skrull pulled back his powerful fist and threw a punch straight at Jon's head.

At the moment just before the blow impacted with Jon, Henchman landed on the Skrull's arm, knocking him back. With the super-human strength of his bionic implants, Henchman threw the ugly green alien over his back, far across the stadium.

The Empress sprang to her feet. "What trickery is this?" she shouted. "Kill that intruder!"

A small platoon of soldiers drew large looking rifles and charged down to the arena's floor.

Just then a loud explosion rang through the air. The whole stadium shook. Tendrils of smoke slowly streaked up into the air outside the walls. All eyes turned upwards as a lone figure shot down from the sky, landing between the Skrulls and Jon and Henchman. It was Prince Vegeta.

"I am King Vegeta!" his voice boomed. "Today the scourge of the Skrull empire will sully this galaxy no longer!"

Our group filed into the off-worlder visitor's box at the Chi'dung Memorial Arena. I flagged down the concession vendor and bought some confection that looked like Milk Duds and hopefully wouldn't taste too far off.

"We aren't really going to let Jon fight, are we?" Henchman hissed anxiously at me.

"Why not?" I asked. "This is what he does, after all."

"Yeah, but the Super Skrull? That jerk has the combined powers of the Fantastic Four! He'll wipe the floor with Jon!"

"Really?" Bennet asked. "Excuse me a moment. I have to go change my bet."

"Hey man, this ain't cool," Hudson said as Bennet left. "Jon doesn't even have his wrist device. How is he suppose to take on the Fantastic Four?"

"Jon has the heart of a brave warrior," Kriss offered hopefully. "His skills don't rely just on weapons. He is very adept at hand to hand."

"Yeah but the Super Skrull has the strength of the Thing," Henchman replied snidely. "Karate choppin' that isn't going to do much good."

Loud trumpets rang through the arena and everyone jeered. Gates at opposite ends of the combat floor slid up.

"Oh man, I've got a bad feeling about this," whined Hudson.

"Alright Blink," I said, "take us to the Skrull homeworld."

"Uh, wait a second, Professor," Hudson said, raising his hand. "Don't you think we might need re-enforcements?"

"What, you think the Skrulls are going to be tougher than the demon hoards of hell?" asked Henchman.

"Well we didn't have to fight them, did we?" he answered. "We just zipped right into the throne room."

"We can do the same here with the Skrulls," threw in Dark Jedi Kriss. "How many troopers are they really going to have in their throne room? Those kinds of soldiers are usually cerimonial, unless there's real fear of a revolt or attack."

"Um, yeah," added Noah Bennet. "I'm with Hudson on this. Let's go back to Earth and call the Avengers or Dick Cheney or someone. Or how about the X-Men? Isn't this your gig?"

"Greatness is not born by shuffling our challenges off on others," I told the group. I looked at Blink and nodded.

In an instance we were standing before the Skrull Empress. 10 of her elite troopers standing at her side immediately sprang into action, extremely large rifles suddenly appearing in their hands. Their guns were pointing at us.

"Vaporize them, your Majesty?" one growled to the Empress.

"Oh, game over man!!" wailed Hudson.

"We come in peace!" I shouted, raising my hands. "We're very sorry to interrupt you like this, your Highness. We're just looking for a friend of ours. Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator."

The Empress smiled. "Ah yes. Even now he prepares to battle my champion, the Super Skrull."

"What are you talking about?" Kriss asked.

"The Gladiator's prowess in personal combat is well known throughout the galaxy. We recently aquired him so that our people could be provided with entertaining sport. They have so little since Galactus ate our homeworld."

"You got Jon from Mephisto so that he have a boxing match with your boy?" asked Henchman in disbelief.

"Oh this is no little spar," the Empress purred. "This is a fight to the death."

"This isn't what I signed on for," Henchman said, a brittle tone in his voice. Kriss glared at him.

"Jon is our gracious host," replied the Jedi. "He is a valient warrior and a brother in need. We must rescue him."

"Besides, Henchy," I said with a smile, "I thought you were trying to be a good guy now." He just glowered at me in response.

"Er," Mr. Bennet interrupted, "he does have a point though. Going to hell and fighting the devil aren't really my line. I'm thinking my particular skills might be more useful back here on Hacknor, sort of directing events from behind the scene."

"Forget it four eyes," Hudson said with his usual swagger. "Anybody can shoot one of these."
The private tossed the paper pusher a pulse rifle. "Just aim for the bad guys and squeeze."

"Alright then," I told the others, "into the breach!"

Blink, who doesn't seem to mind being used as an interdimensional taxi service, had answered my telepathic summons. Using her unique teleportation gifts, she brought us in a heart beat into the throne room of the dark lord, Mephisto.

It was hot. Sticky, sweaty, moldy and above all, hot. Mephisto was sitting on his skull throne, smirking at us. There was no sign of Jon.

"How dare you invade my realm?!" he bellowed suddenly.

"Again, you mean," I offered.

"Where's Jon you freaky red monster?!" Hudson yelled in his most agressive Colonial Marine voice. He raised his rifle and pointed straight at his chest.

"Ha!" Mephisto laughed. "You are too late. Far too late."

Dark Jedi Kriss's light saber hummed to life. "If you have hurt him beast, I shall cut you in two!"

"Save your strength," Mephisto replied with unmistakable gloat. "You'll need it. I don't have Jon anymore, you see."

"What? Why not?" I asked.

"Yeah, where is he?" Hudson yelled.

"I traded him," Mephisto said, his grin broadening.

"What? Why? For what?" we all called out at once.

Mephisto held up his hand. There was a small glowing cube in it. "This contains a part of the Kree Supreme Intelligence. With it, I can replicate an army of giant green super-intelligent floating heads. I will be unstoppable!"

Bennet looked at me and swirled a finger around his ear. "Cuckoo," he mouthed.

"Who did you trade Jon to?" I insisted.

"The Skrulls," the dark one answered. "He's on their home world. Not sure why they wanted him and I don't really care. This bit of the Supreme Intelligence is my ticket to universal domination! I told you Jon was valuable to me!"

"I think we're going to need a lot more guns," said Hudson.