Chapter Nine: From the Ashes.


Harry would have to say that after everything, it was good to be home. Especially given that he was certain that there would be some dangerous enemy that would come back and attack him when they were all not around. He tried to limit the time that he was gone away from this realm, because that was just inviting trouble.

The problem was that it was almost like the enemies of the Sorcerer Supreme stalked the realm in an attempt to pick the best possible time to attack. Harry sighed in relief when he figured that wasn't the case.

He defeated many of these enemies when he was merely the apprentice of the Sorcerer Supreme. Now that he was the Sorcerer Supreme himself, he'd like to think that he improved.

"I can't believe it, it's all together again," Jean whispered when she wrapped her arms around Harry.

She was the Phoenix, the Phoenix was her. All of the pieces were together in her mind as she thought they should be.

"You have the power now and you can control it," Harry said, spinning Jean.

"That's only half of the battle though," Jean told him. She pretty much knew where this one was going with him and she accepted. "You have to master the power that you have under control, otherwise you won't really get that far."

"Exactly," Harry told her, and there would be plenty of time for that.

He also had to work with Kara to see what the limits were from her powers. For some raw abilities, she held her own pretty well out there. Harry knew better than anyone else there was a difference between holding someone's own and a person excelling. He knew that Kara had the potential in her and hopefully it would be a lot less depressing journey to get there than it did when they tried to get Claire to reach her full potential.

Harry would work with her. He had been through this before. Kara had grown up on Krypton and she mentioned being through the solar power simulator. Therefore she had some base training down that Harry could build some kind of foundation off on.

"I think that a full physical is in order," Harry told Jean.

"Oh, is the full physical you gave me earlier not sufficient?" Jean asked him, wrapping her arms around him and there was a smile that crossed her face.

Things might have gotten really heated, really quick. They didn't however, at least not yet.

"Maybe if you get through this one," Harry told her and he smiled at her. "But the thing is, we need to make sure that you're completely healthy, and you're not going to have any problems with your powers."

"I see," Jean said, just because they felt that they were stable, it didn't hurt to have a second opinion.

It didn't really hurt that there was a doctor in the house and a beautiful blonde one at that.

"Just sit down, Jean, and I'll make sure that you're completely taken care of," Lara said and with that type of invitation, you couldn't really say no at all.

Jean sat down and waited patiently. Kara, Claire, and Harry walked into the other room. Carol joined the group seconds later.

The older blonde gave a long sigh and decided to cut to the chase. "You know, I've got a lot of explaining to do after everything that happened. I did a duck and run and I didn't fill in my supervisor on anything."

Harry agreed, he would have hated to see Carol go. He understood that she had certain responsibilities that she couldn't skirt around.

"I'm sure that she'll understand that it's a good reason why you did what you did," Harry told Carol with a smile on his face.

"And then I'm going to have some alone time with Fury, that's never fun," Carol commented.

"Oh, I'm sure that's going to be a party as usual," Claire whispered underneath her breath and Kara gripped her by the shoulder.

"We can't worry about anyone on Earth who might cause us trouble," Kara said. She didn't care about annoyances especially when she had to think about the big threat. "We got to worry about the Kree and when they come back."

"I'm already worrying about them and I'm working on a plan," Harry said, and he turned to Carol. "But we're going to have to collaborate on this one."

"Don't you have friends in high places that are working on defenses for Earth that have some really powerful teeth?" Carol asked and Harry raised his eyebrow at her. "The rumors are there, so there's no avoiding them."

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Harry informed the blonde and she nodded. Her arms folded firmly underneath her chest. "But, yes, I've got some friends who are extremely interested in the survival of the world. Given that the end of the world is not good business for anyone and any aliens taking it over would mean no rights for the rest of our shortened lives."

Harry felt that he had to think like these people. The next time the Kree came by once they recovered via the Phoenix spooking them, they would regret it.

"I've got some ideas about what I want to do, just hope that I have enough time to implement them," Harry commented and his frown deepened on his face.

He had to keep a look at Jean, who was getting her physical. The chamber deactivated and she walked out.

"Clean bill of health," Jean said, throwing her arms around Harry's neck with a smile on her face.

"I'm glad that it is, and I knew it would have," Harry said, and Jean leaned in, giving him another passionate kiss.

Kara, Claire, and Carol stood, watching the two of them, and it was almost like as if Jean remembered that they had an audience.

More important than having an audience, she had something to do.

"I think that I better leave the X-Men," Jean commented to him, growing suddenly serious when she looked at him .She reached towards him and grabbed his hand tightly, squeezing it. "It's just, after everything that happened…"

"Are you going to bring Xavier out of his coma?" Harry asked her.

"He can only do that, when he properly understood everything that he put me through," Jean commented, and she almost felt bad.

A part of her didn't. As for Scott, well he would recover eventually. Jean wouldn't have to deal with him for a very long time. If he had not tried to attack her when her powers were getting out of control, none of this might have happened. He just had to jump in and be a hero. He paid for not thinking things through clearly like he might have if his emotions hadn't gotten the better of him.

At least that's what Jean was going to believe in her mind, that none of this was going to happen.

"I want to introduce you to some people," Claire told Kara and the blonde perked up with a smile on her face.

"Lead the way," Kara told her, and she enveloped Claire's arm in her.

"I better get back to base, to report on this," Carol told Harry and he smiled at her.

"I'll be in touch," Harry remarked to her and the two of them stared each other down.

"We will be," Carol agreed, and she walked back into the shadows.

Harry turned around and joined Jean in leaving to say her goodbyes to the X-Men. She planned to move in with Harry in the Evans Estate for some time. This just sped up the time table a little bit.


Kara got a good look at the home that her cousin grew up in. The blonde had to admit when she approached the farm house that she had a few misgivings. However, they faded in a matter of moments. Her cousin, all things considered, did pretty good for herself. Those were the thoughts that were going through her mind when she approached the farm house.

"CLAIRE!"

Claire turned around and they saw a dark haired girl and a girl with short blonde hair making their way down to face them.

"Hi, Chloe, Lana," Claire said, and both girls swept her into a crushing hug.

"I was worried that something happened to you," Chloe said, and Claire was glad that she had super strength and durability. Otherwise she was squeezed to death.

"Yeah, you were out there in the middle of that, and you punched that Ronan bastard in the face," Lana said with a smile on her face. "At least that's what we saw when the power finally came back on."

They weren't going to admit of the powerful force that rocked their bodies and made them rush for the nearest spot of privacy for relief.

"I did good out there, and don't worry, nothing is going to happen to me," Claire commented, putting her hands on her hips.

Chloe chimed in. "Oh yeah, what about the point where you d…"

Lana clapped her hand casually over Chloe's mouth. Chloe slowly bit down on Lana's hand in response. Kara raised her eyebrow, but said nothing. She was amused by the spectacle and also kind of curious about what this blonde girl was about ready to say.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to your new friend, Claire?" Lana said and she looked at the beautiful blonde.

It seemed like every single girl in Smallville might have been a little bisexual. Maybe just a little, in the sense that they preferred girls and one young man in particular.

"This is Kara, she's my cousin from Krypton," Kara said and both Chloe and Lana raised their eyebrows. "Kara, this is Lana Lang and this is Chloe Sullivan, they're my friends."

"Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you," Kara said with a smile on her face. "I'm sure that you three have had some very interesting slumber parties."

"Is that what they're calling them now?" Chloe asked, with a smirk. Then again, a certain someone normally joined them for their "slumber parties". "And it's good to meet you as well, Kara."

"Yeah, same here," Lana said and she smiled. "Your mother is inside, I'm sure that she'd be happy to see you."

Claire smiled, the thought was mutual. Especially considering the fact that she hadn't spoken to her mother ever since she died, so she was equally as excited to see her.

The quartet of girls made their way inside the Kent Farm House, and Gwen Stacy sat at the table.

"Harry said that he'd be here in a little bit," Gwen commented, and Chloe and Lana didn't seem surprised. "He needs to let me know about what's been happening. I got stuck helping with the clean up."

"Didn't you volunteer?" Chloe asked Gwen and Gwen's sharp gaze went over towards Chloe. Chloe shrugged her shoulders in response. "It was just a question, no need to bite my head off."

"Technically she didn't bite your head off, by not say anything, did she?" Claire asked, nudging her friend. "And I'm sure that Harry will be by in a little bit, he's just….well he's taking care of some things."

"We wouldn't want to delay him from his appointments," Lana said, with a knowing gaze towards Chloe.

"But I'm sure that we're just going to have to squeeze him in later," Chloe said, and she saw Martha there.

"Mom, it's good to see you again," Claire said, and her mother's smile could light up in an entire room. The dark haired girl walked over and threw her arms around her mother, pulling her into a sweeping hug.

"It's good to see you too, honey," Martha said, wrapping her arms tightly around Claire and pulling her in towards her. "How have you been doing?"

"I've just been completing my training at the Fortress, I actually came back to visit you, but I got side tracked by something," Claire said and her gaze turned towards the blonde standing next to her. "My cousin Kara, from Krypton. This is Martha Kent, my mother."

Kara, taking care not to break Martha, threw her arms around the redhead female. Martha was surprised, but she returned the hug.

"Thank you for taking care of my cousin for all of these years, when I couldn't look out for her," Kara said, and she meant that from the bottom heart. "You and your husband…..my mother knew that you would work out….where is….."

"Died of a heart attack years ago," Martha said, she stayed on the farm because Smallville was home. With Harry and Lily's head, they turned the Kent Farm into a booming business, they wasn't in the red for years to come.

"I'm sorry to hear about that," Kara said.

Martha knew she was and she returned, she healed from it a long time ago. Claire barely knew her father, but she turned out well because of it. So Martha felt like she had to be doing something right.

A knock on the door could be heard, and Harry turned up.

"And there he is, right on schedule," Chloe said, with a smile on her face.

"Did you doubt him at all?" Gwen asked.

"I've learned years ago never to doubt Harry, and if he's late, there's a good reason," Chloe said and Lana pulled out the chair between her and Chloe for Harry to take a seat down, which he did.

"Jean will be joining us later, Ororo, Kitty, and Rogue wanted to say their goodbyes properly," Harry said nonchalantly, and Chloe smiled. "She'll be back when they're done doing that."

"So, how have you been doing?" Martha asked Harry.

"I've been fine, how have things been going on the farm?" Harry asked her.

"They're running steadily as they should be," Martha informed him and she passed around the breakfast. Even though it could qualify more as an early lunch based on how things worked on this particular farm.

"I think that I better tell you what the hell has been going on over the past couple of days," Harry said, and Gwen smiled.

"Well that's the reason why we're all here," Gwen said to them.

"Yeah, Lois is going to be pissed that she isn't, one on the account that you're here, and one she's going to miss all the news she's been nearly killing herself over to find out," Chloe said and she added. "Figuratively speaking."

"With Lois, you can never tell," Claire said when she decided to occupy the seat next to Chloe.

It was a full snug table involving Harry and a bunch of females. In other words a pretty common sight.

"So, what's been going on?" Lana asked Harry, her curiosity slowly got the better of her. She really wanted to know what was going on after all that's happened.

"Well, I figure that I should let you in on it," Harry said and he launched into the explanation of what he had been doing.

It was a long story. It was a good thing that they all had plenty of time because Harry had an ample amount of ground to cover in a short amount of time.


Carol met Harry outside of the entrance to the SHIELD facility that they were meeting Nick Fury.

"This place is pretty low grade for a SHIELD HQ," Carol said, looking at it.

"There's some repairs being done at one of the main ones, and no one would expect Fury to meet someone here," Harry said, and he was glad that he had Carol here to back him up.

And they would not be alone, for Tony Stark joined the two of them on their way in.

"So, Fury decided to call you out as well, didn't he?" Harry asked.

"Since when isn't Fury calling something out on something," Stark said to him. "He really needs a vacation, or at least a long nap. Maybe a drink or two, that wouldn't go wrong."

"Given how much trouble that's gotten both of us into, I don't think that we'd be dragging him along," Carol said and Harry smiled when he lead the group in.

"Pepper says that your proposal is interesting, and I agree," Tony informed Harry. "Of course, she's running most of the operations because this Avenger thing is eating up far more time than it should."

"I know, just a consultant, but I'd figure that you could look over it and see if there's any holes my team missed," Harry said.

"I don't know why," Tony said, shaking his head. "Pretty much like having a high schooler proofread a college project."

"You can never been too careful when the safety of the entire world is on the line," Harry said. "The Kree will be back."

"I could have sworn that they got vaporized," Tony said.

Carol smiled at him. "Don't sound too eager about that Stark. I never thought that I had it in you."

Tony Stark waved his hand casually and calmly.

"That's not exactly what they meant and…..well there are many ways they could have survived that," Tony said. He had too many enemies come back from the dead and try to kill him. "Hopefully they won't be keen to try it after that X-Girl went all cosmic tantrum on them."

"Jean's got better control over her powers now," Harry informed them.

"So, the next time she attacks someone with her powers, it won't be an accident," Tony said and Harry nodded. "Okay, got you, and don't worry, I know better than to piss of a redhead. Or any woman for that matter."

"How long did it take you to learn that lesson?" Carol asked and she paused. "And more importantly, will it stick?"

Before they could give the answer to that question, the one and only Nick Fury arrived. He saw the two Avengers, well technically three even though Harry Evans could be classified as a part timer at best. Still he did have the ID card and assembled when his schedule permitted. When he wasn't off having adventures everywhere.

Then again, the only hero other than Harry that might have had more adventures would be the one and only Logan, better known as Wolverine.

Nick Fury focused on the trio that were there. The only consolation was that Lily Evans couldn't meet them for this meeting. That might have been a bad thing but one could argue that this was a good thing because she was fairly agitated with Nick Fury for obvious reasons.

"So?" Fury asked them.

"So, do you want the long version of the story, or the shorter one?" Harry asked.

Fury already knew that he wasn't going to like this given the attitude that Harry Evans already had. Which actually wasn't a bad attitude, it was just that his tone showed that he was going to be ready to fight.

"As much as you feel is necessary to tell," Fury stated calm, cool, and extremely collected. His eyes fixated on the young man ahead of him.

Harry launched into the story, pretty much given Fury a version of all of the details that he felt that the Director of SHIELD needed to know.

"She's stable," Harry concluded. "I have taught her how to control her powers and yes, I know that you don't like this Fury."

Carol snickered and Tony looked extremely amused.

"And how about the other thing that I know that you're working on?" Fury asked.

He wasn't too fond of the fact that Harry Evans had what amounted to a cosmically powered nuke at his disposal. SHIELD's equipment got a minor reading of what Jean Grey was capable of and it could have vaporized the Earth into ashes and rebuilt the people from scratch. That was how awesome her power was.

"The defenses, it's a work in progress," Harry said. "The Kree will be returning in greater numbers, and this time, they'll play for keeps."

The only problem with that was that Harry also played for keeps. He wasn't going to sit back and let someone take control of his planet. He didn't play that kind of game that easily.

"SHIELD should be kept in the loop because of this," Fury warned him.

Harry had his reasons for not keeping SHIELD in the loop. There have been moles and leaks in the organization in the past. Not to mention few too many of SHIELD's enemies had been further SHIELD agents.

"I'll let you know when I'm done," Harry said.

"I don't suppose that you know anything about this," Fury told Stark.

"No more than what Harry told you, and if he didn't, I signed a confidentiality agreement to keep my trap shut," Tony replied, and his gaze warned Fury not to go there. "Besides, SHIELD did a good enough job playing high tech janitors. So what's the deal?"

Tony Stark's role in this meeting was to play referee. But he was not going to be light on the banter, especially when Fury was asking for it.

"You better not be holding any information," Fury warned the group.

Harry sighed. "You'll know and we've fortified the defenses around the planet and also around Mars."

Harry wondered if he should tell Fury that he had a small base on Mars and also on the Moon. The thought crossed his mind. He decided not to because the very fact that he might bring it up would give Fury a stroke. So he didn't go there.

"Go back to SHIELD, get up and running, prepare your agents with what I've told you," Harry said. "I prefer not to have Jean solve every little problem, even though she's capable of it."

Harry also thought that he preferred not to solve every problem. Especially with magic because that set a dangerous precedent, and there was also the fact that his responsibilities as Sorcerer Supreme was far and wide.

"SHIELD will do what we have to do," Fury said and it was almost like he had a cutting remark towards Harry Potter.

Nothing came and this meeting wrapped to a close.


Carol and Harry left about an hour after the meeting. It was both frustrating and productive at the same time.

"I'm taking it that your defenses are further along than you made Fury believe," Carol told him.

"Yes, I just want to see what SHIELD can put together," Harry said. "I don't really trust everyone there."

Carol knew the reasons as to why he did that.

"I think that the real adventure is to come," Carol said and the two of the made their way to a park area where their ride was waiting or would be waiting. It was running really late. "And we've been through a lot here."

"Yes, a lot of adventures," Harry commented and the blonde leaned back against a tree, with a smile over her face. "And you said it best, we seem to be in situations together that almost killed us. Then any time together where we won't get killed.

Carol looked somber about that. "Yeah, I know."

That was something to be said about that.

"Maybe the two of us should do something to correct that," Harry said. "Do you have anything going on Friday night?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, no," Carol said, folding her arms underneath her chest and wondering where this was going.

She did have an idea but she didn't want to jump the gun in case she was wrong.

"So maybe the two of us should go out, and get to know each other a bit better, outside of a life threatening situation," Harry replied to her.

"So, a date?" Carol asked.

It had been ages since she had been out on a date. That was not for any lack of trying. Fighting a bunch of super villains might be someone's idea for a date. Carol disagreed. Not that she didn't understate the value of something like that but she wanted a night off every now and again.

"Yes, a date," Harry agreed with her. "I figure that we'd go out for a movie, some dinner…"

"Cross our fingers and hope that no villains decide to ruin the night," Carol said, with a smile.

There was a huge round of laughter with both of them.

"So, what do you think?" Harry asked, with a smile. "You could use a night off, you have been working yourself so hard. And I'm sure that you have been wanting to get away from a while."

"You're one to talk about needing a night off," Carol said. "After the trials you went through to be the Sorcerer Supreme."

"Point well taken," Harry said and he stepped towards her, closing the gap between the two of them. "So how about it?"

Carol didn't hesitate for a second. "Yes, it's a date."

Harry smiled, he had been wanting to get Carol off to the side for some time. It was just the proper opportunity never presented itself.

Carol thought that Friday night would be a night that she never would forget.


To Be Continued On October 18th, 2014.

So this is just a transition, a calm before the storm, before the insanity happens. Actually the next couple of chapters are along those lines.