Through the gateway (the one with the ornamental arch), the Dreadpool Corps's military caravan proceeds. (Not to worry; it's a cattle guard, and not an actual gate. Otherwise, this'd be a lot harder...)

From one of the Z-frame posts on either side of the gateway, the ornamental skull of a toxodon hangs. It...could stand to look more like a bull's skull than it does... Either way, it'll just have to do. Not very many longhorn bulls in the Marvel multiverse, after all, become Dreadpools.

Across the mostly-abandoned ranch, sheepdogs are still on patrol; most of them are Shelties, Pyrenean Shepherds, Cardigan Welsh Corgis, or Aussies (i.e. Aussie Shepherds). Long before the Dreadpool Corps's caravan makes its entrance through the gateway, they start barking. A few of them run towards the caravan, acting as an "inspection committee..." They also come with bladders bearing urine, no doubt...

Within the ranch fences, the jeeps make temporary bivouac. On the surface, it looks like there might be an infantry company's worth of them. One would best not be fooled, though; more than half of these jeeps are capable of dimensional storage...as are, in fact, some of the Dreadpools in the Corps.

Some of these jeeps' crews get too comfy and decide to have a tailgate party. A boom box, playing at one of them, plays No Doubt pop music. The parties' attendees gorge themselves on Rum & Coke, Blood & Sand, horse's necks, and shōchū. It's hard to believe that they'll still be ready to fight by the time this party ends...if this party ends...

Some of these jeeps haul stock trailers. These are soon unlatched and opened. From many, tacked hyraxes (these'd be big enough to ride) are led from the trailers' interior shadows. (These shadows are Darkforce, and capable of dimensional storage spells...) Most are hyraxes; some aren't. Some are direst wraith mutant Hounds who can be compelled to change into horses, or steeds otherwise, via Sentinel tech. Others are feral, less-evolved kymellians.

One of these Dreadpools is a fully-evolved kymellian. He often crosses his arms (he has little hooves for fingernails) and shakes his horse-like head, each time the feral kymellians are ridden like Earth's horses. Another one of these Dreadpools is a White Room mutant. (The White Room are like the Inhumans, only kymellian.) She, it seems, is even more offended at the sight of her feral kin. Where she comes from, after all, she and the rest of her White Room sistren are shaggy goddesses. Shaggy...but hardly unkempt...or without majesty or nobility.

Nonetheless, the recon is soon mounted. Via their mounts, they ride off into the nearby terrain, to scout for trouble.

Some of these Dreadpools are birdfolk from Aerie. (The birdfolk are like the Inhumans...only feathered, winged, and often flighted. It's also been speculated that the shi'ar are in the family tree, too...but this remains to be proven.) Most of the Dreadpool birdfolk, specifically, are corvoid.

And where corvoids are concerned, the figurative aviary consists of all of the essentials: a crowfellow, a jay-man (who loves to cat-call, despite neither being a cat nor a catbirdfellow), a jayshrikefellow, a shrikefellow, a melampittafellow, a white-winged chough-woman (who really likes to take after, and impersonate, Stevie Nicks), a riflebird-man (who often carries a mega-rifle, both in lieu of and/or in addition to the Dreadpools swords, depending on what the mission demands...or just to remind his foes that his Schwarz is bigger), a blue-capped jinnifellow (who lives in an oil lamp, and hence, depends on a henchfellow for travel), a shogun flycatcherfellow, a koenig flycatcherfellow (who's akin to Eric Koenig, the Howling Commando), a drongofellow, a fantail-woman (who's a ninja and often uses her tail as a fan-like weapon), and a vireofellow (who doubles as a Green Knight). There are other birdfolk in the Dreadpool Corps...but only the aforementioned are corvoid-akin. Either way, some of the birdfolk take to the skies, and assist the recon in their preliminary reconnaissance.

Another one of the Dreadpools is a Savage Land mutant. Species-wise, he's a diictodont (i.e. a tusked, beaked, hog-size burrowing reptile, contemporary of the Triassic). As a mutant, he has avian wings; hence, he, too, joins the aerial reconnaissance. The other Dreadpools joke about him; they call him a flying pig...and hence, sometimes, as a joke, Cincinnatipool. And for this mission, he's also the bearer of the blue-capped jinnifellow's magic lamp; he wears it bound to harnessing on the side of his back, just beneath his right bird wing.

A bird-winged stink badger mutant, too, joins the recon; his snout is hog-like. He's joined by a winged hog-nose badger and a winged hog-nose skunk. There's something, it seems, about Dreadpools and flying pig jokes...

To the sky, the aerial recon takes. Across the canyons, the ground recon runs, mostly hyrax-mounted. Someone was supposed to meet them. They can't know, at present, that who they're looking for requires no microscope...or even, potentially, field optics (i.e. binoculars).

Personal interview sequence:

This is one of the scouts. At present, her mask is still on. She's deaf; to speak, she will sign. She wears illusion-casting gloves, which sign for her, requiring minimal input from her.

Near her face, a small fan blows. It makes a lot of noise. She doesn't care; she can't hear it.

In the seat with her, a strange-looking ball lies. It unrolls itself...and reveals itself to be a pichi (i.e. a dwarf armadillo). The pichi mutant, too, wears a Dreadpool suit...and is hence a co-member of the Corps. Smithpool, as she's often called, often places the pichi mutant into her lap, while addressing the fourth wall's concerns.

Over the years, she signs, we've come to appreciate the value of recon. It keeps us from falling on our faces. As people who used to do that way too often as bairns, that's very important. Plus, some of us want to take over the multiverse, and no multiverse wants to be ruled by a god who can't, at least, look like a god.

She finally takes her mask off. She's a red woman, it seems, of the Shawnee nation. She's also a time-traveler from the Georgian period.

As she takes off her mask, she makes a pop culture reference. "Hi! I'm Col. Watie! I'm a red man, and not a white one, as you'd probably think, because I'm from the South, and we're all racist against black people, and those of us who aren't never become military colonels! What can I do you for?!" She smirks and tosses her mask. That's from an old kids' book, she signs. It's about this farm teen from Kansas who joins the Union military during the American Civil War, and... I'll tell you more later. She hesitates. Harold Keith wrote it, in case you'd wonder...

Frankly, though, she continues, I think most of us make too big a deal out of it. Seriously; it's just recce! Deaf Smith made such mistakes just as easily, that way. Seriously; he once told a bunch of Texans that a bunch of Mexicans were transporting bags full of gold. And as a result of his miscomm, they killed all of the Mexicans...only to learn that the bags were, in reality, full of grass, to feed their horses. What I'm mainly getting at, though, is that Deaf Smith was not only white...but male. She shrugs. Racist and sexist, I know... But in this century, I've been told, everyone hates white men. She scoffs. Kind of makes sense, actually... And if not for the white male majority of this outfit, I'd kind of never want to go back to my own time. She hesitates. The War of 1812 is still being fought there...which is part of the story about how I became a merc. That, and most of the Shawnee are warriors, in my time. She hesitates. This'd include a lot of the women and youth, as well.

Many rounds around the canyon mesas, ground recon makes. In patterns all over the sky, the air recon makes. The air recon seldom ever tells the ground recon anything...and it seldom makes a difference when comms nano-hardware is sewn into the Dreadpool suits. There are technarch aliens and Sentinel mutant robots within the Corps; most of the comms nano-hardware is their doing...mega-tech though Sentinels more often prefer.

In a dried-out delta bed, many of the hyrax-riders assemble. A few of them dismount their respective hyraxes. Like the zebras and team captains of an NFL game, during the coin toss, some of the Dreadpools assemble in a small circle, to discuss affairs. (And if coins are tossed, they're only done so as a joke.)

One of the Dreadpools in this huddle is a pierrot de plataforma; a sort of black clown with white bull-like horns. During parades, they make fun of pop music bands that perform atop towed platforms...by following along and doing an a capella performance of their own. (The performance is always a capella...but it isn't necessarily fashionable...as often isn't the fashion choice of pierrotes as they do their lampooning.) They spend most, if not all, of the parade chasing the platform-mounted pop band as it performs. Salvador, the capital and largest city of Bahia, is their race's hearth; the city in which the patriarch of their race was born.

Pierrotpool, as he's often called by the other Dreadpools, continually tosses a big copper coin into the air, and pseudo-gawking, each time it lands on a certain face. (He's not actually keeping score; he's just trying to be a pest, as clowns often do.) The coin has the head of Ryan Reynolds on its "heads" side, and a montage shot of Oa, a planet from the Green Lantern comics, on the "tails" side. In the world where this pierrot is from, Ryan Reynolds becomes a PM of the Canadian Provinces. (Or rather, that's what the pierrot would tell the rest of the Corps if they asked; by the looks of it, though, the pierrot has gotten so used to joking about things, that the other Dreadpools can no longer tell if he's joking or not... Kind of like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, if he created his own virus and then got sick with it. (Unclear, though, as to whether the Big Bad Wolf would get sick with the virus, too, after he ate the self-infected BWCW...)

The family that once ran this ranch belonged to the gigantian race of aliens. All gigantians are Eternals. Once, as it was with humanity, the Celestials experimented on them, and divided them up into three factions: Eternals, Deviants, and baseline. But then there was a war, and the Eternals won, and rendered the other two factions nigh-extinct. Hence, all gigantians are noble-like. Or rather, they see themselves as that. But like any other elite, they're not immune to corruption. Corrpution...might or might not be the reason why the ranch family no longer lives here...

Still in their huddle, the head scouts still murmur to one another. And the pierrot, a resident pest, keeps flipping the copper coin in vain...

Nearby, a Toy Fox Terrier, also in a Dreadpool suit, looks around. His gaze fixes on something distant...that gets closer. For that reason, the Toy Fox Terrier starts barking, backing farther and farther back as he goes, and taking refuge between a pair of tacked hyraxes...

Nearby, a long rank of mimes, wearing Dreadpool suits, stand. Their suits, by contrast, are white, and decorated as if they were pins in tenpin bowling...

Onepinpool looks in the direction of the approaching specter. Without moving otherwise, he taps Twopinpool, next to him, on the shoulder. He, too, looks in the approaching specter's direction...and, without moving otherwise, taps Threepinpool on the shoulder...

Intermission...complete with Monty Python organ music...

Without turning his gaze, Ninepinpool taps Tenpinpool...the last of the Tenpinpools...on the shoulder. He, too, looks in the approaching gigantian's direction...and gawks. In this respect, one might say that the approaching gigantian has "bowled a strike..."

A trio of Dreadpools rushes forth to have a second huddle, this time with the gigantian. The gigantian comes clad in a toga...like an Ancient Greek noble, only five times taller. Among other things, this gigantian Eternal is anatomically-liberating (i.e. he can detach his appendages, and use them, and be without them for a long time without risking his own demise.) He most often uses this power to remove his head and/or his arms for a variety of purposes. Some of his kin have been Ghost Riders. (Many, though, would hate to think what they'd use for a mount...)

One of the three Dreadpools who huddle with the gigantian wears a Dreadpool suit that is styled like a rugby (union) suit. For that reason, the other Dreadpools often call him either Rugbypool, Fullbackpool, or Beaverpool. (Among other names, the national rugby team of the Canadian States is called the Beavers.) One of his other companions is an Ancient Spartan and time-traveler, dressed to kill in loose-fitting warriors' attire...which is also a variant of the Dreadpool suit. The Corps often calls him Spartanpool. The third Dreadpool in the trio is a shi'ar. His plumage is yellow and green...although his Dreadpool suit is still red and black.

A Welsh Springer Spaniel, also in a Dreadpool suit, joins the Dreadpool trio. He's mostly here for Rugbypool; they're hunting buddies...as well as occasional rugby-playing buddies.

The gigantian Eternal's name is Stamey. He's stuck around at his own likely peril; most of his neighbors have evacuated. As Rugbypool takes a knee (he probably rushed forth for this very purpose), Stamey does, too, before the trio. Behind Rugbypool, his two companions, too, take knees.

Now, Stamey speaks. The trio would be less likely to listen very closely...if Stamey didn't have the power to literally squash them like bugs. (Pathetic, I know; but few villains ever learn actual reverence.) Either way, this should go smoothly enough...although there might be some cloaks and daggers involved...and not to mention pulwars.