A/N: Review responses are available in my forums as normal. Thanks for reading.


Genesis 1.7

Saturday morning, after a huge breakfast, Harry approached Luke. "Hey, you and the grunts do fighting drills in the morning, right?"

"Yeah."

"Think I could join?"

Luke considered Harry's size. He was average for a boy his age, which put him inches and many pounds smaller than Coil's typical mercenary. "We do Krav Maga. It's not easy on the body."

Harry shrugged. "My life's not easy. I just want to get better."

The answer seemed to be what Luke was looking for. "Okay, I'll clear it with Dimitri."

"Thanks!"

Dimitri turned out to be one of the smaller men, but like the others walked with a sense of coiled energy, as if every move could kill. He looked Harry up and down before glancing at Luke. "Boss cleared it?"

"Boss doesn't care, it's your call," Luke said casually. "He's on salary, same as us. If Empire 88 goons come spilling in here, wouldn't hurt to have another hand."

Harry's mind clicked. Bunching thigh muscles, heel has set. Left jab, two inches right.

Faster than a snake, Dimitri snapped out a punch with his off arm. Harry barely dodged his head to the right, slapping the arm away.

The mercenary nodded as he relaxed. "Good reflexes. You fight before?"

"I learned a few things from a former SAS drill instructor in Leicester. Worked for my previous… er, boss."

"What'd he tell you?"

"That I was a lousy weak tosser not fit to suck my mama's teats. I think I was fourteen."

Dimitri smiled, but it was actually hard to tell. "Smart man. Okay, you can join us. We're not going to go easy, but no harder either."

"All I can ask. Thank you, sir!"

~~Simurgh's Son~~

~~Simurgh's Son~~

Harry was very, very sore, but pleased regardless when he went to Jess's room that evening. "Luke said you did really good," Marissa said as she joined them. Harry was on his stomach, essentially naked, as Jess worked on the backs of his legs and buttocks.

"Dimitri was unusually cool for an evil henchman," Harry admitted. "Still hurt, but I think I learned a lot."

He felt Marissa run a hand through his hair and made purring noises that set her to laughing.

"Enjoy it while you can," Jess said. "You know you're going to have to shave your head for these designs, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said. He wasn't worried, he was excited. They were more than halfway through!

~~Simurgh's Son~~

~~Simurgh's Son~~

Early the next morning he knocked on Luke Casseus' door. The large young man was dressed in a pair of loose house pants and nothing else. Staring at row after row of perfectly defined muscle, Harry suddenly felt very small. "Holy shit, I want to be you when I grow up," he whispered.

Ballistic laughed. "No training on Sundays. Whatch'ya need, little man?"

"Er, this is going to sound really strange, but I couldn't help but notice your hair style."

"Yeah, that's okay to notice."

"Would you be willing to shave my head? I did my pits, but I'm not sure about my head."

Luke raised one brow in a silent inquiry. Then shrugged. "Mars said you were treatin' her alright. Just so you know, Mars and me are good friends."

"I get it," he said. "I have a feeling she'd break my heart before I could ever think about breaking hers."

"Right. Well, come on. We'll do the electric first, then the razor to take off the stubble. Gotta tell you, though, Harry, I don't think it'll look as good on you as it does me."

"Luke, you're like GQ handsome. I could strap ten million on a diamond and gold chain around my neck and I still wouldn't look as good to a girl as you do just standing there."

Luke laughed again and led Harry into his room.

An hour later, when he felt relatively confident she was awake, he knocked on Jess's door. The door opened to reveal her at a computer on a video conference with someone in a dark, enclosed space. "Gotta go, Noelle," she said quickly. "Talk to you soon."

"Right." The other girl had a pretty face, but drawn with exhaustion and lack of light.

"Sorry for barging in," Harry said, feeling guilty. "I can come back."

She turned and blinked tiredly at him. "Holy shit, you shaved."

"Well, yeah. I was…would you accept another five hundred in return for finishing today?"

She motioned for him to shut the door and come in. He did so. Before he could say anything, she reached back to computer and typed in a quick command before shutting it down. "You really believe in this shit, don't you?" she finally asked. "You really think these runes are going to do something?"

He bowed his head for a second before he walked over and sat on the seat. "You know the story about the Simurgh and me, right?"

"Story? The photo of the Simurgh reaching for you was on the cover of Time Life. The photographer won a Pulitzer."

Harry remembered—he'd seen the photo of himself a hundred times or more. The photo of the Simurgh looming over a kneeling, weeping little boy in the London attack of '03 captured the hopelessness and despair that Endbringers caused even more powerfully than images of the destroyed cities. The death toll in New York, Seattle or Moscow was simply too big for ordinary people to wrap their minds around. But a boy kneeling just a few feet from his dead parents with the Simurgh herself reaching down to destroy him was something that needed no explanation; no statistics were necessary to convey the utter horror of that moment.

He hated that photo.

"Yeah, what they don't tell you is that two months later the photographer walked into Piccadilly Circus with an assault rifle and a vest full of explosives." Harry ran a hand over his bald head. "Thing is, her song really did fuck me up. There I was, just climbed out of the car where my parents were dead, and this monster was floating right there singing this horrid song at me I could only hear in my head. And…and…I saw things."

"Like monsters?"

"Monsters. Spaceships. Gods. Magic. I saw galaxies collide. Shit beyond description. And I see it every damn time I close my eyes. I haven't actually slept since I was eight."

Jess blinked at him. "Wow."

"Thing is, I learn from the memories. That trick to keep from being ticklish? It does a whole lot more. I learned it from a dream. That's why I think this might work too. I mean, if one thing I dreamed about works, this should too, right?"

Jess shrugged. "I suppose."

"I think something bad is going to happen." Harry fund himself whispering. "I don't know when, but soon. I…I don't really want to die, Jess. My life's been shit—I've been a slave to villains since I was twelve. I have nothing to live for, but I don't want to die. This…I'm hoping this will save me. Please, will you?"

"Does Marissa know?"

"What, that I'm even a bigger freak than people thing?"

She scowled. "I'm in a fucking wheelchair, Bailey. Don't play the pity card with me."

"Oh, you're right. Sorry. No, I just told her I was buggered in the head. 'S true, you know."

Jess studied him for a long time before finally nodding. "Fine. Take your shirt off. We'll finish today. You know there's a missing spot in designs for your chest, right?"

"Yeah, I know. It's part of the pattern."

"Okay. Let's go, I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon."

Harry quickly stripped off his shirt and laid down to let her work.

~~Simurgh's Son~~

~~Simurgh's Son~~

Late that afternoon, Harry left the many hall cameras for one of the main bathrooms on the staging level the soldiers used. He slipped in while the rest were to going dinner and went to a stall at the end. He'd been hiding in his room since Jess finished, hoping not too many people would see his tattoo-covered head.

His cover story was that he did it as a prank for his Craft of War avatar. He was prepared to spout that lie to anyone who asked.

Inside the stall, he took off his shirt and looked down at his own chest. A circle of exposed skin stood right over his sternum, but nearly every other inch of his body was covered in tattoos.

"Please let this work," he prayed.

In truth, the prayer wasn't just for the runes to work. The runes represented something far, far more important to him. They represented magic. They represented sanity. He couldn't know for sure if he hadn't triggered somehow during the attack and the Queen's Men just missed it. He didn't know if all his visions were real, or just one huge mind-fuck from the Simurgh.

But these runes were magic. Real magic, like right out of the last of his memories of Harry Potter. He had vivid memories of the almost alien-looking wives developing and then tracing them lovingly onto Harry Potter's body.

He didn't have a wand, nor any witches to draw the runes for him. But the shapes themselves were merely receptacles for power. With the shapes drawn on his skin, if what he remembered was true, he just needed to charge the runes themselves.

"Please," he whispered one more time.

He placed his hand against the bare spot on chest, and almost immediately he felt something that shouldn't have been there—a circle of gold etched with tiny runes surrounding an amethyst as large as his palm. The amethyst itself felt like it had been quartered by some precise chisel, with each quarter bearing a strange symbol he couldn't quite make out. He hadn't seen it since he was eight years old.

It was back. He pushed his palm down, and then dreamed of magic and willed his intent.

For the very first time in his life, he could feel something inside him. It felt like a giant raging bonfire inside his mind and chest that made him gasp as power burned through him. He grunted and fought back a cry as magic flowed from his arm into the amulet. From there it exploded out across the runes themselves.

He couldn't see the runes' reflection, but he could see the brilliant orange-white light each rune generated reflected in the smooth metal of the stall door. The glow covered his head and ran down his body to the very tips of his toes and fingers, burning hotter and hotter until he thought he was going to melt into goo.

Abruptly it was over. The light went out and he was left gasping desperately for breath.

"Bailey, you in there? You gonna eat, man?" That was Ballistic. He was the only one other than Marissa or Jess who would care enough to check on him.

"Be right there, thanks!"

He stood up, fighting against a light-headed feeling. He pulled his thick shirt on and left the stall. Ballistic was already gone, having returned to his own meal. Harry started to follow until he caught a glimpse of a head of wild, black hair in the mirror. He blinked and stepped forward, stunned to see his head furry once more. But more importantly, the henna tattoos were gone! He glanced down at his arm, frowning in alarm, until he spun his forearm just right and saw the faintest shimmer of something on his skin.

"It worked," he whispered. "Holy fucking buggering shit it worked!"

He ran out of the room, almost dying to tell everyone, but then stopped. Who could he tell? Jess. Marissa. Maybe Ballistic, if he cared. Every other person in that base might someday be called on to shoot him.

With that sobering thought, he forced himself to walk calmly to the communal kitchen and piled a tray full of food, suddenly famished. The Travelers, being capes, usually ate in their apartments. They had their own section that let them go civilian in private, but in the base section they wore their costumes. Only Luke in his mercenary guise hung out with the troops.

He sat by the older, large boy, who gaped at his head. "Dude, that is a helluva wig," he said. "Looks just like the real thing."

"Thanks," Harry forced a grin. "You were right about not looking good. This should hold me over." He then laid into his meal.

That evening, he retreated to his room to finish up all the homework he should have done earlier, but didn't. He was just fishing when Marissa stepped inside. Jess followed, and the door closed behind them.

"Holy shit," Marissa whispered.

Harry stared first at his girlfriend? Lover? Then at Jess. "What?"

"Your tattoos, dipshit," Jess said.

Oh. OH. "Fuck, yeah, I forgot with homework." He closed up his books for school the next day and walked over to Jess and knelt down enough to show his skin. "It works, I think. I tried hitting my arm with a stick earlier and it didn't hurt at all. Not sure how powerful it is, though."

Jess ran a hand over it. "I can't feel a thing. Hell, I can barely even see it, though I know that henna couldn't have washed off on its own yet. And you're hair grew back overnight! I can't believe it."

Impulsively, he leaned forward and hugged her. "Thank you!"

He leaned back, leaving her sputtering a little. He then hugged Marissa, who accepted it with a smile and a kiss. "So, do you want to test it?" she asked.

"How?"

"I'm called Sundancer for a reason."

"Not here, though," Jess said. "You kick up your power you'll fry the electronics on our floor. The only place you could light up would be the third floor, and that would just get Coil mad."

Third floor. Tattletale was right, they both knew what was down there.

"Then let's…" Marissa began.

Jess blew a strand of hair from her face. "Mars, chill. Seriously. You know how Coil gets when his pet capes go out after dark. He's trying to keep our affiliation secret—PRT thinks were still in Boston with Accord. Just wait until the weekend and we'll drive out to the Docks or the graveyard and test there. We can set up some controls and really see how it works." She then leaned forward and whispered, "Without cameras everywhere."

Oh. "Yeah, I can live with that," Harry said.

Marissa sighed. "Oh, alright." She then grinned at Harry and waggled her eyebrows. "Do you shimmer all over, Harry?"

"Only one way to find out," he grinned back.

Jess huffed. "God you guys are sickening. I'm out of here. Don't stay up too late, kids." Jess hit the automated door switch that Harry now knew was in every room on the second level and left.

That night, after Marissa returned to her room, Harry's phone buzzed. He flipped it open to see Tattletale's text box.

Coil's increased surveillance. TF is a no-go at the moment.

Her text bubble disappeared, and moments later so did any trace that she'd contacted him. He had no idea how she did it, but it was pretty convenient given how Coil checked his phone.

~~Simurgh's Son~~

~~Simurgh's Son~~

The protestors finally gave up shortly before Spring Break. Harry was almost sorry he had to go back to using the main entrance, though at least now the school cops knew to let him get a manual search rather than setting the metal detector off again.

When Harry didn't cause the school to spontaneously implode or drive everyone into suicidal rampages, things calmed down and Harry Bailey became just another fact of life, like the gangs or the crack being sold in all the boy's bathrooms on a schedule that just managed to offset with Vice Principal Martinez's inspection schedule. Whichever bathroom Martinez inspected at lunch was the one bathroom that didn't have dealers.

From the sidelines, Harry watched as Sophia, Emma Barnes (her father led the protests) and Madison whatever-the-hell-her-name-was continued their bullying campaign against Taylor Hebert.

It was painful to watch. He wanted Taylor to turn and just start lashing out. She looked like she had a good reach on her, and some powerful legs. He bet she could beat the snot out of Emma or Madison. Probably not Sophia, but he knew she could at least stand up for herself.

Even better, he wanted to see her use her bugs. He'd love to see an army of roaches crawling all over cutesy little Madison, or flies in Emma Big-Chest Barnes's hair.

Sophia frankly deserved wasps, but he'd take what he could get.

Hebert didn't, though. She took it in silence, standing still with a blank face like a statue as Sophia, Emma and Madison tore into her. Worse yet, the teachers saw it happening but just didn't care. Harry supposed with crack and meth flowing like water from the bathrooms and gangs openly eyeing each other on the verge of open warfare in the halls, one girl being bullied didn't seem that important.

The one other time he tried to reach out to Taylor, she rebuffed him again. "You won't make things better, you'll just cause them to escalate. Just stay out of it." She then turned her back on him and walked away.

Her refusal to fight back didn't just make him sad for her, it infuriated him. So, as she requested, he stayed out of it and got on with his life as best he could.

~~Simurgh's Son~~

~~Simurgh's Son~~

His alarm brought him out of his memories Saturday morning before the sun rose, which given how far north they were was just a few minutes before seven. He stood and made his way into the shower. He'd noticed that since he had the runes he didn't really develop much in the way of body odor or sweat at all. It was as if the runes kept his skin the perfect temperature and perfectly clean.

The shower mainly was to wash his hair, and to wake up. Warm water was almost as important as a strong black morning tea for him to get his day started.

Marissa never actually spent the night with him. She came to him two or three times a week, but always returned to her room afterward like a boarding school student sneaking back to her dorm. He didn't ask why nor press the issue for fear the visits would stop entirely. He began to wonder if she came because she had feelings for him, or if she was just using him to scratch an itch.

He then dismissed is as utterly unimportant. He was having regular sex with a beautiful woman, the reasons why didn't matter at all.

She was waiting for him at the head of the stairs in heavy jeans, turtleneck and a bright blue coat and hood. "Jess is already heading toward the garage. We're going clothes shopping."

Even Marissa and Jess had to justify leaving The Coil Evil Lair of Doom™.

The two walked side-by-side, just enjoying each other's company, until they reached the garage. Jess was already by an old white van with a chair lift that dominated the back. Harry climbed into the passenger side, while Marissa drove.

"I found a real good spot," Jess said from the back. "No GPS on our phones, nothing to track. I'll direct you."

They stopped long enough to get breakfast sandwiches from King Burger, which looked a lot like their hamburgers but with more egg and a pork sausage patty instead of a hamburger patty, and then proceeded across the Docks section of town until they reached a long stretch of abandoned dilapidated warehouses along a wide open stretch of cement that looked directly out into the boat graveyard that spelled the end of the shipping industry in Brockton Bay.

"Second one to the left," Jess directed.

The van pulled up, and to Harry's shock Ballistic stepped out of the door in full costume—bulky armor plates at various points over his black body-stocking, painted a navy blue. He used an undecorated square steel mask to hide his face. In the driver's seat, Marissa winked at Harry before stripping off her coat to reveal a very well-tailored suit of black body armor with streaks of red, and red stars placed strategically around her body. She slipped on her V-visor helmet and suddenly became Sundancer.

Harry turned to Jess, waiting to see what she did. "For the record, if you tell anyone about my power, I'll kill you." Worse yet, she wasn't joking.

"You've seen my man-bits," Harry said. "You have more power over me than Coil."

She snorted, but then smiled. "You're a good kid, Harry. I just…it's just…we're taking a huge risk for you. If Francis found out…"

Harry nodded. Francis, or Trickster in his costume, was an asshole. None of his team liked him, but all seemed to owe him something they wouldn't discuss with anyone else, not even him.

Jess flipped a toggle on her wheelchair, and suddenly the back support leaned back and the legs extended almost like a La-Z-Boy chair. She closed her eyes, and moments later a body appeared right outside the door.

"Oh, you shite," Harry said as he found himself staring at a wildly exaggerated, naked Marissa.

"Genesis, you bitch, cut it out!" Sundancer called.

The naked, super-busty Marissa winked at Harry and then disappeared with a pop. A second later, a new body formed of a perfect female body with breasts that had no nipples, a face that had eyes, ears and a mouth, but no nose or hair, and was the color of paper.

"Hey, can I touch?" Harry asked eagerly as he climbed out and approached the body.

Genesis shrugged, and with that Harry walked up, cupped one of the breasts and let it bounce. "Oh, this is fun. Ballistic, you gotta try this!"

Luke laughed. "Already have, little man. Come on, let's get this party started."