Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in. Thanks so much for reading, I love hearing from you all.

Sorry this is a slightly short chapter, I've been sick and I figured a shorter chapter was better than two weeks of me not updating at all. Also a lot of people die or are badly injured in this chapter. Hypothetically. It's a what if scenario and I don't go into detail or anything.

If The Worst Should Happen

The Keepers were all keeping quiet as everyone else in the room either freaked out or went diving into denial like an Olympic gold medalist. And this was without any of them being aware of the nature of the second huge announcement to come. Personally Harry thought it a little unwise to allow the members of his Guild and the visiting dignitaries to feed off each other's hysteria this way, but he wasn't about to question why they were doing it either. Maybe this was meant to wear everyone else out so that they didn't interrupt later on? Or perhaps the keepers thought it necessary in order to get the seriousness of this across to even the most cynical and in denial members.

Or they could be enjoying watching dragons make fools of themselves. After all, being a Keeper had always struck Harry as a rather humorless and taxing job. They had to get their kicks somehow.

Regardless, and no cause for surprise, it was their Guild Master who demanded a return to order. Which shut up the members of their guild...not so much the others. They were giving King looks that suggested they did NOT appreciate him taking that tone with them.

"Some of you are thinking that you'll be safe. You're telling yourself that dragons are surperior to the Fae and that should they cause trouble we are more than capable of returning them back to the realm they'll come from. You would be wrong. You can't judge our future success by the stories of old. We are not what we once were. A dragon in his true form would be an equal match in battle to most magical attacks even now...but do all of you intend to remain dragon? Reveal yourselves to the human world and try to live in that form in the world we now live in? Because while we are human like this...we are vulnerable. We are no match for them."

The Keeper let those words echo in the suddenly very quiet room before continuing.

"That which will destroy us or save us...you need to understand that preventing his arrival will do you no good." The statement was spoken to catch all their attention, the rest of her words just loud enough to carry to all those who needed to hear it. "Killing him before he is born is not the answer. If you do that, we are doomed. While some in the Fae realms would show us pity, or let us be, there are far more who would use and eliminate us without hesitation or pity. And unless you are a fool you know that our own nature is often times our own worst enemy. We are a sovereign species. We bow our heads to no one. And when the Fae come they will seek to take what is not theirs to touch, and we will be too weak to stop them. They have only grown with their knowledge of power while we have lost what once allowed us to rule the skies and keep the Fae in line. Even when the magic returns we will be defenseless because we will have lost the knowledge of how to use it. BUT...but if we make the right choices in the coming years that doesn't have to be the case. If we work together to make sure that our savior is allowed to live and grow in an environment that will nurture and shape him into the dragon we need him to be...than we will be saved right along with him. We will be great again. But ONLY if we work together."

Another moment for that to sink in.

"And now I will show you the two futures that await us. Which will you choose?"

Their Keeper looked over in the direction of each of the other Keepers in turn for a moment, the others nodding back in acknowledgement. Of what Harry didn't-

In a finger snap everything was dark. Or no, that wasn't right. Or Harry didn't think it was. No. They were just now blind to the outside world. They could only see the images being shoved into their minds like a slide show.

)

The room looked like something out of a horror movie set in a Victorian household in a haunted nursery. If a reanimated doll or a possessed child were to suddenly appear before his 'eyes' Harry wouldn't have been surprised in the least. Not even the light paint on the walls could make up for the dark and heavy looking curtains that kept all light from coming through the windows behind them. The antique and uncomfortable looking dark wood furniture didn't help the ambience either. All that plus the lack of toys, foreboding shadows, and the lash of rain and boom of thunder-this was not a place anyone sane would want to enter, much less reside in.

But someone was in the room, and he was making his presence known in the two words he spoke over and over again.

A curly haired boy of no more than a year, his chubby face stained and swollen with tears, was clutching at the bars of his crib like they were prison bars. And though he flinched with every boom of thunder that didn't stop him from screaming for 'Papa' and 'Da'.

Pain. So much pain.

Harry had thought he had some idea what pain was. The types, flavors, and textures of it. But he'd been wrong. There was no words in any language to describe what he felt, seeing his child like this. Hearing Lee scream for him and being powerless to go to him.

And as much as he thought he understood what it was to hate Harry had to redefine that too as he watched the door to the nursery slam open and in stomp their consort in some skimpy little red robe that barely covered her negligee style nightwear. And her face, God, how much she despised the child was written all over her tired face for all to see, making it unspeakably ugly in a way that had nothing to do with the lack of makeup and disordered hair.

She marched over to the crib with that expression before taking a deep breath, getting her 'game face' on, and then she morphed into an exaggerated version of what she probably thought was 'motherly' behavior as she cooed at 'Chester' to stop crying. That he kept waking Mummy up and that wasn't nice of him.

"Want Papa! Want Da!"

Veronica spoke through clenched teeth. "You don't have a papa or a da, Chester. We've discussed this. He passed away shortly after you were born. Do you want Mummy?"

"NO!" The child's face screwed up in anger, his focus so intent on her that he didn't flinch at the next boom of thunder. "NOT THE MUMMY! YOU NOT THE MUMMY! WANT MY PAPA AND DA!"

"Well you can't have them! THEY'RE DEAD! DEAD, do you hear me?!" Veronica snapped, hands moving to her hips. "So stop screaming for them all the time! They can't hear you! They're never coming back, you're never going to see them again, and the sooner you accept that the sooner-STOP CRYING!"

And so saying Veronica whirled around on her heels and marched out of the room, slamming it behind her.

That scene changed then into quick, brief seconds of scenes that showed the child getting bigger and bigger, eyes duller and duller despite the mountains of toys provided and the way people who were obviously hired help catered to him. Harry watched as members of the Guild came to fawn over him like Lee was royalty, bringing their children to try and befriend him. Ignoring how miserable Lee was and how obviously unsuited Veronica was to raising a goldfish, much less his and Eggsy's child. The proof of Lee's unhappiness was obvious in the toys broken in tantrums, the glass shattered from his screams of rage, and his continued pleas for his parents to be returned to him.

And then the quick flashes ended and they were focusing in on Lee when he looked to be about four or five, Harry's son playing with LEGO while a nanny watched over him right up until the door to the nursery suddenly burst open.

Harry recognized the man who came striding into the room immediately. It was Colin and Edward's son in law. Matthew's husband. Stefan had attended Cambridge as a student, which was how he and Matthew had met, and the two had moved back to Stefan's home country of Austria once school had finished.

The sight of the fairly mild mannered Austrian pointing a gun at the currently screaming the room down nanny was a shock to Harry's system, as was the deadly glare Colin's son in law aimed in the woman's direction as he told her to back away from the child. Now. The terrified looking woman did as ordered as Stefan backed her into a corner literally before he called out that the room was now contained.

It was Matthew who came through the doorway then, only he looked very little like he had the last time Harry had seen him. He looked horribly aged. The sort of aging one did as a result of great pain and unbearable grief. It was written onto the omega's lined face like one of Shakespeare's most tragic plays.

Walking over to the boy who had remained seated on the carpet, watching all this happen with detached interest, Matthew crouched down and spoke to him softly.

"Hello, Lee."

The boy blinked up at Matthew in surprise. "My name is Lee. Everyone here calls me Chester Junior. They say that I'm the son of the Guild Master Chester King who died when I was little. But they lie. I'm Lee Andrew Unwin-Hart. My fathers were named Eggsy and Harry, and they told me that was my name. I remember. King ordered people in this Guild to kill them. And they did."

"Yes. He did."

"He killed your family. They tried to help my fathers. They tried to save me. So the Guild killed them because they wanted control of me."

Tears in Matthew's eyes, sliding down those pale, lined cheeks. "Yes. They did."

"You've come to take me away?"

"I have. Would you like that."

Lee cocked his head to the side in consideration, then nodded. "Okay."

Getting to his feet Lee studied Matthew for another moment and then held up his arms, Matthew scooping him up into his own arms as he tenderly held the boy close and headed back towards the door.

The next clips that seemed to span a few years looked far happier. Lee called them Uncle Matthew and Uncle Stefan and was treated as a member of the family. He played happily with his 'cousins' and was shown capable of using his magic to fix rather than break. Like a vase that had once belonged to Colin that Matthew wept over the boys accidentally breaking, Lee putting it back together so that it looked new again.

Then darkness, and in that darkness came the sound Harry recognized from the action films Eggsy loved so much. An explosion. And a new scene unfolded before them.

The large building that had once stood and was now no longer recognizable had been decimated. There was really only the foundation, some brick, and pieces of what had once been a residence littering the area to speak of what had once been there.

Movement, rubble shifting, and there was Lee, covered in filth and torn clothing but otherwise completely unharmed. An explosive device was nothing to a grand high dominant after all.

This time Lee screamed and searched frantically for his adoptive uncles and cousins, gagging and staggering away with horror written all over his eight year old face over something he found under the remains of a door.

The sound of people coming had Lee whirling around to face them, Harry recognizing the man in the lead as a Guild Master for a European Guild he couldn't be bothered to recall. As he watched the dragon and his entourage approached Lee cautiously, telling him that they had to get out of there before the people responsible came for him.

Lee's eyes went dragon. "You set the bomb. You were supposed to be our ally but the Guild Master Yuri Kobayashi took your family. Threatened to kill them if you didn't kill my family and bring me to him. You KILLED my family!"

What Lee did internally wasn't visible to their eyes. The Guild Master's body simply burst apart in a shower of blood and gore. As did those who opened fire on Lee like bullets were any match for him.

In less than a minute all but one of them were dead, the dragon in human form cowering and then-and then his eyes went blank and like a puppet on a string he stumbled over to Lee on unsteady, oddly disjointed limbs. And when he came to a stop in front of Lee his voice lacked all emotion or inflection as he asked his 'Master' what his orders were.

"You will take me to Kobayashi."

"Yes, Master."

)

The next scene was a bloodbath. There was no other word for it. The man under Lee's control brought him to the estate of the Japanese Guild Master, the dragons in charge of guarding estate having no idea what was in store for them as they let the limo through. Once it parked and the man puppet stumbled out of the back before Lee exited...well Kobayashi didn't hire fools, it seemed. The dragon guards had immediately raised their weapons-and then dropped them as their bodies hit the floor too as their limbs were yanked by invisible hands, bones popping out of sockets and muscles torn to shreds in the process. And judging from the way the men screamed their agony there was most likely other internal damage that wasn't visible to the naked eye. But they didn't die. All they could do there was lie on the ground and fail to move the broken remains of their arms and legs.

That done Lee marched into the first building, those who pointed guns or attempted to attack him meeting the same fate as the outside guards. Those who ran or begged for mercy were either ignored or, if they had known and agreed with what their Guild Master had done Lee showed them no mercy and they were destroyed like the others.

To spare his life one of the servants was happy to tell Lee where Kobayashi was, and thanking the man politely Lee let him go and then made his way to what looked to be the Guild Master's office.

Lee didn't knock of course, he used telekinesis to fling the door open and then he was inside and those who were in the room stared at Lee, their minds obviously trying to compute the fact that they were looking at a curly haired little boy.

Then they realized just who this particular little boy was. And looking into his eyes they were afraid.

Those with guns on their person drew them. One man even grabbed decorative samurai swords off the wall in a desperate bid to arm himself.

But no one made a move to attack or shoot. Hoping, perhaps, that this wasn't going to end the way they all knew this would end if Lee wished them dead.

Lee, for his part, simply scanned the room. Meeting each gaze in turn, and then he called them fools.

All but Kobayashi became pink mist in the next heartbeat.

"Call your wife and children in."

Shell-shocked, he had just watched seven men basically self-destruct in front of him, Kobayashi just stared at Lee like he couldn't begin to comprehend the situation he found himself in.

"I said...get on your phone and tell all the members of your family to come here." Lee took two steps closer, Kobayashi stumbling backward to try and get away from him. "And yes you can tell them to run from me...but I will find them. We both know there's nowhere they can hide that I won't uncover. Eventually."

"Please...please don't-"

"Don't what? Kill them? Like you killed my family? Is that what you think I'll do? Is that what you would do, Guild Master Yuri Kobayashi, if you were in my place?"

"They're innocent."

"So were my cousins and uncles."