Jack retreated from the situation with the three witches, leaving Phil to take care of things.

He had been forced to take some dangerous risks in order to gain the power he had, and he stood to lose all of it if he made a single misstep. Loki and Amora seemed to accept that Jack was someone worth respecting and thus wouldn't attack without provocation, their respect for him was derived from his victory over Skurge and the mistaken impression that Jack was a powerful sorcerer. If Amora cottoned onto the fact that he was closer to the wizard of Oz than Merlin, using his robots, surprise and a depressingly small bag of tricks to defeat his more powerful opponents, she might feel bold enough to try something against him.

Wuya was like a gust of wind that could knock over the house of cards that was his powerbase. She knew more about what Jack was capable of than anyone besides Phil and if she decided to turn the others against him she could do it easily. Jack would need to impress upon Wuya why betrayal was a bad idea.

Wanda was a powder keg that could blow up in his face at any moment. He had been spying on her and having Phil give his own opinion on the mental state of the youngest witch in his employ and the prognosis wasn't good. Wanda had latched onto Jack as a sort of all knowing godly figure. She thought he could do no wrong and if what he had been reading of her mental state from both Phil's reports and the records he had stolen from the asylum were accurate, then when she realized that Jack was only a man all of those emotions would invert, turning her against Jack. She would realize he wasn't infallible the instant he lost a fight or even forgot something simple like a birthday. Jack remembered watching footage of Wanda shrieking wildly while she mowed through a small army of training drones and grimaced. He didn't want her turning against him. She was showing signs of improvement mentally and Jack hoped some time with the good doctor Xavier would stabilize her or at least focus her inevitable emotional meltdown at someone besides Jack.

Phil was the backbone of his success. Jack wouldn't have been able to accomplish even a fraction of what he had without his incredibly competent assistant, but even Phil could potentially turn against him. Jack trusted him not to, but Phil was in the perfect position to get rid of Jack and take over everything they had built. Hell, Phil practically ran the whole thing already. Phil was loyal but if he decided that Jack wasn't doing a good enough job as the boss that would be the end.

Part of the secret of his robot's intelligence was their ability to grow and adapt. That meant that any loyalty his creations held for him had to be nurtured and maintained or they might decide that obeying Jack was unnecessary.

This freewill wasn't restricted to Phil. Any of his boys could decide to turn against him. He knew Raph had been developing heroic tendencies, and Mike had a certain natural friendliness that could put them at odds if Jack had to do something overly villainous. Don had become his science buddy and had started working on his own inventions, they were still basic at this point, but he would improve and perhaps decide that Jack was no longer necessary. Leo would side with his brothers no matter what they decided. Not that any of those scenarios were likely because the boys loved him.

Every single person he interacted with could take him in a fair fight.

Any of them could take him down if they just decided to.

He had only won so far because he prepared thoroughly before every battle and ambushed his opponents while they were unprepared. The only reason he could confidently confront someone as powerful as Loki without showing his fear was due to the fact that, as long as he kept a ring copy of himself elsewhere, he was effectively unkillable.

Still, Jack was in no hurry to experience death again.

"Phil, escort Wuya up to my lab please." Jack ordered.

All of these powerful people had to be handled just so, or Jack would find everything he had built destroyed. He felt like he was walking on a knife's edge and anything could make him fall.

Jack grinned.

That was what it meant to be in charge.

Wuya was having more fun today than she had had since she last took over the world.

What had Jack been up to while she had been looking away? The ancient witch thought as she followed the robotic servant up to meet Jack.

Sure, her contacts with the various pantheons of gods was over fifteen hundred years out of date, and she had never heard of Loki, Skurge or Amora, but the Asgardians that she remembered were fierce warriors who she would have trouble with even at her full power. She would still win of course, because she was great, but from Loki's description of this Skurge character, Jack had beaten someone truly formidable.

He had changed so much in these few short months and he was doing incredibly well for himself, but she knew Jack.

He was doing well for now, but it was almost inevitable that he would trip at the finish line. It was simply a part of who Jack was. He had his talents but simply lacked the personal strength to make his dream of world conquest a reality. That didn't mean Wuya couldn't take advantage while Jack was doing well, and she would bail when he failed. It would be simple to steal both Amora and Wanda away to make them her subordinates when the time came to leave Jack in the dust again. Amora was basically obliged to obey orders until her sentence was up and Wanda was obviously emotionally vulnerable and thus easy to manipulate.

She entered the lab area alone the robot opening the door for her but not following her in. She followed the sound of active machinery and soon found Jack fiddling with one of his toys. He was taller now and had developed a presence that she knew strangers would find intimidating, but as she looked at him all she saw was the silly little boy who monologued to himself in his parent's basement.

"Wuya, you're here, excellent. If you are going to be looking after both Wanda and Amora for the immediate future then you can't be left without your magic, Wanda would run right over you." Jack proclaimed manically.

What?

She hadn't actually thought Jack would, or even could, restore her magic to her. Her earlier demand had mostly been to put him on the backfoot, so he wouldn't question her motives for returning, the real reason was she was bored.

She had assumed that his agreement to restore her power to be a mere boast, but if he was serious this was a monumental opportunity.

Jack pulled out a large cylinder with a simple handgrip attached.

"Just grab the handle and try to access your magic. The machine will do the rest." Jack said in a clinical manner.

Hesitating only a moment Wuya grabbed the handle and felt for the familiar warmth of her magic. The effect was almost instant. She felt herself being filled in a manner infinitely more satisfying than even the finest meal. All to soon the sensation faded and Wuya felt a tiny fraction of her true power return to her. She could feel it trying to slip away but she easily corralled the power using it to water the desert of her magic. It worked. It was just the tiniest bit of her full potential and she would have to retrain herself back up to her old standards, which could take years, but she had her magic back.

She flexed her power to summon a single rock troll to be her servant but just as it began to form she felt her power stagger. What?

"If you want to play with you power do it outside, there are many delicate machines in here." Jack chided.

How dare this fool hinder her!

She may not be able to twist the world to her whims but even her meager power was enough to destroy this interloper.

Wuya flung a deadly green energy at Jack only for it to splash harmlessly against his out stretched palm.

"You think I would give you something you could use against me? Don't be foolish Wuya, I have become more than I was when you last knew me. I will forgive you this once for your actions if you do your duty and raise the young witch to something resembling competence, at least she knows what it means to be loyal." Jack bit out harshly

Uh oh, she might have messed up.

"Use that idiot Amora however you see fit, but don't think I will forget you tried to use my gift to you against me, I can take it away as easily as I granted it. Oh, and dinner is in an hour we are having shrimp." Jack finished with a smile.

Jack had turned back to his work, ignoring her while she stared dumbly at the back of his head. After a moment she left the way she had come.

What was that?

He had completely blocked her curse, how?

Maybe him succeeding wasn't quite as farfetched as she thought as she luxuriated in the feel of her returned power.

Wuya was thoughtful as she made her way back down to find Wanda and Amora. She had to establish dominance after all. If she was going to be working for Jack, she wouldn't be playing second fiddle to a lesser witch.

Jack let out a breath as Wuya left the room.

He had put on a show of neutralizing her magic just as she cast it. If that had hit him he would probably have been turned inside out or something equally as bad, but his plan had worked perfectly. Now she would be more hesitant to turn against him believing him more powerful than he really was. He felt a kinship with the wizard of Oz at that moment, he understood that showmanship was just as important as real magic, besides Merlin may have been the most famous wizard of all time, but he never got to rule.

Hm, Jack the Great and Powerful. That sounded nice.

Raven, also known as Mystique, sat in the office of her current disguise as the principal of Bayside Highschool. She took the position in order to become an authority figure in the lives of dozens of young mutants who would be passing through these halls thanks to the machinations of Charles Xavier. Still as the principal she had to go through the boring duties associated with the job thanks to the identity she had assumed. Sometimes shapeshifting could be such a hassle.

Principal Darkholm rifled through the paperwork for incoming students with long practiced boredom, her boss's son Pietro would be transferring here for his senior year thanks to her own efforts along with several other promising young mutants not yet aligned with Xavier. She was even planning on sending her own adopted daughter who had taken to calling herself Rogue to this school, so she could keep an eye on her.

In the pile of innocuous busywork Raven spotted something shocking. Her entire frame froze in an eerie way only possible to those who had complete control over their biology. There, in the pile of applications was something that shouldn't have been there.

On an application for transfer page in front of the shapeshifter, in clear print was a name that had been causing her master no end of trouble.

Wanda Maximoff was coming to Bayside Highschool.