Armoured Skill
Chapter VI
Into the Unknown
Harry had never really worried about the consequences of his actions and has not since his freedom from the Dursley's all those years ago. Though, that is not to say he's never actually thought about doing this or that to his own agenda, but that was always done purposeful. However, this? He had not actually given a thought to revealing them all, and it wouldn't have been like this.
It was pretty much shear accident of circumstance. They pissed him off and he did what he often does since the night his grandma died, and stuck his finger up and dammed the consequences. It could be worse he supposes, but he hates all of the weirdly conflicting media his companies getting.
One moment the press are saying one thing, and another, something else. He is just glad that he has managed to keep the existence of Justice secret so far, as he already has the US and UK Militaries bitching at him for possessing private high-tech military grade weapons. He knows they just want some too, but why would he want to sell weapons to idiots who use them at their leisure?
He wonders whether Stark has to deal with this kind of crap. He supposes that he has it worse with that whole incident with his kidnapping and then that crap with some douche and a huge-arse robot battle armour. Harry could not believe how arrogant Stark was to admit to all of that junk.
Harry smiled a little though, thinking, he had saved his twin sister from whatever rubbish that old wizard would end up walking her into, blind. Then worse, that ginger-top… thing… Ronald Weasley. Honestly, he will have to ask the old man about that if he ever gets a chance, maybe it was a misunderstanding, (because the old man cannot be that stupid). That Weasley guy is outclassed by Rosette one million to one.
Though, he held back from laughing as he thought that Dumbledore could have just 'agreed' to get the loud mouthed moron to shut him the fuck up. Harry had barely spoken with the ginger-top and he knew that he would tell him crap too, if it got him to shut up and leave him alone.
Shaking those thoughts away, it has been two weeks since the incident and accidental reveal of the magical world, and other than some small riots and large protests here and there by religious nutters and the likes, it was pretty quiet. The rioting did not last very long anyway, so not all was too bad.
Then with the humans having started noticing the mutants and metas, the world is changing, and though there will be many bigots screaming and shouting, having hissy fits of fear and jealousy, as long as the people do not jump to the bait everything should fall into place in the end.
He likes having Rosette and Ginny living with him, (Hermione having been looked at by the doctors went to her parents to stay, not wanting to impose, even though he did not mind). It made his place livelier, if you discount Ashe running around causing a nuisance, even though she does not live with him, she always manages to end up there at the end of the day.
Sighing he shook off this weird feeling he was being watched and let the humans flee as he stood on the street, as it sizzles with smoke and dispersing power from magic or energy weapons. He had taken out a few Death Eaters in full armour, quite annoyed that they did not hold up for long, and worse, did not surrender, as they should have. They seemed only able to attack innocent and defenceless humans.
His glowing blue eyes scanned for some surviving Death Eaters to capture, but he had ended them all, saving the humans. However, it was a moment later that he paused, eyes stopping on a human. He had not noticed him until now, but he stood, strong and proud wearing black with a long black leather coat.
The man is dark skinned with a strong body. He has a thing black goatee around his lips and a baldhead with an eye patch over his left eye. He does not even give the scene around him much attention, and a quick scan reports two hidden knives and a gun in a holster on his right thigh with another smaller pistol hidden on the back of his waist.
"Can I help you with something?" Justice asked, his modulated voice relaying his annoyance while hiding his curiosity and caution. This does not seem to be the sort of man that he wants to get on the wrong side of.
"Nothing," the man spoke strongly, with a confidence Harry would not have expected in a man so far outclassed right now. "It is I who have come to help you in a manner of speaking."
Justice rose his left eyebrow, though it was lost on the man. "And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" he had to ask, curious. Curiosity has always been a strength and weakness of his.
"I am Colonel Nick Fury, Commander of Shield…!"
"And that's supposed to mean something?" he interrupted before this Nick Fury could elaborate on his intentions. "I'm sorry but I've never heard of this Shield, or you."
The man, instead of looking annoyed or angry at the interruption looked more amused. "You're not the first to say that, and you won't be the last," he said with a quick upturn of his lips, which was gone for all-seriousness in moments. "S.H.I.E.L.D. Shield is a secret worldwide military… peacekeepers so to speak, and with everything that's been happening in the past few years, the world needs peacekeepers more than ever. Shield is an acronym of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
"OK, I get it," Justice replied. "So, Colonel Nick Fury, Commander of Shield, what do you want with me as if I haven't already guessed, and the answer is no."
"I figured you would say that… most do, in the beginning," he answered. "However, that isn't exactly why I'm here," he said, pulling out a folder from who knows where in his coat and not moving closer, threw it over.
Justice caught it without missing a beat. He pulled it open and looked over the front page. "The Avengers Initiative?" he asked, more curious than before.
"Our world is growing, Mr. Evans," he said, causing the armoured worrier to tense up. "Or do you prefer, Justice? Me, I suppose Justice does have a more… hero ring to it don't you think? Not too long ago things… have happened… first with Bruce Banner and his… somewhat failed gamma experimentation, and then Iron Man, but let us not forget the 'god' of thunder himself, Thor!
"That is not to mention the other people out there," he paused for breathe. "We are seriously out gunned, Justice… we need this to secure the safety of the everyday person. Just look around you, these mage… until you came along they had free reign to do whatever they chose. There may come a time where alone isn't good enough; an enemy where you'll need a team to fight with!"
Justice looked from the folder to Fury, his glowing blue eyes lighting up further. "You've caught me on a good day, Fury, so just leave this with me and I'll think about it."
He turned from the Colonel with his wings mantling out and forming, before the Colonel could react Justice burst up into the sky with a fast flap of the glowing blue wings, gone.
"I didn't expect him to fly that fast with wings," he muttered to himself. "But then they don't seem like normal wings to me," he finished shrugging as he pulled a radio from his coat pocket. "I need a pick-up, now, and a clean-up crew," he said looking to the sky and not waiting for a reply as he walked away.
Harry returned to his penthouse apartment in his building stretching his muscles. He is wearing a white tee shirt with some black trousers, and white running shoes. The Death Eaters had not been very active since Justice's debut that he is aware, but looking at how unorganised, these were its obvious they had gotten antsy and gone off on it solo.
He shook his thoughts away from the 'naughty' as Ginny and Rosette were snuggled together on the large cream couch in the middle of the large open plan living room, kitchen-dinner (not that the kitchen or dinner are used much).
They were not watching TV, as there are no holo-screens floating about. Then he got suspicious when it finally clicked that as soon as he exited the lift into the lounge they pulled apart and started shifting about, un-ruffling clothes and pulling further from each other shiftily.
He sighed and rolled his eyes, as he looked the girls over. They are both wearing cute short shorts PJ's, Ginny in white and Rosette in blue. He just ignored them as he flopped down onto a comfortable squishy chair with his newly acquired folder in his lap looking it over while they 'discretely' pulled further from each other.
"We've gone through this before!" he said, startling them as he looked up, passed them out of the large glass doors and windows beyond the large rooftop pool and into the starry night's sky. He looked back at them, smiling while their cheeks lit up. "You don't have to hide anything here, make out all you like, do whatever you want, you are adults. There's nothing wrong with it as far as I'm concerned, and the human world has come a long way, and I think they're more against the whole magic thing and evolution."
"Sorry Harry," Rosette said, looking down, ashamed. "It's just we've pretended for so long, it's like second nature now."
He just smiled, shrugging. "Hey, I understand," he shrugged again before returning to what he was doing.
Harry had been reading when a few minutes passed he noticed a shadow fell over him. Looking up Rosette was leaning her arms on the back of his chair smiling down at him as she was trying to read his Top Secret Shield Military documents.
He closed them and stuck his tongue out. "Haven't you got anything better to do… with Ginny?" he asked suggestively, which got her blushing.
However, she gathered her nerves and shook her head. "Na," she replied sheepishly. "So, what's the Avengers Initiative?" she asked, actually interested.
"Nothing you need to really worry about," he answered, shrugging. "So, you want something I presume as this is reminiscent of Ashe when she wants something, beating around the bush all cute and sweet so I 'can't' refuse."
She gave him a grin while Ginny was giggling from the couch. "Well… umm… we want cool battle armours too!" she blurted out quickly.
He rolled his eyes, amused. "Hmm… I wonder what that would be like," he said thoughtful, getting her hopes up. "I suppose I can come up with something that utilises magic much more than mine does. The chance for experimentation…
"OK, but I'll need to get some scans before I really commit to anything," he answered. "But it may take a while to get anything workable, if you hadn't noticed quite a bit of my time is taken up dealing with your Super Villains minions."
"Hey, they haven't done anything in two weeks, and Tide said that they were only worthless third rate minions," she winged as she slid round and sat on the arm of his chair. "Well, I guess we can wait, but when can we kidnap mum and dad from Dumbledore?"
Rolling his eyes again, he pat his sisters' leg condescendingly while she pouted. "We'll get them from him when we can. I am not stupid, and neither is he, but worse, he is a powerful mage. I cannot begin to try guessing how powerful he really is, so we have to stay cautious. He could have attacked back in Diagon Alley. It was just the fact he needed to keep face that he did not. I am certain we could have escaped, but he would have been partially responsible for a lot of destruction and death and I doubt he wants that on his head.
"He no doubt knows that as long as he has Lily and James Potter that he has a card to play," he said, sighing as he rubbed his brow, placing his file down on a glass coffee table in front of him. "We have to be smart as he's probably already panicking if he's realised that the humans have found out about them.
"If we push too hard it could mean war," he said, looking to each girl as they quivered thinking about it. "Now I'm sure like me, neither of you want to be partially responsible for a war between humans and sorcerers. That would get us nowhere."
"OK, I get it," she replied with a pouty smile. "But whoa, what's with the green thing?" she asked, startling him as he looked to see her as she had hopped off the arm of his chair and picked up his documents and opened them.
Harry growled and snatched it back with a simple summon startling her; she looked to him, pouting before she jumped down next to Ginny on the sofa.
"No fair, Harry," she said, pouting cutely. "You have got to teach me wand-less magic!"
He raised an eyebrow, laughing. "It's just magic, Rosie," he reprimanded playfully.
She and Ginny both gave him a disbelieving look. "But you didn't use a wand," Ginny told him slowly. "So its wand-less."
"No," he replied even slower. "The way you're putting it says that the wand came before magic. However, look at 'accidental' magic for example. That is proper magic in its most primitive form. This so-called 'accidental' magic is just your unchecked emotions, so I realised the key to magic is controlling emotions. Of course for super intricate things a focus is needed, probably the original reason they were invented."
"Oh," they both said together, pouting as thoughts and ideas entered their heads.
Harry smiled as he opened his folder again, ignoring the girls for a bit as he opened to Iron Man. He is quite impressed with the design given it had not been in the making for as long as the Justice Armour had. He internally shrugged, as he looked the papers over when he came to the last one, the rest not being news to him; his eyes widened.
Captain America, myth, legend, hero of world war two, take your pick, apparently the man really exists. He was found, frozen in ice somewhere in Antarctica. Somehow, with the help of the Super Solider serum that created him, created long before natural mutations were more than mere whispers no one spoke.
Leaning back in his chair he read the reports, more interested the more he read. He had heard about the non-events involving a mythical world in another realm, Asgard, but he had never had this much information. This certainly enlightens him on quite a few things.
After he finished he placed the files back down for further study later. He looked over to see the girls had fallen asleep on the couch cuddled up together and smiled, pleased they have each other.
However, right now he should focus more on his problems at hand, putting aside Lena's revival. It always brought a ping of pain to his chest thinking about her, frozen in suspended animation while they tried to fix her. He had to think about what Voldemort will do now his people have been outted.
Voldemort, though the 'evil' bad guy is an unknown, like seriously, nobody seems to know much about him or what he will do. If anything, he probably got pissed off because of all the idiots.
It is Albus Dumbledore who they should concern themselves with right now, not, Voldemort. He is the stereotypical old wizard, kindly and strong, powerful, the Merlin archetype for all wizards to follow, or at least the stupid and weak-minded one's.
He seems to be the type of man who may believe he is in the right when he is not. He has gotten away with so much in the past that people just continue letting him get away with it, thinking that he knows what is best. He has done so much that the people do not look at what is really going on anymore. Mage stop thinking for themselves when it comes to Albus Dumbledore.
Looking at the way things are, the humans mean nothing to the Order of the Phoenix, almost as little as they mean to the Death Eaters. Though, Harry believes that some of the Order likely are not like that, but the way Dumbledore harbours such control… well, they learn from seeing.
If even the 'Great' Albus Dumbledore looks down on 'muggles' then they should too. It has the 'follow the leader' scenario written all over it. They are just sheep, trusting faithfully in his great plan without asking what this 'plan' is. To them he has become more than a mere mage. They have put him up on Mount. Olympus and he has started enjoying Zeus's throne too much to let go.
Harry can see a war happening if he cannot find a way to stem the bad tidings between humans and mage. The mage are too far buried in pureblood rule. The purebloods are handed everything, from title to positions of government just because of name, and even seats in high office are handed down, which is why idiots are always in power.
It is not much of a shocker what ALL of the inbreeding has done over the years. Not only has it weakened their magical blood, but made them stupid and complacent, happy to breed with sisters and brothers, cousins, etc., in the belief that dirty blood (human born mage or humans) will make them less magic.
The irony is the reverse seems to be true. They are getting weaker and weaker. However, integrating into the real world will lead to outside breeding, and therefore, powerful children. If they keep up what they are doing, they are just breeding themselves human.
"Let's just hope this doesn't all go south," he muttered to himself, getting some strange looks from the girls as they sleepily opened their eyes, startling him; he shrugged sheepishly when Ashe charged in from the lift.
She made a B-line for Harry and hopped onto his lap, looking at him. "Harry, Tide says there are some mean looking mage outside and she has dropped the barricade doors but it seems like they're going to try breaking in any way!"
"And you came to tell me, why?" he asked, standing with her in his arms he plonked her on her feet.
She shrugged, sheepishly. "I was on my way to hang out and stuff!" she answered as if that is any real reason.
However, before he could do more than look at her in reprimand, the building shook in an explosion and the sirens went off with red emergency lighting. Then a nonchalant female voice spoke over the noise.
"Emergency, Security Alert!" she said professionally. "An act of aggression is taking place within the main lobby! Hostile mage have torn down outer defences, leaving Distortion Fields! However, all armed security personnel to the main lobby immediately!"
"Calypso!" Harry commanded moments later and a visual screen popped up in front of him with a girl with long light blue hair in pigtails, with bright blue eyes and a wide smile wearing a 'uniform' matching what Tide wears. "Who are they…?" he asked urgently.
"Order of the Phoenix, sir," she answered, speaking properly with a regal English accent, looking rather proud of herself. "They are led by the enemy Albus Dumbledore. I have security meeting them with force, sir, and more on the way. These mage are not being careful and could do some serious damage if not put in their place. I recommend that they meet with Justice ASAP!"
He sighed as the ground shook again. "Has Tide been teaching you puns again?" he asked, amused as she lit up looking embarrassed and ashamed. "Well, never mind what you and Tide do in your spare time; let me see this, on screen!"
"Y-yes, sir," she answered as the screen flicked from her to show the lobby little more than dust and mortar as spells and energy bolts flew around in a battle as security secured the safety of lobby staff.
"Oh no!" Rosette says from behind as she and Ginny had gotten up, curious and come over, looking over the screen and mess in varying degrees of horror. "This is what a battle between magic and science looks like," she said sounding down even though Ashe had seen fit to hug her to make her feel better; she did not seem to notice.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" Harry growled out, eyes locked on the screen in anger. "If Dumbledore wants to fuck with me and my family, I'll show him what fucking with me is really like! Tide; prepare my armour. Its time I kick that old bastard in the nuts, and put some humility into him!"
"Already prepped and ready to fly!" she answered vindictively over the comm. "Just kick him once for all of us too," she finished as Harry started stripping as he walked to the elevator with the girls following. "Ashe, get Evie, and protect your new big sisters, OK?!"
"Yes, sir!" she agreed, saluting as they stopped in the lift to find Evelyn already waiting as he threw his shirt out of the lift; the doors closing and it going down as he started with his belt.
"Harry!" Rosette reprimanded, blushing as she realised he really is going to take everything off with them in the lift with him.
He looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Grow up Rosie… I haven't created an armour that can go over my clothes yet!" he said, amused as she and Ginny spun away as his trousers came down, though neither Ashe nor Evelyn cared. They both secretly enjoyed the show; for once, it is him and not them stripping for scans and tests.
to be continued…