BOTH OF THE NON-DmC SCENES FROM MY RANDOMS… Honestly thought there were more.
Like always, I really need feedback on these so I can find out what people like/dislike and so I can work out what areas I need to improve on. So please, review. Another chapter, another attempt to entertain you all. I honestly do not have anything else to add, so on with the show!
Each Intellectual Property Belongs To Its Respective Owner.
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XX Falkreath Hold, South Of The Guardian Stones - 17th of Last Seed, 4E 201 XX
Just off the paved road linking Helgen and Falkreath itself, nestled in the trees and the bushes, was a small camp. Three crude tents, a fire-pit and a rack for tanning leather comprised the sum total of this pitiful little hide-away. Its makers and inhabitants, a trio of lowly bandits, seemed to be going about their normal business.
One sat by the fire, slowly stirring the contents of the bubbling pot that contained the meagre stew their food could make while the others sorted through their possessions. To the casual observer one would think the trio planned to enjoy a hot meal before breaking camp, but to those who paid attention something would have seemed off.
The movements of the pair sorting the possessions were jerky and unnatural, implying unease with their actions. Soft groans and whimpers of pain from the trio hinted at hidden pain or fear and the burn marks told of their recent, not to mention magic induced, deaths. Although the faint glow emanating from beneath their skin along with the occasional cloud of magicka forming around them would alert any with even a basic knowledge of Conjuration that these three where in fact thralls, raised by a necromancer of some power.
Said necromancer sat beneath the shade of a tree behind the camp eating an apple and sipping tea from a crude pewter cup. He was garbed in the dark brown and deep blue robes worn by Expert practitioners trained up in Winterhold and wore an equally dark brown hood to match the robes… Although, of course, if one was to speak with the mage in question he'd claim that a Master's robe would suit better but he sadly had to leave before he could be fitted for one but a quick getaway is required when one assaults a member of the Thalmor.
"Damn knife-eared bastard, had to go and stick his nose into other people's business." The mage muttered as he tossed the remains of his apple away and reached up to stroke the scars that marred his forehead over his right eye, the results of a relaxing stroll and an unfortunate encounter with a Wisp Mother. It was funny, he liked these scars. Sure they marked him, but it was for something he remembered and when he shared the story in the taverns people would look, comment on how lucky he'd been and let it drop… Not like people had done with the mark the scars now hid.
As the mage refilled his cup from a crude tea pot he'd fashion and added the last few drops of his milk a roar like distant thunder rang out. The roar came from up north, near Helgen from the sounds of it and didn't match up with anything the twenty-something year old mage knew of.
"Oh! It's starting is it? Marvellous!" A voice the mage recognised, and had been dreading laughed from behind him. It was a strange one, either an Irishman failing to pass as a Scot or a Scotsman messing up an Irish accent. Turning slowly to face his, for a lack of a better word, 'patron' the mage tried to force a smile and some warmth into his voice.
"My Lord Sheogorath, to what do I owe this most gracious visit?" The mage asked, hoping with every fibre the Daedric Prince of Madness would actually forget why he'd come. "We have not spoken in almost a-"
"A decade laddie." Sheogorath finished with that strange smile that could either mean 'joy' or 'I will kill you' that only the Prince of Madness could wear naturally. "You've done will for yourself, made a wee bit of a name… What was it again?"
"'Haraldur The Limitless', milord." The mage, 'Haraldur', admitted once it dawned that Sheogorath wasn't being rhetorical. As the pair spoke another roar, closer and menacing, echoed through the valley. Ignoring whatever it was for now, Haraldur stared at the being who'd taken him to Nirn and freed him from the life he'd endured before. The man who'd took him from his friends but also freed him from the looks and the whispers, liberated him from the bipolar society who had turned on him over a simple misunderstanding. "P-Please… Please Lord, d-don't send me back. I'm happy here. I'm free from those brutes I'd been forced on an-and I don't have to deal with the bullshit and bickering from the school. I love Nirn… S-Sure there are more thinks that can kill me, but not as many have tried. I-I'm happy here and… And… and I don't want to go back, back to being that scared and pitiful little boy anymore."
"I feel for ya, laddie, I do. But I'm a man of my word, except when I ain't, and we had a deal." The Daedric Prince said as sympathetically as he could while handing the sobbing man a silk handkerchief. "Now we had a deal; I'd give you ten years of freedom. Ten years to be all you could be, or to waste and do what ya want I didn't care about that part… But in return you owe me. You owe me some excitement, some amusement and some fun. And guess what, I found it. Back in your world they got a big game coming up, a competition to find the best magic user of The Age… or of a certain age, wasn't to clear when I was looking through Oblivion."
"And you want me to take part." 'Haraldur' sighed, it wasn't a question but a simple statement. "Can we at least wait until the Thralls finish? I've got them sorting me stuff and their crap into what I can use or sell back there."
"Oh, so you been expecting me to show up then? That's good, but that you're accepting this but not good that I am being predictable." Sheogorath growled as he took back his hankie and ate it. "And I ain't gonna make you that wee little wizard boy you was when I found you… You living in that, in that Jyggalagtic plane of dullness with your little tiny house all the same and your gardens the same and I swear to ME I'D HAVE GONE STARK DARN CRAZY IF I'D BEEN STUCK THERE! But I guess you took my deal, so ya might have been a wee bit bonkers already."
Resigned to his fate, 'Haraldur' settled down to his last meal a free man. He knew that Sheogorath would let him have it, there was lettuce in it, and waited until the Thralls had his pack ready for him. When they'd finished, and he'd released them with a wave of his hand, 'Haraldur' hefted the pack onto his back and collected his staff.
"See you got rid of that old toothpick." Sheogorath noted as he finished off his own stew, having only complained once about its lack of brains, and readied the magic to send his little investment back. "Good to see, the locals must have laughed at it."
"It's still here, hidden in the wood." 'Haraldur' said softly as he patted the ornate dragon carved into the pit of his staff. Pointing the staff at Sheogorath and giving it a little wave he cast one of the few spells he'd mastered from home. "See."
Glancing down at his feet, Sheogorath found his legs doing a hearty little gig of their own accord. Laughing with amusement the Daedric Prince clapped his hands and the trees closest to them began to twist and warp, forming an arch. 'Haraldur' knew the shape they'd taken, he'd seen one before and depictions a hundred times in books. An Oblivion Gate had formed. 'Haraldur' suspected that it was because the Gate linked not to Oblivion but through it to another plane that it could form at all.
"Goodbye, Milord." 'Haraldur' said sadly as he racked at his raven dark hair in an effort to cover his scars and fiddled with the hood so that it shadowed his face, leaving only the deep green eyes to stand out. Once he was ready, or as ready as he could be, 'Haraldur' stepped through the Gate and was transported back to the realm of his birth, a realm he hadn't missed in ten long years.
"Goodbye laddie." Sheogorath laughed as his legs continued to dance the river dance. "Put on a good show and I might take ya back when all this prophecy malarkey is over with."
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XX Privet Drive; Surrey, United Kingdom - 1 November, 1981 XX
As Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration professor and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, tried to convince her long-time friend and superior Albus Dumbledore not to leave Young Harry with the Dursleys of no.4 Privet Drive Hagrid looked on. It wasn't his place to question Mr. Dumbledore and Hagrid trusted that Dumbledore knew what he was doing.
"- The only family he has." Albus Dumbledore said, cutting of McGonagall's argument against letting Petunia watch over her nephew.
"This boy will be famous." McGonagall sighed, deeply saddened that young Harry's fame came with such a cost. "… There won't be a child in our world who doesn't know his name."
"Exactly." Dumbledore agreed. "He's far better growing up away from all of that… Until he is ready."
After gently setting the bundle of cloth which held the saviour of Magical Britain down, and wordlessly enchanting the blankets to keep the boy warm and comfortable, Dumbledore turned to comfort the teary eyed Hagrid. As they turned to leave Dumbledore set a sealed envelope, addressed to Petunia Dursley, atop of Harry.
"Good luck, Harry Potter." Dumbledore said softly before the denizens of the magical world departed, none having noticed the curtains of no.5 Privet Drive twitch.
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Slade Joseph Wilson, former Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army and currently one of the most feared assassins in the world, wait a minute after the weirdoes in costume had departed before stepping out through the back door and looping around. Normally Wilson wouldn't be caught dead in an area as dull and politically stable as Surrey but after losing an eye he'd decided to take an easy job, tracking down and killing a group of IRA men who'd killed the cousin of someone able to afford his fee… Mostly to keep his close friend William Wintergreen from worrying himself to death.
Silently creeping up the side of the house, M1911 and combat knife at the ready, Wilson scanned the street with his one good eye. Sure he was being paranoid, but the incident with The Jackal was still fresh in his mind, and the group could easily have used leaving that bundle as a cover to scope out his current hiding place… Or to plant a bomb. Crouching low he used the edge of his knife to pull back the edge of the blanket enough to get a good look inside.
"A kid?" He muttered in surprise before scanning the street again, his head swivelling from side to side to account for his recently reduced field of vision.
Setting the knife aside, but keeping the M1911 ready, Wilson picked up the envelope and read the address scrawled in green ink before flipping the envelope over and taking note of the seal; A lion, a snake, a badger and a bird all centred around a stylised 'H'. Breaking the seal with his thumb Wilson read the contents and found he understood very little of it. Names, places and events he had no knowledge of where mentioned casually alongside the news that the boy before him was now an orphan and that powerful magic would protect these 'Dursleys' if they took him in.
"Magic?" Wilson snorted dismissively. He'd had run-ins with magic users, mostly as targets he'd been hired to kill. Some were powerful, some were weak and some just plain crazies who'd read a little too much Alastor Crawley while tripping on LSD. But since he'd seen a flying motorcycle and two teleporting senior citizens Wilson was gonna say this fell somewhere between he first two. Turning to look at the kid again Wilson took in the boy's features, his messy black hair and the rather stylised cut on his forehead. "Huh… Apart from the scratch, you look a lot like Wade did as a kid."
Normally Wilson would have called the cops to report the kid and been long gone but seeing the little orphaned boy but, so soon after Adeline had left him with their children, something stopped him. Wintergreen had been saying how the kids had been a stabilising influence and he wanted someone to follow in his footsteps, something neither Grant nor Joseph where likely to do if Adeline had anything to say about it.
Deciding to get the kid in off the cold wet street, at least for the night, Wilson scooped up the bundle of blankets and retreated back into the house he'd 'commandeered' for use while he'd been tracking those IRA men. He, or more accurately Wintergreen, still had a few friends in British Intelligence who could hopefully provide some Intel on what was going on.
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An idea that had been bumping around in my head for a while. I tried to work out and develop the basics over on The Infamous Man's forum but couldn't get too far and it wasn't until I read the Dungeons 'n Drow chapter of Odd Ideas but the legendary Rorschach's Blot that it just clicked. Rorschach's Blot did Harry disappearing as a baby and then coming back for first year [being de-aged in the process] so I decided to take a Harry who'd willingly leave the Wizarding World if offered the chance, like a Harry who'd just gone through Second Year with the School turning on him, his friend being petrified and nearly dying against the basilisk only to be rewarded for saving the Muggleborns, and the world, from 'Minimort' with the fucking Dursleys. Add in Sheogorath [a god send for anyone who wants a crossover with TES] and here you go, the beginnings of a SuperHarry fic that's equal parts crack, parody, culture shock and not giving a shit.
All I can say is "Nihil novi sub sole" ("there is nothing new under the sun"). Gonna be honest, this is the same premise as Harry Potter and the Invincible Technomage [with hopefully less bashing] and Thinking In Little Green Boxes [just a little less crackish] only with DC characters. Harry Potter taken in by Slade Wilson, everyone's favourite one-eyed supersoldier turned mercenary. As a bit of world blending the Wizards/Witches of HP-verse are extreme isolationist groups of DC's Homo Magi [I shit you not, that's a term DC uses]. Also, seems the Fourth person to use the codename Ravager was Slade's younger half-brother, whose name was Wade… That had to be a take that at Marvel.
I'm dyslexic, so please point out any mistakes in spelling or grammar [I spell things the way they do in England and Ireland, so some things may look off to Americans]. Please leave your opinion via review or send them via PM, I'd like to know what you think. Well, I think that's everything I've gotta say so, hope you enjoyed the chapter.
This is Highvalour saying bye and thanks for reading.
