A Third Path to the Future

by Vimesenthusiast

Rescued from the Negative Zone by the Fantastic Four, Harry Potter discovers he is a mutant and decides to take up the cause of equality between mutants and humans (among other causes). How will a dimensionally displaced Harry Potter, one who is extremely intelligent, proactive and not afraid to get his hands dirty effect the marvel universe? Pairings: Harry/Jean/Ororo/others pos.

25. Congratulations

I don't own Harry Potter or Marvel. The plot of this work however, that is mostly me.

I would like to thank Bankerjoe13 for his help in editing this work, he found a lot of mistakes that would otherwise impacted the level of the writing within. He also answered several broad questions I had, and helped me get a few tricky scenes right. I would also thank Mordreek for his aid in getting the scenes with the Asgardians correct.

I would also like to thank the reviewers who pointed out two major mistakes I made - specifically, the word for the spell Harry used to ignite his fire spell on Mars, it was simply ignite, since it was a Harry special it had no Latin term, and there is already an Incendio spell which has nothing to do with the one Harry used there. I also made a mistake in the name of Harry's Team. Instead of Cura Mundi they are the Custodes Mundi, literally Guardians of the World. That has since been corrected.

Sorry it's been so long between updates. I can't say that my muse has died on this or anything, but WW and other ideas have been clamoring far louder I have to say. As such, I will warn that this story will only be updated every three months for now until WW is done. Once it is, ATP will once again be updated every month. And no, it has less to do with the size of the chapter as much as the organization and ability to concentrate on the story in question for long enough to write about it. World building takes a lot of thought.

I am also restraining myself with difficulty from getting into a verbal war with reviewers qwertypous and Archleone, hence why I will respond to them here rather than PM. Newsflash, you don't speak for everyone else. I detest it when reviewers use that 'everyone doesn't care' crap, because no reviewer speaks for anyone but themselves. And Archleone, as for the idea that Ororo and Jean control Harry, I have no idea if you've ever been in a real relationship, but normally, there is such a thing as give and take. Harry is in charge of the faction, with the girls as his chief advisors, and sometimes they do need to make certain he doesn't put a step wrong, or vice versa. In their relationship they are equal, anything else is not healthy. And in any normal relationship there do need to be romantic moments, both large and small, and since this story is a romance/adventure, romance should be sort of assumed. As for the useless side clutter, that's called world building, and it's sort of necessary dipshit since I am trying to build a world whereas the comics only told the reader a little about the day to day events while moving from crisis to made-up crisis like a drunkard. You think you can do better, then go write your own story and don't disparage those of us who are actually courageous enough to share our imaginations on FF.

Okay, rant over.

Um, pkboyan1234, don't know what the ? reviews were supposed to do, although they did push Archleone's review off the first page, so thanks for that. Just wondering if you wanted to actually say something there, if it was a mistake, or if that was your way of asking me when I'd update. If so, uncool.

ATP25 Congratulations

---

At around the same time that Harry was battling Thanos on Mars, Dani was fast asleep in her bed on the captured Kree warship. Thanks to it's hyperspace drive the Hellion had been able to exit the solar system within a few hours, leaving behind the gravity shadow of the Sun, and they were well out into deep space now, something that delighted most of the humans aboard. But unlike the others, Dani didn't really have much interest in space for space's sake.

Indeed, she had initially objected to being chosen to go, but had acquiesced after Jean explained why she wanted Dani along. Not only did it add a second sniper/rifle specialist, but Dani's mutant powers might come in handy. While she was still training with her powers, Dani could now create three-dimensional images of ideas and concepts taken from the minds of herself and the others around her. She could even, with difficulty, channel residual thoughts and emotional impressions from an area into a vision of past events.

The first ability had already proven very useful in training the team on the various tech on the ship. That was an ongoing process, since Nikolai, herself, and Paige had no idea how to use any of them. The second might prove useful if they had to figure out how any of the derelict ships they were intending to capture had been damaged, if it wasn't obvious, to get them moving.

Dani wasn't certain if that would work, but the team's training on the various ship's functions and systems had already begun. The Kree troops including Mar'vel had been astonished at her abilities, but with them and Douglas' help in actually understanding the programming of the various systems, the team would soon be as good as the original Kree sailors in controlling the ship. If they ran into a battle, or if some of the Kree decided that they weren't happy about being prisoners any longer that might prove necessary.

But using her powers like that wore Dani out, and she was routinely asleep before she even hit the pillow. Normally when she was so exhausted, she wouldn't have any dreams that she could remember, but this time when Dani opened her eyes she somehow knew this would be an exception.

All around her was an ancient seeming forest of pine trees and oak as far as the eye could see, with winter snow heavy on their boughs and on the ground all around her. Dani frowned then looked down at one of her hands unsurprised to find it holding a staff. "Am I dream-walking again?" She hoped she wasn't, talking to a local personification of death once had been troubling enough when Dani thought about it, getting called on again by the same being or others would go beyond even her extremely elastic weirdness quota.

Even so, Dani could not shake the idea that she knew where she was. There was a feeling of being home almost even though she didn't recognize the area right away. Take away the snow though, she thought, cocking her head thoughtfully as she stared around her, and this might just be someplace in the Rocky Mountains, someplace I've been. Could this be…

"In answer to your question you are dream-walking, but only in a sense," said a soft feminine voice from behind her. "You are not walking to something else, or by another person at that person's behest, more into something hidden inside yourself. Magic is rather confusing, and I can't say I'm an expert at it, especially soul and blood-based magics like this."

Dani turned calmly but with her body tensed just in case, only to face a woman that was unlike Hela as night and day. She was older looking then Hela, yet somehow there was something ageless about her attractive motherly features. Rather than being a lustrous black, her hair was just slightly too dark to be called a true blonde and rather than being loose like Hela's the woman's was tied up in an intricate braid under a small bit of linen cloth, symbolizing that the woman was married. And rather than having a mask over her face, it was clear to the sky, showing her light blue eyes.

Even more telling was her clothing. Where Hela had worn armor that looked decently made yet designed more like a marital aid, this woman wore a long skirt of white tied around her waist by a green and white braided rope though they did have a red cloak in common at least. In one hand the woman held a staff in one hand, the mirror image of the one Dani had arrived here holding.

Despite the sword, she looked like some kind of old time mother or housewife, but as she smiled there was steel there. As Dani walked closer to her she could however see something in those blue eyes, which were deep pools, their depth belying the woman's apparent age. But what Dani saw more than age and wisdom there was a faint glimmering of well controlled, icy fury.

For some reason this woman gave off the vibes of someone to respect, if not quite as much is Hela. "Greetings mother," Dani said in the Cheyenne tongue, the same language the woman had spoken. "I am Danielle Moonstar, might I ask your name?"

"Be welcome Danielle. I am Sigyn, wife of Loki. " the woman said formally, holding out her hand to Danielle in token of friendship. As Danielle hovered her own hand above the other woman's, she went on, her lips quirking in some hidden amusement. "Enter and be welcome."

Dani was still pondering that statement while the woman motioned her into the small, traditional Cheyenne tent behind her, wherein a small fire was blazing. Dani entered, looking around with a smile of remembrance. Grandfather's hunting tent… Every summer since she had been five or so, her parents and her would go up into the mountains or out into the desert with her grandfather, who taught her everything she knew about hunting, which she began when she was nine or so.

Later on it became a refuge from the bullies and the crap she had to deal with being a Cheyenne at a mostly white school, then even later the place she went to first to try and control her powers as they began to appear. She smiled appreciatively while running her hands over some of the simple paintings on the tent's interior, the smell and sight of the interior of the tent bringing back warm memories of time spent with her grandfather learning to hunt.

After a moment she moved over to the fire, sitting across it from Sigyn, her legs crossed under her. "That is interesting," she said at last, addressing the woman's statement. "I know of Loki from my studies of the Norse religion, yet there wasn't much information save for your aiding your husband in some kind of captivity he was placed under by Odin. But there's so little that isn't contradictory out there about any of you, it's hard to distinguish myth from fact."

"That's not surprising," the woman smiled a little grimly now. "The Christian missionaries and their puppet kings or those naïve enough to think things would not change by allowing in a new religion, probably did the best they could to destroy all memories of the old religion of the Asatru. Made all the easier by our own disappearance, I have no doubt."

"Disappearance?" Dani asked, leaping on that word with all the speed of a hunter on her target. There was something about that word that greatly bothered her.

"I cannot speak of it." Sigyn replied honestly.

That honesty and the response was so firm that Dani leaned back slightly in shock before shrugging and changing the subject. "Well could you tell me something about you?"

"I will tell you what I can." Sigyn replied in again in such a tone that Dani understood the hidden message there. Something was keeping this woman from talking as frankly as she wanted, and that was disturbing considering the fact that they were possibly inside Dani's head.

Though that thought brought back to mind her current situation and Danielle asked hurriedly. "I hate to be rude, but before that could you explain more about why I am, well, here? That initial explanation of yours wasn't enough."

"As I said I'm not an expert, but I will explain as well as I can. Dream walking in a sense is sending out your mind to another place or into another person's presence be it the person's mind or body through magic. Another person can pull you out of your mind, as I believe you know already, though your mind can in effect change where you actually arrive if you have the power." She smirked a little. "I imagine that came as a shock to my daughter."

"So it was your interference that kept me from appearing in Hel?" Dani asked. "And, daughter? The legends say that Hela is a daughter of a giant that Loki slept with, I'm sorry I can't remember her name."

"Yes, that occurred well before I married him, and her name was Angraboda, she was… not very motherly, but very powerful." She smiled somewhat caustically, as if from a remembered argument, or perhaps a bittersweet joy. Her voice however was grim when she went on. "I became a mother to all three of his children, though I doubt they remember me." Again there was a message there in the tone of the woman's voice and Dani began to be even more worried about the hidden messages she was getting here.

Even so, she had to smile at how the woman was getting around whatever was trying to keep her from speaking. "I see," Dani said, signaling her own understanding of the subtle messages that she was being passed here, causing the woman to smile slightly. "But please continue your explanation I'm sorry I interrupted."

"In essence what is happening here is that your mind did not leave your body, rather you are delving deeper into your own body as it were, where my soul is hidden. The soul is not a simple construct." Sigyn said smirking even wider. "Gods such as myself can do amazing things with our own souls, though it is taxing."

"I remember an old movie about a wizard that removed his heart and hid it somewhere else? Sinbad I think it was…" Dani mused. Harry had never discussed the horcruxes with any of the team, after all why would he? But the idea was well known in fantasy circles.

"Hah! That's amusing, we had the tale of the troll with no heart in his body, interesting how such concepts continue for so long. But no, if a normal human tried to do the same thing they would need to sacrifice something, and call upon the darkest magics, and it is not just a question of power or ability. Your jarl might be able to do it based on his sheer power, but I doubt he could survive as the man he is if he tried it. I sacrificed no one, and splitting my body and soul was, while not an easy affair, one well within the abilities I have learned from my husband."

At the last word Sigyn's voice, which had been grim when she talked about what a human would have to do to separate his soul from his body, became much lighter, fond in a loving but exasperated sort of way. "He and his brother were always incredibly good at magic, even those aspects that they should not as men have delved into."

"Why were you hidden my lady?" Dani asked.

"My husband had a scheme and I was a part of it. He hid my presence as well as he could, but our enemies still found me, and I was forced to hide my soul further. I hid my soul in the blood of some of my worshipers, who willingly accepted the burden." Now Sigyn's eyes glittered, and one hand caressed the staff where it lay beside her. "They will be remembered. One of my worshippers somehow found his way across the ocean to your people and eventually passed my soul down to you. You, who have the power to bring it closer to the surface than any before you."

"I see," Dani said, frowning thoughtfully. Going from what she had been able to find, the only enemies that the gods of the Norse had were at one point each other, and then giants, with whom they were constantly battling. Yet it also seemed as if there was some connection there as well, since many gods had married giants, though not vice-versa. The only ones that were certainly their enemies in their entirety were the fire giants but even that was somewhat disjointed.

Yes, they were supposed to fight the fire giants at Ragnarok but some of the texts hinted that Loki was a fire giant himself. Some of his powers hinted at that too, his ability to change form easily, even his gender, and it even tied in with his being the Foolsbane. After all, fire was something humans all needed to live, but if you fooled around with it, it would burn you just as easily as the wood on the fire.

Loki's own place in the Asgard pantheon was another area where the literature was 'lacking'. Some of the mythology said Loki was Odin's brother, some said sworn brother which wasn't quite the same thing, and many said his adopted son, and half-brother to Thor and Balder. Yet Loki was also their enemy, bringing about Ragnarok by killing Balder somehow. I really need to find an actual believer and ask some questions. Whatever I could wish, it's pretty obvious that I am tied up somehow with these Asgardians.

"In any event, I am only able to talk to you like this when we are away from Earth." Sigyn went on. "Our enemies' power is great, but centered on earth."

"If the spell or whatever is keeping you from speaking plainly even here, why exactly did you wish to speak to me?" Dani asked. "Is there any way I can help you or break the geas?"

"I don't think you could break it now, though that jarl of yours might. I've seen the memories of what he can do from your mind, and many of his powers go beyond anything the Seidr in my own time would've been capable of. Even Loki and Odin could not do some of the things I've seen him do through your eyes, or at least not as easily."

"Instead, I would like to ask you to find my body. When you dream-walked, I felt its presence. It was nowhere nearby, but it was on the same plane of existence for a time."

She paused, her mouth opening and closing then Sigyn paused, realizing she couldn't actually say what she wanted to say. Her eyes seemed to widen at some kind of realization, and she began to growl under her breath. "Ungrateful brat of a mangy lizard, fucking sea-slug with delusions of grandeur, I don't care how big you've grown, you're not too big for me to put over my knee you antisocial sadist, play with your food will you…"

As the imprecations got louder and much more vociferous Dani rose from where she had been sitting, backing away slightly from the other woman who now was gripping her sword hilt with every word. "Okay… I'm just going to go…" she murmured, backing away warily. Sigyn didn't even notice her move, still muttering imprecations and staring into nothing. Dani shrugged, and then left the tent.

Staring out into the forest all around she smiled, the staff in her hand which had not left her possession even sitting down, morphing into a bow and arrow. While I'm dreaming I guess I might as well dream about something I enjoy doing. With that she left the tent, tabling the incredibly odd conversation with Sigyn that she had just had to delve into the joy of the hunt.

The next day when she woke up, Dani was not surprised to find that once again she seemed to have brought something out from her dreams. In one hand she held a long staff, which seemed to shift in her grip as she stared at it into a bow of the finest quality. Frowning thoughtfully she put it to one side, then pulled out a datapad, one of the many that the team had and began to put in as many notes as she could about the odd dream that she had just had. I seriously need to talk to Harry when I get back.

OOOOOOO

"Are you sure you can hold up your end? That arm of yours doesn't look good." Ben Grimm asked, kneeling down to lift up several tons of rubble over what had been a subway entrance that had collapsed with his one good arm. The healing potions Storm had access to hadn't worked on his body, though the Pepper-Up potion she had left for Ben and the others had. And she was far too busy using her heling powers on injured civilians for him to want her to take time to look at his arm.

"I still have one usable arm tovarishch, and I could say the same for you." Colossus smiled, shrugging his shoulders in a Slavic shrug. "On three, one, two, three!" The two heroes grunted in unison, lifting the entire mass of the collapsed building that had been blocking the subway entrance, lifting it up above their heads to give enough room for Sasquatch and a team of waiting army troopers to rush in. Exclamations of shock and joy from below indicated that there were indeed survivors down there, and the two super-strong heroes smiled wanly at one another.

Teleporting other people, especially people without any inherent magic in them, had drained Storm, and even with numerous Pepper-Up potions, she was no longer able to attempt such safely. Even so she had almost knocked herself out a few times teleporting people who were badly injured out from under various pieces of rubble caused by the final few moments of battle against the purple skinned alien. However, Storm was still able to use another area of control spell that she had learned from Gaea to find people trapped in the rubble here and there.

She and the other members of the Custodes Mundi had been looked at rather askance at first. But when they began to pitch in immediately after the battle to aid in the aftermath, the troops stopped caring where they came from.

That was one of the reasons why the Fantastic Four were so respected: they always tried to keep their battles away from civilians and when they did occur in a city or around civilians they would always stay around afterwards to help clear out the aftermath. Reed Richards had access to a lot of medical technology, and with that, Susan Storm, the Thing and the Torch's aid in clearing away rubble they routinely saved hundreds of lives. That had begun with the Mole Man encounter, and it had continued ever since.

Storm had even ordered Cory and the other popping specialists to bring in hundreds of potions to aid with the most severely injured. When asked about them, she'd covered it by simply stating that they had bought the potions from Magical Minds long before they had been allowed out into the public. With the potions and Gaea-taught healing spells she was able to save dozens of people that would've otherwise died.

While Ben and Colossus were working to clear out the rubble to get to people trapped here and there, Storm leaned back from the last wounded child that had been brought into the hospital tents in the last hour. She smiled brightly at the young boy, who smiled hesitantly back, patting his stomach in wonder where a piece of metal piping had caught him in the side in a wound that would have killed him in short order without her aid. "It, it doesn't hurt, wow! Thank you miss!"

Storm smiled patting his head before nodding at the mother who raced forward to hug her son before standing up on weary legs. She looked over at the doctor she had been working with who had looked on at first in contempt and then growing shock and amazement as Storm went to work. "That's the last of them, yes?"

He nodded. "The rest of them modern medicine can handle thank you," he said, torn between his pride as a doctor and his belief in science and what he had just seen. "Thank you…" he said brusquely, shaking his head "but I think you're needed elsewhere. I think the general wants to talk to you for one."

The African woman nodded, then got directions to where the general's headquarters had been set up before stepping out of the tent, staring around at the city, most of which was dark save for emergency lights here and there. Power was out almost everywhere in the city, the initial battle against the Hulk and Abomination having taken out the local power plants. While she walked through the makeshift tents thrown up everywhere on the streets, she saw dozens of civilians clustered around, talking about what had happened, or simply sitting and staring out around them into the city in shock, or aiding the wounded or beginning to clear away the rubble.

Helicopters were being brought in to clear out most of the rubble, since the roads were so packed with people and cars that trucks couldn't get through. Medical personnel moved through the tents everywhere, along with soldiers all of them moving purposefully, setting up more tents, bringing out food for the civilians, directing them around, or aiding in the continued efforts elsewhere. Storm nodded approvingly, the general in charge of this effort was evidently a very good organizer.

As she moved through the camp, she heard a mutter behind her and slowed down shaking her head sadly, then smiling slightly. "Damn mutants, they should've kept their trouble to their fucking selves! Look what they've done to Montreal!"

"Those fucking green monsters weren't mutants, or haven't you watched the news with them in it before you racist fuck!" Said someone else, his English heavily accented, an accent that Storm noticed was like that of a Frenchman's almost. "The Hulk was someho' created by zome kind of weapons tezt gone wrong, and the Abomination was created the same way down in America. If you want to blame anyone blame the people who ran those experiments, not the heroes who helped stopped zer rampage!"

"We could've…"

"Done fucking jack shit!" Said a third voice, his English much better than the second. "Your company didn't arrive until after the battle Doborn, mine arrived first. We were doingjack shit against those green bastards! Bazooka rounds blew against their faces and did nothing, bullets bounced off their skin, and even a few of the experimental weapons did nothing! Hell if not for the Custodes, the remains of Alpha Flight would be dead, and so would a lot more people in this city."

The second voice piled back in, his tone dark but his words complimentary. "Zhat also doesn't cover zhe work they've been doing since the battle ended, 'ow many 'undreds of lives zhey've saved. You saw that black woman, whatever she was doing to teleport people out from under zhe rubble nearly killed 'er! I don' care if zey're mutants, I don't care where zey came from, zhere are only humans here!"

Storm moved on, smiling faintly to herself as she weaved her way through the crowd of tents. From such things progress is made.

A few moments later another conversation caught her attention. "And you say that he was calling himself Thor? And he was blonde?"

"For the 11th time man yes, what the hell is bothering you about that? Personally the way he was throwing down, and you know he was wielding a hammer, I'm not about to question him on his using the same name as an old-style Viking type of god."

"Old-style Viking? I suppose that's better than calling it a heathen religion but not by much." Another voice scoffed sounding somewhat angry, though more confused than anything. "It's not that he was calling himself Thor that's bothering me, but your description… it certainly matches the one that's been passed down among the faithful, but in all of the details that survived the coming of Catholicism Thor was known to be red-haired! This Thor, he sounds more like the image the Nazi's believed in. And historically he had a beard! Most men back then had beards. And the other one you mentioned, he sounds like the real Balder, only again not quite. Maybe they really are aliens who just look like our gods. That's, that's kind of sad for myself and other fultrui."

Interesting, Storm thought to herself, moving on. There was a point in the battle where Thor became red-haired… That could be important down the line. We really have to look into this Norse religion what was it called again, asat-something? If it was only a mistake of coloration, that would be one thing, but since his hair did actually change colors, that could mean there is something more going on, just like Harry's instincts was telling him. By that point Storm had reached the command tent, and she was quickly ushered in by two guards who looked at her in awe.

General Angus Millean was an old man with a stern-seeming face but he nodded politely to her as he stood up from the makeshift desk he and Vindicator had been sitting at going over the map of the city while they worked out where to direct the rescue efforts. "Ma'am, I can't thank you and yours enough for the help you've given my fellow Canadians here. Your efforts have saved thousands of lives."

"Thank you general, though I wish we could've done more."

"You did enough, certainly better than my team and I did." Vindicator shook his head sighing sadly. "This wasn't our first outing by any means, but those two behemoths mauled us. We overestimated our own abilities, and Northstar, Shaman, and Snowbird paid with their lives for it. Sasquatch, myself and Aurora would've died as well without you and your team arriving when you did."

And even so, Aurora will never be the same, he thought angrily. Jeanne-Marie had become comatose after the fight, her eyes blank and staring as she muttered her brother's name over and over. She was being looked over by one of the doctors that had been seconded to Alpha Flight, but their diagnosis was not good. Even if she came out of it, it was doubtful Jeanne would ever fight for the team again. Not that Vindicator could really blame her if she decided to walk away, not after this.

"As much as I hate to mention politics, however, the higher ups need to know what happened to the Abomination and the Hulk after you chased them out into the suburbs." The general said, clasping the young man's shoulder tightly for a moment.

Storm nodded, then gave a detailed report about the battle that occurred in the forest, ending with, "The Hulk is in our custody, where he will stay. I don't think my, my commander as you would put it, will wish to let him go. But since he teleported himself and that alien, he called himself Thanos, away we'll have to wait until he returns. As for the Abomination's body, it too is in our custody. I may be open to bring it back to show you, but we will be disposing of it in the near future." She smiled thinly. "Considering the fact that the Abomination was created through a mistake by the American military, we are not willing to allow anyone else to take custody of the body."

"You realize that people will be questioning you about that?" Vindicator asked skeptically. "I mean how will anyone know whether or not the body you took away is the same body that you show us getting destroyed or whatever."

"That has occurred to me, but I know that we have no real need for it. We already have powers of our own, the Hulk's power has no interest for us ,especially not with the evident downside."

"That's not enough," said a new voice and all three of them turned to face the tent flap. Nick Fury entered, staring at her than at the general gesturing at the young woman who had followed him and. "Nick Fury, SHIELD commander. I've got about a thousand agents coming in on six Pelicans, along with medical supplies. We'll need a landing zone, if you're com people could coordinate with Agent Alexa, we'll be on the ground quickest."

The general nodded to his own aide, who nodded and led the young woman over to the com gear set up in one corner of the tent. Nick turned back to Storm. "There are going to be a lot of questions after this on all levels not just about the Abomination's body, but why he and the Hulk were seemingly working together. You know anything about that purple skinned alien?"

"No." Storm replied coolly, her eyes narrowed at the newcomer. She didn't particularly like spooks, and the man had not made the best of impressions before this. "He gave his name as Thanos, but if that is a title or actual name I don't know. He said something about having used them, but how that came to be we don't know. In terms of your concerns about what we would do with the Abomination, you can question it all you want but we are not releasing his body to anyone else's custody. Most especially not someone who has connections with the American government, the same government whose military possibly helped create him in the first place."

"Agreed," Nick said surprising her. "I wasn't even thinking about the Abomination frankly, just stating a fact there will still be questions about it. My problem is with Banner being in your custody. Are you certain you can hold him?"

Storm smiled faintly. "Easily. He reverted back to Banner when he fell unconscious thanks to Thor, and we used a spell on him that will keep Banner asleep until we wish to revive him." She turned to the general. "I believe that once we do wake him up, we will be willing to have an observer along when we question him about what happened. Regardless of what did happen however, he will remain in our custody into the future. Dr. Banner has lost the right to try to handle his Hulk issue alone."

"Can I get a representative on that group as well? It will help me stave off several questions, as well as possibly stop important people looking at you and your team with concern," Nick asked quickly.

"No it won't." Storm said looking at Fury her head cocked to one side thoughtfully. "Many will still consider us a threat regardless, including you. That's how your mind works commander, but we do not answer to you. And we especially do not answer to your hidden backers."

"Enough," Angus growled, getting in between them. "Nick, stop acting like a damn spook. These people have done a lot of good here today, and that earns them an equal amount of trust here. I'll tell my higher-ups what is going on, but I think they'll agree that leaving the Abomination's body in their hands to be disposed of makes sense so long as we can see it happening. As for the Hulk, that's fine with us too."

Nick backed off a little but still looked at Storm his eyes hard. "Before this, you and your group were moving pretty well under the radar, at least as far as the world powers were concerned. Now though you've stepped out onto it in a big way. There will be questions asked, there will be repercussions from this, and not all of them will be good."

"What will be, will be. That is for the future however." Storm said nodding her head towards the general. "If you'll excuse me, I think I am rested enough to go and search for Guardian and I have a good idea of where he is. I will leave the rest of the Custodes Mundi here to continue to help of course. With a final nod to Fury, Storm left the tent, before deciding she wanted to get some aid for this trip just in case.

OOOOOOO

Carol Danvers had arrived with the first Pelican to land, which had been directed toward where Thor, Balder, and Magma were working around a collapsed skyscraper. Hurrying forward with a few of her men Danvers came close enough to hear what was obviously the tail end of the conversation. "And no, I will not try to drag you back to Asgard, that is not my mission and I couldn't care less about why you're still here."

"In truth, mine reasons have changed over time, expanding. Tis obvious that Midgard is in dire need of heroes, and what better role could there be for I? In ancient times I would defend them from the Jotnar, now needs must I defend them from others. The enemy changes, but mine duty remains the same. Nor is Midgard without its own heroes, valiant and true even those who durst not have powers of their own."

Balder laughed nodding his head, which was covered by a bandage under his helm. "Indeed, for all their short lives and physical weakness, there is something vibrantly alive about humanity that calls to me as well. Now let us move on."

Danvers walked up to Balder nodding her head at the rubble. "I take it there's no one left alive in there? Which buildings next?"

Neither of the Asgardians questioned her about who she was, simply assuming that she was from a different kind of military than had been aiding them in their efforts so far. Thor expounded, pointing in one direction with his hammer. "Mine brother, myself and our allies hast been moving through the city in yon direction, clearing out what we can and getting to as many innocents trapped therein. I believe that Betsy and Magma are already there."

Danvers nodded, and waved her team in that direction. "While we're moving, can you tell me anything about the purple skinned alien, and where Guardian might've gone?"

"Somewhere where he would be able to cut loose without worrying about innocents being harmed, or destroying too much real estate." Said Storm floating out of the sky to land nearby. "Thor, Balder, would you two be up for a trip with me? I think it's time for us to go and see if we can find Guardian and help him if necessary."

"Forsooth lady, I am more than prepared." Thor growled, lifting up his hammer from where he had set it on the ground. Its steel head gleamed in the light of the sun for a moment as he placed it on his belt, catching Storm's attention for some reason. "I am most eager to test mineself against yon alien once more." Balder nodded agreement touching his sword hilt, his normally friendly eyes gleaming dangerously.

Storm smiled, then nodded at Carol before lifting up into the sky once again, with the two Asgardians following. They flew straight up, and a moment later disappeared from Carol's line of sight. She stared after them for a moment making yet another mental note on whether she really wanted to continue working with SHIELD right now, before turning to her fellows. "What are you all looking at, we've got work to do, let's get moving!"

OOOOOOO

Deep within NASA's headquarters a low level tech was watching his instruments as he always did, watching the data from the telescopes spread around the globe. There was some noise in the background, some of his fellow techs talking about something up in Canada. Wasn't important. Especially since for the last few minutes there had been odd flashes and glimpses of something on the surface of Mars just out of range of the Rover's video camera.

He had been taking notes on them both on his own computer, and in the official log since he had seen the first. It was certainly the most interesting thing he had…. "Holy Shit!" he suddenly shouted leaning back as the light from the Mars Rover suddenly became as bright as that coming from the sun, then the image went out.

Around him all of the other techs looked at him in surprise. "What is it Jenkins?" his supervisor asked, standing up from his desk and hurrying over.

"Something's been going down on Mars, it was flaring for a while here and there, but just now it flared up like the surface of the planet was on fire, and now Rover's gone! I mean look at the readings, Jesus! Heat levels off the fucking charts then blam, nothing!"

One of the other techs had looked at his own screen, and he gulped in fear but raised his hand in the air. "Um, sir, the light from Mars, it um, it's been flaring for a while too. Sorry sir, didn't see it. Um, but um, now its, um, it flared up like the sun, er and it's still going on."

The supervisor turned from Jenkins and rushed over, staring at the screen, which the tech obligingly played a recording of the spectroscopic reading from Mars. The supervisor watched aghast as the readings changed from a planet to something a little bit less than the sun, quickly spreading from one central position to cover the entire planet. "What in the hell is going on!"

Hours later NASA still didn't know the answer to that, but whatever it was had finished. Now the light from Mars wasn't reading like a planet any longer. Its atmosphere was gone, and its surface had been turned into some kind of glass. It was almost reading like a giant asteroid, but not quite, the surface was too uniform for that, and far too reflective as well.

The supervisor was much more aware of what was going on in the outside world than Jenkins was, and he realized that this could possibly be connected to what had been going on in Canada. Hadn't there been a report about a purple-skinned alien, and it and this Guardian character teleporting away? "Someone get on the phone to SHIELD, I think Fury needs to know about this."

OOOOOOO

Fury had moved to the front of the relief effort, directing his men and actually joining in occasionally. Much of their equipment, such as hover beds and other things were making the job a lot easier than anything the Canadian army had on hand, and then even brought in a few portable generators. Power was returning to much of the city because of that, including several of the hospitals whose backup generators haven't worked. There would be questions asked about that later locally, but Nick couldn't care less about it.

Right now, he was watching from the shadows while a group of reporters recorded the Human Torch and Magma working to cut a way through some rubble that had fallen onto a car, trapping a family inside. Whatever powers the young girl had was allowing her to cut through the concrete as easily as Johnny could, cutting it down into small chunks that his men could move with their man-sized hover beds. Soon enough they had cut through the concrete and steel that had fallen onto the car, and now were removing the doors and smashed top gently to get at the wounded within.

Carol hurried forward with several medical personnel and a few gurneys, loading the comatose father and mother onto it while two other workers carried the unconscious child who had been in the back seat off after them. Carol stood there for a moment looking around and nodding bleakly. "I think we're done with this block, you two do good work you know. Without you and the others here this would've been a nightmare."

To one side reporters continued to record, and one reporter actually moved close enough for her mike to pick up some of the conversation.

Johnny simply shrugged, wincing slightly. His head was still ringing from the blast that had taken him out of the fight, and he thought he had a slight concussion from it. He was also hovering in the air not because he had to get at the rubble on the car, but because one of his legs was broken, and he knew that his ribs were aching a little too much from when he impacted the ground.

Magma was also in pain from her various wounds taken, though most of it was phantom pain after having been impaled in her energy-form. "We should have done more!" the young girl said, her tone cracking yet passionate. "We should've done more! What use are our powers, if we can't save everyone!"

"We have been saving people." Johnny replied, acting mature for once as he laid a gentle hand on the energy-girl's shoulder. "Sometimes I think cleaning up after our battles is worse than the battles themselves, because we really can't save everyone. We're not gods, and we're not perfect. All we can do is the best we can do, like you've been doing since this began."

"It's not enough!" Magma muttered, but she nodded sighing sadly and moving on following Johnny to the next street over. Behind them the TV crew, all looked at one another as the reporter grinned triumphantly. That would be an incredible human interest piece. After a second though, they hurried after the two heroes, not interrupting their work, simply recording everything.

Nick for his part however had stopped moving, having felt his cell phone go off. Pulling it out he held it up to his ear for a moment. Carol had paused as he did, allowing the others to move on. She saw him lose control of his face for just a second, then heard him say, "What do you mean something happened to Mars?"

After a moment he nodded his head mechanically. "I see." With that he closed the phone staring off into the distance. I've been concerned about Potter since he first showed up on my radar, if he was just fighting for mutant rights that would be one thing, but he's not, he's got an agenda, he wants humanity in space for some reason. He's a loose cannon, and he just killed a damn world! I told Storm that she and her crew just stepped on the world stage in a big way, well congratu-fucking-lations Potter, you just might have become public enemy number one!

After a moment however Fury calmed down from his initial reaction, and then went over what he knew about the battle here. Then he turned to Carol. "Danvers, how easy would it be for an alien to show up here on earth?"

"As I've been saying for months Sir it would be incredibly easy," Carol said, gritting her teeth in sudden anger. "All of the space-based sensors that humanity has combined can only cover about 40% of Earth's orbit, let alone the space beyond. I've been saying this for months Sir, it was in the damn memo I sent you a few days ago when the owner of Magical Minds went on about it." Unlike her boss Carol had not made the connection yet between Harry Potter and Guardian, thanks to the spells harry had cast on himself and Jean when they arrived in Cumberland County after the clash with the Hellions.

"None of your damn lip Agent Danvers!" Fury replied angrily. "Now is not the time, and I am not in the mood. So what you're saying is we wouldn't be able to tell if someone was already set up there?"

"Not if they were good enough at hiding it Sir." Carol scowled, controlling her temper with difficulty. She had been ignored on this issue for so long, and then to have her boss suddenly ask this question…. That thought made her wonder why he was asking about it now. "There are dozens of ways known to modern science and I'm not talking about Reed Richards or Tony Stark level here to hide things in orbit. Space is that vast, humans just can't grasp how much, even just the space around Earth is huge. And Sir, if you can control the orbitals, you could control the world. Nothing could get out of atmosphere that you wouldn't be able to see, provided you are spread out enough. Again, that was in my damn memo!"

"How long would it take for us to have a presence up there?"

That question calmed Carol down more, as she thought about it for a bit then shrugged. "It would depend. Years, decades more like conventionally. If we could work with some of the geniuses around, Stark, Richards and their ilk, maybe a few years."

"How would you go about trying to make certain that no one else has created a presence up there?"

Carol paused, cocking her head thoughtfully. "May I ask what brought that question on? I haven't seen any information about the other superpowers building up a space presence."

"It's not the other world powers I'm worried about, it's Guardian and his faction."

"What?" Carol asked, her voice going cold. "Sir, as far as I know Guardian has done nothing to incur any suspicion, not against America, not against humanity as a whole. In fact, I think we should give him a fucking commendation for doing our job for us! With respect, I don't think we have enough resources to waste on people who haven't yet proven to be a threat."

"Commander he just killed Mars!" Fury replied tightly. "He doesn't have to do anything to show it, he is a fucking danger!"

Carol looked at him, her thoughts going a mile a minute then shrugged her shoulders. "I think you're asking the wrong question Sir. I think you could should be asking not is he capable of destroying a planet, but why he was pushed to do it in this case. If you don't mind Sir, I'm going to get back to work. You can stay here and stew in your paranoia if you want to."

With that she tore off a textbook salute and then marched off to join Magma and Johnny Storm. Nick frowned after her then rubbed his nose wearily. Does she have a point? Am I really jumping at shadows?

After a moment he shook his head. No, Potter might not be a threat yet, but he has no ties to any conventional power structure except perhaps the United Kingdom, and he just proved that he could be a world-class level threat if he wished. If I don't answer these questions, someone else is going to try to, and I doubt they'll simply decide not to pursue it because he hasn't proven to be a threat just yet. Worse, they might force the issue. Then what will Potter do in response?

OOOOOOO

Lady Death had to take over powering Hela's scrying spell when the fight between Thanos and Harry moved from Earth to Mars, but she did so smoothly, so much so that Hela almost didn't notice the change. It was a sign of something that Hela hadn't considered before, that what she and the other Asgardians considered Midgard was simply a single planet, not the dimension it resided in. And they were tied to that planet in a way that limited their power beyond it.

But that was at the back of her mind, so far removed from what the rest of her mind was dealing with that it was almost nonexistent. The rest of her mind and indeed her libido was concentrating on the fight, and its aftermath. Now she was actually hyperventilating, her eyes wide, and her mouth open while the scene in her scrying pool faded. Though she didn't know it, she actually had something in common with Emma Frost, the most mortal of the trio of lovers that Harry Potter had gathered around him: Power was a turn on of immense proportions for any goddess, and especially one like Hela.

Yet the tenderness with which he touched the chosen of Gaea after that battle… I could almost feel it through the scrying spell. Power, kindness, ambition and honor… All right, so maybe I am a little more interested in Potter than I thought I was, but I still haven't answered the big question, would I be willing to share him?

It took several moments for Hela to regain control of herself even after the spell faded. But finally she turned to her Lady, who had sat motionless staring into the scrying pool even after the spell faded. "That was certainly interesting my Lady."

This understatement won her a sepulchral chuckle, the first time she had heard that sound from her Lady, and she actually felt a thrill, somehow knowing that she alone out of all of her Lady's servants had ever heard that sound. She knew others, including several from alien pantheons would have balked at calling themselves servants of anyone, but to Hela that was simply arrogance. To her there was no beating around the bush, that was what they were. Any God who ruled a realm that was designed to eventually return the souls of those inhabiting it to the mortal coil served Lady Death.

That was what separated them from gods like Odin and Freya. Hela believed they in some fashion stole from Death, or rather from the universe as a whole, and were thus an aberration rather than a part of the universe. They took souls that should have been returned to the mortal coil, hoarding them to be used later on at their leisure rather than returning them to be reborn, serving the great wheel.

Of course they also served the whole in some other fashion, but to Hela's mind not as nobly. Though she did have more respect for Freya than for Odin himself. I wonder if I could go to her for advice about what to do? She thought to herself, then wondered where that thought came from for a moment. Still it was a good idea, and having made a mental note to act upon it when she could.

Right now however she found herself curious. "Is your suitor alive, my Lady?"

Lady Death nodded her head slightly, now turning to face her.

Hela licked her blood red lips for a moment then went on more hesitantly. "For someone who claims to love you so, he seems unwilling to meet you firsthand. Or does he simply love the process of death rather than the person?" That comment won her a shrug and she went on as if talking to herself. "But that makes no sense, that death is just an ending, you are not…we are not in love with our own powers, we are simply part of the whole, there can be no life without death, no change without rebirth."

"Yes," Lady Death said in her deep resonant tones, which again held a smattering of contempt for her so-called suitor. "I have not yet discovered which of my servants put this notion into his head, or how it grew to actually include me rather than said servant, but I will."

Hela nodded, then turned her attention to her own business. Two of the soldiers who had died of their wounds after the battle was over had actually been of the Asatru faith, something that surprised her somewhat. Then she realized that given its martial overtones, perhaps the faith was somewhat more prominent amongst some of the militaries of the world than the general populace.

Normally since they had died of wounds taken in battle against an overwhelming foe, both souls would have been gathered up by Odin. But Odin lacked the power to reach to Midgard any longer, and so they fell to her. "If you would my lady, I have business to attend to." Taking souls for Midgard was something Hela had to see to herself, reaching across the realms wasn't something Niflheim could do by itself.

Lady Death nodded, acknowledging and respecting the seriousness with which Hela took her work then left as quickly as she had come. With that Hela turned her attention to the back of her hall not noticing that the shadows of her throne room for some reason became somewhat darker immediately after Lady Death left. "Garm, attend me."

A second later, a giant wolf moved through the hall. It was massive, larger than Hel's brother, though obviously fully grown, and it had scars slashing its body in places, especially on one back leg, it even had a fang missing. Even with all these wounds slowing it down however no one in their right mind would consider this wolf anything but dangerous. Even still, it bowed its head, resting it on the ground in front of Hela. "Mistress?"

"I have work to attend to on Midgard, two new souls that must be brought in. Guard my realm until I return, dear wolf."

"As always mistress." Garm nodded his head, turning back toward the door out into Niflheim proper, while Hela closed her eyes for a moment and then was gone herself.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere Odin took his hand off a small runic array set into his throne room, the lights of the magic pumping through it darkening instantly. Another pebble has been set in motion, and another small hole made in their control. That is the best I can do for now, but that hole might widen as well. And any good general knows that you should attack from as many directions as possible. Ride the chaos that this Potter mortal's very presence has created, and eventually the change will become so powerful that I will be able to act.

Odin smiled grimly to himself. He had felt Death's entrance into Niflheim, which was a part of Asgard and thus under his purview, whatever Hela or others might think. He could see what occurred there if he so chose, and had felt Those Who Watch Above in Shadow withdraw in fear of her coming. Yet even so he hadn't been able to do much, simply planting a small seed in Hela's mind. As an avatar of death, Hela could act more freely than any of his other subjects, and he hoped to guide that action.

Planting a thought in her brain had been somewhat distasteful, but Odin was king of Asgard for a reason. He had ruled Asgard not just through power but through guile, cunning and the stark knowledge that sometimes as King one had to do distasteful things to preserve the realm. In the grand scheme of things this was a rather small example of such.

Feeling his so-called 'masters' presence returning to his mind however Odin quickly and very expertly erased the past few moment's memories from his mind, pushing them down deep, so deep they could never find it until it would rise up again when he next could strike at their control. His last thought before erasing the memory was: It will take time, but your end has already been written my so-called masters, and when it cones, I will tear you and all your edifices down. Then you will face she who you fear the most. But unlike mortals you will never return to the circle of existence. You will simply end, and the universe will be better for it.

OOOOOOO

Hela and Lady Death were not the only ones who had felt the spells that Harry threw around that day. Stephen Strange and his girlfriend Clea had finally gotten a day out on the town by themselves, and had not been interrupted at all by demons, sorcerers attempting to make a name for themselves by taking him on, other-dimensional issues, or anything of that nature. Even Wanda had responded well to the couples need for some intimate time, and had readily ensconced herself in her own room and remained there for the entire day.

The two of them had just made it back to Stephen's house when he began to feel the spells Harry And Storm were hurling around in Canada, then a shocking silence for a bit before feeling the reverberations of even more powerful spells much further away, out into space. He frowned for a moment, staring up into the sky and passed it before shrugging his shoulders as he felt Clea mold herself to his side.

Stephen decided to leave it to Harry for just a moment. He certainly hadn't felt any dimensional rift, or local magical power. In other words it isn't my problem, and Harry seems to be handling it. I'll check in with him tomorrow, but for right now, I think I will respect my fellow magic user enough not to poke my head in.

OOOOOOO

Dr. Doom stood in front of a holographic map of Eastern Europe hovering in the air above a small pit in his Strategic Control Room. There were several dozen androids at work all around him inputting data into it to reflect the growing amount of information about the Red Skull that Doom's spies, both robotic and human, were slowly putting together about the Red Skull and his activities since his 'rebirth', which had happened at least 10 years ago.

I will admit that the Red Skull was very careful at first, hiding his machinations very well. And even now the connection to most of the HYDRA is still very tenuous. Yet it is still there, Hydra is still dancing to his tune. That implies that Baron Strucker is being used, willing or no. It matters not, both will fall to Doom. He watched as the colors of many of his neighbors, including further to the east like Croatia, began to change color, indicating how badly their government had been invested with HYDRA agents. And in doing so I will gain an empire.

"My Lord?" said one of his human aides, speaking up hesitantly. All of his retainers knew that they could bring things to his attention, but if Doom deemed them not worth doing so, he was very likely to dump them back down to the lowest level worker in the Castle for a time. It was worse of course for foreign agents. Doom would not kill his own subjects capriciously, but neither would he allow his time to be wasted by fools.

Doom turned to him, motioning with an armored finger that the man should continue.

"Our bots watching the world news networks have reported on a battle occurring in Montreal, Canada my Lord. We might wish to think of a way to streamline the process of them bringing such to our attention my Lord, it took several hours to come to our attention." The man hurried on, knowing that alone would not be enough. "There was mention of a person using weather powers, and of another person throwing around things that looked like magic spells mentioned in the news report."

"Interesting." Doom murmured. "I wonder what could have caused Guardian to come out into the open like that…"

"My Lord, there is more. Mention of the Hulk, and the Abomination working together, coupled with videos of a purple skinned being trying to assault the city with Guardian and the local military trying to stop it. And later my Lord, our agents who have been working on Project Overwatch reported… well at first I didn't believe what they reported my Lord but something occurred on Mars my Lord, a battle of some kind. Mars is still there, but it has been changed. We estimate that it's atmosphere has been destroyed, and most of its surface wiped clean. Some kind of tremendous fire or blaze of some kind, it registered as bright as the sun for a few hours."

Doom scowled. If that battle had occurred out in space, then the purple-skinned creature might have been an alien. As such, if it was a threat to Earth as a whole, then Doom would have to do something, offer something in return for his not aiding Potter in his fight against it or be forsworn. "Get me all the information you have about the fight, all the newsreels and the data from all of our own sensors if we had any in the area."

With that Doom moved away from the holographic map towards a computer to one side of his control room, but paused looking at the man. "Well done. And since you were the one to bring it to my attention, I will place you in charge of figuring out a way to reprogram the bots we have watching the news, or find some other way in which we can get the information faster."

As Doom walked on, the man sighed in relief and smiled faintly. If that wasn't a promotion, he didn't know what was. Hard and somewhat dangerous to work for Doom might be, but he rewarded those who served him well.

OOOOOOO

"Well that was interesting. Did the video recordings of the fight give you any ideas about this Guardian's abilities my dear?" Mr. Sinister smiled faintly, sipping on the wine he had brought to this meeting between the two allies. They had come up with several ideas, plans to trap Guardian and his allies to bring the heroes onto their own territory where they would obviously be stronger than if they went on the attack. Sinister had long put together plans to heighten tension between mutants and humans which would also work to better cull out the weak. One of them would actually work quite well for this concept though it would put him in personal danger more than the others. Still, with Morgan helping, the two of them would hopefully be able to match Potter.

"Quite a bit yes, his spells are faster than I had expected, he's obviously a war-wizard. I thought those fools had all bred themselves out of existence decades ago. Still, it would make sense considering the amount of power I felt thrown around in London several months back. I wonder who he was fighting?" Morgan murmured, patting at her lips daintily with a napkin. "Still, everything he showed in this fight I can counter or overcome. If that is all he has, and we trap him in a place where his actions will be constrained as they were in the city, it will actually be relatively simple, so long as I can use a local array to aid in matching his raw power.

"I personally would like more of an indication about this Storm's magical powers, as well as where my own target has gone, she was not involved in this battle. The others are immaterial, but Subject Grey should be quite powerful, I'd like to get a handle on her abilities before we fully commit." Sinister replied frowning thoughtfully. "Guardian is unaware of us now, but if we strike at him and fail that will no longer be the case. He seems far more proactive then Xavier or your Sorcerer Supreme, which is worrying."

Or even Magneto, Sinister thought to himself thinking about the other player in the future of mutant kind. He had not been heard from of late, which Sinister knew was possibly not a good sign. Eric was far too intelligent and his organization too large for Sinister to like it being so silent for so long.

"While I care not for your target, you raise a good point." Morgan murmured. "Knowledge is power, that is true in all of life, but it is even more true in battles between magic users. It is all too often a case of…" she frowned then shrugged her shoulders, doing interesting things to the dress she was currently wearing though Sinister didn't notice. "Of knowing what particular rock or paper or scissor will work the best I suppose. But unless you come up with a way of finding out more about his abilities, and more importantly his resources, we are stymied there."

"I wonder if there is a connection between Guardian and Magical Minds." Sinister mused. "They do seem to have appeared at the same time, if so that might give us another way to discover more about him and his abilities."

"Perhaps, though I would have to get a sample of these new medicines that Magical Minds are selling to tell you if they are actually magical in nature. My resources in England are not up to that task. Are yours?"

"No, I have very little resources in the United Kingdom, as you well know." The two of them glared at one another, remembering how they originally met and the favor Sinister had gained from Morgan there and what it cost him in turn. After a moment however the glares subsided as they turned to more important matters. "However, he will be sending those potions to other countries, we might be able to hijack a shipment at some point."

Morgan nodded then cocked her head as Sinister frowned, reaching into a pocket on his very good Armani suit pulling it out quickly and holding a cell phone up to his ear. That was rather rude, but she waited to comment on it.

She watched as Sinister's eyes widened, then locked on her own as he slowly put the cell phone away. "I have certain agents that routinely watch the stars, and they have just reported to me that something has fundamentally changed with Mars. The planet no longer qualifies as an actual planet apparently, I'll have to look over the data to tell you more. Could that be where Guardian teleported them?"

Morgan's eyes widened, then narrowed as she thought, not saying aloud any of her thoughts just yet. They might be allies but they were not trusting allies and she had no more wish to share her own abilities and of course the limitations of her magics with Sinister than she would with anyone else. Mars is the closest planet, yet even so teleporting there would be incredibly difficult and power consumptive, but there are ways in which that could be made easier if Guardian had been there before. But to destroy an entire planet?

"You will have to tell me more about what you mean by no longer qualifies as a planet before I answer that. If you mean destroy the planet as in it's no longer there, then I'm afraid I will pull out of this alliance right now. That would indicate far more power than I would be willing to tangle with. Anything below that, we would have to see."

"In that case," Sinister said standing up from the table. "This has been a magnificent meal my lady, well-seasoned by plots and information, but I think I need to get those answers for you. Shall I return say, tomorrow afternoon?"

Morgan nodded, then stood as well walking Sinister to the door. After closing it behind the man she frowned, then waited a few moments before raising the magical defenses around her mansion to the highest level before turning and disappearing through an illusion where a wall supposedly was, heading down into her work area. I think I need to refresh my memory on war-wizards in general. Perhaps there is a weakness there I can exploit, a way inside Potter's mind perhaps, or a way to negate his power. There is far more to magic than mere brute force after all.

OOOOOOO

"…And so I left the others there to keep working with the locals. Ben was a massive help there, I have to say. As Reed mentioned, the FF have a policy of working with the locals to repair any damage caused by battles they are a part of, and everyone knew it, so they are seeing the Custodes in just as good a light. I hope that was all right?" Storm asked as they began to see Earth looming in front of them.

It had taken some time for them to fly back, with Thor and Balder actually having to tug the two humans along as they were so exhausted. Both Asgardians did so good-naturedly, only ribbing Guardian occasionally about performance issues, which he replied in similar vein to before asking Storm what had gone on during his absence.

"Honestly Storm that was perfect," Guardian said, reaching over to grasp her hand with one of his bring it up to his lips to kiss wincing as a cut on his lip twinged at the touch. "You did everything I would've done, even leaving Colossus and the others there. As for your dealing with Nick Fury in that manner, well he's going to be an unhappy camper anyway. I bet the events on Mars were visible by at least the Mars Rover, let alone to astrologists the world over. We've ruffled a lot of feathers today, I'm going to have to try to put out some fires there, but there was no helping it."

Storm nodded thankful that Guardian approved of the stance she had taken there. Yet she too was worried how the rest of the world would view them now. The battle in Montréal was one thing, Storm would hold her actions there and the actions of the team up against any scrutiny, but Guardian's battle on Mars? Even if the world governments understood the necessity of what Guardian had been forced to do, there would still be a large segment of the scientific community that would be calling for his head.

On top of those long term concerns Storm was also worried by the fact that Guardian's wounds hadn't begun to heal yet. Normally Guardian's magic would go to work on his wounds immediately and it was a sign of his utter exhaustion that it hadn't. The only other time that had been true was after the battle against Mephisto, and even then it had only taken a few hours before his magical healing kicked in. Now it had been five hours since they had met up over Mars, but his wounds still looked largely the same.

Guardian caught her worried look, and smiled faintly, reaching across again to take Storm's hand. "I'll be fine my love, I'm being forced to use up most of my magic to keep the bubble of air around us going right now. After I crash, I'll allow my magic to go back to doing its normal thing." The amount of control necessary to keep using his magic despite its innate desire to begin healing him was astronomical, Storm knew that and shook her head at Guardian's blasé attitude toward it.

By that point they had reached the outer atmosphere and Guardian looked over at the two Asgardians. "Are you going to go off on your own, or will you both wish to remain with us for now?"

Thor frowned, tapping the hilt of his hammer thoughtfully. "I believe I will remain with you, and indeed remain in Montréal to aid the relief effort with Ben Grimm and the Human Torch after you take you and yours away. There will still be work to do even after the debris and rubble is cleared after all."

"You're a good man Thor." Guardian said simply, reaching out to slap him on the shoulder. "We need to get together sometime and share a drink. I've looked up at least a bit of the adventures you're supposed to have had, and I'd love to hear them from you personally."

Thor laughed, a deep booming sound that echoed all the more as they reentered Earth's atmosphere. "Indeed, I believe you too shouldst have some tales of heroism to tell! I would be most interested in exchanging tales with thee."

"I believe I will leave when you do. I still need to report back to my king about the first exchange of shipments and I have other duties that I cannot in good conscience leave aside." Balder said.

Guardian nodded, and their flight continued down towards Canada. Moments later they arrived over the city, passing by several dozen helicopters and heavy lifters that Guardian recognized as coming from SHIELD though he had no idea what they were named. Several of the helicopters began to buzz them, following them until they disappeared into the cityscape. They landed right outside the command center, where Psylocke and the others had gathered for a small meal, looking incredibly weary after hours of heavy work following a harrowing and deadly battle.

As they landed Guardian nearly fell to his knees, catching himself only at the last moment before standing up straight, looking around. He knew he must look a sight. One of his arm was bound against his side, his facemask was shattered, half of it still covered with blood. His other hand was holding his shattered ribs, and back in gravity he couldn't put any weight on one of his legs, having to hold himself upright by leaning slightly on Storm, whose arm went around his waist protectively.

For a moment their return caused shouts and then silence before one of the soldiers nearby stood up from where he had been sitting eating a ready meal. Slowly he began to clap. This was taken up by others nearby, and then it spread. Every soldier there had either been part of the battle against Thanos and his dupes, or had arrived after and talked to those who had been before. Most of them realized that Thanos had been wiping the floor with them, and if Guardian hadn't taken him off they might well have all died, as well as the civilians it was their duty to protect.

The civilians knew it too. Video recordings had been made by men and women here and there watching Guardian intercept or block blasts that were meant to destroy buildings that housed hundreds of people, and the fact he worked with two of the Fantastic Four was also a mark in his favor. Later, after the initial rush of responses to the battle faded the Mutant Issue would rear its ugly head, polarizing even further but right now, the common people of the city couldn't care less about what happened to Mars, which despite what Guardian and others might have wished was quickly becoming common knowledge. All they cared about was that Guardian had very clearly been doing his best to save their lives, and had succeeded far beyond what their own team of superheroes or military would have been able to do. Later there would be questions about that as well in the Canadian government, but right now, there was nothing but gratefulness.

Several reporters scattered throughout the maze of tents hurriedly moved towards the center of the disturbance. Then, seeing Guardian, pushed forward through the crowd trying desperately to make themselves heard above the din of the clapping. "Guardian, Guardian, what happened, do you have any idea why that alien was attacking where it came from?"

"What happened on Mars?"

"Do you have a statement you wish to make?"

Guardian held up a hand, and immediately there was silence. "Other than the fact his name was Thanos, and that he wished to sacrifice all life on this planet to some deity, I cannot tell you much more. At one point he called himself a Titan, but if that is the name of his race, or if he has some connection to the Greek Titans of ancient mythology, I cannot tell you. But I will say that this incident was not isolated. There have been other aliens showing up, but the world governments have turned a blind eye to this threat."

"We are the Custodes Mundi as the name states we guard the world from foreign enemies. But I say to you all now, that we cannot do it alone, eventually aliens like the Kree and the Skrull will send their militaries against Earth, not because we are a threat, but because they see us as a resource. Alone my team might not be able to stop them if they come at us in sufficient numbers."

"What would you ask for in terms of aid?" said one reporter, a woman who looked much more like a military person than a regular reporter, complete with crewcut and lean muscular body.

"The willingness of the world to stand with us against threats like that. To pull what resources we can to create a space fleet of our own. And to turn from petty reasons to turn against one another and face the future united as one race."

"Are you talking about enlarging the United Nations remit, or are you talking about more social issues such as the Mutant Question," asked another reporter. He was dressed in a suit that despite the work and the dirt and dust around them, looked immaculate.

"I would be more in favor of replacing the UN with something entirely new to deal with this issue, and as to your second question, that is but one of many hurdles to uniting as a species we face, and one that needs to be overcome. For now however, I am more than willing to work with the governments of the world towards dealing with alien threats, but I am unwilling to be tied to them because they have patently refused to be willing to deal with this threat in the past." Guardian smiled slightly, visible thanks to the tears in his mask though it still covered his eyes and much of his face. "That, and they have to follow certain rules about borders and such like, which if I cared about, this city would not be here any longer."

There was some nervous laughter at that, but most of the listeners both in person and watching the live broadcast understood the point he was trying to make. There were indeed times when people acting outside the laws could get things done, after all security agencies the world over had certain broad powers to ignore the laws of their own countries. This was a little more in your face than those, but still not something any of the listeners particularly cared to call him out about.

"As for specifics, I'd like the powers that be to start looking into building up a space presence, at least to build some better detection equipment so that Earth can at least see the enemy coming. It won't be easy, and it won't be cheap, but I think when faced with the possible extinction of the human race counting pennies is stupidity itself."

There was a moment of silence then, another reporter asked. "What will be done with the Hulk?"

"As he reverted to his human form of Dr. Banner, we are able to keep him sedated for now. I will state unequivocally that we have no interest in him, or the Abomination as test subjects or whatever. I will not release Dr. Banner to anyone else's custody, but I will ask now for a representative of the Canadian government and of SHIELD to be available to be present when we wake him up to question him about what happened. I believe that the alien Thanos used some kind of mind control on him, as it's well known that he and the Abomination do not exactly get along."

A small but very fit elderly man came forward from the crowd, wearing a decent suit but which had obviously seen better days. "I'm the mayor Nolan, and on behalf of the Canadian government I accept your stipulation. Frankly we don't have facilities that would be able to hold the Hulk if he reverted, so we are happy to hand that task over to you. However I would ask to also have an observer watch you destroy the Abomination's body."

"Agreed," Guardian said with a nod. "I will send a messenger to you Mr. Mayor, so I would suggest that the representative chosen stay close by. It will however take several days." He gestured to his team where they slumped in exhaustion. "I need to heal, and my team does as well, just in case he is able to revert to the Hulk after we wake him up. I honestly don't know anything about how Dr. Banner becomes the Hulk, and I'm not prepared to take any chances."

The mayor nodded readily since that was only sensible.

One reporter however was not willing to concentrate just on the battle here. He was an amateur astrologist, and he was also very skeptical about the idea that mutants would be willing to live in peace with humans, given some of their powers. "The news of your battle against this Thanos causing the destruction of Mars has spread Guardian! How can we, how can any government the world over let alone its citizens trust someone who can mangle an entire planet like that?!"

There was some muttering from Guardian's team about that, and the two Asgardians both frowned angrily at the accusation in the man's tone but Guardian merely looked at him thoughtfully. "I would ask you to judge me by my actions. A man should always be judged by what he does and says, not by preconceptions and certainly not by fear because someone can do things you cannot, or fear over what someone might do in the future."

"That is the Mutant Issue in a nutshell, isn't it? People sometimes fear what is different, what is strange and unknown. But we cannot allow that fear to control our actions, we cannot allow our fear to force us to prejudge others. Judge me by my actions," Guardian reiterated. "That is all any man can ask."

Seeing that didn't seem to convince the man Guardian sighed before placing a finger to his forehead and gesturing forward after a moment. Suddenly there appeared an image of the battle against Thanos on Mars, which ran from start to finish before ending with Guardian barely escaping with his own life up into the upper atmosphere while behind him his spell did its deadly work.

Into the silence Guardian said simply. "I had no choice. I went into that battle completely blind, and I was losing. It was either this, or retreating and there was no way to tell if he could somehow make his way back to Earth immediately which would have forced us to fight here, where my abilities would've been constrained and where my team and the FF had been battered badly. So in a way you are asking the wrong question, instead of asking 'why did I destroy Mars', you should ask 'how powerful was the enemy that I had to destroy Mars'."

More than one person there shuddered a little in fear at that, and deciding he had said all he wanted to say Guardian gestured to his team together around him, with Balder moving with them. Well that, and Harry wanted to leave before someone like Fury pointed out that the recording could have been faked. It couldn't actually, but explaining that to layman would be impossible.

He nodded to Ben and Johnny who nodded back wearily. They would stay there for a few more days, though they'd have to rest first. Even Ben's endurance had been tested this day, even with the potions aid. He also wanted to head back to the Baxter Building and use some of the equipment Reed had come up with that would help his arm heal, since none of the healing spells seemed to work on his rocky body.

He paused for a moment, seeing Hela standing nearby, her body like that of a ghost even to his senses. She smiled faintly, nodded at him, then turned away, followed by two large lights of some sort, which Harry somehow recognized as the souls of people who had died recently.

Shaking that sight off he turned back to the watching cameras. "And with that ladies and gentlemen, I have nothing more to say. Remember, we guard the world, but we do not and cannot do it alone. I urge you and those watching to begin to pressure your governments to do something about protecting Earth as a whole from alien threat. Good day." With that Guardian concentrated, and he and his team disappeared from the streets of Montréal, leaving behind a worried yet thoughtful populace.

OOOOOOO

When news of the battle in Montréal broke Emma was at the Hellfire Club working out a new deal with some of its members supplying their security teams with weapons in return for access to their corporate information networks. Yet after the live newscast began during the initial assault by the Hulk and Abomination, most of the business around the club stopped. The terrified voice of the newscaster coupled with the scenes themselves shocked even the most ruthless businessman. Even the strippers stopped dancing around their poles to stare at the news, watching as the two green behemoths slaughtered their way through a few hastily gathered army companies and apparently a Canadian superhero team, caught by various camera crews then spliced together later after the crews had no doubt met their deaths just as many other citizens did.

Emma watched the reactions of the others, seeing shock and fear in many faces, then exultation from more than a few when another superhero team consisting of at least two members of the Fantastic Four and several 'unknowns' showed up, hammering into the two monsters and forcing them away from the city. At that point the live broadcast cut out for a time, and Emma began to watch the rest of the Hellfire Club members even more closely. She was confident that Harry would be able to handle the two green brutes.

That was why she noticed when Edward Buckman hurried out of the club, rushing down the stairs from the second floor seconds after the live broadcast cut out. Frowning thoughtfully she leaned back in her chair then tapped a small device on her belt buckle, activating a sound baffling system before she pulled out her cell phone. "Sandman? Edward Buckman just left, can you recognize him from the dossiers I gave you?"

Sandman was loitering in the Hellfire Club's parking garage, hiding somewhere among the cars and monitoring the doorway into the club's environs just in case. "Yeah I recognized him, he just got in one of the limos nearest the door, seems to have startled the hell out of his driver. Why, what's up?"

"I'll fill you in later on the details, but I want you to follow him. I think he's panicking about something, and panicky people make mistakes. Do you think you could somehow listen in on any conversation he has?"

In the parking lot Sandman began to form his body more than just a head and as single arm holding a cell phone to his mouth. He had been hiding underneath one of the cars spread out at as little granules of sand with his cell phone on top of one mound of sand directly underneath Emma's car before the call came in, now he frowned, but decided to chance it. "Maybe, I'll get back to you boss."

"Good luck," Emma replied, then closed her cell phone and went back to people watching. For a few moments life in the Hellfire Club began to go back to normal, save for a few clumps of individuals here and there who had business interests in Montréal. She was unsurprised to see Sebastian Shaw coming down, moving in the direction of those members one after another. He owned a construction company, and there would no doubt be work for many such in the wake of this disaster.

While a portion of her mind continued to watch the goings-on around her another portion of Emma's mind began to work at the problem of why the Abomination and the Incredible Hulk, who had last been seen totaling a downtown city in America and fighting one another were working together to assault a city up in Canada. I thought they were supposed to hate one another?

A cold feeling began to niggle at the back of her neck. Could this have been caused by some telepath taking control of them? As a telepath herself Emma knew that taking control of a person was difficult for any extended length of time. But planting suggestions as she had proven several times was actually quite easy unless the person had natural mental defenses. If that's found out, Christ the fallout would be huge!

About 20 minutes later the live broadcast began again with another newscaster, commenting on how relief efforts were ongoing, but that one of the superheroes had apparently had a mass teleportation power that had allowed thousands of citizens to get out of the danger zone around the monsters rampage. Then he cut out again as there was a loud booming sound in the background, and suddenly the camera panned to show a company of soldiers firing up into the air at some purple skinned creature. Emma continued to watch, one part of her mind calmly noting that the cameraman would probably win a Pulitzer for this day's work. The anchorman was nowhere to be seen, which Emma thought was rather amusing.

Such thoughts left her head the moment she recognized Harry and the others battling for their lives and for the lives of the citizens. Her breath hitched in her throat and even with all of her self-control she could not stop herself from tensing slightly when Harry in his Guardian persona seemingly tackled the self-confessed alien and teleported him away. She stared at the TV she had been watching for a moment her mind, which was always moving and thinking about hundreds of different things at a time slowing to a crawl as she began to fear for the man she loved.

It was a sign of Emma's self-control that she pulled herself back quickly when she sensed someone else moving toward her. She looked up as Sebastian Shaw, without so much as a by your leave, pulled up the other chair at the table Emma was sitting at, smiling thinly at her. "That was quite interesting don't you agree my dear?"

"Shaw." Emma replied, her tone as cold as a glacier. "We are business acquaintances and somewhat allied in certain social endeavors. We are not acquaintances, or friends. Moreover I think I have proven that my age is no detriment to my abilities. Please keep that in mind when you think to address me so familiarly."

"Very well," Shaw ground out, suddenly dealing with a spike of anger at the younger woman's tone, but he quickly moved on. Deftly he touched a small button on his own button deactivating the Club's bugs nearby. As a King, he could turn them off at will, especially when there were no other kings present. "Tell me, did your spies discover anything that hinted at this new superhero team?"

"A bit." Emma frowned slightly, looking down at her glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. She never drank alcohol at the club any longer, not unless Paris was there and they were interacting socially, fearing what Shaw could possibly sneak into her drinks. "They apparently had some kind of run in with a robot of some kind down in Florida a few weeks back, and they are heavily allied with the Fantastic Four as is obvious. Needless to say that has won them quite a good deal of respect from the common citizen. I've seen hints that they might be based in Europe somewhere, but other than that nothing. I do of course know who the hammer wielding one is, he has been in the American news often enough. Why?"

"It is obvious that they are mutants." Shaw said smiling faintly. "I am just wondering what their long-term goals are and if I could get in touch with the one in charge. Considering their various abilities, they would be a massive aid to our strategic base. Though I have to wonder what kind of powers that one who teleported away with the alien has. Material manipulation, teleportation, energy shields and various energy attacks? Certainly a most interesting bag of tricks."

Emma shrugged again. "I take it your own spies haven't discovered anything more than my own?"

"Nothing," Sebastian scowled. My penetration of the European markets is not nearly as good as that in the Asian markets. And even there I've been having issues lately."

"The Mandarin, yes, I've seen reports about him," Emma nodded her head. The man they were speaking of was called the Mandarin, a crime lord of some sort in China whose fingers were beginning to spread through the entire country and beyond. He didn't seem to be taking control of China, though from what little reports Emma had he already controlled the equivalent of a small fiefdom around his main base of operations. What he was doing instead was uniting the criminal underbelly of China into one massive juggernaut, and expelling any foreign influence.

Indeed nothing was known about the man himself, but he was pure death on any kind of foreign spies or influence. This wasn't just applicable to the agents of foreign powers, but foreign businesses as well. Frost Corporation had never been as well represented in the Asian markets as some of the other Hellfire Club members, so it hadn't mattered overmuch to her, but more than a few of the minor members of the club had been dealing with issues caused by no longer having access to their corporate espionage apparatus in China and beyond. Two of them had almost been ruined by it, the Mandarin's efforts had been so detrimental to them.

"I could have wished that Iron Man dealt with him permanently during their apparent confrontation two days ago. But I'm still getting reports that the man is alive and well," Sebastian grumbled shaking his head. "Even as a hero Stark is a Boy Scout."

"You wouldn't say that if he had hit on you. In his social life he is anything but a Boy Scout trust me." Emma replied dryly. I wonder if Pepper has had any luck in taming him? Must find a way to ask if we ever see each other again.

"Speaking of possible allies, is young Potter aware of your social agenda?" Sebastian asked delicately.

Emma allowed a faint scowl to appear on her face at the mention of Potter's name, keeping up the appearance of the two of them being at one another's throats no matter how cordially they went about it. "He is aware of it, as you should have known given that interview he gave on Paris' news network."

"So he really does believe in that drivel about everyone getting along?" Sebastian sneered a little. "That's depressing. I had hoped he was more intelligent than that."

"He does like to seem to be the nice guy doesn't he?" Emma smiled thinly. "Whether or not that is the reality, I cannot say. I have absolutely no penetration in his companies, or his social dealings outside the Hellfire Club. I would recommend you attempt to procure some of those, but I doubt we'll have much luck. His security systems seem to be top-notch."

"And you can't reach him?" Sebastian asked surreptitiously tapping his temples as he signaled the waiter to bring him a drink.

"No, he has some of the same devices that Buckman has, though somewhat better than his or the late Pierce's. Potter's actually protects his mind with some kind of electrostatic field that blocks my telepathy. If you look closely, you'll notice he has a small necklace on underneath his clothing. I think that has something to do with it though I am no engineer. Whatever happened to Pierce by the way? His forces attacked my mansion as you probably are aware, did they try to attack you as well?"

"Yes they did." Sebastian actually smiled, though there was no humor to it. "I should congratulate you on acquiring Sandman as a bodyguard my dear, he certainly proved his worth quickly didn't he?"

Thanks to Emma forcing them to hide their presence, no one knew that her security team had been augmented by Vanguard and the other snipers that day. Even her own security team hadn't put that together yet, though she felt that her security commander did have some suspicions. Even Harry's saving her sister had been put down to Firestar by the police. And while the police had been a little leery about it, they couldn't actually protest a friend saving another friend, even if the individual in question was a mutant.

"He did, but my own security guards were up to the task for the most part." Emma smiled thinly. "Cold Steel's stock rose almost 50% after that. A nice little uptick from what was a very bad moment. And yourself, oh and have you finished maneuvering yourself to gain control of Pierce's companies?"

"Of course, once they are released for purchase by the federal government I will sweep in quickly. It pays to have connections. As to my ability to see Pierce off, it was not without danger or loss but the losses were acceptable and the outcome was never in doubt." His eyes narrowed as he watched the young woman across from him, not speaking for a moment as the waiter delivered his glass of whiskey. After the man left he went on. "Perhaps you should take note of that, yes? We may as you put it be allied to one another, but there should be no doubt as to who the senior partner in this alliance is."

"If I cared about such things, I would not nearly be as powerful as I am." Emma replied coldly. "Don't try to threaten me Sebastian, it won't work."

"I would think that the fact that Pierce tried to kidnap your sister would have shown you about your vulnerabilities, my dear."

"Not my dear, and as you mentioned yourself he attempted it. Firestar was up to the task of seeing that assault off, and I have already boosted my security team to make good its losses and then some. You're showing your boorish side Sebastian, if all you're going to do is try to threaten me, please leave before you embarrass yourself." Emma drawled, though her eyes were glinting like chips of ice.

For just a moment Sebastian looked as if he was about to lunge across the table at her, and Emma cocked an eyebrow, readying her telepathic power just in case but not wishing to use it. Yet Sebastian calmed down quickly, and actually shook his head chuckling. "Your fierce spirit is one of the things that I admire so much about you Emma, I just hope it doesn't get you in trouble one day." With that he stood up, tipping his glass toward her for a moment before moving away, moving back up to the King's quarters on the second floor.

Emma allowed herself to have a brief sigh of relief, before going back to watching the rest of the club, then the news when it went back to covering the relief efforts going on in Montréal. One news agency showed a government man of some kind sharing the official report of what had occurred, before switching to show videos of the Human Torch, the Thing and the new heroes, whose names had yet to be shared with the public the newscaster was quick to point out, working tirelessly to save trapped civilians.

Several hours later, Emma was back home having been driven back by the two remaining security guards of her three man detail, watching the news once again as Harry showed up and made his statement. While outside she didn't let any of her emotions show, since she was watching the program with her sister and Angelica, inside Emma was doing cartwheels. Not only because Harry was alive, which sent a spike of pure relief through her, but because of the way he handled the newscaster's and their questions.

That will certainly put some steel into the idea of mutant and normal cohabitation! I doubt it will have any effect on the true diehard bigots, but at least it will point out that we are stronger when we stand together then divided. Leaving the two younger girls to change the channel to a movie Emma made her way up to her office, where she pulled out one of the special phones that Reed Richards had made.

She had intended to congratulate Harry on a masterful bit of public speaking, but what came out of her mouth was, "When you disappeared like that did you know you were being recorded? My heart nearly stopped! If you're going to continue this whole superhero business, I think I need to demand that you don't be recorded doing insanely idiotic things, like teleporting away with an incredibly powerful alien to combat him somewhere else. Don't do that to me again! I've only recently gained people I care about, I don't want to lose one of them now!"

The other end of the phone was silent for a moment then Harry chuckled wearily. "I'm sorry Emma, I didn't realize we were being recorded, I can only imagine how unpleasant that must've been. I'm sorry for that, but I can't promise you that you won't ever see me do something stupid like that again. In the end, it was the only way I could get Thanos someplace where I could go all out, and I did have to go all out."

Something in Harry's voice warned her. "You don't think he's dead do you?"

"I'm very much afraid that he might have escaped yes. I doubt he's in any condition to come back right away, but somehow I think we're going to see him again down the line," Harry replied wearily. "Listen, I'm going to have to hang up here, the team and I need to do something together for a moment. I'll call you tomorrow okay? Love you."

The 'love you' at the end came out so simply and so unplanned that it actually took Emma's breath away for a moment. She smiled somewhat wetly she was amazed to find and replied quickly. "That's fine, I love you too Harry. Give my love to Ororo as well, and I hope to talk to both of you tomorrow."

"Will do." Harry replied then hung up allowing Emma to close the phone as she stared at her computer screen blankly for a moment before sighing and shaking her head. It was still early in the evening and she had work yet to do. Getting maudlin and soppy would do nothing for anyone. Resolutely gathering herself Emma flexed her fingers, and then began to type away at her computer.

OOOOOOO

Up in High Note, Harry flicked his cell phone closed, smiling fondly at Emma's concern for him, and the backwards way she showed it. Much like someone else I know. Harry mused, keeping his thoughts to himself with ease while Hedwig continued to pull at his hair with her beak for a moment. "Yes, yes Hedwig, I'm sorry I was injured, it wasn't exactly like I was trying to be you know?"

Hedwig huffed irritably at him, but capitulated after a moment, butting her head against his cheek affectionately. Harry smiled faintly, raising up a hand to gently stroke at her feathers, allowing her to nip at his finger for a moment before she flew off to a nearby perch.

Harry laughed quietly then sighed and set his cell phone down on the bedside table. He then pulled out a large flagon of fire whiskey and several glasses before walking back into the room where the rest of the team was waiting.

Ororo was leaning against a wall, her eyes closed as she rested briefly. The rest of the team was sprawled out here and there on fluffy chairs that Harry had conjured for this purpose in the little area of jungle that served as a common room up here. All of them had the exhausted thousand yard stare of young people who had just seen far too much in far too short a time, their innocence blown away by the aftermath of battle. Not one of them had gone into this fight with it being their first sight of the elephant, but the aftermath was by far the worst of any of their missions, even Piotr's introduction in Russia.

Amara in particular looked like she was about to break down and cry, and Piotr was mumbling some kind of religious phrase in Russian under his breath. Betsy was holding her head in her hands, shaking it back and forth sending her purple hair cascading every which way.

To one side Balder looked on in concern for the younger people, not thinking it his place to try and comfort them but understanding even so. Harry spared him a nod, then went around, setting a single glass in front of each of them filled to the brim with fire whiskey. They all looked at him, and he raised his glass in the air. "To the departed." he said calmly, then threw back his glass of fire whiskey.

The teens and Asgardian did the same, Amara coughing for a moment as the fire of the whiskey hit her, but they all continued to watch him solemnly. "You all did magnificently." Harry began holding up a hand when one or two of them made to speak. "Could we perhaps have done better in the actual battle, possibly, but that's always going to be the case. After battle you will second guess yourself, that's what separates the professionals from an amateur. Amateurs always assume they're the best that they can be, professionals know that there's always room for improvement."

"But that is not a condemnation of our actions or any one of your actions in that fight. We did all we could do, all we could as humans or Asgardians could be asked to do." He said flicking his eyes over to Balder who was watching him, with a faint smile of approval for the way Harry was handling this. "And I'm not just talking about the battle, but afterwards. You all saved a lot of lives today, and I want you to know I am proud of you."

"But you're young, and you all probably think that you didn't do enough," Harry went on getting straight to the point. He watched Piotr and Amara in particular flinch at that, but went on calmly. "Sometimes no matter what you do people die. I've heard it called the deadly algebra, but I think that's a little too pat for it, simply call it the reality of combat. We didn't choose to fight in the center of Montréal, and we did all we could to protect the citizens of the city. We could not have gotten there any faster, we could not have done better against an opponent we had no knowledge of before he showed up."

"We are all of us still human, and I won't allow any of you to rip yourselves up about it. Betsy, you were fearless against enemies that could've torn you apart, jumping out with a Gauss rifle at somebody who had just smacked our physical powerhouses aside, knowing your powers were useless against him? Colossus, you fought on even after your arm in its metal form had been twisted and broken so badly it still makes me wince thinking about it." Harry had been able to heal the arm immediately after Piotr reverted, though the process had been incredibly painful for the large Russian.

"And Amara," he said turning to the younger girl, shaking his head in admiration. "You came back down the moment you could, and according to Ororo you worked through a concussion and phantom pains that should have crippled you! You all did everything that could've been asked of you. Take pride in that, take pride in the fact that you saved lives today, mourn for the ones that you could not save and move on."

The teens were looking at him, but he could tell that they were thinking of it, and were past the self-recrimination stage now. Seeing that, Harry moved on. "You have the next five days off, completely. No exercises, no classes, no nothing. Tomorrow morning I'll give you all credit cards, and you can do whatever you want for those five days, go somewhere, go on a shopping binges, do something you always wanted to do, whatever. Just know that at the end of the five days, it'll back to business, understood?"

The teens all looked at one another, then Betsy nodded, reached over and grabbed the bottle of fire whiskey taking a pull from it before setting it down and standing up, running her fingers through her magnificent purple hair as she did. She didn't notice, or at least pretended not to notice that she suddenly had the attention of every male in the room for a brief second, since standing there like that showed off her body to an excellent affect. "I hear a shower and my bed calling me. I'll see you all in the morning."

Ororo waited until the others had left, until even Balder had been teleported back to the military base in the United Kingdom where the trades were supposed to take place, then using the Rainbow Bridge to head home with quite a tale to tell the skalds. When they were at last alone, Ororo moved to Harry, throwing her arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug. "And you won't beat yourself up about it either, will you?"

"I'm the leader, I'm allowed to beat myself up about such things." Harry replied, nuzzling into the side of her neck for a moment luxuriating in simply having his arms around her. "That'll come later for me though. Right now, I just want to sleep. Where'd you stash Dr. Banner?"

"In one of the new asteroids we've hollowed out, one of the ones that we haven't done any work on other than making it airtight inside. I felt that was the best compromise. Abomination's body is also stored there in a separate area, and I have Cory waiting around to make certain that Banner remains asleep."

"Good," Harry replied grimly, turning and walking towards the bedroom with one arm around her waist. The good Dr. Banner has some rather stern questions he'll need to answer in the near future. If he can't give me the answers I need, I have little to no hesitation in killing him."

"Fury indicated that might be difficult, apparently he sometimes changes into the green one in moments of self-preservation."

"My dear I am a Wizard, I will find a way," Harry replied his voice even grimmer for a moment before sighing and nuzzling into her neck again as the two crossed the threshold into their bedroom.

Later that evening while Ororo slept on beside him Harry stayed up, ignoring the twinges of most of his wounds, the one to his lung having been healed, though even that had drained his magic badly. He was going over the fight with Thanos, going through what worked, what didn't and what he hadn't tried, which was honestly very little.

Illusions don't work, whatever I tried to cover them up with, and even the basilisk venom in the sword of Gryffindor didn't do anything. Sound based assaults did nothing but disorient him a little. Teleporting him around is a viable tactic, if he doesn't plan for it. As that thought streaked across his conscious mind Harry realized he had already decided Thanos was definitely alive somewhere. Fuck. Still, there are ways of preparing for him. And he showed me a lot of what he could do to. Knowledge is power Thanos, and if you ever threaten my planet again, I will by god show that to you.

OOOOOOO

"A pity about the Abomination, Blonsky was a good soldier at one point. And I believe you were saying something about my Hulk Busters not being authorized?"

The younger man turned to General Ross, smiling faintly though there was no humor in his eyes. "It depends on if our government will truly believe anything that comes from this Guardian's mouth. And even then, I bet we can lobby for at least some work continuing on my own project. It's evident that America needs a response to the superpowered menace."

"You think the purple skinned one being an alien was a lie?"

"I don't care if it was or not, he's evidently gone, and we're left with the planet killer in his place. We need to find a way to somehow combat mutants with that kind of power."

OOOOOOO

While Emma was forced to deal with Sebastian, Sandman had followed Buckman by the simple expedient of transforming back into several pounds of sand and secreting himself along the bottom of his limo. He couldn't hear anything down here over the rumble of the engine and the noise of the wheels over the asphalt, but it kept him out of sight for now. He wondered if Buckman was simply heading home at first, but he didn't. Instead the limo headed out of New York for several hours until they turned off into someplace with a gravel road.

Wondering where they were, Sandman formed an eyeball underneath the rear bumper, staring around them. He noticed a sign of some kind that from this angle looked like one for a national park or something. As the drive continued, they moved deeper into the park, the limo an incongruous car among the Jeeps and camper vans for a moment while it moved deeper into the park.

Finally the limo stopped for a moment deep in the woods having left behind the last of the other cars, cutting through roads that had authorized vehicles only signs on them until it came to a stop. Slowly Sandman reformed his arm and his head underneath the limo so as to hear what was going on.

He heard the crunch of gravel as Buckman got out of the car while Sandman moved slightly out from underneath the limo keeping hidden with difficulty, since the sun was still out for now.

"Why the sudden meeting? said a voice, which he didn't recognize, though the tone was angry and argumentative. "You know this is against procedure."

"I know, but the news was so bizarre I had to meet with you. I needed to know if the Sentinels could handle the Hulk, or the team of superheroes that suddenly showed up there. They were fucking mutants, but they were much more powerful than most. Are the Sentinels up to handling such?" asked Edward, his voice matching a small sample that Emma had Sandman listen to a few days ago.

"In enough numbers yes." The first voice replied. "We knew that fighting the Hulk might be a necessity. After all, we only have Banner's little bit of propaganda he got out that he was created by a military project gone wrong."

"When will you be ready to move? I'm going to be meeting with my lobbyists and public relations people as soon as I can to start to push the mutant control bill. This latest incident up in Montréal will work in our favor for that regardless of anything else. We'll be able to point out that we only have his word for the fact that this Thanos fellow was an alien rather than a mutant, and that there are mutants out there just as powerful as the Hulk even if he isn't one. But we might need to show we have a force ready to enforce that bill right away."

"A month from now the first run will be done, and that's a hard date, nothing can stop it now. The Master Mold is fully functional and busy creating the Sentinels already. I don't have to even be there now, though I will be to help her augment the targeting algorithms and come up with some new weapons after some initial testing. The first batch will be around 500 or so, but after that we won't have enough materials on hand for the Master Mold to build more for some time, so government funding will be a necessity at that point. I hope your lobbyists are as good as they should be."

"They are, and my PR people are some of the best in the business, outside of Paris'. We'll be able to find people among the displaced and of course survivors of the battle in Montréal that will be more than willing to attack mutants easily enough. I'll, I'll also try to talk to my fiancé. If we can get her on board, we'll be able to win enough public opinion to push the bill through easily."

"Why you haven't brought her on board before this I don't know." the unknown man replied tartly. "She could've been a help with that all along, and she would never have been a part of letting Potter put out his coexistence message. That did a lot of damage, hell I had to liquidate a few of my own men after that. I had thought that they were intelligent enough to realize such an idea was impossible, but his statements somehow convinced them."

Edward sighed audibly. "I've been loath to bring it up because Paris doesn't see the mutant issue as clearly as you and I, and because she's a woman, softhearted to a certain degree. Ruthless in business to be sure, but not in the social scheme of things. I'll try, but she and I haven't met eye to eye on that issue before, so I don't know if we'll be able to now. I should at least convince her to give equal screen time to both sides of the issue, and my PR people, as I said, are very good."

"Fine, but don't try to set up a face-to-face meeting like this again. I know we've had our concerns about someone tapping our electronic communications, but this face-to-face shit is just as dangerous."

"Agreed. Senator Kelly has that anti-mutant rally coming up at the end of the month, where he's going to announce his presidential campaign. Will your Sentinels be ready for that? That would send a powerful statement. I might show up to show public support for his campaign as well if my PR people think it's a good idea. Will you be there?"

"They'll be ready, but no. In fact this is the last time I am going to be out in public. The Master Mold doesn't like it when I'm away it's a security risk and I agree. We'll speak next month Edward. Do your part, and the Sentinels will do the rest."

Sandman's face had become grimmer and grimmer as the talk went on. He didn't understand what the Master Mold was or the Sentinels. He got the impression they were some kind of robot, a hunter killer kind of thing like in those Terminator movies. He was not happy with the thought, and struggled with the idea of simply killing both men right now. They could even make it look like some kind of accident if he had enough time, and there certainly weren't enough witnesses around to bother him.

But it was the second man's mention of the fact that he was no longer necessary for the construction of the Sentinels that made him stop. There was no point in showing himself if he couldn't cut the head off the snake, and it looked as if the Master Mold had become the head now. Dammit give me locations, come on!

He chanced a glance out past a wheel, frowning as he realized the second man's car was too far away for him to get to, and worse the two men were standing directly between the two cars, facing the second man's car. With the two men directly in the path he would need to take there was no way they would not notice his sand heading over to the other car.

The two men didn't give him any more information, instead stopping the discussion there. After exchanging farewells, the two men got into their different cars, and Sandman once again moved himself up into the lower workings of the limo.

Once he began to see more potholes and feel the car stopping more often. Sandman chanced forming an eyeball near the front, staring up and trying to get his bearings for a moment, not wanting to head back to Buckman's mansion. If the two men had been that careful about not giving anything away in person, Buckman certainly wasn't going to give anything away when he got back to his mansion.

By this point it was deep night, the streets lit up by the lampposts. With that in mind Sandman took a chance, and removed himself from underneath the limo into a sewer drain in a moment when the limo stopped at a red light. He waited there until there was no traffic along the street then reformed himself, walking away briskly.

Stopping at an intersection Sandman was about to pull out his cell phone and ask someone to come and get him when an all-too-familiar voice spoke up from above him. "Well, well Sandy, fancy meeting you here. You aren't up to your old tricks again are you? I was astonished that you got paroled, but when I looked into the details of it I figured this Frost woman might actually convince you to stay on the straight and narrow. Yet here you are, apparently scoping out a jewelry store?"

Sandman looked up in irritation, shaking his head as he saw his old nemesis hanging from an overhanging awning directly above him, sticking there upside like a damn spider. He had to fight the urge to lash out at him, he hadn't forgotten that it had been Spiderman who put him in jail in the first place. Still, he was happy enough with his job, and truly did wish to reform himself so he didn't start anything.

Instead he laughed. "Sheer coincidence Spidey, I was just doing a little job for my boss. And trust me, I'm getting paid more than enough that the idea of knocking off a jewelry store holds no appeal to me." He looked around shrugging his shoulders as he looked at the jewelry store Spidey was talking about. "I hadn't even noticed it until you pointed it out."

Spiderman leaned down, staring into Sandman's eyes for a moment. "You're really going to try to go straight? I know some of your history, so I'm not gonna say that's impossible and a tiger can't change his stripes. And may I say how happy I am that you're not wearing that revolting striped sweater. That thing was damn ugly. But still, you got to admit this looks kind of fishy."

"I'm supposed to take fashion tips from someone who goes around wearing red and blue spandex?" Sandman scoffed. "And like I said I'm getting paid more than enough to stay on the straight and narrow."

"And there are bigger things afoot here, bigger than I realized until this last job." Sandman stared off into the dark of the streets, running a hand through his short cropped hair, irritated anew at the fact that it still felt sandy even when he was in his human form. "There are changes coming to the entire world, and I'm afraid we're all going to have to choose sides. And I've just realized, that I've already chosen mine."

"That sounds ominous," Spiderman quipped, "and does not make me feel any less worried."

"It wasn't supposed to. How many people have accused you of being a mutant lately?" Sandman asked seemingly changing the subject. "I know I got a lot of that when I was in the clink."

"A lot," Spiderman replied honestly, feeling a bit weirded out about this whole situation. He had frankly expected Sandman to attack him right off, but having a conversation like this with the other man was, while surprising, much more pleasant than the battle he had anticipated. "The Daily Bugle's been harping on it lately, especially since that explosion in China that was caused by a mutant apparently. It stopped for a bit after that Magical Minds guy made his public announcement of support for coexistence. Still with the news today I bet it'll start up again. Why?"

"I'm proud to be an American." Sandman said, seemingly changing subject for a second time. "I've been proud to be an American even when I was living on the streets or when I was part of the damn mob. I've known that we had better rights and more say in how we lived our lives and in the government than most other nations. That we had certain rights as human beings, as citizens of America like the right to bear arms and the right to privacy, that others didn't. And I think if someone wants to take away those rights from one group, they might as well try to take it away from everyone. I'm not going to stand for that."

"I don't think I would either." Spiderman said after a moment. "Though I think I'm missing half this conversation." He shook his head from where he was still hanging upside down staring at Sandman. "I'll take your word for your not being here to cause trouble, but know I'll still be watching you whenever I get a chance. You step out of line, and I'll send you straight back to jail."

"Yeah, yeah." Sandman said holding up his cell phone. "Now bug off, I gotta call my ride."

Spiderman shook his head, then flipped himself up into the darkness of the buildings all around them, disappearing from Sandman's view though he figured Spiderman was still around for a bit. He had to wait about 40 minutes before a limo appeared, not the one that Emma routinely used, but another one from the mansion driven by one of the security men. As soon as he was in the car Sandman flipped up his cell phone and got in touch with his boss. "Boss lady, there's some shit going down that I think you need to know about. Your hunch paid off big time, though I don't know if it was in the way you thought it would…"

OOOOOOO

The next day Harry was as good as his word, giving each of the team members a credit card and sending them off from Camelot. He was happy to see that all of them went out together. Apparently both Piotr and Amara wanted to go to Disney World, and Betsy was fine with the idea and wanted to stay with them. That kind of unity was excellent, and would hopefully see them through even worse times than this.

After that, Harry went out in his civilian persona, making an announcement as head of Magical Minds and sending out a full shipment of potions to Montréal to help the injured in the tragedy. This earned him PR points of course, and the public opinion of his company, in Canada at least, skyrocketed. The fact the British military aided this effort by offering to send some of its cargo planes with those potions also aided the two governments' already pretty good relationship. Of course, Harry also assigned Cory and a few popping specialists to make certain the shipments were not diverted somehow, which thankfully they weren't.

Once he finished his announcement Harry turned off all of his electronics and returned to Camelot. There he spent half the day with Melody and the other children simply having fun. Ororo joined him after having slept most of the morning away, joining in a game of kickball gleefully and leading her team of the younger children to victory over Illyich and the other, older students. Then the two of them took a bath together in the couples only bathing area, making slow, gentle love to one another with Ororo taking the lead over the still injured Harry for more than an hour, only stopping when their skin began to prune. Then they joined Melody and Illyana for a movie marathon.

The next day though, unlike the rest of the team, the two of them got down to business once more. While Ororo talked to the teachers about what was going on with the children's education, and began to go over the list of agents that Dennis had added recently as well as speaking to Charles and calling Stephen Strange to inform him about what had occurred in Montréal, Harry took a moment to enter the vault where Krakaan's gem was housed.

He stood there a moment staring at it, his fingers flexing then shook his head. No, not now. Yes in the future I might have to if I fight someone like Thanos again or if it looks like I will, but I don't need more power now. And my magical core hasn't even begun to recover, which means rather than enlarging my reserves it would simply fill them up. Harry's wounds refused to be healed by magical means save his own internal, and they were healing even more slowly than the wounds he had taken during the fight with Mephisto. He had covered this in his public persona by a simple illusion, and not letting the camera show more than his face but he wasn't willing to try to battle an Elder God, not even a stupid one, unless he was one hundred percent.

For a moment the RoR changed, showing a blasted landscape and a giant model of Thanos, though it wasn't moving just yet. Harry scowled at it, motes of light appearing around his fingers for a moment until a cough from behind him interrupted his somewhat murderous thoughts. He turned to see Ororo standing by the door into RoR, one white eyebrow raised inquisitively. "And just what were you thinking of doing, injured as you are?"

Harry sighed and the Thanos lookalike disappeared, while he began to walk towards her. "I don't think I was thinking really, just, just the feeling of unfinished business I suppose. I thought you were talking to the teachers."

"I was, we're done for now. I thought you might be brooding, so I wanted to pass on something I overheard, another piece of a puzzle I know you've been worrying at." With that Ororo told Harry about the conversation she had overheard discussing Thor and the odd discrepancies between him and what legend dictated he should look like.

Harry frowned, then shook his head with a smile. "Well that gives me something new to think of certainly." He held up his hand, counting off points on his fingers. "Point one, no Norse runes exist in this world, at all. Point two, Balder and others don't quite match up to what they historically should be like, either in personality or looks. Personality could be excused, but since these beings were the center of religious belief, looks could not be. Worse, things that are specific to their legends are also missing or different from what they should be."

At that Ororo cocked her head, and Harry shrugged, a small smirk on his face. "The head of Mjollnir is supposed to be made of stone, not metal, and Balder is supposed to be married, but he certainly didn't act like a married man."

After a moment Harry went on. "Point three, Dani has some connection to them, which is unknown at this time, but which allows Hela, one of the goddesses of death of the Asatru religion, to summon her spirit. Point four, there is no record or sign of how they actually left or otherwise cut themselves off from what they call Midgard, and the records of the 'heathen religion of the Norse' have been destroyed, far too completely to be anything but part of a larger plan. Point five, Thor apparently regressed at a time when he needed greater strength, suddenly able to smash Hulk down, when before he was barely keeping up with him."

Harry waggled his fingers then smacked his forehead dragging his fingers down his face. "Why can't anything be simple? Well, this problem at least won't suddenly rear its head, and I think we can start figuring out what the problem might be easily enough. I was planning to head to Norway anyway in a few days."

After that the two of them spent a few minutes together, calling up Emma to see if she would be able to get free for dinner. Emma replied that she was looking into something but would have something major to share with him and Ororo that evening. Wondering what that meant Harry decided to delve into the business end of things. He filled out the paperwork to begin his own energy company following a suggestion Emma had made weeks ago about his arc reactor designs. The first would still be sold to the British government, which would be an excellent testbed for the future ones. But the others instead of simply selling them as generators, he would sell the energy coming from them, giving him another source of long term income at what amounted to very little in the cost of startup.

He then handled some of Jean's side of things. This meant he okayed the design for the hover ambulance, and dealt with some people who were still irritated about having to work under someone so much younger than themselves. He did this by sending out a memo that if they didn't want to, they could be shown the door rather easily. That first afternoon though Harry also had to field a surprise call from Dr. Doom. "Lord Doom, what can I do for you?"

"Tell me what I must do to not be forsworn," Doom said bluntly. "Our agreement was that I would aid you against extraterrestrial threats that threatened humanity as a whole. This Thanos individual seems to qualify, and I was not aware of the battle against him until you had already teleported to Mars. Congratulations on your victory, though I would warn you if he had teleportation abilities at all, he might've escaped."

"I'm afraid he almost certainly did. But I'll be better prepared for him the next time he shows up. As to what you can do to make up for not helping…" Harry paused thinking hard. In another universe Harry Potter might have simply said that he wasn't owed anything, that he had done what he had to, but this Harry was much more pragmatic about things, and had a very good read on Dr. Doom's personality. If he seemed to brush Doom's abilities off like that, as if they didn't matter he would no doubt take umbrage at the dismissal, and would look for little ways or possibly large ones to bother Harry in turn.

So instead Harry decided to toss a very worrying problem the brilliant doctor's way. "I had an interesting conversation with Reed before he and the others left on their mission, and we came up with a few problems that we are facing in terms of defending the Earth from many extraterrestrial threats. A few of them I've come up with solutions already, but two in particular could make or break any defense we put in place. Tell me Dr., have you ever thought of how to detect something moving in hyperspace? Or how to, for want of a better word, drag something out of hyperspace at a particular point?"

Doom got where he was going with those questions immediately and smiled faintly, though of course it was unseen behind his mask. "Yes, I can see where that would aid the defense of Earth easily. I will look into them, and have something for you by the end of next week. Will that suffice?"

"That and anymore construction androids you can send our way will do the trick," Harry replied nodding his head. "I can't fault you for not seeing Thanos coming after all, we didn't have any hint of his arrival until he showed up in the battle anyway, so yes, that will be enough. Until then Dr."

"Until then," Doom said, and the two of them hung up both of them pleased with the way the conversation went. Respect in their opinion was so much more important than actual friendship.

While the world reacted to the events of Montréal, Harry continued his work throughout the rest of that day. It took him another full day to finish up his work on setting up Elemental Energies , sending off the paperwork, hiring a manager for it and giving the man his marching orders, setting up the number of departments he'd need and even seconding some men from Magical Minds to work for him. Then he took some time to watch the news as the British military's cargo planes arrived in Montréal with the shipments of potions he had sent them, before starting on setting up more of his business ventures as separate companies. That work would continue for a while since he only had people ready to run the new energy company, but the groundwork would be done soon enough. More importantly, he began a hiring campaign of epic proportions to meet that need and others. It would take a while for that to bear fruit, but the think tanks, especially in the area of medicine and research, were things he was looking forward to.

Later that evening Harry and Ororo met with Emma as she came through the runic doorways. Both of them smiled, exchanging hugs with her, and if either of them noticed how her arms seemed to cling to them, making certain they were really there, neither commented.

"I'm starving", Emma said bluntly, "I hope you have a large dinner waiting for us, but I think that you two might not have any appetite after I'm done explaining what I've found out recently about the Sentinel Project. I also have a plan in mind, though we might need to talk to Charles about his getting involved."

Over dinner Emma explained what Sandman had passed on, adding, "I even scanned his mind, and saw the man myself. It was easy to match him up with Bolivar Trask. I could have wished that Sandman had been able to tail him instead, but..." She shrugged. "We have to deal with the realities, and Sandman couldn't have done so without showing himself."

"He found out enough," Harry replied grimly. "So, the Sentinel Project is already set up, and it's killer mutant hunting androids. That's bad. That's very bad. What are the odds that this Mutant Registration bill will go through as quickly as Buckman seems to think?"

"I don't know." Emma replied, her face showing worry, her habitual control gone now that she was among those she loved and trusted. "I also have no idea how powerful each individual robot will be, or anything about what they look like. The fact that the program was already moving, and could continue to move without Trask however is very worrying to me. That tells me that this Master Mold might have some equivalent of an AI, and that given what the Sentinels are being built for is a terrifying concept. We need to move on this, but I just don't see how we'd be able to before the end of the month at that rally, then maybe trace the Sentinels back to wherever they are being made. I have a plan there, but frankly at this point I'd be more inclined to simply rip the knowledge we need out of Buckman's mind even if he would figure out it was me doing it."

"As a threat, will Shaw keep while we deal with this?" Harry asked. "Or should we move against him now? I'd rather have Jean and the others back before we do that, but we can still handle Shaw and his group if we need to now, even having to use kid gloves against some of them, so long as we can take him by surprise."

"I'd like us to move against him soon yes, but I don't think he's as big a threat as the Sentinel Project frankly. Can you handle his powers?"

"Easily," Harry nodded. "There are spells that don't have any physical components to them, I think as long as I can stick to those Shaw himself won't be an issue. I'd like to move against him now, but that might warn Buckman about your involvement no matter what we do. Ororo, your vote?"

"No," Ororo said, shaking her head. "The furor over what occurred in Montréal needs to die down before we show ourselves again, and even with as far off the beaten path as Shaw's mansion is, we can't assume that the battle won't be picked up, especially if Shaw isn't doing what he can to keep it from doing so. If we attacked him, we might be seen as the aggressor which could lose us much of the goodwill our actions have so far earned."

After a moment Harry and Emma nodded reluctant agreement with the Weather goddess. "What's your plan to get us the information we need to move against the Sentinel project?" Harry asked.

Emma outlined her plan and Harry smiled thinly. It was precisely the sort of plan he had come to expect from her, sneaky, underhanded, with a very high probability of success and with little to no risk to herself or indeed his public persona. However Harry thought there was something else they could add. "I think that we need to continue our attempts to pit our enemies against one another. It worked well enough with Pierce, and I think we can do the same thing here with a little bit of work, and a bit of double dealing on our part.…"

OOOOOOO

"No."

"No?" Edward Buckman asked, looking across the dining table to Paris. She had been happy enough to have him over for dinner at her New York mansion, but since he had subtly directed the conversation to Potter, the need to give equal time to the other side of the Mutant Issue and that whole question, her enjoyment had soured. He knew she would never see the truth as well as he did, but still. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean no. Not only no, but hell no," Paris replied bluntly, her normally pristine face twisted into a grimace. "A, who the hell am I going to find that has the sheer charisma Potter was able to exude so effortlessly that wouldn't come off as a rabble rouser or a hate monger? Answer, no one. Oh, I know there are intellectuals out there who think that humans and mutants are going to have to fight it out like the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthals, but those that are intelligent enough to actually defend their position have about as much charisma or empathy as a box of rocks!"

"If I put any of them on PNN, my ratings would plummet like no one's business. The only ones that might be able to meet both criterion are politicians like the Senator down in Texas who everyone thinks might be announcing his presidential candidacy soon. PNN has made a name for itself by reporting the truth and steering clear of choosing sides on either side of the political divide. I realize the Mutant Question seems to be able to jump that divide relatively easily, but it makes for ugly politics, and I am not going to soil my name or that of one of my major money makers with that kind of thing."

"You let Potter get his message out." Buckman said, accusingly, though he meant it to come out as a simple question.

"Because no one had any warning other than his hiring policy on his personal feelings on that point. And besides, it was such a small part of his total message to the world that it can be swept into the whole relatively easily. That battle up in Montreal should've made the world more aware of the danger we all face from outer space, but no, there's been no push in that direction ,while there are people like you and others who continue to cling to old problems, if they are problems at all."

And indeed that was the case. The populations of the various world powers were split as to how they saw the events in Montreal, but many groups, especially interest groups of various stripes, were trying to ignore the threats that might be out there to focus on old issues.

Those groups that did acknowledge the threats out there came in three stripes. One felt that humanity was somehow at fault and wanted to prepare a diplomatic delegation to talk to the next group of aliens that showed up, because 'of course interstellar species will have discovered that war solves nothing'. The second group specifically vilified Guardian, in particular decrying his destruction of Mars' surface and atmosphere, and agreed with the first group as to what humanity should do. The third group, which was centered in America and the UK, wanted a military response, but the moment the numbers of setting up such came up, none of them were able to think of where the money would come from.

And then there were those like Edward, who blamed the problem on mutants or other scapegoats. Thankfully this was actually a small, and very fragmented group, but it was vocal, in particular in the states.

"How can you say that, mutants have caused several disasters the world over in the last few years. What about the disaster in China a few weeks ago, or the Nuke Crisis that freak Magneto caused five years back? And besides, we only have this Guardian character's word that this Thanos was an alien. He could've just as easily been a mutant himself!"

That was actually what his own PR people were putting out as much as possible in as many ways as possible without it being traced back to him or his holdings. It wasn't being believed by everyone, but it was being believed by enough people to further polarize the Mutant Question.

"How about the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the Korean war?" Paris replied tartly. "Humans have caused far more disasters to ourselves than mutants have, but because some small percentage of mutants have abilities that go beyond what humans could ever achieve alone, people like you hate and persecute the entirety!"

With a snarl on her face Paris pushed herself to her feet. "You're fucking obsessed and I have no idea why! You spend so much damn time on your own projects, and talking about fucking mutants, do you have any idea..."

She paused for a moment to gather her self-control, then went on plaintively. "You've spent so much time and effort on these side projects, you haven't spent any time with me! For god's sake, we were supposed to be getting married sometime soon, but you keep on putting it off every time I try to bring it up! This is in fact the first time we've had a meal together outside the Hellfire Club in months! And what do you do, you spend most of the meal trying to get me to agree with you on the fact that mutants are a menace. Well excuse me, but I think there are more important things we should be talking about, like whether or not this relationship is going anywhere!"

Edward scowled angrily. "There are more important things at stakes than our relationship, can't you see that! Mutants are the worst threat humanity has ever seen, and if we don't…"

Paris turned away from Edward, grabbing up a little bell. She quickly rang it, and a manservant entered, one of many among her staff that doubled as a bodyguard. "Edard will be leaving us now Frederick, please see him out." She turned back to Edward, her eyes bleak. "Until you rework your priorities our relationship is over Edward. You've shown in the last few months you care more about running after shadows than us. I'm sorry Edward, but I want more than that from the man I'm engaged too!"

"But, but…" Edward said, then closed his mouth. There really was no way he could defend his actions in terms of their relationship after all, he had indeed been neglecting it for months now. It had been that long at least since it really wasn't important to him in comparison to his quest and in comparison to his business. "Very well Paris, if that's your decision, I can understand. I'm sorry we could not come to an understanding."

With that Edward left, leaving Paris to collapse in to a chair once more. She thought about reaching for the bottle of brandy that was set on a nearby decanter, but before the thought could finish travelling down to her hand the door opened once more and Amora entered. The woman was staying with Paris at her mansion these days because she was saving up money to buy a car, a Jaguar Low-Drag GT, which, Paris had thought was one hell of a car when she saw pictures of it. Amora had promised Paris she could go out on the first drive with her once she bought the car, and Paris fully understood the need for speed so had agreed to loan Amora a room for a few months.

Now however, Amora walked in bearing a large bowl of chocolate ice cream and some kind of dark red fizzy drink. "I heard you sent your now ex-fiancé packing? I also understand chocolate ice cream and sappy movies are supposed to be a balm for a wounded heart."

Paris grabbed the bowl and chomped down, nearly moaning in pleasure as the ice cream, homemade by Amora a few days ago 'as an experiment' hit her taste buds. "Ugh, I suppose so. I just, we had connected so easily for so long, and I thought, well I guess it doesn't matter. People change, sometimes not for the better. His obsession is consuming him, and I, I'm not going to let it drag me down too."

"Good response." Amora nodded licking her own spoon in such a way that any straight man who witnessed it would immediately have issues in the trouser department. "But one that is easier to say than to really understand. I would say though that the fault lies in him, not you. As such, I think that eating your own weight in chocolate would be a nice way of getting over it, as would possibly maxing out any joint credit cards you have which send the bill to him."

Paris looked at the other woman, then began to laugh. And if there was a bit of water on her face or a hiccup to her laughter, it was still a promising sound.

OOOOOOO

It was several days before Harry was healed enough to want to chance dealing with waking up Dr. Banner. That morning while he spent breakfast with the kids, going over some initial magical lessons with Illyana, most of which were simply visualization aids, Hedwig was sent out with a message for the mayor of Montréal. After browbeating one of the house elves to teleport her over to Charles' mansion, she made her way up from there into Canada, then into Montréal dropping the letter off on the mayor's desk. Neither the mayor himself nor any of his workers were actually there, out and about still surveying and directing the rebuilding of the city, which would take months even with all the aid pouring in.

That evening when he returned to his office for the first time that day the mayor was smiling however. The construction was going well, the people had responded heroically to the challenge, and his victory in the next election was almost certain due to how he had responded to the crisis. He paused however as he saw an envelope left for him on his desk. He was about to reach for his cell phone and call in a bomb disposal unit when he saw the owl perched on his coat hanger.

The bird was looking at him with the most penetrating stare he had ever seen and he shuffled his feet, moving away from a bird that he probably outweighed at least seven times over. Then he remembered that Guardian had said he would be sending an owl with a message. At the time he had thought it was an euphemism of some kind, or perhaps an inside joke. Now he realized it was simply plain fact, though he wondered how the bird had gotten in here. Even so, he had dealt with Snowbird a few times before, so it wasn't altogether surprising.

Under the watchful gaze of the owl the mayor moved over to pick up the message, reading it quickly. 'Have the government representative ready and waiting at Montréal airport on the furthest runway out from the airport's main building tomorrow. Please inform him he should not eat for at least six hours beforehand. He will be allowed to bring recording devices, but they must not be on until I say so. If they are, or if he has other listening devices on him, then he will be returned and you will lose the ability to have a representative there while we deal with Dr. Banner.'

The mayor frowned thoughtfully at the warning tone however he nodded anyway. Guardian had his secrets, and certainly whatever could contain the Hulk if he went berserk was probably one of them. He nodded at the bird and wrote out a small message on the back of the envelope. 'Agreed, he or she will be waiting.' With that he hesitantly held the message up, and the owl flew over, taking the message in her claws before flying out the window that the mayor hastily opened for her.

True to the mayor's word there was a government representative waiting at the designated point, a young man with a slightly chubby build but quick intelligent eyes and the name tag Ralph Emerson on it. But he was not the only one there. To one side stood another man, a young blonde man with a rather ridiculous looking goatee, wearing glasses and a SHIELD uniform. Both men were also carrying large recording devices in their hands. The two men were standing well apart, pointedly not looking at one another when Guardian flew out of the air above them to land lightly on the ground.

Guardian looked at the two of them, frowning angrily. "You must be the government representative, but I have no idea why you're here Mr.?""

"Agent Sanders of SHIELD," the man replied briskly. "Director Fury asked that I be sent along to watch the proceedings. We felt that having a neutral party present might be necessary to keep government interests happy the world over."

"Well that's nice, but…" Guardian paused thinking hard. He knew SHIELD had a lot of resources, and they were supposed to be handling issues like this, so in a way Guardian was fine with the idea. In other ways however, not at all, since who SHIELD actually answered to was still very much unknown. He also didn't like this young man, something about him just got under Guardian's skin. And Guardian didn't like that Fury had simply assumed that he'd be okay with this.

A sudden thought occurred to him however and he smirked. Fury's so used to hiding in the shadows, but this could help me bring the Hulk and everything involved with him and with what happened here in Montréal even more into the light. "Very well, I suppose I can accede to that request, though you'll have to submit to screening just as much as Emerson will for hidden listening devices or anything else. You're allowed a recorder, but only during the actual questioning, is that understood?"

The man looked as if he was going to protest, but Guardian went on. "You either go along with that, or I can dump your ass right here, I don't care which."

At that, the man's teeth ground audibly but he nodded. Guardian nodded in return then held out a small piece of paper. "You need to read this to understand where we're going. If you don't, you won't be able to function there."

The two men looked down at the message and saw that Guardian had scribbled 'the Hulk/Dr. Banner is being held in an unnamed cave'. They both looked at him quizzically and Guardian smiled. "Trust me, if you were taken to this place without that knowledge, you wouldn't be able to see the walls, you wouldn't be able to see anything but yourselves, you'd be feeling vertigo and a lot of other things. It's a magical protection."

The Agent scoffed but Emerson simply nodded. Two of the people who had died from Alpha Flight had practiced magic of a kind, and as one of the oversight committee that watched over Alpha Flight he was at home with the idea.

Guardian paused for a moment smirking a little. "By the way, when was the last time you two ate?"

"Since your message said that I shouldn't I haven't yet eaten today." Emerson replied while the agent simply said gruffly that he had eaten breakfast with his fellow Agents down in the city a few hours ago.

"Well this might get a bit messy for you then. Teleporting is always tough, especially for non-magicals." With a small smirk on his face Guardian reached out, grasping both men by the shoulder and suddenly the three of them were elsewhere. They appeared in a large cavern of some kind, which looked hollowed out from rock. The sides of it were rough, though the floor below them was smooth, but that was all they could tell about it, there was no clue to where it actually was.

Ben Grimm was waiting there, his arms crossed as he stared at a bed in one corner. On that bed lay Dr. Banner, still asleep from the Draught of Living Death that Ororo had given him. The normally good-natured hero was scowling angrily but he nodded as Guardian appeared. "I need to run these two through security." Guardian said brusquely, while behind him Sanders fell to his knees, trying desperately to not throw up his breakfast. "After that we're going to begin quickly, all right Ben?"

"You're the one whose running this show Guardian. Reed trusted you to do this so…" he shrugged. Of course Reed didn't actually know anything that had happened here, but sending that message even softly like this through the government representative and the SHIELD Agent might be a good thing.

Guardian waved the two Agents over toward a doorway, but they didn't go through it instead waiting there while he did and coming back with a small scanner of some kind which he ran over their bodies, a scanner Reed had made years ago. After a few minutes he frisked Sanders quickly and expertly relieving him of several small listening devices, including one video recorder which was set into the lapel of his SHIELD uniform.

The man grimaced angrily as all of his devices were found and removed, but Guardian smirked internally, even while giving the man back the one recorder he was actually allowed. Your day is going to go from bad to worse soon enough boyo. He looked down at the pile up shaking his head. "I'm going to go dispose of these, I'll be right back."

Guardian went next-door, where the rest of the team were watching events through the wall which Harry and Ororo had magicked to allow them to watch the action through it without being seen. This included both Johnny and Wyatt who were mingling with the rest of the team talking quietly when Harry entered. At her lover's smirk Ororo rolled her eyes. "I know that look, what do you have planned Harry?"

"Fury wanted to get some the information from this interview, I figure we might be able to take that to the next logical step." His smirk widened slightly, and Ororo rolled her eyes again. About twenty minutes later, everything was set up on his end, a process which made all of his team, even Ororo smirk evilly. Some very high up people were going to be very angry about this, if it went the way it might.

Soon after that Harry reentered the room with Dr. Banner and the others. "All right gentlemen I think we're ready to wake the man up."

"How exactly have you kept Banner asleep?" asked Agent Sanders, quickly turning on his one allowed recorder, having gotten over his anger at his devices being confiscated, while next to him Emerson did the same. Not a medic by any means, he still had some field training and had been trying to find the sleeping man's pulse only to fail miserably. He was obviously still alive, there was no smell of decay or anything, he was just in stasis somehow.

"A spell called the Sleep of the Living Death," Guardian replied politely. He didn't want to leave any more hints that could connect Guardian to his Harry Potter public persona just yet. That would come out eventually he knew, but not right now. The mutant issue had polarized too much already for him to want that to happen. "When Dr. Banner reverted to this form upon being knocked out, he lost all of his Hulk bodies built-in defenses against such things. I'll remove it, and he should wake up immediately."

He stood by the bed, waving his hand theatrically over the man's head while blocking both Sanders view and the view of the hidden camera that was now recording everything from near the doorway, and sending it out live via the system Magneto had created to override news agencies the world over. The megalomaniac had probably intended to issues some vague warnings or demands that way, but Harry felt this would be a far better way of using it.

Unseen he surreptitiously slipped a bit of them antidote into the man's mouth, then backed away nodding his head calmly. "Give him a few minutes, and we should be able to start asking questions. Mr. Emerson unless you have any objections, I'm going to start by asking him some questions about what the hell happened that could in any way lead to his being in Canada, and why he was working with the Abomination."

"That makes sense." Emerson replied looking around. "Would you mind if we got some chairs in here however? This might take a while after all."

Guardian nodded, and with a wave of his hands conjured up some chairs out of the air for all of them, while Bruce Banner began to stir.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere Commander Fury was tapping a pen on some paperwork, frowning and wondering what was going on with the interview with Banner. He had been told in no uncertain terms that Banner had some secrets that the American government did not want to see come out in the open. Of course most of the American government itself didn't know those secrets, it was only a select few that did, and it was only those select few that would possibly be physically harmed by it. But the reputation of America would suffer, and that was enough for him to order Sanders to steer clear of any questions about the Abomination's creation, or General Ross's reaction after the Hulk had been created in that gamma bomb experiment. Or anything about that in general if he could.

Nick wasn't so sanguine about doing so, but those were his orders. More importantly from his perspective, he had been given the okay to look into any and all means to match or bring Guardian under control. While the public's opinion was still working itself out, and it looked as if his relationship with the Fantastic Four would help Potter there, the powers in the shadowy world that worked behind the scenes in America and elsewhere had already made its opinion plain: Guardian was too dangerous and far too powerful to let loose any longer.

Unfortunately, while Fury knew Potter's personal power came from magic, he had absolutely zilch in the way of contacts or information on that subject. He didn't even have any idea why he couldn't say or do anything to make others aware of the connection between Potter and Guardian, let alone what kind of questions to ask about shutting his power down. He had researchers looking into anything about magicians (and didn't that earn him some weird looks) in America or its allies, but wasn't getting anywhere.

Other areas of research were going much better. The Special Weapons project was going well, and SHIELD would soon have weapons superiority against AIM which might be enough to let them match Guardian's team. His people had also found a few weaknesses among Potter's known accomplices, and had even been able to find and recruit their own telepath, which would be a major aid down the road.

And the plans for the Avengers Initiative is… He frowned suddenly as his intercom buzzed. "Director Fury, you might want to get up to the bridge Sir, were getting a live feed of some kind that I think you might want to see."

Fury made it to the bridge within a minute, and then was waved over to a console which was showing the image of the inside of some kind of cave, Sanders, a man he didn't recognize, the Thing and Guardian sitting on chairs alongside a bed that held Bruce Banner. "So Sanders was able to actually get one of his devices in, excellent." Nick nodded. "I didn't think he would to be honest. Guardian is a cagey fellow."

"Er, no sir you don't, um, that is this video feed isn't coming from anything Agent Sanders had on him. This is coming in over the CNN news line."

"What?" Fury demanded.

The Agent shrugged but a few others around him raised their hands looking a little worried. "Um, sir," one of them said, speaking up for them all. "It's not just CNN, its BBC, NBC, several Canadian networks... It, it might just be every news network in the world Sir." The man went on, looking down at a message appearing on his own screen from some of his fellows deeper into the helacarrier's massive bulk.

Nick put his hand over his one remaining eye growling angrily. "Then I think we need to hope that Sanders is able to steer the questions away from certain topics. Or this could be a disaster." Inside however, Fury was smirking, even chuckling evilly. Oh, well played Potter. Well played.

OOOOOOO

Dr. Banner awoke, reaching up with one hand to scratch at his hair for a moment as he wondered why he had been asleep in the first place. Then it all hit him, and he groaned aloud, both of his hands covering his eyes and face for a moment. "No, please no! Don't tell me!" Images and flashes of when he was the Hulk came back to him when he changed back. This time as usual they were disjointed yet they were still horrible for all that. The violence, the death, oh god some of the deaths his other self had caused would stay with him forever. "Oh God why couldn't I just slit my wrists and got it over with!"

"Death is easy Dr. atoning is not." Said a voice he didn't recognize, causing Banner to remove his hands from his face and look to the side. Yet for a moment he couldn't see anything, it was like the voice had come out of a gray nothingness, and almost immediately his body began to rebel, his stomach coming up, his head beginning to pound. Before he could panic however, a piece of paper was held in front of his face. "Read this."

Reflexively Banner did so, frowning at the odd message but the moment he read it the feelings in his body receded swiftly, causing him to breathe a sigh of relief as he lay back on what he realized now was a bed. After a moment he opened his eyes again, and looked around him, concentrating on the four people sitting in somewhat comfortable chairs to the side of the bed.

Ben Grimm he recognized, but none of the others there. One looked like an accountant of some kind, another looked vaguely like an Agent of some paramilitary force, and the other was wearing a matte black suit of some kind that covered his entire body along with his face and head, save for a facemask that looked somewhat like a gas mask, but not quite.

The last spoke up gesturing to either side of him. "This is Mr. Emerson, he represents the Canadian government, and this is Agent Sanders of SHIELD. I am Guardian, and I assume you already know Ben."

"Where am I?" Banner asked looking around him. Having read the secret he wasn't feeling anxious any longer, but he was still feeling edgy from the effects coupled with his last memories as well as the disjointed ones from the Hulk.

"Understand Dr. that we are asking the questions here. Can you tell me what your last memories were? And where were you?"

Banner hesitated, and Guardian leaned forward. "Dr., we can do this the easy way of their hard way. I have a spell that could force you to tell me the truth, but even so you would be able to prevaricate and not answer as willingly as you would otherwise. So I don't want to resort to that, but I will if you don't cooperate."

"Thousands of Canadian citizens are dead because of the Hulk. The death toll is still growing even as we speak." Mr. Emerson said coldly. "My people have a right to know what happened, or as much as we can discover Banner."

Bruce Banner nodded, licking dry lips. "I understand, but, but I wasn't in Canada, I was down in Argentina, and even that was just a stopover. I was going into Chile, trying to keep ahead of anyone following me. Ever since that debacle with the Abomination, I've been determined to keep as far away from America as possible."

"Debacle?" Guardian asked. "You mean the fight between you and the Abomination in Hollywood?"

"That's correct," Bruce answered. He laughed coldly yet somewhat hysterically, like a man whose sanity was badly frayed. "How do you fight a monster, you create another one of course! Stupid. Why the hell they were still studying the Hulk's blood and even thought of injecting it into that soldier is beyond me. Let alone why he was so proud about it, bragging about being a monster!"

While Bruce held his head in his hands Agent Sanders quickly spoke up. "We're getting off-topic here, you say you were in Argentina, were you in a city, or were you out in the countryside? I've not seen any reports about anything Hulk related happening there."

Bruce looked up angrily at that, scowling before getting control of himself quickly with the ease of long practice. "You make it sound as if I transform into the Hulk willingly! My transformation is triggered by anger or excitement, not personal desire! I've determined that if my heart rate goes up past a certain point, I'll start to turn. I can come back down from that if I calm myself down, but sometimes, especially, if I'm being attacked at the time that's not possible."

"I want to be clear on this," Emerson said leaning forward now, his eyes narrowing. "You say you can't transform into the Hulk willingly?"

Bruce paused. "That's not quite true, I can will it to happen with difficulty, but why would I? I can't control the Hulk, it's just a raving beast."

"Beasts don't talk," Guardian replied coldly, frowning as he began to mentally compare the man in front of him with Remus Lupin from his old dimension. Yet he's not running from it, he's simply trying to control it, that's very different. Don't let your past experiences with a somewhat similar case color your reactions to the man in front of you Harry he remonstrated. Shaking his head he went on quickly. "In any event, please just tell us what you remember."

"I was working on a farm, just enough to get ends meet you know. I was just trying to keep under the radar, I didn't want to set up roots anywhere, just wanted to get enough money to pay my passage to someplace in Asia. I figured I could find some place there out of the way where I could work for a time, then start putting together my own laboratory to study myself and figure out a way to halt my transformation."

"What have you been trying to stop from transforming?" Guardian asked.

"Meditation, anger management exercise, some forms of martial arts. Anything and everything that I could use to keep my heart rate from going up past a certain point. Certain drugs as well, though unfortunately all of the drugs that are out on the market take too long to really affect me, and some of them are of course addictive."

Guardian frowned, though inwardly he was wondering whether the man had done enough to control his own emotions rather than his body. And why is anger the trigger anyway? From what I know about how the Hulk was created, a sense of fear or pain would make more sense.

"I'd been there for a few weeks, it was so far out of the way I felt safe when I arrived, though I was beginning to feel… well paranoid I suppose, but are you really paranoid when people are out to get you? Anyway, I felt as if I was being watched, especially when I wasn't working. There was… I don't know, something out there, then these small robotic droids began to appear."

"Droids?" Guardian asked quickly. "Could you describe them?"

"Small and spherical, with small pustules of some kind on their surface, about as large as my upper body say, they used some kind of anti-grav to float and always came down out of the air from somewhere. I have no idea where they came from, but they… they didn't seem to be of terrestrial origin, far too high tech for most agencies, and they didn't, the design wasn't one I'd attribute to a human for some reason, too bulbous and not uniform enough. They reminded me somewhat of some of the alien devices I've seen on newscasts about the Fantastic Four's adventures, in particular the Skrull, since they were painted the same green shade."

Guardian and Ben exchanged a glance, wondering if Thanos had been allied with the Skrull in some way, though it was doubtful they would ever find out.

"Were they attacking you, or were they trying to capture you?" Agent Sanders asked. "And did you ever see them around other people, were there any other witnesses to these probes?"

"There might have been, one or two amongst the workers who could've seen them I suppose, and the farmer's grandchildren almost certainly did. I don't think they would've been believed if they told anyone though. They didn't attack me with lethal intent if that's what you meant. They basically tried to grapple with me, and they shot out long metallic rope at me a time or two as well, as well as something that looked like a high powered taser."

"In any event, when they attacked me I decided it meant that someone had found me, I didn't have much clue who, and I moved on. I think I threw them off for a day or two, but then they were back, yet I noticed something at that point. They were very reluctant to appear in front of other people, they never attacked me when I was in among the crowd, or inside a building."

Dr. Banner sighed shrugging his shoulders. "It was a choice of either continuing to deal with them, or being around other people. I felt by that point I had really made some progress in keeping myself calm in any situation, even combat, so I decided to chance being around people. I made my way down to Port Galvan, hoping to work there until I had enough to pay for my passage to somewhere in Asia."

"I should've known better." Bruce shook his head sadly. "Everything was all right for a few days, then on my way home to my temporary apartment, I was mugged. I fought back, thinking it would be better to do so rather than become a frequent victim. A knife grazed my arm, and my heart began to pound more than I could control it. I started to Hulk out, but I stopped myself while running into an abandoned warehouse nearby. My attackers followed me though, and eventually I lost control. I have no idea what happened after that, only disjointed images carry over from my time as the Hulk."

"Agent Sanders you said your agency didn't have any report about any casualties down in Argentina that could be explained by the Hulk?" Guardian asked.

"None that I'm aware of, and I looked over the notes we have on him before taking this assignment," the agent replied staring hard at Dr. Banner.

"Ya think the 'bots jumped him?" Ben asked.

Guardian nodded, looking at Bruce hard. "Dr. Banner, do you know if the Hulk has any kind of mental defenses?"

Cocking his head Bruce frowned. "I, I don't know. It's not an issue that had come up before this. I, I've seen reports, more rumors really about mutant powers, and I understand telepathy is among them, but I have no idea, sorry. I would hazard to guess however that since the Hulk's brain is a very odd mix of a, well a caveman say, and an angry beast, that it would be very difficult to control."

"Mind to mind maybe, but mind control machines could possibly break through," Guardian murmured. "I'm not going to put anything beyond an alien's unknown tech base."

"Guardian, you said you had a spell that could force him to tell the truth?" Mr. Emerson asked.

"Oh yes, but I actually went one better for this session. This whole room is over, well call it a large scale magical spell. You see that crystal up there?" Guardian asked, pointing at a large crystal set into the wall by the bed. "If Banner had lied that would have glowed red. Since it hasn't, he's telling the truth, as far as it goes." The wizard shrugged.

As Sanders gaped at the crystal and Bruce frowned at the talk of magic, Emerson simply took it at face value, instead staring coldly at Banner. "Just because you're not in control of the Hulk does not mean you can absolve yourself of all blame for his actions. I realize you were leery of the American government, especially after the Abomination incident, but what stopped you from looking for aid from other country's governments?"

"Are you insane!?" Bruce demanded, pushing himself upright in the bed and glaring at the man. "Why in the world would I do that? The government created that god damn gamma radiation bomb, it was one of two experiments done that day! They were trying to create super soldiers like the Abomination, like Captain America used to be, that's why they didn't warn me or the others that the radiation might get to us even in the bunker!

"What they got was the Hulk, who could be better classified as a force of nature! And every other country in the world would've done the same damn thing! Besides, Ross and his access to the news had already given me public enemy number one status, no one would've believed me."

Ben and the others stared up at the crystal which continued to appear opaque. After a moment Guardian shook his head. "I could think of a few outside of America that would have believed you at least, but that is neither here nor there. So you have no idea why the Hulk was working with the Abomination, or with the alien Thanos?"

"None I'm afraid," Dr. Banner said, calming down slightly. "Alien, what alien?"

"Large purple skin and extremely powerful with various different powers. He was going to finish the job your attack on Montreal started," Guardian replied, leaning back slightly and staring at the man on the bed. "Do either of you have any other questions?"

Both men did, and so did the heretofore silent Ben. Sanders was allowed to go first, while Guardian leaned back, frowning thoughtfully and taking it in. The spook asked a few questions, trying first to crack the man's conviction that the Hulk had been somehow planned, and then, when that didn't work, reluctantly moving on to ask him questions about the identities he had assumed down in South America, which would allow SHIELD to backtrack his movements and maybe find some more witnesses to his story about the droids.

In contrast Ben only asked if Bruce had any idea why he had been so much stronger than normal. Bruce's theory on anger allowing Hulk to grow stronger over time came out, making Ben frown, knowing that it meant the Hulk might well have eventually overcome them all without Thor's heroism.

Emerson's questions centered around two things, what Bruce could remember from his time as the Hulk, and any reason why Montreal might have been chosen as a target. He watched the crystal closely as Banner asked those questions, and it didn't even flicker once, which it had when Banner tried to lie about his past false IDs.

After a moment he leaned back and looked at Guardian. "I want to punish him," He said honestly, frowning. "I want to blame him for everything the Hulk did. But this isn't like, like holding a druggy accountable for what he does while under the influence, or even someone with a temper who has lashed out once too often. This would be like, like holding a man who has been brain-washed against his will responsible for the actions he did while under the influence. I, I don't know if my government will agree, but I don't think we can in good conscience ask for the death penalty here. Yet some lighter but still harsh sentence is definitely necessary."

Ben nodded agreement, feeling rather sorry for Banner frankly. He had a lot of trouble with his body, but to turn into a monster and not be in control dwarfed any of that. Sanders however frowned, thinking that pushing for a death sentence in this case might keep several more government secrets from coming out, such as who okayed the Abomination's creation above Ross, but decided it would be counter-productive here.

For a moment Guardian was silent, his masked face staring over Bruce's head. After a moment hover he nodded "Mr. Emerson is right. But despite the fact that you aren't in control of the Hulk, you need to answer for what it did. I know you seem to feel grief for that, and that is mark in your favor, but Emerson wasn't using hyperbole when he said that thousands had died in this latest incident. They're still pulling bodies out of the wreckage all along your route into Montréal, let alone the city itself."

"And whatever you may say, there were ways you could've gotten your own story out, the Internet for one, and asking for asylum from other first world countries as well. That would have been taking a risk I'll admit, but you still should've asked for help rather than try to go the course your own. Now the world can no longer afford to allow you to try and solve this problem on your own."

"So what do you want from me?" Bruce asked, his eyes narrowing. "I'll warn you the first second I see a needle coming towards me I'm going to force myself to Hulk out on you."

"I don't want anything from you, and I don't really need your aid either Dr." Guardian replied coldly. "You will remain here. You will allow our resident telepath into your head." He held up a hand stopping Banner from speaking. "If you had become the Hulk entirely like the Abomination, that would be one thing, but something inside you plays a role in triggering that transformation, which doesn't even consider the fact the Hulk comes out to preserve your life. I think some psychoanalysis might help. You will also write out a public apology to the people of Montréal, Canada and anywhere else you 'Hulked out' as you put it, and read it out as part of a public announcement at a later date."

"I have tried to atone before," Banner said bleakly. "I've tried several dozen times to kill myself! If I slit my wrists, I Hulk out as I start to bleed out, and when I revert I'm healed. If I try to put a bullet through my mouth, the Hulk spits it back out. I've even tried certain types of poison, before I fall completely unconscious from them I Hulk out and I'm back to normal when I next wake-up."

"You didn't wake up from the magic I used on you," Guardian replied while Sanders and Emerson were both looking a little aghast and Ben was simply shaking his head sadly. The crystal hadn't even flickered, not once as Banner spoke there. "You will stay here, you will do as I say, and eventually after you are cleared to work in the company of others you will, if not atone, then make your life worth something. The choice is either that or I bind you, use the same magic I did on you to knock you out so that you'll never wake up again, then dump your unconscious body into the sun!"

By this point Guardian was standing up looming over Bruce, who shrank back, not feeling fear just yet but moving in that direction. "I don't care about you Dr., I don't care about your problems with the American government or your angst over the Hulk. What I do care about is stopping you from ever going out of control again. Is that understood?"

Banner nodded. "I agree, and thank you."

"Get that apology written Banner, I'll want it out and ready to go tomorrow," Guardian replied without responding directly to the thank you. He looked over at Dr. Emerson. "Are you satisfied?"

"For now. As I said it's evident that Bruce Banner was not a willing accomplice to this, and labor as you evidently plan would be the most we could ask for unlike apparently the Abomination, who is dead. So long as we are certain that a similar incident cannot happen again I believe that my government will be satisfied."

To one side Ben simply nodded his head, not having realized that Bruce Banner had actually attempted to kill himself to stop the Hulk from ever being able to rampage again. That made him sympathize even more with the man.

"I can't say the same about my agency, but we're more used to not getting our own way than governments are," Sanders said smirking a little. He was just glad he'd kept the particulars of Bruce's Hulk creation from getting out, not realizing that enough had been hinted at already to make both the American people and the world in general ask some very tough questions from the military. General Ross in particular would suddenly find that he didn't have any more time, or ability to help his new ally in the days to come, and said ally too would need to disappear for a time.

As Guardian teleported the two interlopers back down into Canada, Ben joined the rest of the team. He looked at Ororo quizzically. "I don't think that Bruce is going to go for twenty-four-seven psychotherapy, what else are you going to be making him do up here? I wouldn't recommend just lettin' him in there alone."

Actually Emma wouldn't be able to get free to see Banner for another week. What little free time she had these days, what with her businesses, espionage work, and trying to hunt up any information about the Sentinel Project, she used to spend time with Harry.

"Oh, we have several projects we'd like his aid on." Ororo replied with a smile. "Trust us, we'll keep him busy."

OOOOOOO

Leaving Ororo to handle the destruction of the Abomination's body and Dr. Banner's public apology letter, Harry moved on to meet with Dennis. The man had incorporated the few analysts that Harry had already vetted, though most of them were still irritated about working for someone once removed as it were, only communicating via very heavily encrypted electronic texts. However Harry was not going to allow any of them onto Camelot property. Before anything else Camelot was a haven, a school. While he couldn't do anything right now to stop it from being one of the two centers of his growing faction that didn't mean he wanted it open to people he didn't completely and utterly trust.

Already with the extra help the man was turning up interesting little facts here and there the world over, mostly to do with the mutant issue. Yet a few were such that Harry put them aside to pass on to the British monarch in their meeting next week. With his new employees' aid however, Dennis was putting together some evidence of a single group being responsible for some of the more pro-mutant superiority violence breaking out the world over. There wasn't much, but it was there, even if there was no clue about their agenda, or who they actually might be. Still, for less than a week of work that was an excellent return on Harry's investment.

Next Harry checked in with the team, who had returned from their four-day sabbatical. All three of them were much more centered now, and eager to get back to work. So he had Shiang-Chi work them all to the bone for a few hours including Harry, before leaving the trio there to keep working along with Wyatt and Johnny who had shown up through the new doorway Harry and Madame Harkness had installed between the Baxter building and Camelot.

After that, Harry talked to Father Garnoff going over the list of names he had compiled for the next students to be brought in. From what Ororo had reported and Harry's own observations, the school was completely ready to open for the school year now. All the kids they had were now placed in the correct classes, though for some of them it was a mixed bag like Melody for example, or Sergei who used sonar instead of eyesight. Illyana had a math issue too, but her reading and writing skills were actually at least a grade ahead of where her age indicated it should be.

He then talked to Nikolai's sister, Illyich, Rahne and Ichiki, all of whom eagerly agreed to be placed on what Harry would term the Intervention team, the group that would go in to get mutant children out of dangerous situations the world over that weren't dangerous enough to assign a Custodes to. It would not be easy at times, and at times it would possibly involve combat, but it wouldn't be nearly as violent or as deadly as the battles the Custodes would be dealing with. The Custodes Mundi would be sent in to rescue mutant children who were in the orange or worse. The teens would be sent in if they were in the yellow and sometimes even green if the country or other factors warranted it. Shiang-Chi would be team leader, who Harry had already talked to about it.

By that point it was early evening, and Harry decided to head up to the headmaster's quarters to get changed for dinner later that evening with Emma and Ororo. He had booked them at a famous restaurant down in Paris (at Emma's behest), and the three of them were going to go for a bit of a drive before teleporting the rest of the way. He stopped walking however when he noticed that he was not alone in the room. Gaea stood there, watching him placidly for a moment. "Defender," she said inclining her head slightly.

"Goddess." Harry replied smiling slightly as he matched the inclination of her head. "How are you?"

"I am as well as can be expected." Gaea smiled slightly. "You humans seem to have so many who would despoil the land, yet just as much who would preserve it with their lives. In all it seems to balance out for now. And your plans for your generators might tip the balance against those who would ruin the earth they depend on. But that is not what I came to talk to you about. I have finished going over your plans for your defensive array. I find them good, and will aid you in their emplacements."

She flushed coquettishly looking away. "But when you are pulling your magic back out of me, please be gentle."

Harry flushed in turn, but by then Gaea was gone, a whisper on the wind saying, "I will return with the dawn, be ready to work your magics upon me then." Then even that was gone, leaving Harry still flushing slightly in the center of his quarters.

Dinner that evening was a spectacular affair, and all three of them enjoyed it immensely, though they got some very odd looks seeing as all three of them flirted with one another with impunity. "Do either of you want desert?" Harry asked as the meal drew to a close.

"I'd like some," Emma said, though a certain look in her eyes indicated she wasn't speaking about anything to be found on the menu.

Ororo however simply shook her head. "Nothing for me, thank you Harry. I should actually be getting back, I promised that I would watch the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe with the children tonight." Melody and Illyana had begun to read some of Lloyd Alexander's books together, and both girls really liked the Black Cauldron series, so watching the movies based on Narnia would be great treat for them.

"We'll drive back together then now." Harry said standing up and signaling the waiter for the check. They drove out of Paris, but from there they pulled off to the side of the road quickly. Once it was clear of traffic Harry shrunk his and Emma's cars then teleported them all back to Camelot.

Lemon Start:

While Harry and Ororo went off to talk to the kids, Emma moved up to the Headmaster's quarters, then began to pull off her dress, a slinky white number with thin spaghetti straps on her shoulders, before tossing it carelessly to the side. She stood there in white lace bra and panties, which were crotch less, along with garters and pantyhose. Sorry Jean, I wish you could be here for this, but I refuse to wait any longer for this.

She stood there facing the door as Harry came in, and he gasped at the sight of her. "Emmmmphh"

By that point Emma had crossed the distance between them, and pulled Harry down into a kiss, opening her mouth immediately and questing for his tongue with her own. Harry returned the gesture, his arms going around her, and Emma lifted one leg to wrap around Harry's middle. She pulled back slightly, breathing in deeply as she stared into Harry's emerald eyes. "I don't want to wait any longer Harry."

Harry smiled softly and leaned in kissing her gently. He wondered absentmindedly if Ororo knew that Emma had planned this. Or maybe Ororo had been in on it, since she had hustled him out of the living room quickly, which was odd since she knew that he loved spending time with them all. He leaned back still smiling. "If that is what my lady wants, that is what she will get."

With that Harry's hands which had been on Emma's softly curved back, stroking the skin there reached down to her rear, grasping it firmly and lifting her up into the air slightly. Emma squealed and her other leg went around his waist, rubbing her uncovered pussy against his still clad crotch. "Take off your clothes Harry!" she commanded mentally through the small connection Harry kept open for her and for Jean.

Harry chuckled into the kiss before deepening it, pawing at Emma's magnificent rear for a moment. Each small half globe of flesh fit his hand and then some, her skin feeling so smooth it was like silk, so pliable it was amazing. After a moment he commanded his magic to vanish his clothes, still kissing and fondling Emma hungrily.

Emma moaned aloud as she suddenly felt Emma's Harry's bare chest against her bra clad breasts and stomach, while below his already erect cock was standing at attention rubbing insistently at her pussy. "That's handy," she moaned aloud.

"You have no idea," Harry laughed. With that Harry began to move them back towards the bed. He continued to walk along slowly even while the two of them ground against one another, and Emma's moans began to fill the room. They parted lips reluctantly when Harry set her down on the edge of the bed, while Emma reached behind her and made to unclasp her bra.

"Leave it." Harry ordered in a deep, throaty tone. "And the garters and hose. Somehow they make it sexier."

Emma nodded with a smile, reaching down and pulling at Harry's cock with both hands for a moment looking at it avidly. It wasn't the first she had seen, and she had actually gotten to third base with a few of her past boyfriends before her father put the fear of death into them and her for a time. But Emma knew that she had never been as wet as she was right now. "I don't need any foreplay Harry, just please…" she said, her voice becoming softer and unsure. "Just go slow."

"Of course Emma," Harry said leaning down to kiss her again, one hand grabbing at her hair and pulling her head back gently but insistently. Emma leaned back, while one of his hands found her breast and began to fondle it, playing with her nipple.

She squeaked and moaned into his mouth, while Harry moved between her legs. Harry leaned back, his tongue still out and dancing with hers in midair for a moment while the hand that had been playing with her breast moved down to guide his cock into her entrance.

He held there with only the tip pressed into her for a moment, then slowly he began to work his hips against her, inching his cock into her tight wet vice. She wasn't quite as tight as Jean had been, which made sense when she whispered "I got rid of my hymen weeks ago with a vibrator Harry, it's… mmmm… it's just your size I'll need to get used to. I wanted thaaahhh!" Her voice broke off in a low moan as the tip of Harry's cock found an extra sensitive spot deep inside of her. "I,I wanted our first time to be special in another way since, mmm… since most first times are always supposed to be bad, or so I'vvvmmphh!"

"No need to explain yourself to me Emma." Harry replied pulling back from the kiss that had interrupted Emma's words to lean down and lap at her nipple for a moment before going back up, the hand that was in her hair once again pulling Emma's head back allowing him to dominate the kiss. For some reason that turned Emma on even more, not Harry dominating her so much as the knowledge that she could give him that control and he would never abuse it.

Soon Harry was fully sheathed inside of her, and he began to rock his hips back and forth. Emma collapsed into a mini orgasm then, followed by two more minor ones while her nails clawed at Harry's back. "Oh god Harrrryyyy!"

Harry moved them onto the center of the bed, still thrusting his hips incessantly into Emma's own which she raised slightly less energetically against his thrusts. "Yes more! Harder, I'm not made of glass!"

Harry obliged, pounding harder and deeper into her, causing Emma to go over the edge again this time much more seriously. Her eyes fluttered back, and her grip on Harry's back loosened as her body arced for a moment, her lips opened in a soundless cry. For his part Harry held still within Emma's wet vice, his teeth gritted as he tried to control his instincts, as well as put off his own orgasm for bit. He wanted to give Emma at least two more before finishing himself.

Emma's head lulled for a moment but she got control of herself, opening her eyes and staring at Harry's own as he she leaned up to kissed him gently. "More?"

Harry obliged, picking up speed yet also rotating his hips slightly, giving each thrust just a slightly different angle. Emma howled again, in more ecstasy than she had ever felt, even in comparison to the few men who had been able to go down on her with any skill. Before this experience she would never have believed that actual sex could be better than cunnilingus, since even the vibrator she had recently used hadn't been able to give her much pleasure. But she was a believer now!

Harry couldn't sustain this pace for much longer and he groaned aloud "I'm going to come soon Emma!"

"Pull out Harry!" she exclaimed, she had heard about his contraception spells, but Emma didn't want to chance it and besides she always liked watching a man cum. It gave her a feeling of power like almost nothing else. "Come on my tits!"

With a groan Harry did so, pulling out quickly and moving up her body resting his dick between her breasts. They were smaller than Ororo's, but a little bit larger and much fuller then Jean's, and were more than adequate for the task at hand. Emma brought her hands together on either side of her breasts pressing them together while Harry thrust into the crack between them licking the head of his cock is it appeared. "Mmhpph, that's right Harry, paint me!"

Harry didn't last more than a few seconds of this, and with a roar of "Here it comes!" he blasted his cum all over Emma's face and breasts. Looking down at her, it looked as if she spilled a milk carton over herself. Emma opened one eye blearily, raising a hand to wipe away at the cum that had gotten onto her eye and nose licking around her lips before licking her fingers one after another as she stared over to where Harry was now sitting on his haunches beside her head.

"Tasty." She reached out with one hand, daintily rubbing the top of Harry's cock, which hadn't flagged. "And it looks like you've even got more for me…"

OOOOOOO

The next day Harry awoke between the two women, shaking his head and smiling in happiness as his arms went around them. Ororo had joined them after the second round, though the two girls had been oddly conspicuous in not touching one another. Harry had asked why that was during a small break in the action. Emma had replied that she wanted the first time she truly made love to a woman to be with Jean, which Ororo knew about before this evening.

Harry had smiled and nodded at that, knowing it wasn't anything personal. Of course the looks of desire they gave one another even after we begun to slow down should've told me that he thought to himself laughing quietly.

The laughter woke up Ororo, who was always an early riser in any event. Emma however slept on, her body splayed out as her head rolled to one side, utterly dead to the world. Ororo leaned in, rubbing her cheek against Harry's. "Last night was wonderful my Harry, every bit of it."

"Marry me." Harry said suddenly, looking at her in the eyes. Ororo's eyes widened in shock. "Seriously, marry me. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I know this isn't, you know the most romantic moment to propose, but we can do that later when I get you, Emma and Jean rings. What I do know is I love you all, and I want to spend the rest of our lives together. We can find some way for me to marry all three of you, maybe go to a country that allows polygamous marriages, or go to separate countries one after another and marry under assumed names or something."

Ororo laughed tapping his head with both hands her eyes glistening with tears of joy. "Of course I will marry you, my love, was there any doubt? We'll have to think of what we want in terms of weddings of course, and I expect a romantic proposal somewhere down the line. But yes I'll marry you gladly. And I know Jean will as well."

One of the things Ororo and Jean had talked about was weddings in general at one point before Jean had joined the relationship. Jean had confided in Ororo that she had wanted to have what she called the perfect wedding, somewhere exotic, with friends and family, not a lot of people, but with everything else perfect, white and pristine. Though she technically wouldn't really be able to wear white at her wedding, Ororo knew that Jean would still want to have one.

For herself, Ororo wanted that physical show of the love between them. The wedding itself wasn't as important as the wedding bands that she and Harry would wear to signify their lifelong commitment to one another. And when we say lifelong we mean a much longer time than most she thought to herself happily, still staring into Harry's eyes as they got lost in one another.

After a moment Harry reluctantly pulled out of the silent communion, turning to wake up Emma by shaking her shoulder. However, when he asked her about it, Emma did not want to get married. "Not now, not ever." She replied firmly. "I am my own woman and I will stand alone. I don't want to be married, I don't want to be in any way tied through matrimony to anyone. No offense Harry, it's just a thing to me." She had a sort of knee jerk reaction against marriage caused by the ones she had seen in her life, most particularly her parent's and the wreck it had been.

Harry sighed, then shook his head. "I understand Emma, but will you at least wear a ring to signify our connection?"

"That I will do, just make sure that it has diamond and it is perfect." Emma drawled, waving him and Ororo away as she closed her eyes again. "Now can you two leave me alone for a bit, I need my beauty sleep. You two wore me out last night."

"Best get used to it," Ororo laughed. "Last night was actually not nearly as vigorous as a few of the nights we've spent together." Emma cocked an eyebrow looking at Ororo to make certain that she wasn't joking, and when she realized Ororo was serious shuddered a little. Either in pleasure or fear Emma didn't know herself.

OOOOOOO

Later that same day Stephen, Ororo, Harry and Clea stood around the array Harry and Stephen had designed, while Gaea appeared in front of them. "My body is prepared for your efforts Mr. Potter," Gaea said smiling widely as Harry again looked away shaking his head whilst Stephen and Clea both smirked a little at his discomfort. "Shall we do this?"

"Are all the, I suppose you could call them outlets, ready?" Harry asked as he and Gaea made to move forward into the circle above the Camelot portion of the array. It was as good a starting point as any, but thanks to the nature of the spell there was no real central heart to it like there would be in a ward zone, the center of which normally was a Hearthstone or centralized ward stone.

Stephen and Clea nodded. "It was an interesting experience setting them all up, but thankfully we started weeks ago. All we had to do was go back and erase the spell we added on top of the arrays to erase them in case Lady Gaea had turned us down." Stephen said bowing profoundly to the goddess. While he dealt with Elder Gods of magic on an almost daily basis meeting the spirit of Earth itself was still a profoundly spiritual event. Clea too seemed in awe of her.

Stephen smirked a little. "And some of the places proved very difficult indeed to get to, but with Wanda's aid it was actually rather simple. Her powers to control probability are growing in leaps and bounds. As, I am happy to say, is her magical and emotional control. We think she'll do very well once we allow her to go to Bayville with the X-Men."

Beside him Clea huffed angrily, and Stephen's smirk widened into a small smile. "Clea thinks that we should keep her at home for at least another year, but I think that is just a bit of the master-apprentice bond talking."

Harry laughed, but made a mental note that he needed to talk to Charles at some point. Ororo had talked to him after the incident up in Montréal, but it appeared as if Charles wanted to talk to him personally. It wasn't something important apparently, or at least not immediately important, so Harry could at least put it off for a bit but it was something to keep in mind.

Putting that thought to the side Harry closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply as he called up his magical aura, moving to stand in the center of the array across from Gaea. "Are you ready Lady?" He asked respectfully.

The Mother Goddess had closed her eyes during the discussion, her hands held out to either side. Small sun yellow, earthy brown and grass green tendrils of magic made their way down from her palm and finger tips and up from below meeting in midair to entwine together to make two small pillars of magical power. Now she nodded, and Harry stepped forward, entering the last circle of the array.

He closed his own eyes, his own aura flaring out, bright gold interspersed with red, blue, and striations of white. After a moment he reached out, placing his hands on Gaea's shoulders. By that point the magic under her hands had grown, enclosing both of their lower bodies. Small tendrils of Harry's own magic began to intersperse with it, heading down into the ground as Stephen and Clea watched.

The entwined magics carried Harry's and Gaea's consciousness down into the ley lines, far deeper than Harry had thought they would have to go to retrieve the bits of magic that he had pumped into them so many weeks ago. Even so, finding them was simple. Where the regular magic of the ley line appeared to his senses like a river of different shades of blue, brown and yellow, his own magic was a bright bar of white and red laid out within it, yet not quite part of it.

The two of them concentrated, slowly pulling the magic Harry had donated out of the rest of the ley lines, while Gaea inscribed portions of the runic array where she had to. The two of them couldn't communicate like this, not above a few fleeting emotions, but Gaea had memorized her part of this endeavor, and performed it expertly thanks to the days she had spent learning all she could about the anti-demon array.

With that done she and Harry began to mold the portions of Harry's magic all around them, bringing them together and pushing them towards the surface at dozens of different points the world over. It hovered right below the surface, while back in his body Harry began to sweat, the exertion here wasn't so much draining his magical power as it was draining his concentration and mind, but there was definitely some seepage getting through to his physical body. Gaea was gasping for air as well, a physical sign of a mental and magical exhaustion that was worse than almost anything she had ever felt before.

He retained the control over his magic, hovering it just below the surface until Gaea told him they were ready. Finally she nodded. The waves of magic ready and waiting behind them, the arrays awakened by the amount of magic below them. At her nod Harry said "Activate!" in as a loud and clear tone as he could, and his magic, now a web of power throughout the world carried that command. Not an instant later the Earth was enclosed in a globe of magical power, shimmering with purpose, vibrant with energy.

There should be some kind of physical representation of the array starting to work. Harry thought to himself as he slid to his knees slowly. Some kind of bell-like sound or something, anything to indicate that the momentous occurred. But there wasn't, not to his physical senses. His magical ones showed a brief shimmering in the air all around them, but that was it.

The physical plane didn't show much sign of what had occurred, the magical and dimensional however was a different story. All around the world a few wizards who were attempting to dabble in demon summoning gasped in agony as their spells shattered, as if a door had just gone up their warded areas shimmering then smashing into pieces. Demons who were attempting to cross from one plane to another, only about four of them the world over, screamed in agony as they died, and Demon Lords shrieked then snarled in rage and not a little fear as their connection to Earth was broken entirely. Belasco in particular was incensed, and screamed long and loud as his future plans and dreams died instantly.

Even other beings felt that wall of magical power go up defending the Earth from more demonic invasion. Odin felt it and for a moment wondered if Potter had betrayed them for some reason, and was cutting off Midgard from Asgard. Yet after a moment he discerned the purpose of the ward and smiled thinly. Whatever else he might be, Potter is most definitely becoming a king. Interesting.

Elder gods and other beings also felt it, and to a creature shuddered wondering why it had been done before deciding that in the end it didn't matter, it was a show of force that none of them were willing to contest on the material plane. Earth, Harry's Earth at least, was now utterly protected from further demonic influence. Those demons that were on Earth at the time were now cut off, and without those connections could be killed for all time, something that terrified the otherwise immortal creatures into hiding wherever they were..

And Morgan Le-Fay, who didn't rely much on demons for her magics scowled angrily while the door she had been trying to open to talk to one of the demon lords, whose creature she had noticed in Rome, faded to nothing while her own magical senses told her what had happened. Potter and Strange are allied then… That is not a good sign.

OOOOOOO

Hours later Harry was asleep, recovering from the exertion. Ororo however was up and about, and after speaking to Piotr and the rest of the team for a time, she met up with the now awake Emma for lunch up in the dining hall. The two of them talked together for a time, mostly about Jean and her mission as well as the world's response to the events up in Montreal.

As they were talking on the table next to her Harry's phone rang, which he had left with Ororo just in case.. Both ladies looked at one another across the table and Emma shrugged. "I suppose you should answer it seeing as I doubt Harry's given his phone number to anyone unimportant. If it turns out to be a sales call however, get the name of the company so I can buy it then find out how they found his phone number before I liquidate it." Considering the phone had been designed with three numbers all of them made untraceable by Reed Richards that was not an idle comment.

Ororo laughed then reached over and picked up the phone. Looking at the line she frowned then touched the appropriate button. "This is Guardian's phone, as you hopefully already know though he is away at present. Who is this?"

"My fair lady, this is Tony Stark. I was told to call when my little gift for Guardian was done. It is, but I also want to say he is an utter louse! The arc reactors are my baby! You might want to tell him that it's not exactly a leap to connect Guardian to Harry Potter if you know both personas, whatever he does to actually make the mind try to skirt around that connection for some reason. Interesting trick, but it can be overcome eventually, especially when enough clues pile up."

Ororo laughed. "I will inform him of that Mr. Stark, or do you prefer to go by Ironman at the moment?" She noticed that despite having connected Guardian to Harry Potter he had not connected either persona to Harry's made up identity of George Frederick Weatherby. That probably meant that Jean's and her own identities were also safe for the moment.

"Oh, Tony of course, this is sort of a business deal at any rate. Certainly a repayment of a debt, one I hope to continue repaying." Suddenly having his whole life once again in front of him had rejuvenated Tony, and he had once again thrown himself into every aspect of his life rather than just his Ironman persona with a will, the last bits of his PTSD fading away. "But that still doesn't tell me why the hell, or even how the hell you and your Arc Technologies company was able to figure out how to create an arc reactor. One which, if Jarvis is correct in what he's been able to find out, is actually smaller and better than the initial one? Certainly not up to my standards, but better than the one my dad built."

"I believe that Guardian actually wrote down his response to that hold on a moment." Ororo ostensibly looked around, then turned back to the phone winking at Emma. "Ah, here it is. Ahem, 'Then you should have done something to protect your tech you silly bugger there is a genius everywhere in this world'."

"Just tell me if Reed helped him." Tony said seriously after having laughed for a moment. In point of fact the arc reactor wasn't something he had been prepared to sell to the general public, he didn't trust any kind of security he could place on it. But he didn't have access to magic, and he was prepared to believe that Guardian at least knew what he was doing. "That would be against the rules, sort of."

"There are rules?" Ororo asked incredulously.

"Of course, among the good geniuses anyway though I suppose you could say that it is more a guideline of etiquette. We don't poach, we don't get in one another's way in scientific terms, and if we know one or the other is going to a science fair or other kind of symposium, the rest of us don't show up. It keeps the public arguments down. And, you know, the damage."

"Then I can say unequivocally that Reed did not have any part in our being able to reverse engineer the arc reactors," Ororo replied equally seriously for a moment. "I don't think the person we have as our chief engineer would call herself a genius, so I'm not certain that those rules of etiquette would apply to her."

"Well that's all right then. So long as you know I'm going to try to figure out the security protocols you put on them, you have put security in place, haven't you?" Tony really wanted to be sure about that.

"Magical defenses yes." Ororo replied addressing his concern right away.

"Excellent, that takes a load off my mind."

"When do you want to set up a time for us to come and pick the AI core up?"

"Within the next hour or so would be good," Tony replied. "After that, I'm catching a plane to New York for some work, then to Vancouver, then over to well lots of places. I have a lot of work any to catch up on, and Pepper nagging in my ear to make certain I do."

Ororo laughed, then was about to reply that they wouldn't be able to have someone drop by to pick up the AI core but an arm went around her shoulders just then. She smiled, then shivered a little as Harry nuzzled into her neck before taking his phone from her hand. "Tony, this is Guardian, where are you?"

"At my Hawaii home, can you get here within an hour?"

"Yes, I'll see you in a moment." Harry took a moment to kiss Emma and Ororo in turn before pulling away then apparating directly from there to the same point over Tony's Hawaii home that he had used previously. He startled a few birds, making them squawk raucously at him for a moment, before flying down.

Tony stood just inside his house near the screen door leading out to his pool and the man started as he stared over at Harry where he landed. With a sigh he gestured, and Harry apparated through the glass, whilst Tony shook his head. "Damn that's just weird as hell. I don't suppose that you are the only one that can do that are you?"

"Afraid not, there are other teleporters, though I'm not certain if any of them really use the same method as I do either."

"I'll try to figure out a way to block all teleportation then," Tony said, before holding out his hand. "Thank you again for the work you did on me, not having my health hanging over my head, it's like a new lease on life."

Harry simply nodded shaking the man's hand. "I understand that you finished the AI core?"

"Building and programming yes," Tony said with a nod. "Though I do hope you're a little stronger than you look, the core might be only the size o foot square, but it's really heavy."

Harry chuckled. "I'll be strong enough I'm sure."

Tony nodded slapping his shoulder, and gestured for him to follow him down into his lair. In the center of his work area stood the square of circuitry, with leads heading off in every direction. It wasn't as large as a server farm, but its circuitry looked even denser from what Harry could tell and the tech didn't look like anything he had seen on the market.

He asked Tony about that and Tony laughed. "Sorry, but that I am keeping a secret. I've no doubt that Mr. Fantastic, who I know you have some kind of arrangement with, has his own equivalent, but come on. Let me have some secrets."

Harry laughed, then asked him some questions about activating the AI, and its computer requirements.

"So long as you have input devices to install into it, the computation aspects and everything else happen in the core itself, and I have a sheet prepared for you to use to activate it."

"This will be a tremendous help thank you," Harry said sincerely, moving over to pick it up which he did relatively easily not even needing to use his Magia Erebea.

"Not as much help as you gave me," Tony said shaking his head.

Up above the two men a voice spoke up from one of the speakers. "Sir, Ms. Potts has arrived. You indicated at one point that she was ambivalent at best about someone else having access to the computational power of myself or the equivalent."

Tony paled a little then nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes thank you for stopping by Harry, now take that and get out quickly."

Harry laughed but nodded, and suddenly disappeared with a faint pop along with the AI core. Staring at the place where he had been Tony nodded his head while above him he could hear the faint tic-tac of high heels. "Yes, definitely need to figure out how to block that sort of thing."

Despite his wish to install the AI immediately, Harry was cognizant of the threat that it could pose as well as the threat any bugs or hidden programs that Tony had added could pose to his faction's ability to remain hidden for the most part. So he was forced to leave it in High Note for now, unconnected to anything and with every square inch of the gigantic bit of circuitry that was the AI scrubbed just in case for tracking devices and other bugs. While he was doing that however, other events were happening down on Earth.

OOOOOOO

Nick Fury leaned back in his chair, rubbing one hand over his remaining eye wearily, but with a faint smile of accomplishment on his face. It was now two days since the video of Banner's apology had gone out, and the fallout had been huge, but thankfully only a bit of it had fallen on SHIELD. Sanders had fallen under some official censure for being a dupe and taking part in it, but he'd done enough to keep the accusations from becoming too pointed.

That hadn't stopped Ross from being stripped of his rank and placed in solitary at an FBI run prison however, and several other generals in the pentagon were under investigation as well. The army in general was being very strongly investigated, every black ops project being opened and aired out, which Fury was ecstatic about, even if he had lost a few resources of SHIELD's for now.

Even better his Avengers Initiative had finally been given the green light. The councilors, though not really bowing to public opinion, had been forced to recognize that America and its allies had to have their own superhero team, one that they could depend upon to uphold their laws against those that might break them. That such a broad example would obviously cover the Custodes Mundi and whatever they did had been an unspoken but very powerful message in the debates.

Hawkeye, Natasha, Avalanche, and last but not least Giant Man, with Iron Man and Thor as possible inclusions. Tony's already on board with the idea of at least supplying us with transportation and any other gear we need bar weapons. And given the following that Thor's developed, his inclusion might be a good idea on a PR level, if he actually agrees. That wasn't as certain as Fury had thought it might be at one point, though he hoped that Thor at least would agree to remain in contact with the rest of the team.

A decent starting force, though they lack someone to lead them. Hopefully operation Zamboni will turn… something… up there. While Hawkeye and Natasha had the training and skill necessary to be a leader, they didn't have the experience or the necessary level of charisma or frankly clout with some of the others that he was planning to bring in. SHIELD had also shut down Weapon Plus, an American run program to create super soldiers, adding two of its members, codenames Kestrel and Maverick, to their agency. They would join the Avengers eventually, but had to pass psych screening first.

Giant Man, or Henry Pym as he was known in his civilian life had been picked up on a raid against an AID facility deep in the Rockies. The good doctor had been attempting to break out on his own, having ingested something he called the Giant Serum based on the subatomic particle he had discovered that bore his name. AIM had been forcing him to work on it for them, wishing to use them to create an army of giant soldiers. He had agreed to come aboard the Avengers team in return for funding for some of his experiments, and brought both an incredible intelligence and decent amount of strength and subtlety to the team, given the other side of the abilities his serum gave Henry.

Letting his hand fall from his eye Nick turned back to the screen he was studying, the map of possible AIM bases the world over glowing on it. With the hammering Doom is giving HYDRA they're funneling so many resources back into their strongholds in Eastern Europe I doubt they're going to be able to plan anything offensive here in America or in any of our allies. Italy, Greece, most of South America, and even portions of Asia had finally joined the SHIELD Protocol, giving SHIELD freedom to act in those countries against problems that fell under their remit, which AIM or HYDRA certainly would.

I wonder what the hell HYDRA did to piss Doom off. Fury thought to himself shaking his head. It's lovely to watch one of the baddies do your work for you, but I still have to wonder about it. He was also concerned because Doom wasn't just smashing HYDRA, he was taking out any government that HYDRA had its fingers in, adding their lands to his own countries. Yet most of the time the people of those countries had welcomed him in with open arms. Latveria had the highest living conditions of anything from the Eastern Block, hell it was even higher than Russia or China for the most part, equal to Germany and the United Kingdom in many ways. It was hard to argue with that kind of success, even if it came under the reign of a tyrant.

"Not my problem," Nick said to himself yet again. "Anything to do with Doom's the Fantastic Four's bailiwick and if they're content to let this all go, I'm not going to argue." Nick did not want to tangle with Dr. Doom, in any way shape or form. Maybe after the full Avengers team was brought together then they could go hunting for him, but not before.

No, our best bet will be to go after AIM. Now that I've finally convinced the higher ups that our time shouldn't be spent going over the same territory that other spy agencies cover, we can really hammer them under if we try. And using those missions for further training for the Avengers is an excellent idea, plus field testing our weapons before we have to take on anyone else. He looked at one AIM base in particular, and thought to himself and maybe gain a not insignificant ally and member as well.

Nick looked up when someone buzzed the intercom on his office door. "Come in."

Agent Danvers walked in, carrying a small stack of papers in one hand. "Yes Danvers what can I do for you? Is that the research I asked you to do?" Nick had ordered Carol to look into how to get out of the gravity well and start building some kind of defense up in space, not so much against aliens but against someone who was already building something up there.

"No sir it is not, in point of fact I haven't done any work on that beyond crunching a few numbers. These are my walking papers." Carol said firmly, slapping the papers down on next desk, before putting her hand gun down next to them, along with her SHIELD badge.

"I transferred from NASA into SHIELD on the tacit statement that we would be pushing into space to deal with the threats I could see coming from that arena. Instead, I've been placed on project after project which doesn't call for someone with my knowledge or skills. Worse, now that there's someone doing that job, we're planning to fight them? When they haven't done a single damn thing to show that they're untrustworthy?" Carol shook her head, her blonde hair swaying slightly. "I refuse to be a party to that."

Nick looked down at the badge for a moment then back up to her. "I can't say I didn't see this coming," he said coolly, shaking his head internally. He always disliked seeing people go, but he wasn't about to try to dictate to the woman's conscience. Truth be told, he felt a little worried about the idea of taking on Guardian in space if it turned out he was there already, after all he wasn't part of any previous agreement to not militarize up there was he? And he certainly did seem to at least be trying to do the job that Carol had wanted SHIELD to be doing all along.

But deep down Fury was a spy, and he didn't trust easily, which was why he was still researching ways to shut Potter down. Guardian was too powerful, too unknown, too disconnected from known power structures. All that made him a wildcard and such people were dangerous no matter their morals or track record. So he had been in full agreement with his employers when they had ordered him to look into that concept, as well as other ways to curtail his growing power. "Can you at least recommend someone else to take over for you on this job?"

"Dr. Pym I suppose," Danvers replied with a shrug. "Or Tony Stark if you could get him to agree to it without sharing your reasoning with him, good luck with that. The problem of getting out of the gravity well is the big issue, well that and funding, like I said I cracked some numbers. Putting together some kind of industrial center up in space will take trillions. And that isn't an overstatement or hyperbole. Unless we have access to robotics or something of that nature at a far higher level than I'm aware of, even attempting something like that would quickly bankrupt America in short order. Hell, it would probably bankrupt America, China, Russia and the United Kingdom combined, if we could even figure out a way to get out of the gravity well with enough industrial capacity to start the process."

She watched amused as Nick winced. The United Kingdom had pulled out of the SHIELD Protocols entirely, stating very firmly that they were not wishful to be tied to SHIELD any longer. That had been a heavy blow, but it thankfully hadn't stopped other countries from signing up after the debacle in Montréal.

"Very well," Nick said shaking his head. "You'll have to be processed out of course." With a few taps on his computer he sent a message to the paper pushers down in accounting, as well as security. A moment later one of the helacarrier's security men entered, and Nick nodded at the man. "Take Ms. Danvers here down to out processing, then prepare one of the pelicans to take her down to the nearest airport."

He stood up, holding out his hand across the desk. "Good luck Danvers, I get the feeling you'll need it."

Carol shook his hand, not saying a word then turned to follow the guard out.

Nick stared after the woman, sitting down slowly and brooding quietly about the reasons the woman was leaving, and how much of it dovetailed with his own dislike for the counselors and their separate agendas. I wanted us to start looking into space nearly half a year ago, but the budget just wasn't there, and I couldn't convince anyone of the necessity. Now it might just be too late, and I just lost the only operative I had with any experience in that area, possibly to our, our competitors in that area! While I don't agree with her that Potter hasn't done anything for us to be suspicious about, the rest of what she said was bang on.

His brooding was interrupted by a call on his secure phone line. He picked it up noticing absently that it was Dum Dum calling. "This had better be good Duggan, I just had one hell of a shock to my system."

Duggan's voice sounded ecstatic as he answered. "I think it's the best news possible boss, we found him!"

OOOOOOO

Out processing took hours, mostly spent writing down her initials on different pieces of paper which all amount to the same thing: don't talk about this, don't talk about that, don't go to the press and of course don't divulge state secrets. Each paper also listed the possible repercussions for doing said of course, which at this level amounted to either immediate execution, or long term imprisonment followed swiftly by execution, or more probably someone slipping some poison into your food. Carol thought that it said something that those who deal with secrets were always so damn suspicious of one another.

Maybe I just wasn't cut out for this kind of life anyway, Carol thought to herself as she walked off the pelican, turning to exchange a salute with the pilot before moving away from the small troop transport as it rose back up into the sky. Too many damn secrets, too much distrust, and way too damn much red tape. That was SHIELDs problem right from the start. I wonder what Guardian's budget is?

As a small cart drove her from the edge of the tarmac to the base's entrance where she would be able to pick up a bus heading into town, Carol frowned thoughtfully. Should I go home, or not? After a moment she shook her head. Home after all was a small house in officer's country in a small base in Wyoming. Not only was she in Maine right now, but there really wasn't anything there that she'd care enough to go and get. All the small personal possessions she owned she carried with her in a large duffel bag on her back at the moment. And she'd never been much of a clotheshorse in any event.

Once on the bus, and indeed it's only occupant, Carol opened her cell phone and called the number that Guardian had given her to call after he gave that impromptu speech down in that small town with the Guthrie clan. On the second ring she got a response. "Who is this?" Asked a female voice that Carol recognized, though she couldn't quite place a face with it.

Chalking that down to the protections that Guardian was apparently able to add to his team's suits Carol began, "This is Carol Danvers, I'm calling about a job offer? I hope it's still on the table because I just quit my old one."

Moments after getting off the phone and telling Storm were she was going to be in a moment Carol was at the local bus stop, which was almost empty of people. There were only five people in there, a boy and his father, who was wearing off duty Air Force muftis apparently talking to one another by the reception desk, two men sleeping on some of the benches, and a woman on a cell phone who was eyeing the father in a manner that made Carol smirk a little. Girls do love a man in uniform. Mindful of the fact that Storm was apparently going to come and pick her up soon Carol moved away from the small bus stop itself, which had a video camera near the door, moving around the back toward where there were a dozen parked buses.

For all that she really wasn't cut out for being a spy, Carol still retained a spy's situational awareness. That was why she was aware of the fact that one of the men who had been sleeping had woken up and had followed her out. Frowning she wondered if this was some kind of pickup attempt or something more. I don't think Fury would send a wet work team after me, but better safe than sorry.

With that thought Carol moved around one of the buses, dropping her duffel bag and reaching into it quickly to pick out personal handgun, it wasn't exactly a powerful gun, that it was hers, and she had a gun license too, so was allowed to carry it while off duty. She turned moving back the way she came, only to hear a sound from behind her. "FWIPP!"

Ducking instinctively, she rolled underneath one of the buses, hearing a cruse as something whizzed through the air where she had just been. Seeing two booted feet, she took aim, and about second later a bullet ripped the calf out of one of the boots, sending the man sprawling with a howl of agony. "Ahh…God damn bitch!"

Even in pain the man rolled around to bring up his own weapon, some kind of small boxy thing with a palm grip on it, pointing it underneath the bus at Carol. She desperately rolled to one side, dodging whatever it shot again, coming out from underneath the bus. Getting her feet under her Carol raced off, leaving the wounded assailant behind for now, intending to circle back and attack him from behind while he was hampered by his wound.

However the man had friends, four of them in fact moving through the parked buses at the back of the bus stop towards her now openly. Two of them came around one of the buses in front of her, raising similar weapons to the other man's, but she ducked aside, moving between two more buses to get away from them.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw one man on top of a bus taking aim at her, and she ducked at the last second, while another strange projectile went over her head. Kneeling down she took aim and fired two rounds, hitting him high in the chest and underneath the chin throwing him back in a welter of blood. "GAHh!"

The man's partner seem to think at that point that using whatever weapon they had, some kind of taser maybe against Carol wasn't going to cut it. He moved around the back of one of the buses throwing a grenade at Carol's position. "Catch bitch!"

But Carol had already moved, ducking back around the front of the bus. Even so she still caught some of the shrapnel from the explosion, which cut a small rivulet through one of her cheeks and a few more on her arm on that side, which unfortunately was her shooting hand. Cursing, Carol decided to make a run for it now, and ducked away through the buses.

Behind her Carol heard a voice shout, "You moron, they want her alive! No more fucking grenades, stick to the tasers!"

"Even after she killed number eight and wounded number five?" Said an incredulous voice.

"Team one and agent one are still out here, remember the last time someone when against orders around him? And besides do you want to explain to the bosses why you didn't capture her?"

That seemed to shut the second voice up, or maybe Carol had moved out of hearing range. She really didn't care which frankly. Being captured didn't sound any more pleasant than being killed, and she was determined to see that it didn't happen.

For the next few moments it was a game of cat and mouse the three remaining upright attackers moving towards her, trying to box Carol in. The crowded nature of the back of the bus area worked in Carol's favor, allowing her to stay out of sight of whatever weapon they were trying to hit her with. But she couldn't throw them off her trail entirely thanks to the blood she was dripping everywhere from her arm.

Carol found herself at the back of the bus area, facing a tall fence that cut it off from the surrounding scrubland. It was a metal fence but it didn't have any barbed wire on the top, and Carol hesitantly began to pull herself up it.

"There she is, nail the bitch and let's get out of here, Intel can't hold back the local response for much longer!"

Carol turned, her eyes narrowing but knowing she was caught. She dropped back to the ground, picking up her gun from where she had dropped it and pointing it at the trio who had appeared from three different directions, but she knew she would only be able to get one before they got her. Even so Carol took aim, firing. She caught her target high in the thigh, spilling into the floor even as he fired back. She ducked, but even so whatever strange little disk thing he was firing hit her in the shoulder, causing a spasm of electricity to go through Carol.

"Taser the bitch two more times just in case!" said one of the men, moving towards Carol from the left. "Just to make sure."

"AYIEEE!" Carol screamed, her body spasming, but even so she only fell to one knee, not unconscious. That was why she was still alive when the cavalry arrived from two different sources.

The sound of a Glock firing as fast as it could rang in Carol's ears from one direction, and the man who had been approaching her from that direction danced as he was hit by several bullets at once, throwing his body forward. A second later the off duty Airman from the bus stop was standing there, his handgun held in both hands as he surveyed the area.

From the other direction an African woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt suddenly shimmered out of the air behind the last attacker standing. Before he even registered her presence the woman's arm was around his throat locking in a knockout hold.

The man gasped, trying to throw his head back to hit her own, but Storm expertly dodged it, tightening her grip. Feeling his consciousness beginning to fade, the man made a conscious decision and bit down hard on one side of his mouth. There was a loud crunching sound as a false tooth gave way, filling his mouth with cyanide. He gurgled, shaking and shivering as the poison did its work and Storm let go of him in distaste.

Hurrying forward she ignored the man in the Air Force uniform, going to one knee next to Carol. "Carol, are you all right? Stupid question." She shook her head. "Why do people automatically ask that anyway? Better, can you tell me what's wrong with you?"

Carol tried to laugh, but her teeth chattered too much for any of the humor to actually come through. "Some, some kind of taser thing, fading already, I'll, I'll be all right."

"That's good to hear ma'am," said the Air Force soldier. "But a better question might have been what happened here, ma'am?"

"I d-don't know," Carol said, her voice already sounding stronger. She was still unsteady on her feet however, and leaned heavily on Storm. "I don't think I want to stick around to find out either, one of them said there was another team around."

The Airman gulped a little, not used to fighting up close and personal like this, but his face firmed resolutely. "I'm going to head back to the bus stop ma'am and call this in, someone should have done that already, but I headed out the door before they did. But my boy's back there."

"I'll take it from here soldier." Storm said smiling faintly at the man. "Family is important after all." The soldier nodded gratefully and headed back that way while Storm smiled at Carol. "A good man there. But you don't have to worry about their second team, I took them out upon my arrival. Keeping hidden doing so was a little more difficult, though I'm sorry I didn't arrive in time to save you from being tased like that."

Even as she said this, Storm was surreptitiously casting several spells Harry had taught her recently on the woman, checking for tracking devices or anything else. But Carol was clean, inside and out. SHIELD had put a small tracking device in her duffel, but she didn't have her duffel bag on any longer, and frankly from SHIELD's perspective Carol wasn't really that important enough to keep track of.

By this point Carol had all of her faculties back, and she frowned. "Was there something special about one of them? They said something about an agent one, and sounded scared. Just wondering."

"No not really, I would assume he was simply a psychopath of some kind that the others were wary of. Still, I would like to stick around and see if we can find any clues as to who they are. Are you up to that?" She asked solicitously.

Carol nodded firmly. "If you can stop me from bleeding, then yeah."

Storm did so easily, then magically covered them both with her equivalent of the disillusionment charm, before the two of them moved soundlessly towards the place where the one agent Carol had wounded initially should've been. Carol was still wobbly on her feet and by the time they arrived they could hear sirens in the distance. The man however was dead, having taken the same kind of cyanide pill that the man Storm had attempted to take alive had ingested.

At the sight Storm frowned shaking her head, her hair moving against Carol's cheek where she was leaning heavily on the other woman. "Fanatics of some stripe anyway. Indoctrinated heavily, if they're willing to kill themselves rather than be captured."

"Actually that's not as unusual as you might think," Carol said shaking her own head. "A lot of countries have secret agents trained to that level. And even besides that it could be a posthypnotic suggestion of some kind, or a mental command implanted in them during sleep that they don't even know about. I've seen both in my time working with SHIELD."

Storm looked down at her one eyebrow raised as she asked a question there. Carol understood and shook her head again quickly. "No, at least not from the top. Fury wouldn't do that and besides which, I don't know anything that would really be worth killing me over from SHIELD's perspective. Or capturing me of course, or anyone else's frankly, at least I don't think so." The capture thing was bothering Carol somewhat.

"So this could be an overreaction from someone within SHIELD or above it, or someone else thinking you know something that you actually don't, lovely," Storm groaned.

The two of them fell silent for a moment then Storm teleported them up to on top of one of the buses as evening began to fall and the local response arrived. They stayed there, watching intently while the bodies were examined, and statements taken from the soldier. During that, a team from SHIELD arrived, looking around anxiously.

One of them brought the soldier sharply to task about leaving Carol with an unknown, but the man replied hotly, gesturing back towards the bus stop where his young boy was standing, staring out at the goings-on avidly, holding the hand of the woman as she too was watching the activity. "Besides, the two women seemed to know one another, and the Major said it was all right." Carol had, and was still wearing her Air Force muftis, complete with rank.

The SHIELD agent still looked irritated, but since they couldn't find any sign that Carol had continued to fight, had to conclude that Carol at least had left the scene willingly. They tried calling her on her cell phone, but Carol had left her duffel bag were the first attacker had been, which gave them no clue as to her current whereabouts.

"Do you want to say something to them?" Storm asked from beside her. At Carol's raised eyebrow she shrugged. "They won't be able to hear us."

"That's handy, and no, I don't. I don't know any of those people down there, SHIELD was too large for you to get to know everyone of course. Still, I would've thought at least a few of my team would've come down to see since it involved me. Unless this is a fast reaction team or something. Anyway, I think I'm done with SHIELD and that part of my life. I'm ready for something new."

Storm laughed and got to her feet, pulling the other one up with her. "Well, seeing as we haven't learned anything that could point us in the direction of who was after you, I think we're perfectly ready to get on with that life of yours. But first you have to read this." She held out a small slip of paper that contained the words of the Fidelius charm on High Note.

Carol read it, her brow furrowed as she wondered what it meant. "Trust me, it's better than the alternative." Carol shrugged and when the woman held out her hand took it. A second later they disappeared from on top of the bus, and reappeared somewhere else.

As the teleportation faded Carol gasped but shook her head, getting over the fact that her stomach had moved several miles in less than a second far faster than most thanks to her astronaut training. "That was odd, somewhat unpleasant. Where are we?" She asked looking around then gasping in wonder as she stared out at Earth as seen from on high, with the dark of space and the stars in the distance all around it.

"Hello Miss Danvers, welcome to High Note." Said a male voice from behind her and she turned rather unwillingly from the vista in front of her. "I'm Harry Potter, otherwise known as Guardian." Said a young man, younger than Carol anyway with the greenest eyes she had ever seen. "And as you can see, we have a lot to talk about."

An hour later Carol Danvers was still standing in the control room of High Note, staring around her in wonder, while Harry concluded a brief overview of his space based holdings. "This view is, it's everything I've, I've ever imagined…" she said aloud, stammering a little. After a moment spent simply staring out of into space just taking in the view, she looked closer at some of the objects in orbit nearby. "So you really have already begun to hollow those out? What are you going to do with them?"

"Point defense for the most part, we'd need hundreds of bases to completely cover Earth, but if we put them at equidistant points all around, we might be able to defend it anyway." Harry smiled slightly from where he was standing beside her, well pleased. Carol had been standing on what Kitty had taken to calling the 'trust-check array', much like the one they had put in Banner's quarters, and it hadn't flickered even once. "The works pushing a month old at this point for some of them, but it's going full tilt now that we've got another hundred worker robots, and of course my own magical additions are doing their normal magnificent job."

Carol stood there, shaking her head as she stared out at the asteroid's all around. "And you say these things won't be picked up on radar?"

"Not at present no. If they started offensive operations, that kind of thing would be too much for even the most powerful Fidelius charm to cover. But for now yes."

"What do I have to do to stay up here?" Carol asked eagerly. "Seriously I will do anything!" This, this was what she had wanted to be involved in from the very beginning, no namby-pamby rockets, no months long planning and operations, no fucking paperwork! Just getting up into space, she didn't care how, and start building things! Well actually that was secondary, what Carol really wanted to do was go exploring, but one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

Guardian laughed, shaking his head. "I have a few projects I'd like to throw you at actually, mostly military related it's got to be said, but one of the first is I'd like you to look at some of the problems we've been having in figuring out how to really build the asteroid bases. Then possibly suggest companies and even a few names if you've got any that we could go to help on those. Then I'd like you to start working with a small think tank I've begun work on, to sort of put together a training regimen for working in space. After that…"

OOOOOOO

For all his fears about the man's activities Sebastian made a point of being cordial to Edward whenever they were in the club at the same time. It behooved them to do so as Kings after all, and in the club was the one place where their resources were entirely equal. For his part, Edward suspected that Sebastian had something to do with Donald's fall from grace, and was perhaps a little too ready to resort to violent methods even in business, but he too felt it was common courtesy to remain cordial with one another.

"Have you been following what is going on in the market?" Edward asked, while the two of them sat in the King's room, staring out over the club behind the hidden windows. "I noted by the way that your construction company has recently expanded tremendously into the Canadian market, well done."

Sebastian dipped his head slightly to acknowledge the other man's congratulations then replied. "Yes I have it's… interesting. Stark has certainly changed the civilian technological market, and the news that some other company might have come out with its own version of the Stark arc reactor is interesting. As is the fact that they aren't going to be selling the reactors themselves but the energy from them. I imagine Lester, Nathan and Baxter are all apoplectic about it."

Those three were members of the club who either owned outright or large portions of energy companies. Of course most energy companies did do things that were not in point of fact related to their base product but even so the idea of arc reactors becoming commonplace might slowly but surely drive those companies out of business.

"Not so much as their British counterparts I imagine," Edmund murmured, smiling thinly. "The testbed project has already been completed, and is apparently supplying all of Devonshire with a single reactor running at what amounts to low output. That city is isn't a large one, but the output is a factor there."

"What interests me is how Potter got the technology in the first place." Shaw frowned thoughtfully. "Did he get it off Stark somehow, or did he really reverse engineer it?"

That of course had been the real reason why Stark had never patented his company's arc generator design. If he had patented it after the patent expired he would've been forced to put the plans for it out for the public to see, allowing other companies to attempt to build them. Instead he had not patented it, and could protect his proprietary designs. But that didn't stop someone from reverse engineering it, which had evidently happened.

"I have not been able to discover who is head of his research and development program." Edmund replied honestly. "I have the names of the new managers for Elemental Energies , and even the name of the manager for Magical Minds. Stephen O'Cairn is a respectable, decent sort, a thorough going professional who I imagine is loving the challenge. And Saab has always been almost open book before, but even there, I don't know what they are building or who came up with the design."

"That matches with what I had found. I have to wonder though, what is his long-term goal?"

Edward laughed. "Does he have one? Do we have one? More money more power, that is every man's objective, do you honestly think he has a long game?" Even as he said so however, Edward was surreptitiously watching Sebastian's face. Edward knew that Potter seemed to have a soft spot for mutants, but how far that went and what it might be based on or make him do was a different question. Yet he had already done enough damage, and his public stance continued to erode the idea of forcing mutants to register or to treat them as a separate species.

"I can't say I like his social program," Sebastian said mildly. "So long as he only pontificates on it however, I can't rightly stop him. But I would prefer to know something more about him on a personal level. He's only ever been here a few times since his introduction, and I can only point to once being for social reasons." He smirked suddenly. "Emma seems to have scared him off after that."

"Yes they are interesting to watch aren't they? Two powerful young people too alike to really get along," Edward smiled faintly. Neither of them thought to say out loud that it was probably a good thing the two of them didn't get along. "Unfortunately I am a bit too busy with my own projects and other issues as well." He scowled somewhat theatrically. He had recently laid off the president of his tech company, and had not yet hired or brought up his replacement.

Edward had allowed some of Sebastian's spies to figure out that he had fired the man due to some issues of stolen money, and had stepped up to take the man's place for now. Indeed, this was the only time he'd been at the club for a while. That and his falling out with Paris was enough to convince Sebastian that he wasn't spending his time on anything else. Instead Edward was preparing funding to back Senator Kelly's presidential campaign, removing what little bits and pieces of his empire there or in China thanks to the pressure continuing from certain sources there.

"Then I think it would befit me to extend a cordial invitation to him, one king to another. I'll have to make certain that Emma isn't here of course, or else we won't get anything done. The two of them will just snipe at one another oh so delicately over the canapés."

Edward laughed again, and the two of them went back to people watching.

Sebastian was good as his word, and the very next day he invited Harry to lunch. Not to the Hellfire Club just in case, but at a restaurant he was part owner in downtown. Thankfully Harry's face wasn't so well known yet that they were mobbed despite his ongoing public push for mutant and human equality so they weren't swamped by reporters looking for interviews.

Throughout most of the meal the two of them exchanged stories, anecdotes of their childhoods and other things of minor nature, until they were nearly done eating and the waiter had disappeared once again to get the check. Then Sebastian broached the subject he was truly wondering about. "You certainly made an impression with your speech on PNN a few weeks ago. And you have continued to make waves since with your aggressive hiring policy. No one can say that you're not putting your money where your mouth is."

About 62% of Harry's workers for Magical Minds and Elemental Energies were mutantsand even Saab now had mutants on the payroll. He hadn't yet extended that to the other companies he had bought shares in or outright purchased of late, but that would come in time. Most of those mutants didn't have powers that anyone could truly fear, they were simply disfigured in some ways, much like the two children that Ororo had saved. But even so thanks to their looks and the fears it engendered most of those people hadn't been able to get jobs, whatever their educational level.

"Loyalty is an interesting commodity," Harry replied blandly. "You can't really buy it for love or money, but you can earn it. And that earning can be difficult or hard depending on the situation." He smiled thinly. "Capitalizing on other people's idiocy costs me nothing, and gains me the fierce loyalty of my workforce."

"True. But I have to ask, do you really think that humans and mutants can coexist? Humanity isn't very good at coexisting with those they fear or are so different than them. And never before has a minority like mutants been so widespread across the world and yet so obviously different for many of them."

"For many of them," Harry replied with a nod, smirking internally when Sebastian's eyes narrowed at that oblique response. "However, I believe that there are bigger fish to fry. The incident up in Montréal points to that at least, doesn't it?"

Sebastian was forced to nod his head at that, yet he went on anyway. "Even if mutants and humans can coexist, that won't make many of the problems society faces go away. There will always be the haves and the have-nots, those on top of the social ladder and those beneath them."

"Of course," Harry replied with a nod. "But what should that matter so long as the right people are the ones on top?"

For a moment Sebastian tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table thinking how interesting a response that was. Could it be that he's simply going for the soft sell? He doesn't really believe in mutant and human equality, just not outright violent war between them? But how to get to that point?

As the waiter was coming back with their check Sebastian decided to table that bit of discussion. "Well Mr. Potter, this has been a lovely meal, and it certainly has given me food for thought as well. I hope to see you more often at the Hellfire Club. Try not to be too scared of our Ice Queen. Whatever did occur between the two of you to set yourselves so against one another? You have so much in common after all."

Harry laughed a little sheepishly looking away. "Let's just say that the relationship between Ms. Frost and I did not go nearly as well as I had expected. And we might have a little too much in common to really get along together if you take my meaning."

Bingo, Sebastian thought to himself watching Harry's eyes lock onto his for a moment, and he allowed a faint smile across his face. "Oh I do, indeed I do."

As Harry walked out of the restaurant and got into his car, he smiled thinly. The hook's set, now I just need to play the little fishy.

OOOOOOO

Later that day, Harry continued his hiring binge, this time in Mumbai, India. He was here hoping to hire what would amount to a medical think tank, as well as a lot of tech people across the board. The first one was the most promising, an up-and-coming medical student who was even now thought of as a genius in her field named Kavita Rao. She was more than willing to sign up with Magical Minds, especially given the hints Harry dropped that the medicines he had already released was but the tip of the iceberg.

Harry sighed, leaning back in the soft chair of the room he had commandeered in the hotel for these interviews. Seventeen out of the 25 was an excellent harvest, and he only had two more to interview. The Indian people seem to be remarkably accepting of mutants he thought to himself. I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense given how many religions there are in India, and what religious intolerance has done here before. Still it is surprising and a hopeful sign in the long term.

Harry knew that for his future plans to work he would have to have America, India and possibly China on board. Indeed, he was already making plans to woo America further. His hiring binges there had already done so in many ways, and his stance had won him some public accolades, but the government was obviously leery of 'Guardian' given some of the statements he had seen of late.

That in fact was the general public reaction from governments the world over. Guardian wasn't quite being vilified, which would have been impossible after the way the Custodes and he had fought against the Hulk, Abomination and Thanos and especially how much the team helped out afterward. But it was a near run thing, and his alliance with the FF, and the deep well of respect they had gained since their adventures began, was possibly the only thing stopping people from doing so.

Even so public opinion was all over the place, though a surprising amount of people were willing to, not forget, but overlook the destruction Harry had wreaked on Mars. The response was 'better there than here' and was an almost universal one. People understood the battle could have been far worse, and cost hundreds more human lives, so outside the scientific community a lot of people were willing to forgive Harry for Mars.

On the other side of things, the UK's government had been approached by practically every other first world country in an attempt to open up clandestine discussions with Guardian, but William and his government was stonewalling everyone for now while Harry and Emma pondered how to handle that, and indeed if they really should at all.

One of the country's most persistent in trying to open up backchannel talks with Guardian and Harry Potter, his public persona, was of course America. They wanted Guardian under their control, but the government was so torn on the Mutant Issue there was no way they would be able to meet his demands there. The senate and house were both sharply divided on that issue, while many of them were willing to completely ignore the space-based threats. Those that weren't felt building a military presence was necessary, but didn't want to sacrifice anything to do it, and were leery of Guardian in general.

The current President was a bloody sock puppet who didn't seem to have any spine so far as the big issues were concerned. He'd been elected on the strength of his economic knowhow, and was at sea on anything else. He was willing to open a dialogue on that issue and on dealing with space-based threats, so long as Guardian agreed to be bound by the UN charter and 'work with existing powers for the betterment of humanity'.

In terms of his public persona, there had been attempts to block Harry's purchasing of some American based companies, and indications that he needed to release his potions to America at cost for those attempts to go away. Harry however wasn't budging, and indeed was going to begin putting more health and PR related pressure on America very soon, once the new gardens came online.

Yet India had an even larger population to call on than America, and if Harry could help India bring its industrial base up to match its population and tech level? That would go a long way to dealing with any worker shortage he might run into in the future, though the nation's stance on human rights wasn't anywhere near where he would have liked.

My first think tanks are already producing a result. First was the group he had hired in Norway, looking into separating fact from myth in the light of Thor and Balder and all the rest being real. It wasn't easy, but they were making some headway, basically by looking at everything that was written or noted about them after the coming of Catholicism to Norway as being false. That this chopped off much of the legend of Ragnarok was, to Harry's mind, an intriguing datum, and he was looking forward to what else they could tell him.

His second think tank however was even more satisfying for all that it had only been on the job for a few days. Training in zero-G is going to be a must whatever types of suits we come up with for mass production, as will a simple list of do's and don'ts, suit maintenance, how to move in space, how to keep fit if you spend X amount of time in zero-G, always needing to check air pressure… The team of divers, miners and underwater specialists Harry had hired to think up plans for that along with Carol were working hard on the issue, and Carol in particular was a godsend in that area, not two days after work began on it.

Still, what mattered was that the world was settling down once more after the Montréal Disaster, and the waves from it had finally had time to settle down as well, along with much of the first, gut/emotional responses. The incident had calcified the two different points of view on mutants and indeed on superpowered individuals in general. And it had expanded to all superpowered individuals both heroes and not, which was interesting.

But where some nations had responded like France, giving mutants fully legal rights under the law so long as those with dangerous powers were trained to use their powers for the betterment of all, other nations were still waffling. America in particular was oscillating wildly between following the UK and France, and going in an entirely different way like Russia and China were doing, if in very different ways.

Russia continued to push for the eradication of anyone found to be a mutant, unless their powers could be used to aid the state. Harry, Piotr and the father had talked about it, and they decided that this probably meant that the government Super Soldier program was still continuing. There had to be other installations of course, but what to do about it eluded them.

Father Garnoff and Harry had a long discussion on that subject, and Harry had reluctantly decided to allow the father to return to Russia soon to restart his mutant underground railroad. But he wanted to wait for a bit. With the battles in Croatia pointing to the fact that that government was highly involved in the HYDRA terrorist group and Doom's ongoing campaign against them, Russia might well decide military intervention was necessary to keep Doom away from its own borders. If that happened, the chaos that move would cause along said border would allow him to sneak Garnoff in much more easily than otherwise.

China had cracked down hard on mutant deaths, but was just as stern about mutants with powers being trained to serve the state. But they extended that well beyond the military, and were open about it. Moreover those mutants with powers were treated well, and would be taken care of and educated on the state's budget. But the government came down hard on any mutants using their powers for personal gain without its approval. Dennis had tried to explain the social structure of China to Harry, but much of it went over his head. He did however understand that the community was all, and that there might be room there for an alliance down the road. As soon as Harry figured out how those mutants with non-profitable/usable powers were being treated.

Africa was of course a mixed bag. Egypt, Syria, and the other countries where Islam was dominant were all staunchly anti-mutant, but other countries where the population wasn't so monotheistic were either divided or coming down on the pro-mutant equality side. The new power in the region, the previously hidden country of Wakanda was pro-mutant, and it had even allowed mutants to join what was called it's King's honor guard, a visible and very respected group that was in charge of his safety and the country's borders. Wakanda's level of technology and its sheer wealth thanks to its vibranium mines meant it was a force to be reckoned with in the rest of the continent, and Harry was thinking about opening talks with its king in the future.

South America was again a mixed bag, while Canada had quickly followed Britain and France's pro-equality stance. And according to what Dennis could discover they were even going to push to open dialogue with Guardian as an ally in the future.

Yet for all the good news there are some worms in the works, and that's not even considering the Sentinel program. He thought shaking his head sadly. And one of them is getting larger every time a day goes by that we don't hear from him, unless of course the mutant Nazi is involved in all of these incidents worldwide.

He put that talk to the side however as the intercom buzzed informing him that the desk had another individual here for an appointment with him. Glancing at the clock he nodded, smiling slightly at the promptness. He frowned however when not one but two people entered, both women, and with one decidedly older looking than the other. Their faces looked enough alike as to be mother and daughter or older sister and far younger sister at best.

Behind them was another person, a young girl apparently who only came up to their waist. All of them were wearing those burqas or whatever they were called that Muslim women were supposed to wear, so it was impossible to tell. But the young girl was also wearing a thing over her face as well.

Before Harry could speak the first one held up a hand, closing the door behind them quickly as she pulled off the burqa from her head. "You'll have to excuse the deception Mr. Potter, I realize you are here meeting with Assia Soreduka but she doesn't actually exist. I need your help Harry." Midsentence her voice began to change, and she asked. "Are we safe here?"

Harry recognized the tone now and smiled blandly even as his fingers began to twitch in readiness to cast spells just in case. He noticed that the wards he put up to spot deception hadn't spotted this, which was not a good sign in the long term. "We're safe enough Mystique, though I have to say I didn't expect to see you here."

"It's been a while since I've felt really safe, comes with the territory I suppose." Mystique quipped, pushing her burqa back off her face while her two fellows did the same. The smallest figure showed itself to be a young boy with purple skin and an irritated expression, possibly by the cross-dressing he'd been forced to do. "This is Irene, I mentioned her at that dinner we had, and the young boy's named Paras. We rescued him from a vampire along with a magic book that…"

Throughout the tale Harry sat, frowning heavily at the talk about the book, which he immediately took possession of and sent back to Camelot with Cory to be placed in the real vault with Krakaan's gem, though he ordered Cory to first place it, bag and all, into an iron box. After that he simply sat and listened until Mystique finished, then looked at Paras first. "Well lad, I can see you've had an adventure, but the Avalon academy will welcome you as a student easily enough. As for you Mystique, I think I can find a job for you as well. And trust me, if it's Irene's safety you're worried about, Camelot is the safest place on the planet."

He then turned to Irene. "I can also say milady that I really have no wish to make use of your powers beyond what you volunteer. I have bad experiences with prophecies before this, and no wish to become dependent on them." With that he turned back to Mystique. "Did you ever deal with this person who would give you a choice to take the other path Irene saw?"

"Yes, but the author wasn't very appealing to me given the news worldwide. He wanted me to join a team who were going to assassinate Senator Kelly, the one from Texas who is the voice of the Mutant Registration Act. But given the rest of the world's mixed reaction, frankly Kelly didn't seem as important anymore," Mystique shrugged. The man in question had been an odd sort anyway, his features so bland and unassuming that it stood out to a trained spy like her. And his shtick, while possibly tempting, hadn't told her enough about who was behind this plan for her to agree to it.

Harry nodded, but put even that bit of information aside in his mind, since it did add to the growing bits of information showing that there was indeed someone trying to instigate a race war between mutants and normal humans. After that however, Harry made certain all his new hires knew how to get in contact with him and how to travel to the UK, particularly Kavita and a few of the others he intended to second into his medical think tank, then teleported the trio to Camelot.

While some of the house elves got Irene and Paras situated, introduced Mystique to Dennis. Then he gave Mystique her first job. "Find Magneto! He's been silent for too long, and I mean there hasn't been any sign of him or his cabal, unless he's the one behind your mystery offer and the violence here and there worldwide, though there is no indication we can find of that. His silence is making me very nervous, and I don't want him to suddenly show up and toss all the work I've been doing down the drain with some megalomaniacal display!"

Mystique nodded. "I know a few of his hideaways, and I think Irene can help us further with that." With that she turned back to Dennis, while Harry left, intent on getting some food and wondering if they could possibly get ahead of the disasters for once before the next one dropped on their laps.

OOOOOOO

At the same time Harry was making love to Emma for the first time, Jean Grey suddenly stopped midstride on the runner, nearly falling forward to smash her head into the front of the machine when the track went on below her carrying her feet out from under her. On either side of Jean, Paige and Dani laughed. Dani asked, "What was that about?"

"Just an impression I suddenly got." Jean said flushing a little in embarrassment. "I just suddenly got the idea that I was missing something really nice back on Earth, that's all." With that she shook her head and turned the runner up another few notches, racing on, quickly catching up to the other two on the 3-d VR program, though Dani was still a bit ahead of her.

Exercising was paramount on the Hellion, a daily necessity not just a good idea. Even with the ship having an artificial gravity system, humans lost muscle mass quickly in space. The Kree didn't seem to have much of an issue in that direction, but even they had several rooms devoted to keeping their men in shape.

After another hour or so the girls stopped with the runners, all three of them moving over to the weight machines. As they did, rather than watching a movie as they had while on the runner they listened to music, going down the row so each had a chance to choose what songs to play. When it was her turn Paige got up and moved over to the computer that was playing the music, frowning suddenly. "I didn't know that song was on here. Cool." With a laugh she clicked it, then raced over to take her place on her machine again.

"What did you pick?" Dani asked.

"Drive me crazy," Paige said. "Love country it's almost as good as bluegrass."

"We'll agree to disagree on that one," Jean laughed. "But I didn't put that song on either. Whatever." With that Jean laid back down, and as the song started she pumped iron, a hundred and forty pounds, as much as she could lift.

She faltered however when the first lyrics came through because they weren't being sung by the original singer. No, the voice was Harry's. To either side of her Dani and Paige exchanged grins exchanged while Harry's croaking voice belted out the lyrics, almost giving the impression of saying them directly to Jean. When the song ended Paige looked at the older redhead. "I am so fucking jealous of you right now."

Still flushing slightly at the romantic gesture from her lover, Jean laughed finishing her rep and laying the bar back down. Have to think of something nice to do for Harry when we get back. Heh. He drives me wild too.

After that the trio of young women began to move through some martial arts exercises that Ororo and Shiang-Chi had taught them before sparring hand-to-hand, the two younger girls against Jean. Then it was full on power spars with Nikolai and Reed and Susan joining after they came in from another gym elsewhere on the ship. Most of the time it was random teams, but sometimes it was also all of them against Jean, which given her powers was actually more fair than most would initially think.

The Hellion had been in hyperspace for nearly a week and a half now, and they were barely a day out from their destination where they would start to get really busy. There was a planning session scheduled later that day, which was why Jean called the exercises short after only one power-spar session. While Jean showered however she frowned, thinking hard. For the last few days whenever she used her powers, specifically those skills she had gotten when she became the avatar of the Phoenix she got the distinct impression that the entity who she was somewhat connected to was laughing under its wing at her.

It was a very odd sensation, not entirely unpleasant, but not entirely pleasant either. It was like being the butt of a joke and not understanding the punch line or something. I'll think about that on the trip back I suppose, I'll have more than enough to occupy my mind when we drop out into the Dead Man's Row.

Later that day the group Douglas insisted on calling the senior officers got together in the conference room, where Mar'vel began to explain all he knew about the system and the process with which derelict ships were recycled. "For the most part the recycling system is fully automated. There are a series of large recyclers that come through each junkyard system on a set schedule. Most of the time they are empty of course, but at those points it becomes really busy. Those ships tend to be huge, with even the smallest one as large as a World Breaker usually, but with about… I would say a fifth of the mass and not even a tenth of the crew. Indeed the only reason the crew's on there at all is to fix things if anything goes wrong."

"But if resources are scarce, and the parts are needed desperately due to a campaign or some other reason groups of junkers can be brought in to work on the ships, since they'll work much faster than the recyclers but it's dangerous work. That's why most of the time those junkers are from the nearest Resource Reallocation Unit, the lowest of the low since their lives don't matter nearly as much as the resources that they are picking apart."

"Resource Reallocation Unit?" Jean asked, cutting in quickly. "That's the first time I've heard that term. Could you go into detail for us on that?"

Mar'vel looked momentarily confused than shrugged. "I suppose it wouldn't have come up in any of the questions we've been asked so far would it? Resource Reallocation Units are portions of the fleet that deal with local indigenous populations on newly discovered garden worlds. The empire is always expanding inside its area of control after all. Since hyperspace was invented exploration has never been in a pure straight sphere around the home world, rather a series of jumps. So occasionally we find garden worlds or other types of worlds with indigenous populations on them that are in the empire's sphere of influence."

If the world are garden worlds, since those are so rare, or have high levels of resources, the RRU will go in and take over. Of course then the population will be put to work at any tasks they can be for the betterment of the Empire."

Jean was getting a horrible impression here, and she exchanged glances with the others who all were looking similarly worried. Why am I getting the impression of the Jews in the Holocaust here? "Are we talking about slave gangs?" She asked aloud.

"What is a slave?" Mar'vel asked.

"Are they worked until they die in horrible conditions," Reed asked bluntly.

"Of course," Mar'vel replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Why not? It's an excellent use of resources, and after all they aren't Kree." Only when he said this did Mar'vel realize that it might not have been the best thing to say in present company.

Even Una was looking appalled. "I've never heard of this! How many of these RRU's are there?"

"I don't know!" Mar'vel said defensively. "I've just learned about them since I've run into a few people who work on them a time or two. It's not exactly glamorous work, and they always tend to drink heavily when on leave, so occasionally other ships crews are called in to help control them."

"Let's get back on topic," Jean said after a moment's fulsome silence. "So what you're saying is unless we have really bad luck we might be able to just waltz in?"

"I don't know," Mar'vel said. "I have no idea if there are security stations in place or anything of that nature, I've never heard talk about it. I would say that there would certainly be sensor buoys around the system, and each junk world is of course set near a local naval base, which are usually home to at least one major fleet and numerous smaller wolf packs of varying sizes. If you trip something, the response would take…"

He looked up the star charts and calculated distances for a moment before going on. "I'd say around a day and a half maybe two if you're lucky, the first response will be wolf packs of battle cruisers. If you take out one of those though, the next response will be heavier, much heavier. Any threat within the Empire's borders is dealt with by swift, overwhelming force."

"Thank you Mar'vel, I believe that's all." Knowing he was dismissed Mar'vel walked out at Susan's command, though his girlfriend remained behind for a moment.

She looked at all of the humans and shook her head. "I didn't know, I swear! That was the first time I've heard of it."

Jean nodded her head. "I know, trust me I know." She tapped her head lightly, and Una nodded, remembering Jean could usually catch feelings even when she wasn't trying if they were powerful enough.

As Una left Jean leaned back in her chair both of her hands over her eyes. "Please for all that is good and holy, don't let us have to deal with that."

"I think that any chance of working with the Kree in the future just went out the door." said Reed seriously. "The entire culture would have to change for them to see us as anything but enemies, and they don't deal with equals very well at all."

Susan nodded agreement, scowling. "Even Mar'vel didn't realize it! They're so, so uniformly arrogant and…" she paused, hands gripped together for a moment. "They'd have to change their entire social structure for me to want to trust the Kree in any kind of peace agreement we could make with them."

"Agreed," Jean scowled. "Which means we need to learn more about the Skrull and the third power, the Shi'ar. Unless you think we can deal with the Brood?"

Reed shrugged ignorance at that, and on that rather somber note the meeting ended.

The next day Hellion arrived in Dead Man's Row on the outer edge of the Oort cloud. Moving in under low-power they scanned ahead with what they could. Most of the ship scanners had been overhauled by Reed, replaced with versions whose energy signatures were much less than their counterparts, but just as good.

After a full day of moving through the Oort cloud in a circle and scanning ahead of them into the system Reed finally declared that he couldn't spot any kind of sensor array. "There are a few signal buoys out there, but they're low powered, certainly not powerful enough to send any kind of out-system real-time transmission even if the Kree had that technology. We should avoid them in any event, but I think we are good to go to a high-level scan."

"Are you sure?" Jean asked from where she was sitting in the captain's chair.

Reed nodded, then typed in quickly on the keyboard in front of them. The map of the system which had been on the large screen updated itself suddenly, showing for spheres of red. "So long as we stay out of these areas, we'll be well out of range of any kind of sensor that the four power sources I am reading now could possibly possess."

"And they won't be alerted by our own sensors going through those areas?"

"Not the ones I designed, no," Reed replied, and after a moment she Jean nodded.

With that they moved in swiftly, popping in and out of to cover the area between the Oort cloud and the two lifeless rocks that were this system's only planets. Their more powerful scanners now reached out, painting a much more detailed picture of the system and Jean was not the only one who gasped in astonishment as icons began to glow on the screen.

Mar'vel was sitting at a console near Reed, and after the system finished updating began to go over what the readings were telling him. "According to your scanners we have at least fifty ships of various sizes here, none of which are in the range of the sensor buoys, they must have shifted over time, sloppy. Twelve battle cruisers, seven battleships and most of the rest are heavy and light cruisers, though there are also 10 frigates apparently. And one Doom Bringer."

"I'm not getting any life signs anywhere in the system." Reed said. "Unless they're deep in one of the ships which I doubt given the fact we don't see any kind of central ship that could be used as a hub or something for the ongoing work, we might be lucky there." He didn't mention what they were lucky about, but Jean simply nodded thanking the stars for small mercies.

Mar'vel went on after a moment rubbing at his nose and thought. "I'm surprised that a Doom Bringer is here. Those ships are rarely if ever sent to the breakers, instead dying in battle like dreadnoughts."

"You said you never served on one of them." Jean asked not accusing just stating.

"No, the crews of Doom Bringers and World Breakers are carefully chosen for their assignments, and are all experts in their fields. But Doom Bringer's especially are heroic subjects, their deeds and actions are reported on in the news, far more than World Breakers. Doom Bringer's are ships of the line that are intended to smash opposing lines or stop the same such tactics on our own fleets. They're a step up from dreadnoughts in size, the same size as a World Breaker, but their weaponry is very different and their mission is somewhat more glorious than that of World Breakers."

Jean nodded, calmly staring at the map of the system on the main screen. "Douglas, how many ships can your slave program handle?"

"Theoretically an infinite number," Douglas responded shrugging his shoulders. "It's just a program, the ships themselves will be doing the calculations and the jumps, all we'll be doing is slaving those computers to our own after the jump calculations are finished.

Reed frowned thoughtfully. "I can understand the appeal of the Doom Bringer, since that alone should be able to shred any of the initial fleets sent after Earth, but other than that what other ships should we concentrate on?"

"All of them," Jean replied simply. "I want every single one of those ships we can get gentlemen. As long as its drive isn't damaged, I want it."

OOOOOOO

As the ship moved forward their sensors began to get more and more data on each of the ships as they closed with their main target. Soon they saw what had happened to the super-dreadnaught. The Doom Bringer had apparently been gutted by an explosion in its engine room, which had blown out the entire back of it.

Mar'vel and one of the other Kree, a midshipman who had served on a battleship before named S'egrel. Mar'vel couldn't figure out what had happened to it, but S'egrel took one look at it and nodded his head grimly. "There was a rumor before we set off on our last mission about some major industrial world that had been caught cutting corners on its power runs. The engines on their ships would fail if they were held at combat output for too long. That kind of thing would necessitate almost rebuilding the entire ship to get at the power runs, no wonder the ship was sent out here."

Jean looked over Reed. "Would that be repairable?"

"The drives no, but we could possibly fit the Doom Bringer with a smaller engine from one of the other ships. Or better yet cannibalize from several of the small frigates, simply put six or seven of their smaller drives on it."

"How long would that take? And would it be worth it if we could do it, if we have to repair all of the power runs I mean?"

"That won't be a problem." Reed replied excitedly. "I've been working on a system of nanites in my spare time. They should be able to go into the power runs and repair any damage or replace low quality parts as they go."

That made Jean choke for a moment, shaking her head. Only Reed Richards could say that he had been working on nanotechnology in his spare time like that. She shook her head of horrible dreams of nanites suddenly coming alive and trying to eat the world with difficulty. Surely Reed wouldn't… on second thought maybe she should look at some of the program for these things before giving the okay for that. Out loud however she simply said, "All right, let's do it."

While Reed and Douglas began to work together to figure out which of the frigates would be easiest to cannibalize, the ship continued to move around the system getting a better read on all of the other ships. Practically every ship there was just this side of a total wreck. Not a single ship was sent here because they were old and had been mothballed. All of them were blasted and had major battle damage.

When asked about that Mar'vel shrugged his shoulders. "Bean counters as you humans would say. The smaller the ship, the less expensive it is to simply replace it rather than repair it."

Eventually the survey was complete. A surprising number of ships still retained their hyperdrive engines, and the ability to enter and exit hyperspace. None of them would be ready for combat against similar ships for a long time, but only eighteen would need major refit now. This of course included the Doom Bringer, but Jean left that ship and its repair in Reed's capable hands.

"Alright, here are the teams." Jean said a few hours later. "Team one will be me, Dani, and two of the Kree which will be the same for every other team. Team two will be Nikolai and Mar'vel and team three, Paige and Susan with Susan in charge. Reed, Douglas, you and the construction droids we brought along will start on the frigates you've chosen. The rest of us will start with the battlecruisers, I think they're the most important ships here. While two teams are out there working, one will be back here resting, and will switch off as needed."

OOOOOOO

Paige looked across at Susan as the two of them moved towards the target ship, frowning at what she could see of the older woman's face through her helmet. "You're not looking well, are you okay?"

"Zero-G's a little hard on the stomach dear," Susan said grimly. "I'm not metal like you." Like Colossus when Paige changed to her metal form she didn't need air to breathe, so was simply moving through space in her metal form right now, with a small receiver helmet over her face so she could talk.

"Maybe you should head back to the ship if you're not feeling up to it," Paige said solicitously. Susan Richards was one of her personal role models, and getting to know her on this trip had been really awesome, but she didn't want to have to deal with the woman getting sick to her stomach inside her helmet as she kind of looked like she was going to do.

"I'll be fine once we touch down on the ship," Susan gurgled, womanfully keeping her gorge down. "Let's just hurry."

With the accompanying soldiers with them they soon landed on the outside of the battlecruiser very near one of the gaping wounds in its flank, their magnetic boots clamping on quickly. The Kree had said the damage was caused by heavy grazer fire at long-range. They had gone on to explain how you could tell it was long-range rather than short, but Paige hadn't paid enough attention.

Moving forward they soon reached the end of the gash in the hull, and one after another entered the interior of the vessel. The interior of the ship was eerie. Without even warning lights anywhere the only light visible was from their helmet lights, and it did very odd things when it hit some of the loose debris here and there caused by pieces of the interior of the ship coming loose in space pressure.

"Why am I thinking of the movie Alien again," Paige muttered to herself as she took the lead. "Thank God for my mutation, no face suckers gonna get a hold o' me!"

As if her words had tempted fate there was a sudden movement ahead of them, and several small flying things flew towards them through the interior of the ship. "What the hell?" Paige shouted falling backwards in shock. "What are those things!?"

One of the Kree troopers with them shook his head raising his rifle and firing at the creatures as they flew at them. "Elcrasi! They're vermin, sometimes they cling to the outer hulls of ships if you pass through asteroid belts where they've made their nests." His bullets struck home into one of the creatures, and it imploded with noiseless splats in the vacuum of space, painting the interior ship near them with green and purple blood and also hanging in the air in small balls here and there.

Paige grimaced as she smacked out at the nearest one, shattering it and flinging it aside. Two of its fellows tried to claw at her hand and chest, and she smashed them with equal ease, but their blood literally soaked her entire upper body and even some of her helmet. "Great, just great."

A moment later the last of the Elcrasi was dead, and they continued on into the ship.

They ran into several more of the creatures but the real threat came after they had dealt with the last group. As they were entering the ship's engine room, a large creature detached itself from high up near the top of the generator and flung itself down at them. It looked somewhere between an octopus and a starfish, with an octopus' body and tentacles, but with the skin of a starfish, along with the central mouth.

Paige had been in the lead the entire time as they moved through the ship, and the others gasped as her metal body disappeared under the thing's bulk. One of the Kree began to blast away at the creature, while Susan flung up a hasty shield, blocking a large tentacle from smashing them back out of the engine room. "What is that thing!?"

"I don't know its name but I think it must prey on the Elcrasi somehow!" One of the Kree troopers shouted back. His fellow didn't bother replying verbally, instead racing forward trying to use his rifle on the soft underside of the tentacle that had tried to attack them when it rebounded. Dark purple blood spurted out, but the wounds swiftly closed, and the creature smacked him backwards into the other two by the doorway.

Susan had hastily lowered her shield to allow the Kree trooper to fly through the area it had covered rather than smack into it. Now she hastily raised it again, while another two tentacles joined the attack on the trio in the entryway.

"Paige, are you okay?" Susan asked, keeping her shield up with a surprising amount of difficulty, her powers fluctuating, allowing the creature's tentacles to come ever closer to them with every attempt.

"Ah'm not fuckin' captain Nemo, so why the hell am Ah battlin' a dahm octo!" Paige shouted from underneath the beast, her accent coming out much more than normal in her anger. She began to lash out with her metal fists, smashing into the creatures' hide with all her might, smashing out teeth from the maw which had tried to swallow her.

The beast seemed to shudder under the assault, lifting its body off the food whose hide had so far stopped its assault. But Paige grabbed it by a tentacle, then began to hammer at it with pile driver blows into the areas all around its central maw. Behind her the two Kree soldiers began to fire on it again, causing more blood gushing wounds all over it.

Finally Paige simply grabbed the beast with one hand on either side of its mouth. As the thing continued to flail at her now just trying to get away she heaved to either side, ripping it open. The beast flopped to one side, dying from this wound, but still trying to get away until one of the troopers came over and emptied his rifle into the beat's maw. After that it finally subsided.

Paige looked down at her hands disgustedly, trying to shaking them free of some of the beast's blood which made little bits of purple and blue in the vacuum all around her. "Great, I am so callin' the first shower when we get back!" Actual water-based showers on board the ship were a premium, but after this Paige felt she deserved one.

Susan moved over quickly to one of the stations, thankfully at the far end of the room from the battle they just had. And after a moment's typing there was a slight thrum from throughout the ship. "We are online, there's not a lot of fuel left in the engine, but it should be good for the jump back to Earth. Though I would recommend we sanitize the room first. Liquids in zero-g get everywhere."

Paige nodded, waving the two Kree soldiers away. The two of them had huge backpacks on, which contained small power reactors that Reed had designed. They had seventeen of them, and each would only be good for one job, but hopefully enough of the ships here had power already they wouldn't run out of them.

Leaning close to Susan she put her helmet against the other woman's so that she could talk without using the intercom which automatically would direct her voice to all of them. "Mrs. Richards, I seriously think you need to see Una when we get back. You're still looking a little green, and frankly you weren't well… I mean.." she stammered, not wanting to call out one of her idols.

"I wasn't worth much in the fights against those Elcrasi creatures, let alone the octopus thing." Susan responded, smiling faintly. "I'll see Una the moment we're done with all of these ships not a moment before." She smirked a little. "Besides, I have a feeling I know what's wrong with me, and it's not something that she'll be able to solve. Trust me on this."

OOOOOOO

By the end of the second day Jean knew that her initial estimate of the time it would take to get all of the ships in the system ready to go had been grossly optimistic. The first few, eight battlecruisers they cleared out quickly, they had gotten lucky with. Those ships retained enough mass in their core to drive both their hyperdrive and the minimal amount of shielding necessary to protect a ship while in hyperspace. Others didn't, and they didn't have enough small generators to go around.

Halfway through the third day Jean called a halt to everything, pulling the teams back to discuss options. Reed was very blunt about his thoughts on the subject. "The Doom Bringer alone is going to take Douglas and myself several days, possibly a week to get it repaired enough to handle hyperspace. On the computer side, Douglas is having to go through several programming firewalls to enable the ship to link with his slave program. On my part, it's going to take three of the small generators we brought along to power the engines and the shields that only leaves nine. And while we'll only need five of the frigate engines, pigeonholing them into the Doom Bringer is not an easy process.

"And we don't have the manufactory capacity to make more," Jean nodded, her voice understanding despite the frown on her face.

Nikolai shrugged. He had the true infantryman's disdain for ships of all kinds, though he understood why Jean wanted to bring as many of these back as she could. Still there was such a thing as being reasonable. "I think that your wish to take as many of these ships as we can is a little unrealistic. We should concentrate on the heavies, the battleships, the battle cruisers and the heavy cruisers, leave the cruisers and the frigates alone."

"No damnit!" Jean growled slamming her hands down on the table. "Earth is in such a big hole we need all these ships, not just the heavies. The heavies we'll use in defense of the planet, but we could use the others to maybe go and contact this Shi'ar Empire, or maybe even look around and see if we can find other races that we could ally with."

She held up a hand as Nikolai made to speak. "I'm not talking about the one or two missions against Earth, I am talking long-term. You all heard Mar'vel, and you all heard the doctor back on Earth when he was giving his presentation." The presentation had been recorded and shown to the team, afterward. "The Kree will send one or maybe two small wolf packs against Earth first, but if they don't return, they'll send in a full fleet. We won't be able to stop that, not unless they come out at one single point where we are already waiting for them."

She looked at Reed who sighed unhappily knowing what she was getting at. "I haven't had any luck," he said bluntly. "Of course the past few days I haven't had time to devote to that bit of research, but still…" He shrugged. "I have some ideas, but I have no idea how long it would take to set the scanners up, especially with the level of inundation we'd need."

"Worse is the fact that with this is something we'll only get one shot at," Jean went on after nodding at the older man. "We can't assume that the Kree won't change their patrol policies after this in such a way that we won't be able to hit up any of the other junk systems. We need all of these ships. Now, let's figure out a way to get them for us!" Jean leaned back breathing heavily for a moment as she tried to get her anger under control. Her emotions had been all over the place at times lately, and she didn't understand why, though this was something she believed passionately about.

Next to her Danielle spoke up hesitantly. "Can I ask, why do these ships need shielding during jumps?"

Reed replied smiling at the young age of American woman. "To put it in layman's terms hyperspace is full of radiation that would kill any biological being in short order inside them."

"But there won't be any biologicals on the ships, would there? So surely we won't have to power the shields right?"

"Hmm... interesting," Reed said nodding his head thoughtfully. "But even so, the shields also protect the hulls themselves from the force of travelling like that. I'm not certain that the interior of the ships would be able to survive, remember these are almost completely trashed ships we're talking about here. Their structural integrity isn't the best to begin with."

"But that's a good point," Jean said, throwing an arm around the younger woman shoulders and giving her a squeeze. "I think we could do a computer test on some of the ships couldn't we? See if they could survive without the shielding and then see what they would need to survive if they can't?"

"I can write up that program!" Douglas grinned enthusiastically. He had enjoyed every step of this trip, and looked forward to telling his parents all about it, or as much as he could anyway. "Give me a few hours, and I'll have an AutoCAD program to show you at least!"

Reed smiled over at the young man, who had impressed him with his computer abilities even knowing that most of it was based off his mutant power and his ability to understand programming languages. Imagination and intuitive logic however was something you had to provide even with that ability, and Douglas had those. He had a bright future ahead of him, and Reed was happy that he had hooked up with Harry's group.

"Excellent." Jean replied with a nod. "While you're doing that, I think that myself, Paige and you too Danielle, should start working on some of the bits and pieces we've seen lying around out there." Those were leftovers from older ships that had already been almost entirely cannibalized and taken apart, mostly bits and pieces of hull that had floated away during the deconstruction process. "We'll use those to help patch up the exteriors of the ships."

Thanks to Douglas' computer program, the next few days went much more smoothly though Jean was forced to admit that without the construction droids from Dr. Doom that they had brought along, even taking ten of these ships would've been an arduous task. They were no use in clearing out the interior of the vessel from the little critters that occupied practically every ship so far, but once that was done they went to work with the robotic version of eagerness.

It turned out that the Doom Bringer was so massively armored both inside and out that it could survive even with the giant hole along its aft without extra shielding. When he had seen that, Reed whistled in shock. "The interior of the vessel is built to the same structural level as the exterior armor! My god these ships are fucking tough!"

That was the first time Jean had ever heard the man curse and she made a mental note of it. As the name implied Doom Bringers were seriously bad news.

Nevertheless, that freed up the three generators that Reed had feared would be needed for the gigantic ship, allowing them to put them on an equal number of the battleships, all of which had massive structural and exterior damage. They also found out, once again thanks to Douglas' program that two of the battlecruisers they'd already cleared out were complete write-offs. Even with their shielding intact, they would not be able to survive the stress of the initial jump. The equivalent of their keels had been smashed to pieces, and it was a wonder that they had even gotten into this system in the first place.

The frigates on the other hand were all in much better shape, and could do without shielding so long as the numerous holes in their exterior were patched up. Danielle and Mar'vel took charge of that. With Danielle's suit incorporating Jean's hover technology and a few extra thrusters that had been added for this trip, and Mar'vel having been trained in zero-G combat they were easily able to aid and direct the droids in their work, finishing three frigates a day for that first week.

Jean led the teams working on the battleships, installing the generators, which was fiddly work that the droids couldn't do, and finished them relatively quickly. The next job was the two remaining battlecruisers. Then they'd start in on the heavy and light cruisers that made up the remaining bulk of the ships in the system.

Many of the construction droids had already been put to work on those, doing what work they could on the exterior after Paige and her team had cleared out the interiors of the ships. That group, now five Kree troops led by Paige, were clearing six ships a day and once the ships were powered up even in a limited fashion, the creepy crawlies didn't come back to them thankfully. Of course they'd all have to be heavily sanitized later, but that was doable. The ship the octo-creature had been found in however was a write-off as well, given the mess its bodily fluids had made in the engine room Read and Jean had decided it was too dangerous to attempt to start its engines.

Jean laughed to herself as she telekinetically moved a gigantic piece of armor from one of the battlecruisers that had been a complete write-off onto the hull of one of the others.

"What?" asked one of the Kree troops, whose name was E'erdas. He, the com tech, and Mar'vel were the only three Kree that had truly been trained to operate in Zero-g, and his help had been important in the past few days. Jean had gotten to know him relatively well, and found that his hatred for the Kree Empire ran deep. There was something personal there, something much more personal than most of the other prisoners. But the man hadn't shared it with her or anyone else and Jean wasn't about to use her telepathic powers to delve into his mind just to satisfy her curiosity.

"Oh nothing, just laughing about Paige and her team. I think they've gone through almost half the ship's water quota between them with their showers." Not a single ship had been cleared without getting Paige or at least one of her fellows splattered with the blood of the creepy crawlies that they were clearing out.

E'erdas laughed as well, and was about to reply when their intercoms beeped. "Jean, abort operation! All workers abort operations, return to the ship immediately! There's a gravitic footprint that just appeared a third of the way around the sun from us!" Douglas' voice, sharp with worry and a bit of fear sounded through it a second later.

Jean cursed, and then with a single thrust smashed the piece of junk into the hole it was supposed to occupy, summoning up the hottest fire she could to weld the edges together for a second with both of her hands. Then she reached over and grabbed E'erdas, zooming off faster through the intervening space between them and the Hellion than she normally bothered to go. A second later they were there, slowing down to enter the airlock as she telekinetically reached out for the others pulling them through the junkyard towards the ship far faster than their onboard systems could move them.

She had to jump aside as Paige and one of her troops collided right in front of her before they entered the airlock, then again as Reed and one of the worker robots that had been helping him on the Doom Bringer collided, with Reed using his elastic powers to simply hug the droid for a moment as the two of them bounced into the airlock. But not 2 minutes after Douglas had radioed the warning every group that had been out and about in the junkyard were back aboard. "Everyone in!?"

After a second of replying groans and moans Jean hit the button to close the outer airlock, cycling the air through quickly. A moment later she was flying through the ship racing towards the bridge. "What've we got?" she asked, skidding to a halt right behind Douglas.

He gestured at the screen while Reed and the others, all of them huffing and puffing, entered the bridge behind her. "Three cruisers, two heavies like the Hellion, both looks to be badly battered, heavy damage, we're not reading weapons systems and only hyperspace shields are up. There could be more structural damage, but at this distance we just don't know. I had the ship power down its sensors as soon as we saw the gravitic footprint."

"Good thinking, though it might be too late," Reed said as he slid into the sensors section, his fingers moving rapidly over the controls.

"There was a third footprint about a second after those two came in, it reads as a battlecruiser," Douglas went on. "And from what we can tell from here, it doesn't have any damage at all."

Mar'vel growled. "The first two ships are probably here to be dropped off, the third will be here to take their crews off and return to the nearest fleet base. We're in trouble here."

Jean frowned angrily. "If we jump out now, how many ships can we take with us with the slave program?"

Douglas did some quick calculations and frowned. "15 or so, I'm not certain some of the frigates would be able to jump with us as they are. I haven't been downloading the program to all of the ships that we've cleared for hyperspace travel I'm sorry. And the Doom Bringer isn't ready yet either."

"Don't, one of us should've thought of that," Jean frowned. "I should've thought of that as team lead." She frowned heavily as the battlecruiser came around the sun enough for them to get better readings on it even with their powered down sensors. "There certainly isn't any damage to that thing, its shields are already up and its sensors are fully online. Is that normal?"

"Yes, and I don't…" Mar'vel stopped speaking as one of the symbols, one of the heavy cruisers began to turn around, making for the outer edge of the system. Then the battle cruiser went to full normal drive speed, heading straight towards them. Behind it the second heavy cruiser also followed, with some of its weapons coming back online as they watched. "They've seen us, and that one's gone to report."

"Why's it backing away like that rather than simply jumping out from where it is?" Jean asked.

"The deeper into a gravity well you are the more power you need to get into hyperspace," Reed said. "I'd bet that their drives are badly damaged, and jumping in like they did probably screwed them up further. Since it was supposed to be a one-way trip that would've been fine, but now they're reaping the toll of that move."

"If none of those ships report back how long would it take for someone to notice?"

Mar'vel frowned calculating distances in his head. "About six days maybe? But if that battlecruiser doesn't report in, they won't bother sending anything smaller to investigate, they'll send a Wolfpack of battleships at the very least."

All right. Jean thought breathing deeply to calm herself as she thought. The question she had to answer, were those ships out there worth endangering her crew by throwing them into battle? Yes, she finally decided they were. This is why you get paid the big bucks. "Okay here's what we're going to do. Can normal Kree sensors find unpowered drones or debris?"

"Not normally, no. Why?" Reed asked.

"We need to stop that one from getting a message out, but if we jump out to engage it the other two ships will probably do the same right? So we pop out, drop Nikolai, Danielle and Paige off then pop back here before the two of them can figure out where we went. I'll take out the battle cruiser and the heavy cruiser."

"Are you certain you'll be able to?" Reed asked not commenting on the fact that she hadn't mentioned him or his wife. They would need to stay on board ship just in case the Kree troopers rebelled. By this point they were trusted well enough, but that trust hadn't been tested in a combat situation where they'd actually have to fight their former fellows.

Jean nodded grimly. "I'll handle it," she said cracking her knuckles a little.

Seconds later the team was ready in the airlocks, and the heavy cruiser which had heretofore been moving to engage the incoming battlecruiser and wounded heavy cruiser suddenly performed a micro-jump, popping out as close as they could get to the heavy cruiser that had been backing out of the system. Jean reached out, grabbing the other ship and holding it, not still, but on its current course while the team flew out of the airlocks towards it. She also pushed them along as fast as they could go, hearing their curses and a few moans from Paige at the sheer speed before they clanged into the front of the heavy cruiser.

"Good luck you lot!" she said, cutting off her powers as the undamaged battlecruiser popped in nearby, its weapons blazing at the Hellion. She zoomed out of the airlock herself, while the Hellion's shields took a hammering, failing in under 20 seconds.

But those 20 seconds was enough to allow Jean to get out of the ships shield range, her telekinetic powers flaring up all around her to form a fiery bird of prey so automatically Jean hadn't even needed to think about it. At that show of power, the attack on the Hellion stopped and the battlecruiser came around slightly to bring its weapons to bear on her. She grimaced as the heavy grazers and lasers slammed into her, dodging to one side as some of the railgun shots whizzed by her position. They weren't actually hitting her with most of their weapons, simply saturating the area of space she was in, but that was enough. She gritted her teeth as the blasts continue to hammer her telekinetic shields, but held them up well enough. Raising one hand she held the shield in place, while bringing her other hand around as if delivering a slap.

Which was almost exactly what she did. A giant telekinetic slap smashed into the nose of the battlecruiser, flinging it through space as if it had just been smacked by the hand of a God. The nose of the ship caved in, and it skittered away off course erratically, but it still fired back. "Boy do the Kree make their ships tough," Jean growled, before concentrating again with one of her hands raised in front of her sending out a telekinetic blast that caught the ship in the midsection.

Most of the weapons on that side fell silent as the ship tumbled end-over-end for a moment, but even so the weapons on the other side of the ship continued to fire. "Damnit!" Jean muttered. "Why the hell do the Kree have to be so fucking xenophobic, I like how tough they are, and they're tough-minded too, but this is ridiculous! Why don't they surrender?!"

She attacked again, zooming over the ship as it continued to tumble, its main drives out of order but its guns still blazing. None of them were in any danger of getting through her shields however, as Jean began to methodically rip them out of the hull one by one. She probably killed over half of the crew already, but she didn't want to massacre the entire crew.

Suddenly she got a warning through her telepathic powers, a kind of grim resolution and a desire to lash out just once more. Hurriedly she threw up more power into her telekinetic shield just as the ship exploded underneath her. The explosion threw her away from the ship, yet her shields held as she grimaced angrily. "Dammit, fucking crazy Kree! I wanted to leave you bastards alive!"

With a sigh she turned towards the battered heavy cruiser, which was now trying to head out system away from the Hellion. "Hellion, this is Phoenix, stay here just in case, I'll handle that ship."

Douglas sounded a little awed as he replied, "Roger, Phoenix."

With that Jean moved forward, faster than even the fastest Kree ship could go, catching up with the other ship quickly. This one however didn't even let her get within weapons range now before it opened fire on her even though they must've known it was hopeless. But Jean was much more careful this time, she stood off at range, reaching out with her telekinetic powers to rip and tear at the ships drives, gouging them out of the hall with telekinetic fingers of flame, then doing the same to every weapons system that fired at her. When she finished the ship more closely resembled some kind of modern art piece than an actual spaceship, and it was tumbling away through the system from the momentum of her attacks.

Yet even so, she could still detect thanks to her telepathy the minds of at least two dozen Kree in there. They were shocked, worried and fearful, but also determined, and Jean sighed sadly. She was tempted to reach out telepathically to talk to a few of them, trying to calm them down or convince them to surrender, but just from the feelings she was getting from skimming their minds she knew that wouldn't work. Almost all of them were blue skinned Kree, and the ones in charge were true fanatics. They wouldn't surrender.

"Well bastard I'm not going to go out of my way to kill you, you're not going to get that satisfaction for me. If you lot are still alive when the response fleet pops in maybe they'll help you, maybe they won't. Fucking xenophobes." She paused for a moment there, her telekinetic aura flickering back to its normal level while she ran one hand over her mask, and down to the red hair that stuck out at the back of it. "I seem to be cursing a lot lately, must be dealing with idiots that does it."

OOOOOOO

While Jean had a relatively easy time of it demolishing the battlecruiser from the exterior, Nikolai and his team had invaded the second badly battered heavy cruiser. Almost immediately they ran into resistance, fully armed and armored Kree soldiers holding the passageway leading deeper into the ship.

Paige cursed as she was sent tumbling back, her steel form glowing red hot on the shoulder for a moment. "Dammit what the hell is that!"

"Overpowered shot!" Mar'vel said from over the radio from back on the Hellion. He was observing the battle from there via a camera that Paige and Nikolai had on their space-based helmets. "You can overload one of the crew served heavy weapons like that, though it ruins it for future battles."

"That's nice and all," Nikolai said, his mutant reflection power activated as bolts began to spatter his front, while he calmly kneeled down and lined up shot after shot, killing three Kree each with a single shot to the head. But right now, we need to be aware that Paige and I might not be as invulnerable as we like to think."

A moment later, that was proven true as his legs went out from under him when another overpowered shot impacted his legs. It didn't do any damage thanks to his reflection power, but the reflected power actually gouged a hole in the deck below him, sinking his upper body into it for a moment.

Danielle jumped over him, and for once she was not using arrows but a rifle on full auto. The blasts caught the last two Kree holding the position, and she raced forward along the ceiling of the corridor on her hover skates, taking position at the crossway and turning this way and that. "Clear! Move forward!"

Paige grumbled but moved forward with her, pulling Nikolai out of the hole his body had fallen into easily. "Which way?" Danielle asked over the com to Mar'vel.

"Head to your left, that should bring you to the bridge."

"Let's not assume that the bridge is our main objective," said Nikolai pointing to the right and moving in that direction. "Remember the drives are the thing we need to take out to stop the ship."

Douglas cut in at that point. "Reed has us tractoring the ship right now, but he says you've only got about twenty minutes or so to take out the ships engines before we have to cut it out. The tractor beam is putting pressure on our hull just as much as theirs, and we took a heavy pounding from that one fusillade that battlecruiser got off before Jean engaged it!"

That was actually an understatement, the Hellion had been pounded almost so badly that it might have issues jumping itself now. Almost all of its weapons on that side were gone as well as it sensors, and it was only Harry's runic array worked into its hull that stopped it from being blown into pieces. Even so, its weapons systems were gone, and it's shielding was badly battered though that was coming back up slowly. It was only a minor miracle that the drives hadn't been hit.

"Roger that," Nikolai said grimly. Flicking a few buttons on his rifle, he changed it from sniper to full auto, and raced down the corridor.

It was well he had because at the next intersection they ran into more Kree, hurrying towards them thankfully rather than in a prepared position. Both sides saw one another at the same time, and began to open fire at once.

In the lead Nikolai winced occasionally as the heat of a few of the blasts penetrated his shield before he ducked to one side as he could feel it begin to give out on him. He pushed into what was possibly crew quarters of some kind, firing back down the corridor at the remaining Kree, having killed two of them. The Kree took a moment to recover, while Paige charged them.

Behind her Danielle went to one knee, sighting along her sniper rifle past Paige's charge. Two of the Kree fell with their heads missing then Paige was in among them her fists lashing out with more force than even a Kree soldier could take. Stronger they might be than normal humans, but they weren't up to her weight class. She pulped arms and heads with equal abandon, kicking out at one point and catching one of the troopers in the crotch. He screamed high-pitched and throaty until Danielle put him out of his misery. By that point Paige had raced on, knowing that time was of the essence.

The two snipers followed after, using her as mobile cover until they ran into a prepared position right outside the engine room. At Nikolai's command Paige fell back, just barely dodging two charged shots that might have blasted her metal form into slag. Really have to look into figuring out if I can turn into Orihalcum or adamantium, she thought to herself as she ducked into a storage closet of some kind which was barely large enough to hold her. Still, it got her out of the way of those charged shots, which gouged into the side and floor of the corridor.

Nikolai charged forward, diving into the section of the hull that had been gouged out of the deck by one of he shots as if it was a foxhole, firing on full auto out of it at the Kree troopers. But they had some kind of portable shield set up which absorbed his fire, then went down to allow them to fire back. He winced as one impacted his head, and his own shield faltered for a moment, the heat of it making his face hurt as if he had been out in the sun for an entire day.

Cursing, Danielle used her hover jets to skate up one side of the corridor onto the ceiling, firing her rifle down at the Kree. Whatever shield they had in place didn't have enough overhead cover to stop that, and two of them fell before her rifle bolts smacked into something that exploded taking the rest of the position out with it.

Seeing that, Nikolai and Paige leapt out of cover and raced forward, into the smoke and fire of the explosion, then through it into the engine room. Inside several Kree were working desperately at one of the controls, trying to do something to the engines. Nikolai and Dani fired as one, cutting them down mercilessly before they could finish whatever they were working on. With that done Nikolai raced over to the system that they were working on. "What am I looking at here!?"

"They've started a self-destruct sequence," Douglas's voice came back instantly. "They might think they could take us out, we've been moving closer all the time trying to mitigate the damage the tractor beam is doing to our hull. I'll walk you through shutting it down, but you'll have to be really quick, we're about one minute away from critical damage here!"

"Do it!" Nikolai said, then quickly followed the younger boy's instructions, clicking buttons with as much speed as he could muster. Slowly the hum of the engines subsided, only now bringing attention to it since it had been background noise from the moment they had boarded.

"And we're cutting the tractor beam off now," Douglas said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Jean is coming back now, we'll take you off after you disable the engines."

Nikolai nodded and he and Paige got to work while Danielle covered the entrance to the engine room. By the time they finished she had been forced to deal with two assaults on her position, and was wincing from when a few blasts had gotten through to her armor. They hadn't been able to penetrate her armor, but one had caught her hand, and it felt as if she had a first degree burn on a few of her fingers there.

They were finishing up when the entire ship shook violently. "Vanguard, Paige, Ghigau, this is Phoenix, I'm back. I'm holding the ship steady they don't seem to have any exterior weapons working, have you disabled the engine?"

"Just a second," Nikolai replied, having just finished inputting the commands. He waited until the system acknowledged them, then raised his gun and fired several blasts into each of the computers he could see. He waited for a moment as they fizzled and sparked then smiled grimly. "Yes I think we can say that they're disabled now."

"Roger that, I'm going to peel away some of the hull nearest your position, and we can just leave the ship to drift for now."

"Sounds good to me," Danielle said shaking her head sadly. As a hunter, she had dealt with the knowledge that she could take life well before this, but this had been the first battle in which she had actually killed someone living, someone who actually had life. She was finding it much harder to deal with then she had thought she would.

Nikolai slapped a new cartridge into his rifle, motioning for Danielle to do the same which she did automatically, still staring down at the last Kree she had killed. He motioned to Paige to take point then laid a gentle hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of the ship, then I think you have earned a drink, yes?"

OOOOOOO

It was about two hours later, and the teams had once again congregated on the Hellion, minus Danielle. She and Jean had talked briefly, and then Susan had taken over talking to the younger woman, telling about her own combat experiences and how she dealt with the knowledge of taking life. Jean would talk to her again later, but as team leader she had to be part of this discussion. "So you're saying it will take at least four days for them to realize the battle cruiser is overdue, and another four to send someone?"

"Eight days minimum," said Mar'vel firmly. "I have no idea if they'll notice that that ship is overdue quickly or slowly, but we should err on the side of caution shouldn't we? Eight days minimum, then we could see another group inbound."

Jean nodded. "Douglas, start downloading the slave programming to all of the ships we've already got ready for jump, how many will that give us?"

"It'll take a few hours, but we can start simultaneously on all of them so I'd say by the end of the day around 19 or so?"

"How many can we get ready in seven days?"

Douglas and Reed crunched some numbers for that, looking from one screen to another. "Most of the heavy and light cruisers should be cleared out by then, that'll give us all of the battleships, the available battlecruisers, a few of the frigates, the Doom Bringer, and… fifteen mixed light and heavy. The Doom Bringer we might not have ready to go."

"Prioritize that, I want the Doom Bringer ready in seven days, pull droids off the other projects if you need to."

"10 is the max I could use in the space of the engine area," Reed said, nodding as he inputted that. "If we do that, the Doom Bringer will be ready in six days or so, but the last five light cruisers won't be ready."

"Do it, I want us gone before another response fleet comes in. If one does, do you think you can figure out where they'll jump in?" she asked Mar'vel.

Mar'vel shook his head. "Common Kree doctrine is to randomize where in the system you're going to hyper out unless you're doing scouting operations in which case you always appear on the outer shell of the system. They won't be doing scouting here. They'll simply come in guns blazing. I'd say you could have a 60/40 chance that they would come in at the same position as the initial battlecruiser did, but that's just a guess."

"We need to also work on the Hellion for at least a bit, two or three of the construction droids at least," Douglas said. "That battle cruiser nearly pounded us into slag with a single pass. I don't think we'll be able to repair any of our weapon systems, but we should at least repair the hull a bit just in case the shields fail during hyperspace jump."

"If we do that how many ships would we have to abandon?" Jean said, frowning angrily. She had hoped to grab all of them, but she had to deal with realities. They hadn't brought along enough people, even with the construction droids and given the time limit they were now operating under.

Douglas frowned as she he looked at a listing compiled. "We've already started to clear out the heavy cruisers, six of them have been cleared out already. I'd recommend simply working on those and abandoning the other heavy cruisers and light cruisers. If we work on the frigates, we might be able to get all of them ready to go, that'll give us 22 frigates to 10 or 11 heavy cruisers in the same timeframe."

"Do it." Jean ordered. "We'll all take a two hours break and then get to work again." She held up a hand as Paige and Reed frowned at her, though Nikolai simply nodded. "I know you guys have been in combat, and I know you're tired, but frankly those ships take priority. Earth will need them in the future, and we can rest on the way back to Earth. From now on we'll do with two hour breaks, all of us."

Nikolai nodded grimly. "You can rest when you're dead." He smirked suddenly. "Besides, I've got experience dealing without sleep."

Paige frowned then shrugged. "I can hang I suppose, so long as we have enough coffee to keep me going anyway."

"Disgusting muck," Jean muttered shaking her head. "Seven days, I want us gone from here by then."

It was well she had shaved a day off Mar'vel's timeframe. By the time seven days were done, they had figured out how to get 32 of the 50 ships in the system going, including all of the real heavies. But as that last day was drawing to a close, and the slave program was powering up on all of the ships four full wolf packs, 16 battleships, popped into the system. They spread out four to a side, then further above and below, trying to envelop their prey.

"If we pop out now, will those ships be able to figure out where we're heading?" Jean asked as she stared at the incoming battle cruisers. They were making straight for the Hellion where it was almost within docking range of the Doom Bringer. It would only take about twelve minutes to get within range of the first of the ships that were ready to go, so they didn't have much time.

"Possibly, but remember we were going to do a short jump first and then a longer one back to Earth to throw off the trail anyway," Reed replied from where he was running the sensors, frowning heavily as he looked at the damage the Hellion had taken.

"Then get us out of here," Jean ordered. Not a moment later the hum of the drives deepened as they powered up to enter hyperspace, and they all watched breathless as the derelicts all around them began to do the same. They hadn't been able to do test runs of course, so they didn't know if any or indeed all of those ships would be able to power their drives up to full capacity without running into issues despite the best guesses they could make based off Douglas' program. After a moment, two of the heavy cruisers failed, the power to their drives cutting out abruptly, but the others continued to power up, then with a wink all of them jumped out, leaving the wolf packs behind them.

While the rest of the team took a well-deserved break Jean remained on the bridge as they moved through hyperspace, getting by with catnaps in her seat before the flotilla came out on their first jump two days later. They had lost another three ships somewhere along their journey, the repairs they'd done to them not enough to withstand the pressures of that strange dimension, but the other ships, including the Doom Bringer, all of the battleships and all the battle cruisers were still with them.

Back on the bridge now Douglas and Reed quickly went over the readings they were getting from all of the ships. "We'll have to do some work on one of the battle cruisers and two of the frigates, but other than that we'll be able to jump again soon enough."

Jean nodded grimly then stood up from where she had been sitting in the captain's chair. "Keep the fleet going in normal space until you're hidden on the other side of the star from our entry point into the system." This system was an empty one, consisting only of one gas giant and single large, orange star.

"What are you going to do?" Reed asked.

"You lot start fixing those ships," Jean replied grimly, pulling on her mask and staring at the man. "I'll handle our pursuers if they show up."

While the rest of the incredibly battered junk fleet continued in to the system Jean waited floating in nothingness. Her eyes were closed for a moment as she simply waited, hanging there in space, moving only from the slight bit of impetus she had used to move out from the hatch, trying to find some inner peace in the stars and darkness all around her.

What she was about to do wasn't something Jean really wished to do, but they couldn't afford to have the Kree follow this raid to Earth and the ships they had stolen could not sustain more than one more jump. They'd have to head straight back to Earth from here, and that forced her hand. Jean knew she had to destroy the wolf pack that was after them.

The derelicts weren't even halfway towards hiding themselves on the other side of the star when the wolf packs popped in, proving that they had been able to triangulate the coordinates for the first jump easily. The battleships all popped out into real space guns already blazing as if they expected to come upon the derelict fleet immediately. Jean winced as a few stray blasts pounded her shields, before powering them up further.

By that time the ships that were attacking knew she was there, and again responded much quicker than Jean had expected them to do for such a small human sized target. They saturated space all around her, hammering her with her as many weapons as they could bring to bear.

Still Jean held up her shields, straining now a little, but not as much as she had feared. Then with one hand still thrust forward holding up the shield Jean brought her other hand came up too, her telekinetic powers reaching out as she clenched her hand as if to grab one of the battlecruisers. She wondered fleetingly if she could concentrate on both her telekinetic attack and start a telepathic one, before shaking her head, she couldn't keep her shield up and attack telekinetically and telepathically.

With a wrench of that second hand to the side, she sent the ship she had grabbed flying, flinging it through space to actually impact onto another battleship that was relatively nearby. The ship had been going around Mach one when she released it, and it slammed like a giant railgun blast into the other ship both ships disintegrating under the impact, their engines not even having time to explode.

For a moment the fire of the remaining battleships faltered, then they all raced apart, putting more distance between them and between them and Jean so that she couldn't do that same thing so easily again. However, that gave Jean enough time to renew her energy shield, and reach out telepathically. She sifted through the minds on some of the ships around her, finding officers, and with a shudder of revulsion overriding those minds for a brief moment to get them to open up onto their systems with their sidearms.

Chaos and confusion abounded on those ships for a few moments, but most of their fire didn't let up, and Jean grimaced. So much for that idea. She'd have to really concentrate to take control of enough minds on one ship to turn that ship on its fellows or something of that nature, and she wasn't getting the time she needed to concentrate on it.

With a snarl Jean called upon her Phoenix powers, her aura flaring out like a giant bird of prey made of the fire of a star. Reaching out with both hands she grabbed two of the battleships, her flaming talons crushing and melting and burning! Both ships disintegrated under her grip, and she flung the remainder at some of the others. The effect was like buckshot from a railgun, riddling three other ships and destroying them in turn.

At that point there was only five ships remaining, and the captains on them must've realized that they were losing this battle. They began to turn away, making to jump out towards the nearest Kree held system, not caring where they ended up just away from here. But Jean knew that she couldn't allow even that. She couldn't allow her own presence, the presence of the Phoenix, to be connected to the pirate raid.

Grimly she reached out again with her telekinetic powers, halting all the ships, holding them in place and pulling them back towards her. They began to fire on her again, and she bit her lip so hard it bled as she concentrated both on defense and offense yet again. But the ships couldn't get out of her grip, and soon enough she simply slammed all five of the ships together. The ships came apart, and the battle was finally over.

There were no survivors. None of the Kree even on the group of ships hit by the remains of the first two she had destroyed with her Phoenix powers had tried to evacuate. They stayed, fought, and died rather than flee.

Jean wearily raised a hand, touching her communications gear on the side of her head. "Hellion this is Jean, battle over, I'm coming back," she relayed, her voice weary and grief-stricken.

Reed replied, "Roger, Jean come on home." And while his voice sounded mildly horrified, there was also understanding there.

Several hours later the ship reentered hyperspace heading back to Earth. Jean kept to herself for the first few days after that, needing time to deal with the horror that she had been forced to deal out back there, and knowing that some of the crew were now looking at her fearfully. Surprisingly, Danielle and the rest of the team also looked at her with pity, as if they understood what she was going through or at least understood enough.

Reed however had major issues with what Jean had done. He understood the strategic necessity of it, but her show of force had greatly worried him. When Susan found him making notes about how to possibly contain Jean's telekinetic powers however, his wife took him sharply to task. You did not do that kind of thing with allies, and Jean and the rest of Harry's team had not done a single thing to warrant such suspicions.

That had turned into an argument, but empathy and feelings had worn out over logic and fear, for now at least. Susan knew this would not be the first argument they'd have on this issue. Reed was deeply concerned about mutant powers in general anyway, and what he had seen from Jean worried him even more, despite all of the incredibly powerful enemies they had dealt with in the past. But Susan would sit on him in any event. She desperately wanted them to remain allies of Harry, loving the amount of security he gave Franklin. But if he discovered that Reed was thinking up ways to shut Jean's power down, that relationship would end instantly.

For her part Jean slowly got over the fact that she had been forced to become a mass murderer by telling herself over and over that the Kree had every opportunity to evacuate their ships, and at least a few would have survived if they had, and that they hadn't had to come after them in the first place. It didn't help a lot, but it helped enough.

About six days into journey back to Earth, Jean woke up from an uneasy sleep feeling sick to her stomach. She barely got to her room's bathroom before emptying her stomach into the toilet, holding its sides and groaning in agony for a few moments.

Wiping at her ugly tasting mouth for a moment Jean shuddered wondering what the hell that was. If it had happened directly after the battle, she would've understood but now? "Am I coming down with something?"

With that thought in mind Jean made her way down to the nurse's office, where she found Una already working on Susan. "You should've come to me at once," Una was saying, shaking her head angrily at the blond human. "Trying to soldier through it is fine and dandy, but what if this was something life-threatening?"

"I thought I could handle it," Susan replied simply. "And besides, the work we were doing is important, and I think I know what this is anyway."

"I'm not arguing that, I'm just saying that to do my job I need to be told when you're sick immediately!" The nurse replied hotly. She looked up as the redhead entered. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so. I woke up throwing up, I think I might be coming down with a stomach bug, do you have anything I can take?"

Una looked between the two women frowning. "Susan's complaining about the same thing. Sit down so I can scan you too."

Jean took a seat next to Susan on the same medical bed and the two women waited while Una ran a scanner over both of them, concentrating on their stomachs for a moment as a smile began to appear on her face. "Well I've never had to deal with this issue before, I'm a ship's doctor, not a hospital doctor, but well my system doesn't lie. You're not sick, either of you."

"So what is this?" Jean asked, though Susan had begun to smile.

Una laughed. "You're pregnant both of you! Susan, you seem to be about a month into your pregnancy, Jean you're around three weeks or so." As Jean's eyes widened in shock Una went on, beaming happily at them. "Congratulations!"

End Chapter

---

Woot! Alright, not a lot happened back at Earth, at least not in terms of combat, but after the last chapter I figured that was alright, especially since Jean and her team ran into a lot of trouble on their end. Also hope that everyone likes the bits of romance that went on, and the surprise at the end (er, hope it was a surprise to people as well...) Heh. I would ask for people's opinions on the gender of the baby, though I will not ask for a vote on it. Oh, and no, at no point will the baby or child be kidnapped. Threatened yes, kidnapped no. Too cliché and makes no sense given the defenses Harry

Emma and her dive into Banner's head will feature in the next chapter in a flashback, need to get that bit of imagery right before putting it out there.

Some of you might be asking what happened with my poll, and I have to say that I was rather disappointed with it. Not with the actual poll, I got a lot of votes, but that wasn't really the point. What I wanted was for people to realize that they could've gotten more votes by PM'ing me, and I only got about six, seven people who realized that, and about twenty who PM'd me to ask why WW or ATP weren't in the poll...

And while GDWHOM won, and I will be putting out chapters for it over the other stories I've already started, I decided to put out teaser chapters for the three story ideas that got the most votes, in part because people actually PM'd me about them, whereas only two people PM'd me about GDWHOM. So I will post a WW chapter and a new teaser chapter until WW is done, which should be in about February or so, after that I will post a new poll as to the second long term story I will take up along with ATP. Next month will be Fate Touched in Middle Earth, followed by Wizard of the Dead - which is just bizarre to me, but whatever, I have ideas there so I'll share them, even if I think the reason it got so many votes was people like the hentai inherent in that universe. Will warn you, the actual plot will be far different from what is on my profile. Then after that, will be A Horse taught by the Blade, my Ranma Sekirei crossover. I will also attempt to update a random story I've already posted, we'll see how it goes.

If you want to earn more than one vote in that poll, you may PM me and if you have actual reasons other than 'I like this do it!' or 'I like the echiness in so and so, so do that' I will place five points toward it. I will be started a spreadsheet to keep it all organized. Or, you can head over to my account. For every reason/argument a contributor makes, I will add five points along with points taken from their contribution.

As always please leave a review (though note I didn't name the president, I don't want to get into a real life political debate here). They are the food for the writer's soul, ranging from snack chips to full eight course meals.