He held her close, before smiling softly. "Still not a good excuse. And since no one else wants to swing, I need the companions here to do me a favor."<br/><br/>He released Hiana, before heading back to the mace. He lifted it like it was made from pumice, his armor flowing up around him as he turned back around. "I wanna see what everyone can do. Can you stop me? I am definitely weaker than Barid, probably weaker than his lieutenants. I wanna see if everyone has been training right. If not, no biggie, I can post a couple of the surviving death squads on you, get you spun back up to speed. But don't hold back. And use those artifacts I made for all of you, just for use against me. Show me your moves."<br/><br/>He concentrated, and all of them would see a ghostly second him for a split second, before he was shaking his head. "Nevermind, don't need a second one. Gonna need a lot of work to get you all up to speed again. Not your fault, not ready to take on a fully synchronized beyonder host. Hell, I don't feel ready yet. But that can start later, for the moment, lets get up to the domain, get the command center cleaned out enough to use it, and then I can get people heading back home with a couple death squad and a transport for rapid movement. The portal barrier only extends about two thirds of a light second from the planes, or about half the distance to the moon here, sorry, closest moon, so we can get you to trouble spots inside fifteen minutes. Or out even faster if need be."