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.

29. Chapter 29 Heavy is the Head

I do not own Marvel or Harry Potter for so many reasons it's become irritating to list them.

I have to say I looked up a lot of the shit that has been done to Jean Grey over the years (not for the first time it must be said). Wow, just, why do comic-book writers hate her? I mean wow. The idea it's because she's an avatar of death and rebirth so of course she has to die often is a fucking copout, I just think they don't know what to do with her because they made her so much more powerful than any of the guy characters they could pair realistically pair her with. And don't get me started on canon Cyclops. What… A… Dick. So if anyone, and I mean anyone knows of any fics where Jean or Ororo are paired with someone other than Cyclops or T'Challa and don't disappear into a far too large to be believed harem, I would appreciate you sharing. This is not the first time I've asked, but I am getting desperate.

A brief announcement about Mastermind's fate in this chapter: In the comics there were hints of his basically raping Jean Grey mentally and physically to make her into the Black Queen which was part of why she became the Dark Phoenix. He is almost as bad as the Purple Man, but the comics never followed up on it, letting the Dark Phoenix take center stage with only a bit of mention of what happened to him. If you have problems with how I deal with him knowing that, tough. I think America and a lot of other countries are too lenient on rapists anyway. Castration at the least would prevent recidivism.

Note on the Savage Land: I put it in a giant underground cave and shrink it. Sorry, but there is just no way the Savage Land would be unknown if it was on the surface, not even Magneto could protect it from being found in that case. And frankly in a lot of ways it seems to have been used as a dumping ground for every marvel writer to stash groups or create same. Sorry, no.

Response to guest Newboy: In answer to your questions, yes Emma Steed will eventually recover, but, heh, not without complications. Two, while AIM has attempted to get androids into Harry's companies, they have not had any luck outside the shipping concerns, and there they can't actually learn anything or absconded with any supplies of his potions. Three, well read this chapter and find out, heh.

As for how his friends would react if Harry took life threatening injuries, he's come close a time or two. Jean and Ororo at least no he's not unstoppable, and Piotr and the others know he makes mistakes at times. The battle with Thanos could all too easily have gone the other way, as could the assault on Mephisto.

Summary: While Jean and co. celebrate her return, her announcement and Harry's response to said, Dani met with the spirit of Siygn once again. After getting over the startling euphoria Sigyn seemed to be feeling this close to the pregnant Avatar of the Life-Bringer, they talk some more, and Dani learns some more clues to what has happened to the Asgardians which she passes on. Doom, Reed and Harry continue to build up their space based ventures. Harry, Doom, Paris and Emma finish bringing the Hellfire Club and all it's resources to heel. The mutant 'question' continues to foment violence and hate across the world, despite a lot of progress being made by Harry's faction as other forces start to move, not just Sinister. Harry starts to reach out to several military groups and Captain America, coming out with his secret identity in order to gain their trust and agreement to work together against alien invasions. Harry and Jean meet Hela under the guise of giving her a gift to pay back her , all three learning more about one another, gaining both questions and information about her and the Asgardians in general. Death steps in when the Shadows Which Watch From Above try to manipulate Hela and erase her memories, using the excuse of the gift having been in payment for the gift she had originally created. Amara leads a team down to protect two mutants kidnapped by mafia-types, before stomping on the Mafia hard with aid from Mystique.

Storm leads a team, along with the newest Custodes Banshee, to attack and takeover a boat taking supplies to magneto's hidden base. There they find a partisan on the inside, Wendy nee Stinger, who is willing to help them, having lost her faith in Magneto thanks to the campaign he's led against the Savage Land residents. At the same time, Magneto has slain his sole internal enemy and squashed the organized resistance led by Logan and Ka-Zar. The two escape thanks to another internal partisan, Amelia Voght. Wendy agrees to help the Custodes find the Savage Land, even going so far as to asking them to erase her memories of the entire battle and to let her go back with the rest of the group they had fought to allay any suspicions. Moved by her courage, Cory the house elf agrees to watch her.

A few days latter Dr. Vorlus finds something, a hidden cave near what might have once been a settlement of Vikings. Worried he calls for aid with help from Hedwig, who in her magnificence sensed his need to get in touch with her Harry. Harry leads a force of Custodes into the cave only to run into a horde of Draugr, undead who are far more dangerous than zombies or other undead. Hela, feeling the vile distortion of her power these creatures are, appears to help them with Garm. The rest of the team show up later, turning the tide against the undead. When the last undead is vanquished, the cave suddenly changes, becoming a hall out of Norse legend, where the chapter ends.

I would like to thank Mordreek for his help once again in the Asgardian portions, he really helped me out hugely there. I would also like to thank Kathryn518 for going over the chapter, helping with the flow, the romance and other things of that nature. The chapter will be updated after my grammar/word choice/small mistakes guy has looked at it.

Chapter 29: Heavy Is the Head

For a moment it was all anyone could do just to stare at the walls surrounding them. The lights coming from the torches scattered along the hall illuminated the murals which covered nearly every foot of wall all around them. The murals themselves were magnificent, intricate and detailed, though the colors weren't as bright as modern people would've expected in such magnificent works.

The fact those torches seemed to burn without any smoke being created. Though they did give off a surprising amount of heat warming the cave quickly, something only Harry noticed at first as he canceled his Magia Erebea, shuddering as the pain of his various bruises hit him. He didn't let that dissuade him though, looking around avidly, though he made a mental note to look at the arithmancy of that spell at a later date. I have no idea why but I am just not getting as much out of that spell as I should be these days.

"This is, this is magnificent, and very odd." Dr. Vorlus breathed staring around. "This is beyond anything ever found before. The ancient Norse were not supposed to create art like this, just for the sake of displaying it! But, but these murals…"

Even the roof and floor of the 'cavern' had changed. The stone floor became nearly smooth under their feet except in the center, the edge of which Harry could barely make out under the mounds of Draugr bodies scattered like leaves all around. The roof now had ribs of stone crisscrossing it, fading into half pillars of stone slightly bulging out of the walls. The overall effect was somewhat grandiose. It could only be a hall of some ancient king or mighty lord of some sort.

Here and there were signs of the runic arrays that must have powered whatever magic had been at work here, but they faded as Harry desperately tried to study them. Despite having his mage-sight activated now, Harry couldn't make out anything beyond the ordinary at first except those fading runes for a moment.

The oddest thing about them though was that here and there in the runes which he recognized as Norse were other runes that looked like a cross between Egyptian and Aztec with something else added to them. Something that reminded him all too easily of the flesh-crawling, soul corrupting magic that Voldemort and his lackeys had been so enamored with.

Even as he used his occlumency to record the bits of the arrays which were still visible for latter study, Harry realized he was looking at two different arrays here. One superimposed upon and taking power from the other perhaps? A second later they were gone, and Harry sighed faintly. Damn, didn't see enough of it, a few new runes, but no idea what they do, ugh, experimenting with runes is so damn dangerous, yeah, let's put that off for a bit.

He kept on looking however while the people around him seemed almost stunned into immobility as they took in the murals and the changed hall. Even in his head Harry could no longer call this place a cavern, though he wondered why it had been hidden like this. Or, was it only hidden after Ragnarok and whatever it really did to the Asgardians?

In this manner Harry noticed a small hidden alcove at the far end of the hallway, glowing brightly to his magical senses but, when he ended his Mage Sight for a second, disappeared into the rock of one of the pillars. Moving forward he ignored everything else for now, eager to see what he could find out about the magic at play here.

Behind him Ororo and Jean began to help with the injured, healing them of the most debilitating wounds. The Draugr had fought like the mad beasts of legend they were, no doubt about it. Danielle in particular knew how close she had been to being overwhelmed, and made a point of going over to Garm, thanking him for his help in the battle. The direwolf grinned toothily at her, but replied that it was her mistress that had brought him, any thanks should go to her. Both Ororo and Jean looked at said mistress, who was still frozen in place, for a few seconds before she began to walk around the hall looking at the murals.

Hela's battle outfit faded out as they watched. The wailing skull mask faded into her red mask, the metal horns curving outward in what looked like a slow transfiguration as if the change was happening on automatic rather than by conscious command. Hela's armor also changed back into her red and black outfit, the metal and leather fading into the smoky dress of her more frequent choosing.

At the telepathic equivalent of an elbow nudge Harry turned from his work in time to catch the mask change, allowing the bottom of Hela's face, her cheeks and a bit more of her eyes, to be seen again. That portion showed a shocked wonder that Harry knew was vastly out of character for the poised queen of Niflheim. As he watched she raised a hand to her forehead, heedless of her nails digging into her fair skin and growling angrily at something.

Harry hurried over to her side, touching her shoulder lightly while looking searchingly at her expression. "Are you all right?"

"I, why can't I remember!?" Hela suddenly shouted, causing many of the others to turn in their direction. Ororo moved to join the two of them quickly as did Jean when they heard the cry.

"I remember, I remember some of these, I've even seen a few of these murals before. I remember being here with Sif I think… She was, she was teaching me something, something about interior design? I remember her not being very good at it, and someone else just laughing like a loon in the background." Hela's lips actually quirked into a smile for a moment before turning into a wince of pain.

Harry blinked and was about to laugh when Ororo's pinched his rear as hard as she could. Still wearing his crysis suit that didn't hurt of course but it was so out of character for Ororo (at least in public) it still stopped his words.

"I remember being a young child here, chasing someone else through these woods!" she said pointing to one mural. "They look so familiar, like a half-remembered dream. I was happy. I was happy in those times, I was happy here. But all the memories there are, I can't…" she struggled to find the words, her hand rising to her head once more. "The memories won't come! They're so, so fragmented! As if I am seeing a puzzle but not the entirety of the puzzle, simply all the pieces moving around in the air, and I'm staring at them all through a keyhole!"

Harry and Jean both made to take her hands, but Hela ignored them, moving on down the hall to another mural and staring at it almost accusingly. Ororo sent them a look, shaking her head minutely. Jean quizzically opened their telepathic link and Ororo replied quickly down that connection. "Remember, Hela is a queen, she won't want pity, and not even sympathy really. Also remember unless you've suddenly figured out a way to break whatever geis is on Hela we still can't help her."

Harry reluctantly shook his head at that question, and Ororo nodded at seeing her point hit home. "Then it's best to let her move around on her own for now. I'll watch her."

With a final shake of his head and a last look toward Hela Harry moved over to Dr. Vorlus, and the rest of the team. While Ororo moved to stand beside Hela and the two of them made their way around the hall, he moved from one to another of the team congratulating them on their part the battle, checking up on them as Jean did the same. She also called back to Hogwarts, telling Dennis and the others there they were all right, and had arrived in time to help Harry and his team.

With that done he gestured for Dr. Vorlus to join him for a moment. "Doctor, there seems to be something hidden in a little alcove here." He pointed to where his mage sight could still see several wards covering a small section of a half-pillar. "Do you think there might be physical traps on it as well?"

"Hmm…" Dr. Vorlus mused, tearing his attention away from the nearest mural with difficulty. The image in question showed what looked like someone wielding a hammer in the background as several Jotun charged him, while behind them in turn came several other warriors led by a woman with silver armor, long black hair and a sword, each detail given loving attention. Harry could tell it was a pincer movement of some kind, but why it seemed to draw Vorlus' attention he didn't know.

"I don't think so. This is obviously a hall of some sort rather than a burial mound, so traps would be incongruous. Although given these murals and the battle we just went through, I refuse to state such categorically." Vorlus' lips twitched in a wintry smile. "This art style is all wrong you know, the style of the rest of the hall makes much more sense, but the murals just don't fit what is known of the Norse lifestyle."

"Never been an art fan myself, sorry." Harry said absentmindedly, his hands moving in the air slowly as his manipulated the magic of the hiding place, noticing that only one of the wards around it felt like the vile-seeming runes he had seen moments ago. The power of the array was fading slowly, but he couldn't see what was powering it at present. A few moments passed while Vorlus went back to studying the nearest mural, mumbling under his breath as he stared at the weapons of the warriors, trying to use them to identify them since their faces were all faced away from the viewer.

Hela stopped occasionally, pointing at one scene, though surprisingly not the scenes of combat or violence for the most part. It was the other scenes, the ones of a more homey atmosphere that she seemed to recognize, of children scampering around woods, or of a meal being served in the hall.

"I remember this! That little girl in the background there, the one hiding behind a tree? That is me! I was playing some silly little hiding game, but we had decided instead to ambush someone, can't remember who, an adult I think…" Hela moved on shaking her head in pain again.

"How did the game end?"Ororo asked as they moved to the next mural.

Hela glanced at her, then away. "I think we all jumped her at once, and then I believe I found myself hung up by a tree by my ankles somehow. It was all in good fun of course, but I remember thinking that I really needed to take my sword training more seriously from then on. Even then you see I knew what my role was, and I refused to do aught but my best."

"I could wish that everyone man, mortal and God thought in that manner," Ororo said.

Hela laughed, nodding her head. "True enough! Did Harry tell you about the Warriors Three? If not for their valor the three would be simply buffoons in gaudy clothing, and yet they do have a certain...straightforward and ponderously unstoppable fervor to them that seems to make up for that."

Ororo laughed, and the two moved on, joined by Garm. Ororo looked at the beast, bowing her head respectfully to it as the beast did the same to her feeling the power of the woman in front of her. By the halls of Niflheim, my mistress has definitely taken up with an interesting crowd. First the seidr man, then this one, a lady of the storm like unto Thor. And then there is the avatar of her of her mistress's opposite. Whatever is next?

Hela's reaction to the scenes in the murals became worse as they went on, her headache increasing as did her feelings of something being wrong. How could they know, who made all these? This was a scene, my siblings and someone else, another relation somehow, though that's impossible, Sif and Thor were childless, I know they were! But, how could anyone have created these murals with such detail, and why can I not remember?

Even so, the feeling of this place was fighting to put a smile on Hela's face. There was just a feeling of homeliness here, of being protected and welcomed in a way that she had never felt before. Oh Hela felt safe in her own halls of course, in her own dimension entirely in fact. But that was different, that was something from her own power, this was something else entirely, she had no word for it.

The two of them suddenly stopped and stared at one particular mural. The next scene was of a valley, with several giant creatures, Jotun, Ororo presumed, stomping down the trail into it, chasing after one man, while another stood on top of craggy overhang. The overhang looked as if it was made of small rocks, set in such a way that you knew just by looking at the picture what was going to happen. "He's going to drop that outcrop on them isn't he?"

"I remember this too," Hela laughed. "There was a group of rogue or supposedly rogue Jotun, they came down from their mountain fastness and absconded several dozen human children. The locals called for Thor but he could not track them, he was never that good at tracking or hunting you see, far too blunt and impulsive. And then someone had discovered a way back to their lairs that was previously hidden until their arrival. Then...someone else came along, offering his aide for some reason or other." she said gesturing at the image of the person on top.

Ororo looked at the individual closely, noticing what looked like the shape of some kind of bird behind him, almost merging into the man's own image. Interesting. Could that be Loki? If so, Hela still can't connect this image to Loki because it is a positive memory of him perhaps? The geis on the Asgardians is looking more and more insidious every time we run into it! Her eyes flashed lately, but she shook off the dark mood listening intently as Hela went on.

"He not only found their trail, but he freed the children. Then he somehow tricked the Jotun into believing him when he told them which direction the children had gone, some tale about a lone hunter having snuck into their camp and leading them off."

Hela laughed harshly, causing several of the others who were milling around, or gathering the Draugr's remains to burn towards them in surprise. "I can still remember hearing Thor's roaring bugle of a voice thundering out over the mountain passes. 'You poor fools, I'm not trapped here with you, you're trapped in here with me!' Always the great protector Thor was, yet never did he…" Hela scowled, but stopped herself before going further, shaking off that thought quickly.

She stopped again in front of the next portrait over. It was a family scene of some kind, with a girl she recognized as herself watching her brother Fenrir wrestling with two human-looking boys while two men laughed at something in the background, ignoring the children for now. One of them she could see was Thor, the other, his features were only vaguely familiar to her. He looked a bit of what she could recall her father looked like, but that couldn't be, could it? He had never treated her like this!

For some reason Hela felt tears begin to form in her eyes, but was brought back to the here and now before she could continue on. Garm had been trying to get her attention by nudging his large snout into her side, but realizing what he wanted Ororo sent a small spark into Hela's hand. Ororo turned aside from the murals, staring out over the bodies of Draugr. "I'm sorry to say that it's time once again to return to the here and now."

Hela looked irritated but nodded in agreement, staring back at Ororo. "Some of the dead were not Northmen, many of the children seem to fall under that category and their souls will need to be cared for."

"I will take care of that." Ororo replied.

The two of them began the grim business of separating the young children from the rest of the Draugr, with Garm following at their heels. In this they quickly gathered the rest of the team, even Jean, who had all been talking quietly among themselves, going over the battle. This was grim work on many levels, and Paige, Piotr, and Amara all had to stop occasionally, leaving the hall out into the sweeter air of the passageway leading to it. Even Danielle and Nikolai in their helmet and mask had trouble staying to the task, both the smell and the sights of the grotesque, distended bodies of the Draugr's corpses, children and adult getting to them all.

Luckily Harry had heard them gagging and looked up from his work to hit them all with a few spells that banished the smell of the dead Draugr. That had kept all but Paige from throwing up, although they were still sickened by the remains. The bodies of the adult Draugr were bad, the bodies of the children were heart-rending, the sense of wrongness that seemed to pervade their shrunken forms staying even in death.

Hela grimly moved around the hall, stopping at each adult corpse in turn. Her hands hovered over their chests or heads occasionally flexing in a way that only partly occurred on the physical plane. When she stopped her hand held a green glob of gas or something which seemed to pulse with violet light.

More than one of the Custodes turned away as Hela held it out to Garm, who chomped down perfunctorily. It didn't seem to taste very good if Garm's expression was any judge, although his wolfish muzzle made deciphering his expressions a tad difficult for those that didn't know wolves or dogs well enough. But he kept at it, and Hela kept ripping, neither wavering in their determination to get the grisly task over with.

Minutes after that work began Harry sighed, draining the last ward and suddenly Vorlus could see what he had been concentrating on, a small alcove carved out of the half-pillar appearing before his eyes. After a final moment Harry reached in, pulling out the object inside.

It was a belt, slightly larger than Colossus's waist in his metal form. It was about four inches thick too, and covered from buckle to tongue with intricate designs carved into the leather. Hung here and there along its length with rings of stone which were in turn carved by other designs, this time of various weapons and animals. The design on the leather was of some kind of beast moving along its length, twisting over itself with many clawed hands grasping. But if you looked at it another way, the beast and the background changed places. The buckle itself was metal, beaten iron, with the equally intricate maw of a lizard beast of some kind, the tongue of the buckle being shaped like a spear seguing into the beast's tongue at the bottom.

"Hela, Dr. Vorlus, does this look familiar to either of you?"

"Vaguely,"Hela said, almost but not quite dismissively as she turned from her work to glance at the belt. "I've seen it somewhere before, though I can't rightly remember where. It wasn't important at the time I know that." With that said she turned her attention back to the task at hand

Dr. Vorlus smiled in appreciation, leaning down to examine the belt closely. "Ah, this is an amazing example of true Norse art as we understand it, not like these murals for all their detail. It's decorated in the Oseberg style, so at least ninth century, though it could be far older given how well-preserved it is. Hmm… some of the designs on it look familiar, but I can't place them. It's obviously important in some fashion, but it doesn't match any of the famous belt designs I am aware of. But look, stone rings and iron buckle on the same item, interesting, and rather unique I think. I could look through my notes, see what I can find out about some of the specific images here, the belt buckle in particular could point to its significance."

Harry handed the belt over to Vorlus, placing a small tracking charm on it just in case. He couldn't sense any magic on the, but, though Harry couldn't really explain why, it did seem to have a sense of the mystical about it. It doesn't show anything in my Mage Sight, but then again neither did, what did Hela call it, a seidr trap? Magic worked into the stone itself rather than on the surface? Goblins used to do that with metal rings and other things, somehow working runic arrays into the various smelting processes but not stone. And I doubt they ever found the equivalent of the seidr trap, else they would've rebelled again at some point.

Although, Harry suddenly snapping his fingers and looking over to Danielle. This isn't the first item of Asgardian origin that I wasn't able to spot any actual magic in that was clearly still magical for all that. Somehow the Asgardians are able to create items of power that can only work for specific individuals. This could be another example of that, but if so who is it supposed to work for?

"Keep it for now doctor, but I think you should keep it hidden as well." Harry warned the history professor. "I don't know what connection it could have to the rest of this place, but it must be important to someone somehow, and given what they set up here…"

Vorlus made to speak, but Harry held up a hand. "I really doubt the age of this place should be taken as proof that whoever built it is gone, and certainly not powerless."

Vorlus nodded quickly, taking the belt and a small bag of holding Harry gave him. After that, Dr. Vorlus left Guardian and returned with his students who still gaped around the hall in shock and awe, never noticing Harry hitting them all with a few spells from the Confoundus school. None of them, not even Vorlus, would ever remember anything about his features or that of the rest of the Custodes.

After that he pulled off his mask, gesturing to the others to do the same many of whom did so with some relief, thankful that they could breathe free again. Despite all of the spells and science that had gone into them, nothing could stop their masks from getting sweaty and uncomfortable.

Harry chuckled quietly as he watched the students suddenly register Garm's presence as he moved, growling low in his throat as he hacked twice, his tongue lolling out. "Twice cooked meat always tastes so foul! I will need something to clear my throat after this mistress."

"I'll conjure up a giant breath mint for you later," Harry replied dryly.

Hela looked up from her ongoing work, gesturing angrily at the doctor and his students. "Well what are you all waiting for?! Get out of here and bring some wood! We'll need enough to build pyres for the honored dead at the very least."

At her imperious glare they all obeyed rapidly, causing Garm and Harry to exchange a small laugh. "Smart boys."

"Very smart." Garm nodded, turning back to follow his mistress as she moved forward once more, grimacing as he consumed more of the tainted souls.

Eventually they were done, separating the children from the adults and the children further into those who Hela could sense had believed in the Asgardians. About a fifth of the entire Draugr horde had been made of children. The two women exchanged a glance. "Funeral pyres are normally only used for those honored dead who have fallen in battle but I think I can make an exception in this case."

"It would be in a most foul thing not to," Ororo said, clasping her hand lightly. Hela squeezed back and the two women stood there silent for a moment joined after only a brief second by Jean and Harry. Harry took Hela's other hand, and Jean took Ororo's. "What do you need us to do?"

It took around 40 minutes or so for everything to be prepared to Ororo and Hela's exacting expectations. First, Jean turned the bodies of the adult Draugr, now soulless hunks of desiccated meat, into so much ash. Then she grabbed said ash and hurled it out into the wilderness beyond the cave entrance.

In contrast Harry and Jean worked together for a few moments putting the dismembered bodies of the children back together as well as they could, then putting each child on a small separate pile of wood prepared by the returning students and Custodes. Both the children of the North and the others were placed on these miniature funeral pyres.

By the time they were done, Ororo and Hela returned from wherever they had gone (no one had seen them actually leave), and everyone, even Dr. Vorlus, currently exclaiming over one of the murals to his students who were grateful for something to concentrate on besides the desiccated bodies of the children, looked at them. A few joined the Custodes in taking their hats off and Piotr and Paige both went to one knee, crossing themselves as they bowed their heads in prayer. While not as staunch a Catholic as Piotr was in most ways, Paige still believed, and the children among the Draugr had horrified her.

Gone was Ororo's Custodes suit, replaced by diaphanous silks of white wrapped around her in a manner Harry had only seen once before, when she presided over a ceremony for the souls of the children slain in the wizard's last stand in Camelot. The silk strands wafted behind her giving Ororo an altogether ethereal look as she moved forward on naked feet, ignoring the cold of the stone and the blood still splattered everywhere.

Gold jangled on Ororo's wrists, simple gold band on one wrist accompanying the Panja ring that Harry had given her on the other. Her hair was held up in a headdress, one that none of the others there had seen before, a thing of ivory and gold, with a sun set in the center, storm clouds and lightning bolts delicately carved out of the rest.

Hela too had changed. Gone was Hela's normal garb of red and black leather and metal armor replaced by a dark green dress, with no armor in sight. It covered her from shoulder to ankle, was open slightly down the side allowing her to walk freely, and only hinting lightly at her décolletage. Along the edges silver embroidery sparkled and shivered in the light of the lamps.

Her headdress and hair had also changed. Her mask had shrunk now only covering her eyes and forehead, the metal horns and side pieces gone and the color now green rather than red, her pearl-like skin on display even more given her outfit's dark black hair was loose down her back, a cascade of shimmering darkness so black it barely shimmered in the light.

The contrast between the two women was startling, light and dark, an Harry almost thought it had to be deliberate before shaking his head at the very idea either would do so. And the expression on their faces was the same. Loving grief mixed with sternness was as close as Harry could get to describing it, and Harry knew he couldn't ever really give their emotions justice at this point in time.

Standing in front of the rows of pyres the two woman looked at one another, then at some unspoken agreement Ororo stepped forward, raising her hands in benediction.

"Goddess of wind, Goddess of water, God of Earth and Sun and Star. Before you are children, whose souls and bodies have been taken from the wheel, taken from their rightful place in the great scheme of the universe of which even the mightiest are but a small part. No one alive today can know how they fell, how they were torn from the loving embrace of the wheel of eternity. But we have now avenged them, torn them in turn from their eternal prison, and ask that you guide these souls back into the great wheel so that they may come again, so that we may know them again. Guide their way in the darkness of this great journey. Give wings to them to dream by, and let them return from the darkness to the light to walk amongst us again in some bright future day."

It wasn't Christian, it wasn't Asatru, Hindu or any other major religion. But somehow the emotions of Ororo's benediction came through, and everyone there bowed their heads to join Piotr and Paige's in prayer.

For a moment the hall was silent, as Harry felt that sense of something passing that he had felt all those months ago outside the castle when Ororo had talked him into having a similar ceremony for the children that had died in that final battle. If I didn't believe in souls before all this, I surely would now, Harry thought, his head remaining bowed.

And someone somewhere had set this trap into motion, uncaring or perhaps even enjoying the fact that these little children would be ripped from the wheel for so long before getting the rightful chance to start over. That made him angry, and if he hadn't already determined to look into the Asgardian question as soon as everything else settled down, he certainly would have now.

Beside him Jean squeezed his hand, wordlessly telling him she understood his thoughts without him having to communicate them or maybe she had even sense them down that ever open telepathic highway between them. "Remember Harry, we've got one issue already coming up soon, let's deal with that before we go looking for more. And as Ororo said, we just don't know how to remove whatever is controlling the Asgardians anyway."

Harry nodded at her, but inside he thought to himself, Yes but if trouble comes looking for me, well I'll have to deal with it won't I?

After a moment of silence Hela stood forward while Ororo stepped back. Looking at the rows of dead in front of her, she began. "What was stolen from you in life, shall be repaid to you in the next. After your soul leaves this plane you will find eylandəvbarnœska, the 'Isle of childhood'. What comforts my land may provide shall be yours, and you will remain safe and secure. No harm or trouble will reach your Island by god, demon or mortal. This by my power I make so and so it shall be."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he and Ororo both felt a splash of magic from that, the sign of a magic sealed in the individuals own magic. So Asgardians can do that too, interesting. Hela had basically just vowed on her own power to see that done, and considering it was her realm and her right, Harry doubted any power short of her own mistress could gainsay it.

His eyes widened slightly in surprise along with every other person there save perhaps Piotr and Ororo as Hela actually knelt to the stone in front of the pyres. For just a moment Harry had had to stop himself from stopping her, but refrained, knowing not only was it not his place but that she had to do this. The events here in this hidden hall had shaken her badly, and intellectually he also knew that someone having somehow either perverted her power to let Draugr spread their disease to souls which should not have been able to take it had both enraged Hela and wracked her with guilt. She needed to do this.

"I should have felt what occurred to you long ago, it was my power that was so twisted and used to do this to you somehow, my power which was blinded in turn. I do not know who it was, but I will find out and I will make them pay." She rose and stepped back from the pyre, whispering so low that only Harry and those nearest could hear her. "And when we meet again in my realm I hope to have earned your forgiveness for not finding you sooner."

Once again everyone bowed their heads and joined with her for that moment, and Hela sighed as she stood up, gesturing Jean forward. Phoenix fire shot out from Jean's hands, and all of the pyres went up in flames, burning to ash within seconds.

Again there was that feeling of something unseen passing, and Hela smiled wanly. "They will find welcome in my realm, both believers and not." she said, taking Ororo's hands in her own. "Trust me on that sister."

Ororo nodded, squeezing her hands back. "I do."

Almost immediately after the last Draugr body disintegrated, a feeling of protective, boisterous welcome which had been in the background since the battle ended grew to a point everyone was feeling it. The Custodes and the students began to smile, the atmosphere noticeably lightening as Harry looked around in faint surprise at the effect, which was like a cheering charm on steroids.

Turning his attention away he saw Dr. Vorlus moving forward, his eagerness to question this goddess in front of him pushing through everything else going on at last. While she didn't exactly match any of the images he had ever seen every one of the Custodes and Guardian himself had called her Hela, so he was willing to go along with that until evidence proved them wrong. And to question an actual Asgardian goddess! What could she tell me about our past, about my faith?

Harry intercepted the man before gathering up Vorlus' students as well with a single glare. "This is not the time Doctor." When Dr. Vorlus made to speak Harry cut him off, "This… is … not… the… time. Hela's just fought a major battle, and had an equally large shock to her system, not to mention the grief she's feeling right now, hell that we're all feeling."

Despite understanding where Guardian was coming from, Vorlus still opened his mouth to protest. However the other man went on before he could get a word out. "Besides, did you ever ask yourself why Magical Minds was funding your explorations? What problems they could see coming up that no one else could?"

At that Vorlus frowned, the rest of his intellect coming online at last to try to override his knowledge lust. His frown soon turned into a smile however. The feeling of this place was such that no one could really stay irritated for long. It was even working on Ororo and Hela surprisingly. "I suppose I can talk to her later, can't I?"

That had come out almost as a plea, but Harry didn't make any comment on it, his voice going on much lower now, so only Vorlus could hear. "Possibly. As I said, there are reasons why I don't want you to question Hela about her past too closely. Or didn't you notice Hela was in pain while looking at those murals? There's something really wrong with the Asgardians, and we're only just scratching the surface."

And our continual poking around the edges might evoke a response. Harry thought grimly. I am more certain there is something, or someone behind what has been done to the Asgardians, and if that is the case I don't know if I can predict the manner they will respond to us.

"I see." Dr. Vorlus replied shaking his head, not following all of Harry's thoughts but enough to see his point and remembering Harry's comments when he handed over the belt. "Very well, I won't try to press questions on Hela just yet." He looked at his students, none of whom seemed to have connected the goddess before them with the goddess of mythology so different was her appearance. They were more interested in talking to the Custodes, and simply looking at the murals exclaiming about the richness of them, the depth of detail. Several of them had even brought along notebooks and were quickly jotting down notes.

Harry smirked as he noticed one of his students, one of only two girls, was flirting with Nikolai. Paige was nearby her head cocked thoughtfully while behind them Jean, Danielle and Piotr were talking quietly, smiles on their faces as they did. Just then a loud rumble went through the hall, causing many people to cringe and others to look around in shock, with Piotr going so far as to change back into his metal body.

Then they stopped, all eyes turning to Garm, who despite his still fearsome appearance somehow contrived to look sheepish for a second. "Well excuse me, Draugr souls don't exactly fill me up you know. And I'm always hungry after a battle."

"I actually think that's an excellent idea," Hela said, stroking the great wolf's ears for a moment. "There should be a feast of victory after such an epic battle, truly one worth a skjald's song! Then too," she went on, turning to look back at the space which had previously been occupied by the funeral pyres. "We also feast to celebrate the dead."

She shrugged effortlessly, her dress flowing to match. "Normally that would occur a week or so after their death, but given all our disparate duties it makes more sense to do so now. It is intended to show death that the living are not afraid of it, that we honor their memory and will enjoy the life they no longer can, while at the same time showing the dead the life they can look forward to, be it in the halls of my realm or in their next journey through the wheel."

"I agree," Piotr said, coming out of his armored form wincing as he did. While Ororo had healed the worst of their wounds, she hadn't healed all of their injuries. After all, wounds were part of the learning process for any soldier, getting rid of them after every training session or fight would both cheapen the experience and make them far more prone to make stupid mistakes in the future.

"It would be like saying 'fuck you' to the undead bastards." Paige said with a nod smiling over at Hela. "I'm in."

Harry smiled faintly, exchanging a glance with Jean, Nikolai and Ororo, the most experienced of those present, who all nodded. What everything all those arguments boiled down to was that they all wanted to get wasted and feel better after the emotional and physical turmoil of the past few hours. Which frankly was fine by him. "Clare?"

The little female house elf appeared beside him, causing many of the students who had still been looking around at the murals jotting down notes or talking earnestly to Dr. Vorlus about one mural near the entrance to stop and stare. All of the Custodes however took it in stride, smiling or waving at the newcomer.

The house elf waved back smiling widely. None of the masters and mistresses or their non-magical friends ever took the house elves for granted, which all of them liked, even the oldest ones who had always thought a good house elf should never be seen. "What can Clare do for you master, mistress?"

"I am going to be conjuring some furniture here in a moment Clare for a meal. Could you hop back to Camelot and ask the cooks to prepare a meal for around 20 or so?" He said, glancing at Garm. "With at least six portions of pure meat dishes. Or do you not like anything cooked?"

"Grilled and charred is fine, so long as there is a lot of it." Garm replied, all his teeth showing in a grin. I like this Seidr man even more now!

Ororo smiled, going down to her knees next to the house elf. "Could you also bring some alcohol? Some of the fire whiskey I think, and a brandy for myself." She looked apologetically over at Jean, who shook her head waving that off. I'm sorry Jean, but after the day I've had, well I think I just need a drink.

"I on the other hand won't." Harry said, smacking his chest with one hand and grinning over at Jean who rolled her eyes but still sent a brief burst of appreciative emotions down their telepathic link. Even Harry was beginning to be affected by the feeling of euphoric cheer in this place. It was the mix of a cheering charm and more physical feelings: the warmth of a fireplace after a day out in the cold, the smell of a good meal, the feeling of being protected against both man and weather, of fierce protectiveness and of being safe.

Which, Harry thought, looking down at the large symbol of a hammer etched into the very center of the stone floor, makes a lot of sense considering whose hall this was, Defender of the common man indeed! I wonder if this was his main house, what was the name of that again? Or was it something like a summer home or maybe just his preferred house to raise his children. I'd guess those are the other unknown children in those murals.

"Clare will do so mistress, master." Clare said, curtseying prettily.

"Well I don't know about you," Paige said, cracking her shoulders before reaching over to grab Danielle. "But us girls, I think we need to head off somewhere and get changed. And I fo' sure ain't gonna cancel my metal form with all these boys around and give 'em a free show."

"I will take you back to Camelot with the Masters permission, miss." Clare replied.

Harry waved them on, and all the girls save Ororo and Jean disappeared with the house elf. The men all looked at Harry and he shrugged, waving his hands. "If anyone wants to change out of their suit I can cover you."

Not surprised when all of the men shook their heads Harry quickly turned his attention to transfiguring the table, only to be surprised when Hela moved to his side to give him the critiques on what the wood should look like, the chairs and the designs on both. This was a lot of finicky work, since she seemed to prefer a heavily ornamented style rather than the simpler style Harry could conjure without much concentration. Harry shook his head, smirking at her. "Do you want to do this?"

She waved a hand airily. "Certainly not, you're doing just fine on your own, with me directing you of course. With the women in your life you should be used to taking direction at times."

Blushing and looking away Harry coughed at the unintended innuendo, as Jean laughed aloud nearby and Ororo simply smiled, winking at Hela. She in turn suddenly realized how her words could be taken and flushed slightly but did not look away.

By the time Harry was done with the chair and tables to Hela's satisfaction, Clare and the others were back. Kitty was with them: she had been in Camelot hanging out with her parents at the time they had gotten word that Dr. Vorlus had found something. She moved immediately towards Ororo, pulling the older woman into a hug. The two of them talked for a few moments Kitty's sad expression showing that she knew what had happened here.

With them were five other house elves, each of them with her hands in the air levitating several dishes forward. One of them looked askance at Garm then over at Master Harry. "Master, will the large doggy eat at the table?"

"I will eat here thank you," Garm said, growling low in his throat. "And I am not a dog. Would a human like to be called a monkey?"

"Evolutionary speaking wouldn't that the other way around?" Nikolai asked, then ducked a swipe from Garm as he move to sit at the table.

The promise of food and lots of it pulled the students away from their various studies, and they all sat down with the Custodes, blinking as they stared at first Paige then Amara and Danielle. Of course there were a few girls among the students already, but while they weren't exactly unattractive, they weren't as young or as good-looking as these three.

More than one student there ran a hand through his hair and smiled hopefully towards these new girls, only steering clear of Amara as Piotr sat by her side, gently taking one hand in his, turning it upward to kiss her palm. She smiled, and the two of them pulled plates to them before standing up quickly and moving towards the murals, which neither of them had taken the time to study as the students had just yet. But as painters both of them were more interested in style and structure rather than the details and the sagas they seemed to depict.

Jean and Ororo sat on one side of Harry at the head of the table, gesturing Hela to sit on his other side. This seating arrangement made Hela raise her eyebrows at Ororo and Jean, who both shook their heads but smiled as they did. She shrugged, and decided to put off any long-term thinking for the night. Right now she had a simple objective: have fun and forget for a time what had occurred this day.

She grabbed up a large stein filled with some local alcohol, it wasn't mead by any means, but it at least smelled somewhat palatable. She downed the entire stein in one long gulp, then set it down, smacking her lips. "MMmmm, that is quite tasty, what is it?"

Harry blinked then looked at the bottle set on table. "Looks like a hard cider of some kind, huh, wonder where that came from."

A faint pop behind him heralded one of the house-elves, not Clare, an older male, appearing there, bowing his head slightly. "Master, it bes the chief elf's job to stock the wines. We's have brought many types of beer, hard ciderses, and many types of brandies for the mistress."

"Well keep it coming little wight, keep it coming!" Hela said, already holding up her flagon again, which Harry estimated was at least half again the size of a normal beer bottle.

She slugged half of it back before digging in as around them dozens of conversations began between the Custodes and the bemused students, unsure what to make about this strange gathering. More than a few were convinced they were actually dreaming all this. But they had all decided to go along with things for now.

Harry began to eat as well as did Ororo and Jean, but he reached out, stopping Hela from bringing the flagon to her lips a third time. "Before we all get too deep into our cups, I need to know if there could be more sites like this."

Staring down at his hand on hers, Hela flicked it off her wrist irritably, but did not finish bringing her flagon to her lips. "I do not believe so, but since this one was hidden from me I cannot say. I would have said that was impossible, but with the proof before me, I cannot argue that it occurred. I however have the feel of this now, if someone else has usurped the power over who dies and who is consigned to un-life, I will be able to track them down given time to analyze the, call it a magical signature. You human magic users know that different magic users have different magical signatures? This is much the same thing."

She scowled angrily, her grip causing the stein to creak from the pressure. "I wonder how they went about it in the first place, I should have felt the creation of so many unnatural Draugr, let alone their ongoing taint. And like that of my mistress, my power over such would bypass any wards or other defenses. But the first I knew of it was when they appeared to attack you and yours." Hela shook her head, bringing the flagon up to her lips and draining the rest of it before setting it down with a thunk.

"But that is for later, for now I wish to talk about something far less depressing. These feasts are for merrymaking, not borrowing trouble from Skuld!"

While he didn't get the reference to Skuld right away, Harry smiled genially looking around as the noise of conversation and laughter began to rise. The feeling of welcome and protection that Harry had noticed after the Draugr bodies were dealt with had been slowly growing in the air all the time. Harry likened it now to the feeling he and the other magic users could feel in Camelot now that the old castle was being used for its purpose once more, only slightly less joyful and more… Harry had trouble putting it into words, the closest he could get was rowdily protective perhaps. A feeling of being protected and welcomed that fully matched what he knew of Thor. "I don't think you'll have any arguments here about that.

Harry leaned back lightly, looking around at the goings on as Hela, Ororo and Jean engaged in a discussion about hair color and clothing for some reason. Kitty got in on that, talking about some of the hair care products she used before turning back to engage Banshee in a talk about his daughter, stopping the progress the man had made on his own drinking with some difficulty. Psylocke, who had been noticeably quiet up till now, was further down the table talking to Dr. Vorlus and Nate Price, arguing about political systems of all things, though how that conversation had come up Harry didn't know.

In a lull in the conversation about hair Harry joined in, engaging Hela in a discussion about runes, and telling her about some of the runic languages he used, which she had shown intense interest in. He did so for several minutes, enthralling her with many of the effects runic arrays could achieve, such diverse services, which Norse runes couldn't match.

Hearing that Harry shrugged his shoulders. "There's always more to learn I suppose. For instance that magic trap that was here, I've no idea how that could work. Do you?" Harry was very interested in that runic array, as well as the trick of how to hide runes inside the fabric of the rocks like this place had.

"Oh yes." Hela's lips twisted into a faint sneer and she shook her head. I've never spoken to him about it of course, Old One-Eye rarely teaches others his tricks, not like you. Not, mind you that your openness about your knowledge is a mark against you Harry Potter, but Odin believes that knowledge is power, and he refuses to share it openly. He learned that trick of embedding runic arrays into the very matter of things, hiding them from sight, ages ago, though it is a long process. I know the walls of Asgard have some protective wards embedded in them, and the Rainbow bridge of course is one of his greatest achievements."

She scowled sourly, shaking her head, irritable as she always was whenever Odin came up in conversation. His abandonment of her and her brothers because of the prophecy of Ragnarok was a festering wound in her for all Hela's personal power. But she shook it off, the mood of the place not letting her remain angry even as she tried to stay serious. "I am uncertain why he created the seidr trap here, but that bit at least was from him."

She gulped another flagon down, this time of the brandy Ororo had asked for, little under half an entire bottle's worth gone like water. "I am certain however, the Draugr were not from him. The old, one-eyed bastard could not create so many and keep the process hidden from me, not even on Earth in a place like this since they fall under my purview."

She held up a hand, dipping a fork into the seared tuna that was currently on her plate. "And before you ask, no, One-Eye would not have done it even if he could. While I loathe the bastard, and acknowledge he can be fell-handed when punishing those who cross him or betray the laws of the land, the level of vile cruelty this would have taken is beyond him. Not without something fundamental having changed within him to such an extent that his wife Frigg at the very least would know."

"I see." Harry said, leaning back and allowing Jean to engage Hela on a conversation about Niflheim and the stars Hela could see from there. While interesting and possibly useful in the long term that conversation did not grab Harry's attention just yet, and it went downhill quickly, the two of them coming up with their own names for the various constellations and legends about them.

Having used his occlumency to memorize them when they were visible, Harry was able to pull up an image of the runic arrays in the walls as they faded, their power source gone. So, that really was two runic arrays, one overlapping the other rather than part of it. That's incredibly difficult, having to separate arrays like that rather than tying them all together without them interacting negatively. So the, call them the 'Dark runes' I suppose, were a different language. They also felt different, but then again this whole place feels odd to my magical senses.

Could they have been a Blessing of some kind? People who didn't know about magic would probably belief that Blessings were the opposite of curses, but it wasn't nearly that simple. Blessings were personal, soul deep applications of power to aid and empower a place, object, person or task in a specific manner. Almost like wielding pure magic in a way, the original blessing was shaped by the idea of the caster to a degree, but the power had to come from the individual, and it also had to be, at least from humans, imbued with a bit of the casters own life force.

Harry believed this was what happened when his mother died to protect him from Voldemort. She literally sacrificed her own life to empower whatever magic she had set up that stopped the Killing Curse. The two diametrically opposite magics caused a feedback, which killed Riddle and wounded Harry, with the Dark Lord getting the worst of it since Lily was already dead, unable to take her share of the backlash. At least that was his theory. Blessings were incredibly rare among humans at the best of times.

Gods and Goddesses however could give them out like candy, much like being in many places at once it was one of the things that set them apart from mortal magic users. They could also pour far more power into Blessings, like those Harry had vaguely felt around the Vatican, without it really registering as magic per se. That could have been what happened here I suppose, a Blessing from a dark god in the form of those arrays layered on top of whatever Odin had done here to hide the Draugr from even Hela's senses. That says a lot about the power of the being behind it, like Demon Lord level power here, at best for just that, let alone everything else we've discovered.

But why did he hide this hall in the first place, the belt, the murals and the knowledge they carry, or what? Harry shook his head. Stop it Potter. You've got Magneto and his faction to deal with now, like Jean said don't go looking for more trouble. Let Vorlus study the damn belt, find out everything he can about it while I put Eric ten feet under. Then maybe we'll have time before the next crisis comes along to see about getting involved further with the Asgardians and sorting them out. Wishful thinking I know, blasted spandex issue, but it could happen.

Having reached that conclusion, Harry's mind came back to the here and now. He was confused to find his plate was empty, and he watched bemusedly as his hand, with no direction from his brain, reached out to fill it once more. Allowing his eyes the room over the hall, he noticed first that Hela had somehow drained at least five bottles of various spirits, all of them littering the table in front of her.

He watched in amusement as Danielle stood up, ignoring two students attempting to flirt with them to move towards Garm, bowing formally to him before taking a seat on the stone floor beside him. The two of them leaned forward talking quietly, though what they were talking about was beyond him.

The two artists were busy, with Piotr holding a tray for both of them as they moved from one mural to the other, comparing styles, colors and other things of that nature that Harry couldn't follow.

Everywhere he looked people were having fun. Paige was flirting outrageously with a few of the doctorate students and enjoying herself immensely. Nikolai was flirting with one of the female students and getting quite a bit further than Paige was letting her amusements go. And beside Ororo, Kitty had conjured a chess set up and was playing with Dr. Vorlus while the two of them drank something fruity looking.

Harry smiled and leaned back, catching Ororo, Jean and Hela's eyes. "Hard-fought battle and a victory feasts, I could definitely get used to this kind of thing." That might've been the cheering charm sort of effect of this place, but then again it might not have.

"Indeed, but any party of this nature needs music. I don't suppose you could do something about that?" Hela asked. Despite the amount of alcohol she had just imbibed, Hela's face almost sounded even except for a slight slurring at the end of her sentence. She then slammed her tankard down on the table, and shouted, "Music! I demand music!"

No she's not drunk it all, Harry thought to himself laughing internally. "I could conjure up instruments," he said smirking at the goddess. While Jean and Ororo simply laughed at her. "Though someone else would have to provide the actual music."

"I can do that," Hela replied grandly. "Perform your magic Seidr man."

When she said that Harry got the impression he was being wound up somehow. Nonetheless, he did conjure up several musical instruments.

The Custodes members looked around as the instruments appeared in midair and Kitty laughed in delight, kicking up off of her chair as a song commenced almost immediately, Hela waving her hands in the air like a maestro conducting an orchestra, the instruments moving under her direction. It was no music that Harry had ever heard, ancient sounding like something out of the Dark Ages but fiery and upbeat for all of that.

"Come on Paige!" Kitty said, moving around the table and grabbing Paige, pulling her from between two college students and out into the open area beyond. Soon they were joined by most of the others, most having had enough to eat and drink for now and getting into the party atmosphere this place seemed to conjure. But Harry stayed back, looking at the students and Dr. students all still looked somewhat bemused over the current circumstances, but were more than willing to go along with it. For a moment Harry wondered if maybe the spells he'd used on them a little too credulous, but shrugged it off as unimportant.

Vorlus himself was staring askance at the chess set between him and Kitty, moaning about something and downing a flagon of beer of some kind. Harry made his way over to him, taking a seat next to him in Kitty's original place as the music continued. Behind him Jean hopped to her feet racing over to join the dancers.

Harry took a look down at the chest set then quirked an eyebrow. "Checkmate in two moves for Kitty. I didn't realize she was good at chess."

"I am uncertain if she is good, or I am simply not as good as I thought." Dr. Vorlus moaned, looking at him from over the top of his beer. "The jury, as they say is, still out on that point."

The way he enunciated each word clearly and consistently, and the way his fingers trembled where they sat on the table showed Harry that Dr. Vorlus had apparently had quite a bit more than that one stein of beer. "Are you alright Doctor.?"

"Do you have any idea," Vorlus replied, waving his beerstein in the air all around him. "How important a find this place is? It is easily the most important find in my field of all time, but I am not only thinking about that but about misconceptions that have built up which these murals shatter. When word gets out about this place, and what those murals show we can finally toss aside everything after the coming of the Christian converts, and oh my, you have no idea the row that is going to cause in the halls of academia."

"Then over there is the literal goddess of death Hela of Niflheim, and you won't even let me talk to her." He went on, pointing and spilling much of his beer as he waved it towards Hela who had moved around the table and was now calling out the time for some kind of dance that she had organized.

The dancers were laughing and hopping forward man to woman, switching off partners as they went before turning on their partner's arm to start again going the other way. It was like one of those silly folk dances, ones never done seriously unless by 'seriously' you meant seriously drunk, and all of the dancers were laughing as they went, even Piotr, who seemed to have as little dancing skill as a bear.

He watched as Ororo moved around the table herself, grabbing Hela's hand and pulling her out into the dance floor as the sound of them drum began to beat on the table keeping time instead and another song began.

Shaking his head, Harry turned back to Dr. Vorlus. "It's not that I don't want you to talk to her, or will let you question her if you can think you can come up with some that can work around whatever is blocking her memories. I'm just worried we've kicked over an ant's nest here, and more meddling with Hela in that manner will spark a response we can't predict."

This place had worried Harry from the start, showing both the power and the malicious nature of the person or individuals (he had no idea if it was an individual or group after all) that were somehow twisting the Asgardians, limiting them and depriving them of both power and their own pasts for some reason he couldn't discern.

"Oh like that makes it any better! They're my gods!" Dr. Vorlus growled, downing another gulp of beer. "And you think that someone is controlling them somehow."

He went on seriously despite the amount of beer he'd already drunk. "This place and the evil we faced here beyond anything I've ever comprehended. And you say someone is using my gods, including the ones who should have stopped something like that Draugr horde from ever coming into being."

"But I don't want to think about that tonight." He said, holding out his stein which was quickly filled by a helpful house elf and grinning happily as he watched it happen. Idly Harry wondered how many of them were scattered invisible around here. But hopefully they were enjoying themselves as only house elves could. "Tonight I want to get drunk, wholeheartedly, completely, drunk. Then tomorrow, after I bitch and moan about my hangover, I will get on with my academic pursuits."

Harry nodded, thinking that maybe much of that attitude had to deal with the strange bombastic, immensely enthusiastic cheering charm this place seemed to have cast on them all. Not that I'm going to complain. I really don't want to get involved any further with this Asgardian issue until we deal with Magneto, and I have time to prepare for it. Finding a way to Asgard on our own for a bare minimum. Still, I suppose I can do some more questioning myself.

With that thought in mind, he moved over towards Garm, who had curled up to one side of the table gnawing on a giant leg of something, Harry couldn't decide if it was moose or elk. Where the heck did he get that? Nevermind I don't think I want to know and it's not important anyway. "How are you doing old wolf?"

Garm shrugged his shoulders, his tail flicking from side to side as he watched the dancers, ripping a hunk of meat off the bone and swallowing before answering. "Humans are rather odd, such strange mating rituals you all have. Music I can understand, the howl after all is music. But dancing? It doesn't seem to serve any form unless… is it supposed to teach you how to spot potential mates by how physically fit they are?"

Harry held a finger then paused shaking his head. "No, no I'm not even going to try to explain it. But it's just supposed to be fun. I imagine you run or hunt for enjoyment, or find some place to laze about in a sun beam?"

Suddenly the giant wolf's ears flattened, and he slowly turned his head to stare at Harry. "Did you just compare me to a cat?" He asked softly or as soft as his deep cavernous chest allowed him to.

"No," Harry said, frowning. "I'm not much of an animal person, I've seen dogs lay about in the sun though."

"Not much better then,"Garm muttered, turning away. "And once again, I am not a dog."

Realizing that they had gotten off topic Harry opened his mouth to ask Garm what he thought about the horde of Draugr they had fought, and his opinion on Hela and their acquaintance.

Before he could though, Harry found his arms grabbed by Jean and Ororo, who pulled him out into the dance floor with a laugh. Garm wouldn't have answered him anyway. It was not his place to question his mistress, only give his opinion when asked.

Another song had started up, this one even more folk-ish than others, with everyone linking arms and dancing around a circle. Harry again couldn't place the music, but it was rollicking sort of tune, and everyone around him was laughing and having fun, so despite not being nearly as effected by the feel of the hall Harry went along with it until the song ended.

Laughing Harry left the dance floor as the song ended, leaning against the side of the table and grabbing up a mug of beer from somewhere. Several of the students were already out, their heads down on the table as they slept where they fell. Two others had moved to a corner, leaning against the wall as they cuddled. A helpful house elf had conjured some blankets for the sleepers, but the rest of the party was still going on, slowing down somewhat as the alcohol began to get to them, but not appreciably just yet.

He was rather amused to note Piotr and Amara to one side, trying to dance. Even Harry could tell they weren't really good at it, while nearby Danielle was moving as fluidly as a ballerina, shifting from 1 foot to the other, flashing through the steps of the dance as quickly as possible while also adding her own little fillips to it.

As he watched however, she came to a halt wiping at her forehead and moving through the other dancers to grab up a stein of beer. She downed half of it in one long gulp then burped so loudly Harry could hear it over the general hullabaloo, and he chuckled as she started to sway on her feet.

He moved towards her but Danielle moved away from him heading over towards Garm. She sat down again beside him, bowing her head, only to nearly capsize before straitening up slightly. "Thank you once again for aiding as great wolf," she said, though not in English this time, but in her native tongue of Cheyenne.

Garm however understood it, nodding his head eyeing the young human huntress. "You're just talking to me because you're too drunk to put one foot after another." He said chuckling as he took in her flushed face.

"No, not really," Danielle replied with a shrugged, then smacked his side,, causing the wolf to twitch away slightly. "Don't talk as if you don't enjoy talking about hunting old wolf, you know you do, all hunters do."

"Humph,"Garm muttered, shaking his head. "Younglings today."

"Fenrir would definitely benefit from your instructions," Danielle said changing the subject quickly. "More than I will if I'm honest. Much of what you describe was fascinating, but had no human equivalent. I certainly don't have your nose after all."

"Perhaps he would, and no, no you don't." Garm muttered, looking away. Garm didn't want to admit that it irked him something fierce that the younger wolf, who was frankly barely a teen in human years, was almost as large as he was already and showed no sign of his growth slowing down.

"D-don't be stuffy," Danielle said, smacking him lightly on the shoulder again even as she changed the subject once more, her words now noticeably slurring together. "But tell me, have you ever hunted on the grassy plains? Or just in the mountains? If you like elk, I think you'd really like buffalo."

Harry turned away from that conversation. He noticed then that Piotr and Amara had left the dance floor and were moving past him along the table with Piotr wincing occasionally as he walked and Amara apologizing profusely for something. "Step on his toes did you?"

Both of the younger people looked up and Piotr shook his head. "Dancing is not for the faint of heart, tovarishch." He looked past Harry has did Amara for a second, smiling slightly.

Harry looked behind him to see Danielle still talking to Garm before he turned back, cocking his head questioningly. "So she stopped chasing the two of you?"

"She did,"Amara said with a nod, leaning in so they could talk without the noise getting to them. "She wasn't happy about it of course, but why would she be? But she respects our decision, and," The neo-Grecian's smile softened. "Our friendship isn't so fragile our rejection of her is going to break it."

Piotr nodded firmly, smiling happily. "While Danielle seems to be a bit irritated by the lack of romantic prospects at present, she understood and respected the fact that my religion will not allow me to enter into relationships such as yours, tovarishch. I mean no disrespect, but it was not how I was raised."

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "It's not for everyone I'll grant you that. Though it isn't as difficult as you might think. We all four of us lean on one another, not all of them in love with just me, but with each other."

"But still it is more complicated than a one-on-one relationship," Piotr said dryly. "And," he hesitated looking over to where Hela was still dancing with Ororo. "Is it just me, or is it possibly going to become more complicated in the near future?"

"It's already slightly more complicated, though no decision on the full scope of that complication has been reached yet," Harry replied dryly. I can't deny I'm attracted to Hela and I could all too easily see myself falling for her, but it's not just me that needs to belief that and it's not just my choice to see where this goes. Hell, Emma hasn't even met her yet!

"More power to you,"Amara said softly, causing both men to look at her and she shrugged. "She hides it well, but I think another reason why she wanted to have this party was because…"

Like Piotr she paused before going on, shaking her head, the seriousness of her thoughts getting through the general happy atmosphere of this place pressing in on her. "You might not have seen it, but she was actually tearing up when looking at some of these murals. This place, it reminds her of something special to her. I think it reminds her when she was last truly happy and, and loved I think. I think Lady Hela is a very lonely person these days."

Harry nodded but made no verbal reply, having thought that already. As another song began in the background and they heard a loud shriek from Paige they all smiled and the serous moment passed once more. Harry waved the two of them off to acorner of the hall which was noticeably darker than the rest of the hall, smirking as he noticed Amara was pulling Piotr rather than vice versa.

He turned his attention back to the dancers as that song ended and Kitty moved out of the crowd to grab one of the hovering fiddles, setting it to her shoulder as she brought up the bow. First she played the fiddle portion of the American song, the Devil Went Down to Georgia, which caused Paige and Jean to laugh aloud dancing around one another and Betsy, who also recognized the song.

While her listeners clapped in appreciation, Hela clicked her fingers, and a page of music appeared before Kitty. "That was very good child, but I wonder if you think you could try your hand at this."

Wetting her lips for a moment, Kitty nodded, her eyes locked on the page before bringing the bow to the string again. The song now was old, ancient and deep but fey and light, even with Kitty having to slow down and even backtrack a time or two. It was an amazing song in many ways, but Hela seemed somewhat sad, as if it wasn't complete. Nonetheless her sadness went away as the song continued and when it ended she joined everyone else still awake who clapped and whistled their appreciation, even the canoodling couples in the corners.

When he tried to find out what the song was later using what he had heard of it, Harry had no luck, only finding out it was old and had passed through many tongues. The one currently in vogue was a Russian song whose name translated to 'In the arms of Mara'. But the meaning would still escape him for a time.

As the clapping subsided and the music picked up again, Harry moved towards Kitty, watching as Ororo pulled into a hug, the fiddle leaving her hand tohover in the air once again, joining the other instruments in the next song. "I never knew you could do that Kitten," he said, coming up to pull them both of them into a hug.

Kitty grinned, pushing back at both of them as she smirked at Harry. "I learned to play the fiddle when I was younger, I was always kind of good at it I suppose but I gave it up when I realized I'd have to choose between it and computers. To get anywhere in the music industry you have to devote a lot more time than I was willing to."

As Ororo gave her one more congratulatory squeeze and turned back to the dance floorHela moved past them, grabbing up another cup and downing it quickly as she sat down huffing heavily and wiping sweat from the visible portions of her face.

With a pat on Kittyhead he moved off, plopping down next to Hela, leaning back against the table as he took in the dance floor. "So, enjoying yourself?"

"Oh very much indeed, I haven't had this much fun in decades, perhaps centuries,"Hela said, actually giggling as she reached over to poke Harry in the nose. "And despite the horrible start to this meeting, the party has been magnificent Seidr man."

"Alright, would you kindly explain what that phrase means? This isn't the first time you've called me that, and I know I'm not made of cider, if for no other reason than you would try drinking me if I was." Harry smirked as Hela giggled a light musical sound that reverberated down to his bones before shaking her head and banishing the noise to glare at him through her half-mask. "So pray tell me what the name actually means."

"Well Harry, you are a magic user-"

"Yes, that has been proven rather thoroughly during our association."

"MMmm, 'association', hehe, such an amusing word, with all the connotations your mind can place upon it." Hela smirked sipping at, yes, her hard cider before continuing. "Ahh, but it is just an amusing little thing, I'm surprised you don't know it already from the bear-like academic over there."

She waved a hand toward Vorlus who had just returned from the dance floor where he had tried to dance with Nikolai and a few of his students. With the emphasis on trying, though Harry felt that was more because of the amount of alcohol he'd imbibed than anything else.

"Let us agree that I am ignorant of this matter. Out with it Hela." Harry smirked back taking a drink from his own juice. As he had told Jean, he wouldn't drink tonight, not when she couldn't. Though that hadn't stopped either of them from having fun, nor had Harry's oft dark thoughts. "If I am to be a butt of a joke, than I should at least know what the joke is."

"Oh very well," Hela sighed with a small pout at having her fun ended, but quickly smirked back at him thanks to the chance of getting to tweak his nose again. "You see, among our people, magic is the woman's domain. Indeed it is Freya's specific look-over as it were. Seidr is not something a man normally is welcome to play with, and those that do, well they tend to meet ends which are both amusing and a sign to others who would meddle in things best left to women."

Harry blinked then blinked again, before finishing his drink before shrugging. "Huh, I suppose that would explain why everyone from where I'm from was wearing dresses...I mean, robes. Never understood that myself."

Hela laughed and Harry joined her before Hela subsided, reaching out to poke Harry's nose, nearly missing and poking him in the eye as she swayed somewhat in her chair, the amount of alcohol she had consumed finally effecting her. "You're a Seidr man, a bad boy who's good with a spell and sword... but I like that."

Her lips quirked into an almost sinfully seductive smile, Hela's inhibitions having flowed away as the drink came in. Her eyes, which were now violet he realized looked on his. "So tell me, how good with your sword are you?"

"I've never had any complaints." Harry responded before he could stop himself. Shaking his head Harry broke eye contact to look around, realizing that this the party was winding down. Nearly all of Dr. Vorlus's students and his assistants were either drunk at the table, or asleep against the walls in places. Nate Price was still up, chugging back drinks with Sean in some kind of drinking contest.

Three students were still up with Nikolai, two women and one man dancing around one another with Betsy, who along with Jean hadn't left the dance floor since they had started, though he noticed that she had looked his way and smiled just now, which meant she might have felt his spike of emotions. That she was okay with Hela flirting with him like that was interesting, but Harry determined to talk to all his ladies later about this whole thing. As he watched Jean, Ororo joined the dancers after placing a blanket over Paige and Kitty, who had fallen asleep next to one another the far wall seemingly only a few moments after Kitty had finished her song.

Sensing this, he looked over at Hela. "I think it's time we start wrapping this up." He said rather sadly.

But she simply shrugged her shoulders, waving her hands in the air. The music changed again, becoming somewhat slower, far more formal. Ororo moved toward Harry, her hands outstretched, and he went to her, smiling as Hela looked up in surprise to find that Jean had approached her.

Jean pulled Hela to her feet and smirked at the goddess, her jade eyes flickering with more than the torchlight. "You seem to have continued your flirting ways." She said drolly, arching her brow at the goddess as if daring her to disagree.

Despite what could have come out as a rebuke, Jean let Hela lead the dance for a moment, and the two of them moved into a formal dance. One hand at their sides, the others held lightly, Jean turned as Hela held their joined hands above their heads for a moment, their other hands clasping as Jean came back around.

"I did, though I could try to blame it on the drink…" Hela said, as they continued the dance, now with Jean in the lead, turning Hela under one joined hand before both sets of hands began to rest on the other's shoulder blades.

"Hmm, I, we, will give you a pass on that I suppose." Jean mused, her voice light but her eyes sharp. "I like you Hela, hell I like you and respect you, but remember, whatever your attraction to Harry and him to you, there is more than just the two of you involved in this."

The sharpness in her eyes faded abruptly and she smiled, a loving, tender smile as she looked over at Harry, who looked up just in time from his own dance with Ororo to catch her eyes. "Harry loves us, Ororo, Emma and I. He may come to love you too, I can tell he's attracted to you already, but he won't make a move towards you if it would hurt any of us, and we, the three of us, need to know that we and you can love one another as well."

"Harry does not just the three of you either I think." Hela said softly, on hand moving lightly from Jean's side to rest lightly on her stomach. "I also understand he would love that adopted daughter of his Melody."

"No, just the three of us, but it is only the three of us who need to make a decision about you." Jean said equally soft, though her eyes had softened noticeably as well at Hela's gesture.

"I understand, and for myself, I can see such a thing happening all too easily. It isn't our, that is the Asgardians, common way and in some ways it galls me to admit that I could enjoy such a relationship. But you and Ororo are both magnificent, worthy of my respect and friendship. Affection may come in time." She shrugged. "But for this evening, I do not wish to think such deep thoughts.

"No, it's not the time for such things is it?" She laughed as Harry moved up beside them, realizing Ororo from their dance as Jean did the same. At a nod from Ororo, Harry turned then to Hela. The two of them had their own conversation as they danced, which followed Hela and Jean's though Ororo was more approving of Harry and Hela seeing if their courtship could lead to something more than Jean was. On the other hand just like Jean, Ororo was conscious of the fact Emma's feelings also had to be taken into account, and what she and Hela would think of one another was impossible to predict at this point.

Hela stared at his outstretched hands for a moment, then past him to Jean and Ororo, who were leaning against one another, their arms around one anotheras they began to dance, sharing a glance before looking back at her and nodding.

This time Hela let herself be led around, whirling lightly under her and Harry's hand, before clasping his other hand with the other, feeling Harry's arms around her waist before traveling up to her back as they turned. There was nothing overtly sensual about this dance, but there was an intimacy to it. And this time, neither of them talked, it would have spoiled the feeling of the moment.

But it couldn't last long, and as the music petered out they came to a stop and Hela sighed mournfully. "Alas, I think it is time I take my leave. My realm needs me soon, and so do my duties. This has been a lovely break, but such things must end, and I hear my own bed calling my name for the moment."

"Despite the battle which was the nominal cause for this party it has indeed been a lovely break from reality." Harry said, still not quite as taken in by the euphoric feeling this place gave off as everyone else.

He looked over to see Garm had already replied to a nonverbal summons from his mistress. But Harry was surprised to see that Danielle had curled up next to Garm, his large tail covering her slightly like a second blanket. Judging by the expression on his scarred snout Garm didn't seem to know what to make of that, yet had stood up quickly moving towards his mistress.

Harry looked over at Jean and Ororo, and Jean obligingly opened her telekinetic connection to him. "I'm going to give her a communication mirror, is that alright?"

Regardless of whether or not she joins us in our relationship Harry, Hela's proven herself a friend before this." Jean replied firmly.

"I definitely want to keep in touch with her," Ororo said joining the conversation thanks to Jean's connection with her. "She has proven her friend as Jean said and even if nothing truly happens between us, and you can't deny Harry that you are attracted to her, we should keep in touch."

Harry didn't even try to argue with Ororo, simply turning back to Hela. He held up ahead and suddenly held a communication mirror. This wasn't conjuration but summoning. After all conjuration couldn't conjure something which had magic spells on it as communication mirrors did. Harry had created a few of these when he had created the one he had given Emma so many months back.

Hela looked at it as Harry handed the mirror over, her face growing stormy, easily seen despite the mask she still wore covering the top of her face."This isn't a gift or anything like that, at least not the way you seem to think," Harry said quickly. "It's a communication mirror. Rub your finger around the edge, and you'll be able to connect with mine or the ones Jean, Ororo and Emma have."

Hela's expression calmed down noticeably, and she nodded. "I had hoped you would not think to give me such a tasteless gift as something you could but conjure in a moment, I should have known better." she said, smiling at him now.

"I can definitely see that this will come in handy."

She looked past him now, turning her head to look at Jean and Ororo. The two of them smiled at her shrugging their shoulders as if to say not yet, but keeping in touch was always a good thing. "We let you dance with him already," Ororo said aloud, chuckling.

"But you haven't even met Emma as yet, and as we've said several times, this must be a group decision."

Hela had to laugh as well. "That you did, no I have not, and yes you have said that. I must admit to some interest in the mortal now, she must be most formidable to keep up with the three of you. In many ways it must be said." She turned back to Harry, holding the mirror in one hand as Garm joined her, allowing her other hand to rest lightly on his neck. She held Harry's eyes for a moment, then slowly smiled, shaking her head.

"Till we meet again my Siedr man." With that she laughed throatily turned and opened a gateway to her realm disappearing into it before Harry could think of activating his mage sight.

He clicked his fingers at that, then shrugged his shoulders looking around with a faint smirk at the partygoers. "I guess we're bedding down here for the night?"

OOOOOOO

Hela was still chuckling as she allowed Garm to help her towards her bed chambers shaking her head as she stared down at the communication mirror. "What a day, what a battle! What a party! I have not had so much action or so much fun in millennia!"

I wonder though, when would be the right time to call? I am most certainly going to, but calling him up every day, no that would how me as being too needy. Once a week perhaps, or once every four days? And best to keep it somewhat professional at first, inform him about what I have found out about those Draugr, tell Ororo about the souls of the children and their temporary home. Then start flirting, that was rather fun I must say, though I will no doubt be appalled later when the drink wears off. 'how good are you with your sword?' indeed!

The attack came without warning. Both Hela and Garm stiffened as their bodies were suddenly assailed, the shadows of her hall becoming deeper, grabbing at them physically as a mental augur shattered Hela's mental defenses both from within and without, diving deep before she could rally herself.

Hela lashed out with a roar. As a goddess she had some powers that could be used on the mental plane of course. But her attack hit nothing. She could not keep the attackers out of her mind, because they were already there within her mind and within Garm's. Hela was not weak by any means, indeed she was one of the most powerful of the Asgardians since she partook of the power of her mistress as well.

But Hela could not direct that power, could not hit whatever was attacking her, whatever was already in her mind unseen, lurking within her thoughts as if, she thought suddenly sick as if they were always there, as if they had been there for millennia. Her powers simply couldn't fight them off effectively undermined as they were from within and she screamed. Hela's attempts at shielding her thoughts, her memory went slightly better, slowing their assault for a few seconds, but not enough. She felt them reach into her mind shouting at her in a tongue she could understand though why was beyond her. "You have done what you cannot be allowed to do, you must be reset, returned to your mold."

The darkness closing in on Hela's thoughts felt vile, ripping, seeping her mind and soul in tar, almost like the feeling she had gotten when she first sensed the Draugr horde but not quite because it was happening to her mind, her very mind, not her powers, not just her connection to those powers and her realm but her very essence, her soul and mind. The taint however gave her a clue. These were the ones who had set the Draugr loose!

That thought galvanized Hela for her to fight back for another few precious seconds that stretched like days in her mind. But she couldn't stop it didn't stop the tide, and her memories began to shatter, occluded by the rising shadows. "No! Do not! It's not right!" she howled in her own mind. "I was happy, for once in millennia I was. I had friends, companionship! I, no, I don't want to be alone again!"

She thought ever the fiercer as her memories began to erode, but eventually she had exhausted herself, and Hela's memories disappeared from her mind. The last thought she had as the darkness finally snuffed her waking thought was of Harry and the dance they had shared. Harry, I'm sorry.

Beside her Garm only had a moment to catch the mirror in his mouth as it fell out of his mistress' hand before he too succumbed. Nowhere near as powerful as his mistress he couldn't even fight the mental attack.

Within one second in the material plane and the next it was done, and Hela found herself with an aching hangover, dreams and images of Balder and the memory of having drunk herself into a stupor over him, pining away like a love lost maiden for the Shining One. "Oh Balder, what must I do to gain thy attentions, thou most magnificent of Vanir?"

But as a wolf, Garm did not think like gods and humans, despite his intelligence. The Shadows didn't realize this, simply crushing his memories and erasing them as quickly as possible before concentrating on Hela. No, Garm remembered scents, and had a far wider range of such than the Shadows could grasp.

Thus the memories of those senses and those tastes lingered, and he shook his head as his mistress began to moan about Balder. This is not right, my memory seems not to match for some reason. I can smell other people on us both. What has happened here? And what is this little mirror thing? It definitely does not match my mistress' normal style. There is magic, odd magic on it, and the scents of several men and women on us both. It is as if we were at a feast of some kind.

And why do I have the most wretched burps in existence! It feels as if I ate some foul souls, but that's impossible. I would remember if any tried to escape from their rightful places in the fields of Hel.

Listening to his mistress moaning about Balder now Garm decided to keep his own counsel rather than speak. Moving away from his mistress he left Niflheim moving out into the planes of Hel. He had a job to do after all, but he was going to keep this bizarre occurrence in the back of his mind, and the mirror too just in case.

OOOOOOO

In his personal quarters in Valhalla Odin felt the shifting in the Shadow's attention. As the Skyfather of his pantheon, Odin alone could always feel them pressing down on him, he always felt it was a sign they understood how dangerous he was, and they were right to fear him. Every moment's inattention away from him was one Odin could useto strike at them, and though they could not know, indeed he had erased the memories of it from his own mind before they could find them, he had.

Even his wife Frigga couldn't feel them, not often and never with enough warning to take advantage of it. But Odin was the God of wisdom and foresight for a reason.

Thus it was that he felt their growing unease, their fury at something going on elsewhere. Then they crushed down into his mind with all the subtlety of a hammed, and Odin snarled lightly as the foul touch filled his mind. The order came sharp and clear in his mind as if he had thought it himself, but he knew he hadn't, they had planted it there. Thor has vastly overstated his time on earth. He must return, contact with Earth must be cut, else more trouble find my people here.

That thought pressed into his mind for several hours, the Shadows trying to impress it on him, trying to make Odin believe the thought had been his own, but they couldn't, not quite. They had never been able to truly do that for all their power, Odin's mind was still his own deep down, they hadn't crushed his spirit wholly, not yet.

Then Odin felt there attention shift once again, moving towards Niflheim out past Asgard. Now Odin knew what had sparked that moment of fury. She might be the most free of us to act, and must have done so somehow. Stay strong my niece, for even in ignorance you aid our people. They will pay!

In that moment of freedom he acted again. Following the Shadow's orders on the surface he created several new constructs, sending an order for the two he'd already sent to Middle Earth to self-destruct. These new constructs would carry his orders to both Amora and his wayward son to return or else a much stronger party would be sent to drag them both back.

But at the same time, Odin had used that bit of magic to hide a greater working, creating a simulacrum of himself hiding it within the larger splash of the construct's magic. He sent it to Middle Earth as well, though he was unable to target where it would appear. It would however have enough intelligence to act on its own, and Odin allowed himself a small wintry smile. The wanderer was always one of my favorite aspects to employ, it should be interesting once that bit of myself reemerges with me to see what it has done. I certainly hope it has more fun than I will.

He distantly felt the violation of his niece and he scowled angrily, unseen by any hear in his quarters. She might have been the most free of us to act, and yet she is also the most violated in many way. At least the rest of my people cannot sense what is going on. But she will have recompense for this, I swear it.

OOOOOOO

Hedwig stared as the two ravens which had been bothering her on and off for days, her eyes narrowing as they suddenly disappeared, shattering into parchment of all things. She waited for a few seconds then hopped over to where they had been, staring down at the papers. They weren't in a language she'd ever seen before, but Hedwig could still somehow understand them. They read 'those in chains may yet break free'.

With a sigh that was purely avian in nature Hedwig shook her head then reached forward with Claude to pick up papers, deciding that her Harry probably needed to look at these. He did, but at the moment, Harry simply couldn't devote any more time to the Asgardian problem. Resources however, he could.

Because of this Dr. Vorlus received quite a bit of aid the next few days. Two dedicated house elves were sent to their master's new conquest, keeping an eye on things for Harry, and Harry also sent a construction droid down with enough material to help make the small port somewhat more usable. Piotr and the others brought in computers, dictation devices, and a dedicated communication system for the small but growing site. This was after they had dealt with their hangovers via potions from the house elves of course, something which had the college students nearly swearing over their souls to Harry.

But that was all the time Harry had time to devote to the project.

OOOOOOO

While Dr. Vorlus sank his teeth into the murals in the hidden hall, the belt and what they could tell him, the Custodes continued their training. They also spent two hours every night going over the number of people from the Acolytes and Brotherhood they had been able to identify from the information Emma had gotten them. A lot of the Acolytes had long rap sheets with various police forces the world over, several of them even had Interpol files which the Custodes had access to courtesy of Banshee and the agreement Harry had reached with his former boss. They would not be going into this operation blind.

The information about the Brotherhood members was much sketchier since most of them were teenagers, some of them younger even than most of the X-Men had been when they first joined up. But even there, thanks to Wendy and Emma they had a pretty decent layout of the members. There were a few question marks among the Acolytes, as well as the Brotherhood though in very different ways. One of Magneto's lieutenants for example was a veritable unknown save for one police report that had capture his face and the name Wendy had given the man: Exodus.

Their total numbers however were worrisome, coupled with the news about the mutates which even if they didn't really have a lot of intelligence or skill had numbers and strength going for them. The humans, or seeming humans anyway, working with Magneto and his own intelligence would give him a decent tech base too.

The second day after the set-to with the undead Piotr decided to broach that subject with Harry. "Even if we call in the X-Men tovarishch we're still going to be facing a lot more troops than we can safely handle Harry, even with your spells."

"I think my spells will be able to offset their numbers advantage, but I've also been talking to the Fantastic Four about them joining in. Kitty's also volunteered as has Nikolai's sister. Kitty's getting in touch with Lance which at least will add to our numbers, and you know Wanda is going to join the X-men, heck even Lorna and Alex might. But you're right, we'll have to rely on Shi Jundai and shock value to make up our numbers."

Harry knew this would be a tough fight, but he felt it was one they could win so long as they had initial surprise on their side and worked on their in-combat teamwork. This was why he worked with the team, concentrating on retaining control of the battlefield, the 'combat bubble' as he had once heard it called, getting used to ordering the team around in as large a combat setting as possible, which at first did not go very well. Even in the largest battle of the war against the Dark Lord Harry had only led his small group against twenty or thirty of the enemy. In this they'd probably be dealing with several hundred. However he learned quickly, and the small coms they all wore helped tremendously.

Indeed, save for a working dinner every other day Harry, Jean and Ororo all turned their attention entirely to gearing up for this confrontation. Jean worked on the team's weapons, while Kitty and Ororo stepped up the younger girl's magical training, inventing uses for her runic pebbles and teaching her several combat spells until she could use them without even thinking about them.

At the same time Ororo worked with Kitty and Dennis to create a sort of promotional video to be used in the future to educate the Brotherhood and Acolyte members they took prisoner. After all, not all of them would be hateful murderers or power mad maniacs.

Kitty and Ororo also worked closely with Harry to go over everyone's suits, both Custodes and X-men, creating emergency portkey runic arrays tied into a heath monitoring array Harry had seen in Madam Pomfrey's office. This array would become a necessity on any suit of the growing Custodes alliance, with even the FF's suits getting them. Other than that, Harry manufactured enough Orihalcum scales to add them to most of the suits too.

Most of those suits were not as all-encompassing as they should be. Evan's in particular left large patches bare on his arms, legs and even his body to allow him to grow out his bone weapons and armor at need. Nightcrawler couldn't have much in the way of added weight, or it would impact how far he could teleport. Laura and Wanda, both of whom were being tested rigorously by Scott to see if they would be able to work with a team without causing issues, had flatly refused the first few suit designs. But eventually they had reached a compromise.

Besides that, Harry deconstructed his Magia Erebea spell in order to find out what was going wrong with it, figuring it out two days after the fight. It turned out that some of his basic arithmetic formula had been wrong, creating a recursive curve rather than a straight up equalization. Each time Harry activated the spell he got a more limited return for it, forcing him to push more power into the spell for less and less return. That was why even at 90% he'd only had three times as much strength as the Draugr, which in turn were weaker than the Thing, and far weaker than Thanos or an enraged Hulk.

If the spell had deteriorated to that point against Thanos… Harry shuddered. The big purple bastard would've torn me apart and Hermione would smack me upside the head for this so hard it's not even funny. 'What do you mean you never went back and revised your work when you had time Harry James Potter?!'

Harry paused suddenly, feeling a faint nostalgic smile in his face and realized that was the first time he'd been able to think of Hermione without pain. There was regret, but not the searing sort of regret he normally felt when he remembered her and indeed it was more of a sentimental feeling than anything else. Well I took your advice Hermione, I have lived and I have loved and will continue to love.

"Speaking of which," he said aloud, gesturing to one wall of his work room, which was right next to Jean's even though it had a very different layout. "Memo to self," he said and the words appeared in fire in the air, before flowing onto a large chalkboard on the far wall. "Look into the magical solution for Melody's mind not aging as it should."

He could have used another term, but even alone Harry refused to be derogatory toward his daughter. "Some of the books in the library are about mental disciplines, and Doctor Strange mentioned a few similar works. Something that could maybe redirect her mutant power, or negate its effect on her mind?"

"If you can find the time, damn it, priorities, priorities." With a sigh Harry left that there, returning to his work on the Magia Erebea technique.

Despite his concentration on the coming conflict Harry couldn't devote all of his time to it, even beyond the working dinners which cut into his time with the kids something, he loathed given how much time he spent away from them.

First he once again created a new business enterprise: Potter Mining Internationalwould be the front for the mining being done on the Ravenspires. This allowed his hiring teams, of which there were hundreds already, to greatly expand their work. Where hundreds had been signing up for now there were thousands, mostly in America and other First World countries, but that was only because his hiring teams had barely begun to get up to speed themselves. Not all of them knew about what they were hiring people for of course, a state of affairs that wouldn't change in the near future, but they were still hiring lots and lots of people.

And what was even better, the first batch had almost finished training, a group of 150 workers, miners, welders and electricians. They had all been flown to Florida to one of the training centers there, and put through a rigorous few days of testing to put the final touches on their ability to work in partial and true zero-G. Then they were introduced to the big boss.

"Greetings ladies and gentlemen," Harry said, moving through the doorway, and sitting down on the desk at the front of the lecture hall which was being used for this discussion. Everyone there recognized him from TV of course, and there was more than one who gasped as they suddenly realized they were working for Magical Minds and the mysterious Harry Potter.

"My name is Harry Potter, and you all will hopefully soon be working for me. I know all of you are here because you are close to finishing it your training at the various underwater and zero-G training centers, and you probably think you're going to be put to work undersea somewhere. Your instructors certainly went out of their way to make it seem like that, even if a lot of the training didn't quite match up with that idea. I have to tell you now however, that that was deliberately misleading."

There were some mutters about that, and Harry let them go on for a moment before continuing. "What you're really going to be doing is working in space. I have a means of getting people up into orbit far faster and far easier than NASA or anyone else can, and I have begun to create defense 'platforms' in space. Why you may ask? Does anyone remember that light show that happened a few weeks ago?"

There were more than one nods, and more than one man there and two of the women all suddenly became grim as they connected that with Harry's outspoken belief that humanity had to stand together against extraterrestrial threats.

"Some of you fellows already got it, lovely. That was an attack on Earth by the Kree. The Fantastic Four could tell you more about them than I could," Harry lied slightly. "But that was one of their main military forces, not a special op team or anything of that nature, but spaceships sent to kill this planet. Without some defenses the Fantastic Four and I threw together, it would've succeeded. We would be morning millions or billions of lives and dozens of cities at the very least if they hadn't worked.'

Harry held up a hand as the muttering began to grow. "Before you ask, yes, many of the world's militaries know about the attack, and I have it on good authority that some of them are beginning to pressure the higher-ups to do something about it. But I don't have to tell you what politicians think of that kind of thing."

"They won't want to pay for it," one man muttered. "Especially if they can't get up into space as easily as you seem to say you can Mr. Potter."

"Exactly. My way is rather unique it must be said, based more upon where I came from and what I learned there than anything this world has an analog of." Several people there nodded though a few frowned before their fellows leaned over to remind them that Harry had admitted to being from another dimension in his first public interview.

"So you're saying, we're going to be working on these defense platforms?" inquired a man holding up a hand.

"That's correct. A lot of the works already been done, but not the fiddly bits. The wiring, a lot of the interior mining and construction, some other stuff like that. Eventually we're going to expand, we're going to start building our own ships rather than simply hollowing out asteroids like we are now." Harry ignored the shocked looks he got at that idea, and continued on. "And eventually we'll be adding to the workforce we've already begun to hire. But you're gonna be the first."

"Is that why we were told that we'd see our contracts only after our training was finished?" asked one man. They had been paid to go to this school of course, which was generous enough, and told they'd be getting full medical coverage for the duration, though of course not everyone had made it through the training. About five in 20 dropped out at one point or another because of personal issues, inability to work well with others, deck chair lawyers, and of course simple physical problems.

"Where the hell do I sign up?" asked one man as Harry nodded to the previous question, his voice a Southern California drawl. "I got family in San Francisco, and better believe it'd be a target what with the Baxter Building being there."

A lot of the other people there nodded. This was both a job and a cause they could all sink their teeth into. Many of them would have preferred if it was an American operation, but Magical Minds had done so much good for so many people already they couldn't really object to this.

Harry nodded, and after punching a few buttons several screens around the room lit up with copies of a contract. "Look it over gentlemen, you'll find the written forms up here. Compare the two if you want, but by this time tomorrow I want you all working understand?" Harry was answered with a hundreds of people talking enthusiastically.

OOOOOOO

There were of course other meetings, one of which tied up both Ororo and Harry on a day they would have much preferred to devote to themselves. And another one which Jean had to deal with: not because she knew a lot about the topic, but because she could link to Emma, who couldn't get away to do it herself.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Ororo exited his Huayra in the personal parking lot of Magical Mind's headquarters, nodding politely at the security guard who had let them in, waving his hand in amusement at the large crowd of paparazzi and real reporters out past the entrance. "I still find it amusing how voracious the paps are for pictures of us. You my dear are amazingly photogenic, but even so…"

Ororo chuckled, leaning her head against Harry's shoulder for a moment, waving her hand toward the crowd, her panja ring gleaming in the sunlight for a moment. Even from here she could hear the sound of cameras clicking. "You're a mysterious multi-billionaire who's made a massive effort to get behind a heretofore losing social stance. Of course they want pictures of you, above and beyond your various public statements."

Shaking his head, Harry was forced to accede the point as they continued, remembering the surprisingly positive response he'd gotten from his vocal stance on Moses Magnum getting the death penalty for his act of terrorism. While a lot of bleeding hearts the world over had protested, and some mutant gangs had immediately begun to call for his head, the rest of the world saw it as a step in the right direction that though a mutant, Magnum would be tried and punished for his terrorist acts just like any unpowered individual.

"For all the money you spent on that car, we seriously don't use it often enough Harry," Ororo murmured, interrupting his thoughts. "It's magnificent don't get me wrong but…"

"With expansion charms my Huayra can hold as many people as a bus, eventually. Besides, everyone needs some little thing to call their own. Jean's already here, right?" The three of them plans to head over to Emma's mansion in New York to have dinner with her.

Emma had decided it was time to sit her little sister down and tell her what was going on because the girl had been nosing about for weeks now trying to figure out where Emma disappeared to. She wasn't going to tell Cordelia everything, but Emma wanted the others there for that discussion.

"That's right," Ororo nodded. "Stephen wanted one of us involved in picking a new spokesman for Magical Minds. He's narrowed it down to four people, and six interns who would be studying under the actual spokesman to step into the position later. Given how many of your companies might need a dedicated spokesman, both the manager and Sage thought that was a good idea as did Emma."

Harry nodded, concealing a small smile. The idea of a dedicated spokesperson had actually been one of his, but organizing it had fallen to Emma and Ororo. He knew for a fact that both women had leaned heavily on Paris for her expertise, and that every person they interviewed had previously been suggested to them by her.

Paris might not be completely on board with everything, but she was certainly a business ally and possibly a social one as well. Which doesn't even consider the fact that she and Doctor Doom might be opening up… communications if what Dennis passed on about that is true. Weird, but who am I too judge.

That thought brought to mind another issue that had plagued his mind and that of Ororo, Jean, and even Emma who hadn't even met her: Hela's silence. They had called her occasionally, but had received no reply. Worse, she hadn't contacted them.

Despite not having met her Emma was convinced there was something going on there, likening it to her own situation before Harry had come into her life. And she really did want to meet Hela, she'd talked extensively with Jean and Ororo about the girl, but was against her and Harry even courting, let alone Hela possibly joining them. She was willing to befriend the Asgardian goddess, but with all of their disparate duties, the four of them had little enough time together, adding a fifth was not something she wanted to occur. She understood Hela had impressed her lovers, but that wasn't enough for Emma.

And with their plan to hopefully deal with Magneto coming up, they just couldn't become embroiled in anything else just yet. A refrain that was beginning to wear rather thin in Harry's mind.

"I still wish we knew why a representative from Wakanda wants to meet with you, Ororo, before allowing Magical Minds products through their borders." Harry muttered shaking his head and concentrating back on the matter at hand.

"Your guess as good as mine," Ororo said shrugging her shoulders. She was dressed today in a normal business woman's outfit, almost blasé in comparison to what she normally wore but in Harry's completely unbiased opinion she was still one of the most beautiful women he could ever hope to meet.

Harry too war a business suit, a good Armani that Emma had bought him. How Emma had gotten his measurements without him knowing Harry still didn't know, she just looked smug whenever he asked.

Entering the main building the two of them passed through the various security stations before heading up to the meeting room set aside for this. A moment spend arranging themselves, pulling out folders on the various goods Magical Minds and Harry's other companies offered, and then Harry called down to the secretary, telling her to send the Wakandan representative.

Not five minutes later the man joined them. The man in question was a tall black man, with wide shouldered but not overly so with a fit trim athletic form, a handsome chiseled face and close cropped hair. He wore a suit as well, with a sash from one shoulder down to his waist in the colors of Wakanda, yellow, black and deep blue.

He stepped into the room as if he owned it, moving quickly to the table where Harry and Ororo waited, having stood up politely as he entered. He nodded at Harry, but his eyes never strayed from Ororo, holding her hand. "Goddess of the Storms, I greet you," he said inEgyptian nodding his head.

"Do you remember me?" he asked hesitantly. "We met when we were younger, I was 17 and on a walkabout. I stayed with you and your tribe for many weeks before moving on, rather reluctantly I must say."

Ororo paused, retrieving her hand quickly so that the man couldn't kiss the back of it. There was something in his eyes, something that she had seen before, and the line of his jaw looked familiar but she couldn't place it. "Your face looks vaguely familiar sir, but I'm sorry I can't place it. What is your name?"

"I am T'Challa, King of Wakanda," he said bowing stiffly but his eyes had flashed with something like grief for a moment there then resolve. He smiled charmingly then, white teeth flashing his black face for a moment. "I was overjoyed to hear from one of my people that you'd been spotted, though it took quite a bit of digging to figure out that you were no longer allied with the X-Men but were with this new group, the Custodes Mundi? You have done a lot of good for the world Windrider, and I hope that someday you get the recognition you deserve."

"I do not do anything for recognition save perhaps teaching," Ororo said stepping back slightly and moving to sit next to Harry who had been watching this, his eyes watchful yet seemingly amused for some reason. Yet when she sat down, he immediately took control of one of her hands in one of his. She let him of course, smiling internally.

"Please take a seat T'Challa," Harry said, acting as if he hobnobbed with kings every day, which wasn't exactly far off. "I would also take it as a personal favor if you did not share the fact that the Custodes Mundi is associated with Magical Minds with anyone else. Exactly how did you come to that conclusion might I ask?"

"Simple logic," T'Challa said shrugging as he took a seat across from them, his eyes glancing down to their joined hands and up to Harry's face and his smile became challenging for a moment before he could control it. "So many new medical advancements coming out near the same time the Custodes Mundi suddenly appear on the stage, seems strange to me. The fact that no one can connect Ororo Munroe with Storm of the Custodes Mundi is interesting. But I knew the weather goddess' powers, and it was easy enough to make that leap."

"A leap between Guardian and yourself was much harder to make, but not really necessary when I could connect Ororo to the Custodes Mundi and from there to Magical Minds. Whatever has changed, Ororo would be no one's pawn or tool, so obviously she would need to be involved in the highest echelons of the company."

"Ororo is a queen among women that's true," Harry said, his voice softening he raised Ororo's hands to his lip kissing it gently. Both of them noticed the man stiffen slightly then seemed to deflate somewhat as Ororo made no protest before his smile became challenging once more.

With a raised eyebrow Harry asked Ororo what the heck was going on here, but Ororo was completely at a loss as well. A childhood crush perhaps? "Why exactly did you want to meet me?" Ororo asked bluntly.

"I wanted to meet with you of course, to renew our friendship. While you might have forgotten it, that friendship was important to me at the time. How you dealt with your duties as a goddess was one of the reasons why I returned from my walkabout to claim my kingship." T'Challa said smoothly.

"I would like it if you would also be the go between Magical Minds, its subsidiaries and my nation. With you, we can provide a spokeswoman that the rest of Africa will fall in love with. It can be a wedge we can thus use not only for your products Mr. Potter, but social and educational reforms, which I know is close to your heart Ororo. After all, there is nothing like a beautiful, well-educated woman from the old country making it good to inspire others to push for the same opportunities."

The meeting continued from therewith T'Challa taking every opportunity to praise Ororo, coming off just below the line where Harry could have objected. Instead, Harry joined in, embarrassing Ororo immensely but also making her laugh, which seemed to stop the man, especially when she mentioned that Harry and she were in a relationship and hoping to start planning their wedding in the future.

About two hours later they had a plan for the agreement between Wakanda and Magical Minds hammered out, and the two of them walked T'Challa out of the building. He met two men in sharp suits there which fit them about as well as they would a gorilla, obviously bodyguards. Though Harry thought that was bit like setting two hyenas to guard a lion in this case, the way T'Challa moved told Harry that the man was every bit as fit, and possibly dangerous, as Nikolai or any of the others.

T'Challa wasn't inside his limo for more than a second before he picked up a special, untraceable phone. "It's Ororo, but she doesn't remember me, which is frankly impossible given what we shared. I am uncertain if it is fact or brainwashing. See what you can do to get some men in place in Magical Minds. If not, we can see about separating Windrider for a time from her supposed paramour for a time when she comes to give a speech in Wakanda a month from now. See to a team's training for that."

Back in the Magical Minds building, Ororo shook her head, following Harry back into the elevator. "Well that was odd and rather uncomfortable. I think he and I only stayed together for about two or three weeks. I'm uncertain how he can go from three weeks spent while we were 16 or 17 at the most into a seeming infatuation. I hope he gets over it."

"Yes but he gave up on it quickly enough when you dropped how serious our relationship is. I think it was more that he was in love with the idea of you. A woman coming out of the skies with the power of the storms behind her and spend time with him? That kind of thing would leave an impression now matter his heritage."

"Still, I'm happy with the deal we made," Harry went on, looking down at their copy of the trade agreement. "Very happy indeed. With Wakanda as a base of operations, Magical Minds and our equality message can start spreading beyond it. It'll take months to set up a presence in Wakanda alone but even so he was right about how much of an impression you can make down in Africa."

Ororo nodded, though she was still shaking her head at T'Challa's overall reaction. "I wonder how the meeting with Jean is going? I hope she at least isn't getting hit on."

OOOOOOO

Mary Jane Watson didn't really know what to expect from this job. It was supposed to be an internship in her new major, which she had switched into nearly a year ago from acting into communications. Some of the classes were the same, so it had been an easy choice to make. She had been inspired by the example of Paris Lourdes, who had made the jump from being a runway star into a business and then built an empire from it. MJ wasn't that ambitious of course, but still hoped to really make something of herself rather than simply, as her mother had once put it, 'strut her stuff and just get by'.

Not, she thought as she primped her hair one last time, that strutting my stuff has ever done me much damage or isn't fun. She looked around at the other interns applying for this job, three other women, four men. The men had initially begun to flirt with her and the others, but Mary Jane wasn't here for that kind of thing. Oh, if her looks helped her get the job, fine, but MJ sure wasn't interested in doing anything more than looking pretty. If someone pushed for that 'more' she had a brown belt in judo and wasn't afraid to use it. I'm more than just a pretty face damn it.

The idea of using her looks at all went out the door almost immediately the moment the door to the interview room opened. A young redhead stepped in, younger then Mary Jane, but if anything possibly more beautiful. Her hair was a slightly darker red then Mary Jane's own, as equally long, and her body was built along the same lines if somewhat trimmer and more athletic from what could be seen in her suit. Heh, nope, no chance of using my looks here.

The redhead's eyes swept the room, stopping at Mary Jane and widening slightly, then she laughed. "Always nice to meet a fellow redhead." she said holding up a hand in greeting to Mary Jane, who smirked and nodded her head. They were indeed a rare breed, since most redheads were really just orange in color. The other interns stared between the two women, then shrugged their shoulders putting it down as just an oddity though they were wondering who this young girl was. Another intern here to show them to where they he interviewed one-on-one perhaps?

Mary Jane however had kept abreast of the Magical Minds in Britain, as well as their subsidiaries and knew this woman. "You'd be Jean Grey correct?" she said stepping out from the group of interns and holding out her hand. "Chief engineer for Arc Technologies?"

"That's one of my jobs yes," Jean said holding out her hand and shaking Mary's firmly.

One of the other interns was foolish enough to shake his head and said "Seriously? Who did you sleep…"

That was as far as the man got before he felt himself pinned in place by a jade stare that drilled into his very soul. "I got my job by being damn good at it. Good day sir, we have no need of you're services." Jean said firmly. She retained her glare on the young man until he got up, rather shamefacedly and exited the room.

As he left her eyes swept over the other women there shaking her head. "I might not have the college credits, but I have the book knowledge and the real life knowledge. The Arc generators my company sells is my design from the ground up, even if Tony Stark, who I've also met I might add, thought up the initial idea."

"Now, we've already interviewed for the main spokesman's job, but the intern position here isn't going to be a sinecure by any means. Do a good job here at Magical Minds, and we might transfer you to one of Mister Potter's other holdings. Who here knows about them?"

Mary Jane and three others raised their hands, while the remainder winced realizing only now that doing a little more research into the other companies that Potter owned might've been a good idea. As they did Jean sat down at the front of the table, before gesturing the interns into their seats, shaking her head. They were all older than her, but frankly they felt younger, an odd sort of juxtaposition. "Tell me what you think about them Mister Lairborn?"

Over the next few minutes the four people who had knowledge of the other companies gave their opinions and ideas about how to advertise the various goods Harry's companies sold, what they felt would appeal to the public, what the main problems facing the other companies were in the public's, as well as how to address them publicly. A few of the others stepped in with their own ideas after time, which Jean made a note of and replied to. It was very much a freewheeling sort of discussion, but Mary Jane could tell it was also working as an interview.

Eventually Jean cut the group down first by showing two of them the door quickly, then offering another young man a job over at Saab because he had an engineering background as well as a communications major. He was a real find even Mary Jane could see, who could talk intelligently about engineering as well as make it interesting. He'd do very well there.

Two more, a young man and a woman were quickly hired for the Arc Technologies while three more let go for various reasons, ranging from a lack of knowledge, to a certain type of arrogance or closemindedness. This left Mary Jane and another young man, and Jean questioned them closely on recent events.

Eventually after a final round of questioning Jean nodded to the young man. "I'm sorry, I just don't think you're quite right for this job. Leave your name and number with the front office, Harry is constantly expanding his businesses, and maybe there'll be an opening up a new company soon in the medical region. When he does, you might be one of the first we reach out to the position."

The man nodded, somewhat mollified but a little irritated nonetheless stood up quickly and left. That left the two redhead staring at one another. Jean finally smiled, awakening an answering smile and Mary Jane. "I don't have to tell you you're hired right?"

Mary let out of breath that became a whoop before she could stop it, throwing her hands into the air quickly. Jean laughed, holding out her hand to the other woman shaking it again. "Do you want to go over the agreement now, or later?"

"Now is good Ms. Grey," said Mary said laughing again. "When do I start?"

"We'd like you to start this coming Monday if that's possible. Where willing to pay for any travel expense for the first two weeks, though we hope that you settle down here in the United Kingdom soon enough. Any further travel expenses afterwards that are job-related will be covered of course," Jean said then began to rattle off a few of the important facts from the contract, pushing over a copy for Mary to look at.

She did so quickly then changed copies with Jean for a moment to go over it again. Not an hour later, Mary Jane Watson was leaving Magical Minds it's new public relations intern, and with several apartment complexes nearby named and with her name already mentioned to their landlords. Face it tiger, she thought to herself, you just hit the jackpot!

OOOOOOO

Of course not all the meetings had to do with the business portion of Harry's rapidly growing enterprises. The first versions of Reed's two experimental weapons systems had been installed on one of the Kree Heavy Fists, or battlecruisers. The installation team had been working night and day on it after Reed had actually designed and built the two weapons systems from scratch within 24 hours of the meeting within Harry and Doctor Doom.

Now the ship, dubbed the Peacemaker had a crew of all of the interested parties, including Doctor Doom, much to the irritation of Reed. This had to deal with the space based defense of Earth and Harry felt he could not honorably keep Doom from attending without giving him the opportunity to get stroppy about it.

Something which Harry could not afford at this point. That might change in the future, after Magneto was dealt with, Harry was hearing rumors about the Ukraine he didn't like, though if Doom or the Red Skull was behind them he didn't know. But he had enough fires in the smelter for an army already, so he wasn't going to add to them unless he had to. However, Harry, Doom and Reed had agreed not to use anything he learned from this exhibition on Earth, a coup which cost Harry a few magical books he luckily had several copies of.

Putting such thoughts aside, Harry once again turned his attention to the ship's bridge, watching the work going on. Around them the ship continued sailing into the Oort Cloud, where some innocent asteroids were about to die for the good of science. That thought made him nearly grin, but Harry kept it off his face with difficulty. Next to him Jean made no such effort, and he lopped an arm around her waist as she did the same to him.

Carol was at the controls of the ship of course, with Marvel at one of the radar stations, and Nikolai at the weapons station. "Coming up on maximum range for the positron cannon," Marvel murmured.

"The targeting computer is having some trouble locking up the asteroids," Nikolai said, shaking his head. "I suppose they're not used to shooting unpowered objects like that. Still, needs must. Line of sight is on, and I have visual confirmation. Ready to fire on your orders."

Carol looked over at Harry who nodded and she breathed in fiercely before grinning. "Peacemaker, open fire!"

The positron cannon, which had replaced three of the ship's original weapons created a beam of purple and varicolored yellow which shot through the intervening space between the ship and its target. Smashing into the target it swiftly changed the very atoms in of the target into small atomic bombs. A split second later the asteroid exploded, the pieces, very tiny pieces Harry noted, spinning off into space.

"Holy buggering shite." Harry said in a monotone, while around him the others looked on in either pleasure or surprise. He glanced over at the radar frowning slightly. "It's short range, but I don't think there's any kind of armor that can stop that."

"Considering that it actually works of the premises of breaking down atom bonds, no." Reed said dryly. "The heavier the armor, the more devastating the result would be."

"Reed, if you are girl I'd seriously kiss you. Well that and Jean would probably break me in half." Harry said, shaking his head causing Jean to laugh.

"My wife would help her," Reed said drolly. "Besides, we're out here to test two weapons systems. Nikolai, can you power up the graviton beam?"

"Have to give the systems a few minutes Sir," Nikolai shrugged, staring form his control system over to another system. "The power outages of that weapon are about 20% or so more than our computers projected them to be."

"Curious…" Reed frowned thoughtfully. "A problem in the interface system, my calculations, or the design? Something to think about."

"This is all a work in progress anyway," Harry said with a shrug. The group waited silently for the generator to be back to full power, before the Peacemaker moved towards the next target. This one was a slightly larger asteroid, but it wasn't as dense as the first one, so it made for a similar targeting experience.

Once again Nikolai lined up the line of sight programming, and Carol ordered the graviton gun, situated on the other side of the ship, to fire. The graviton beam was blue in color for some reason, and Harry idly wondered what made the two beams different colors, or even any color at all frankly. The beam once again impacted, slowly shaking the asteroid pieces.

"Please note it took 53 seconds to shatter that lump of rock." Harry said shaking his head. "Sorry Reed but that is a millennia in battle. If it can't do more damage against shields then the present weapons we've got from the Kree, I'm going to have to scrub that idea."

Read nodded equitably, and the ship moved to the another asteroid. Here Harry and Jean went EVA, putting down a small shield generator taken from another battlecruiser on the asteroid in question. It wouldn't last for long, but it would the asteroid, which was smaller than the ship it came from, in the equivalent of a battleship's shields.

When they came back in Doctor Doom was standing at one side of the room and Reed was in the other, smirking slightly as their hands clenched at their sides. "Did we miss something?"

Carol blinked, as if she had just come out of a coma. "I think I just had failed san-check. We were talking about math for a moment and it got so high end, all I heard was gibberish, urrgh."

Nikolai nodded firmly. "They were talking about quantum physics and something called upper grade String Theory? I think Reed sort of won a point I'm not certain how."

Looking at the two scientists Harry shook his head. "Play nice," he said mildly. "Or I'll pitch you both off the ship and you'll get to figure out how to get back to Earth on your own."

Doom chuckled as Reed winced since it was a much greater threat to Reed than Doctor Doom in his suit. It would take time, but he would be able to call his own battlecruiser to pick him up, while Reed would not. "if you're weapon performs well enough against shields, then I will consider this one a victory on your part Richards." he said in a somewhat conciliatory tone.

Reed nodded, and the tests continued. It turned out that yes the graviton beam did a lot of damage against shielding, smashing through it in a very small area quickly. The positron beam however, as Reed had predicted did nothing against shields, the energy form the shields simply not giving the positron beam anything to effect, simply dissipating it.

"So what we should do is to switch off weapon the weapons systems, graviton to bring the shields down, positron to do the killing." Jean mused, with Carol nodding agreement.

"The power requirements are of bitch and a half 'scuse use my language ladies," Nikolai cut in, shaking his head. "If you're going to have even a single platform of either of these weapons of the size we have now might have to install a dedicated arc reactor for them. The idea of an entire bank of these things is amazing but the power requirements…"

"I don't think we want entire bank," Harry said shaking his head. "Simply up the size of the beams between ship classes instead of adding more actual weapons. That'll be a problem for our design teams however. Speaking of, Your majesty our half for the hyperspace trap system is nearly finished, all we have to do is install the arc reactors. Will you have your half ready by next weekend?"

"I will do so," Doom said nodding his armored head. "I will also look into these weapons of yours Reed, there must be some way of lowering the power requirements, some mistakes you made in those mathematic formulae."

To those words Reed puffed himself out angrily and the two once again fell into an argument.

Harry rolled his eyes moving between the two scientists just in case. "Let's find out what will happen if we emergency fire this systems when a reactor isn't fully powered Nikolai," he said calmly. "And then I think we'll need to put the weapons through their paces in every other way we can think of."

OOOOOOO

Of course, there were other scientific endeavors that did not go as planned. The first Ravenspire at this point had become both a training center and was the farthest along construction-wise. The miners had started work in helping the robots hollowing the asteroid, with about forty electricians and others types of construction moving through the asteroid going along with them, adding the interior devices as they went. Weapons installations, hangar bays and other internal sections or systems would take a lot more effort of course, but even there progress was being made in holloing the first two hangar bays out.

Currently Carol was showing Harry, Ororo, and Jean around one evening, making a point to stop and show them the construction center for the first Ravens, a mix between a hangar bay, garage, and physics lab. Harry stopped and stared at the design taking shape shaking his head. "If I'm reading some of this right, that isn't a fighter plane, it looks more like I want to say a small PT-boat maybe? Or at least the space going equivalent?"

The design in question was a large diamond shape longer on one side than the other, sort of, except the point of this diamond was flat with what looked like a cannon of some sort poking out of it. There were some other things sticking out of that diamond shape, ventral and maneuvering thrusters, and a few other things Harry didn't recognize offhand.

"That's pretty much what it is," Carol admitted. "We simply can't shrink down any of the weapons we've taken from the Kree enough to put them on a single pilot fighter platform, not even one of them at a time. But this design will let us put in shielding, a single offensive weapon, a major electronic warfare suite, and also those emergency teleport chairs of yours."

"The emergency portkey system yes," Harry said with a nod. "I'm glad that you're putting that into the design from the get-go."

He would be adding more runic arrays to the Ravenspire later, mostly to connect it via a runic doorway into the ocean somewhere to help with heat dissipation. With that, they would be able to put at least two times the amount of weapons a structure this size could contain. Heat dissipation and control was a major factor in any kind of space platform. This was important, as Harry now knew that no one could completely control the range of the battle.

Jean looked the design over closely, bringing up a small cell phone to take pictures of it for herself for later. "Who worked on this? It looks quite good, but also really time intensive to build in the first place."

"It will be," Carol admitted. "At least the first few. Once we get the first one built and work out all the kinks, I think it'll be much simpler and we can turn it over to an assembly line somewhere. The Forge could certainly work on it at the very least, though we'd of course have to have humans involved at various points in the construction for quality control and programming issues."

"Good." Harry said with a nod, still looking over the Raven in its newest iteration with both pride and a certain amount of sardonic humor, directed at himself though Carol couldn't tell that. "Tell the design team excellent work for me will you Carol? And add a bonus to their pay from me."

Many of the nearby scientists smiled at that, as did Carol before gesturing the others to follow her once more. For the next few moments, Carol led them through the Ravenspire, showing where the interior was being reinforced with concrete and steel, where lights had been rigged throughout the massive asteroid and one area which had already been completed.

The first living quarters had been hollowed out and furbished, and several internal airlocks installed already to allow it to have some atmosphere. It was still cold of course, but with the amount of thermal bedding each bunk had it was actually a nice, comfortable area for now. That would change as more workers moved in of course, this station was being built as a fortress, not a civilian station.

"The exterior locks are being finished today, and the robots are almost halfway through mining out what's supposed to be the control center, heck we've even got a few of the weapons bays prepped for further work. Though of course it'll be weeks maybe more than a month before we have the wiring and everything else done thanks to you switching half of the construction droids over to your joint project with Doom, Harry. Still, I've got actual people working on a lot of stuff at this point thanks to you okaying the first class of miners and welders."

"Have you extended the hydroponic section yet?" Ororo asked. "And how goes the actual air ventilation system? I notice that we actually do have air where we are now," she finished dryly.

At first Harry and Jean had collaborated to protect the four of them as they moved through the outer area of the Ravenspire, but they were deep inside its interior now past several airlocks and had been since before reaching the hangar bay where the Raven itself was being worked on.

"Going well so far as you, yes, can feel. We relied on Kree systems for that of course, but their air circulation systems actually aren't that far advanced of our own, the materials are, and the output is a little because of that, but the basic layout is much the same. Some things I think you just can't-!"

Carol was interrupted just then by a distant sound of an explosion echoing down the corridors, and the lights strung out along the ceiling began to flicker. Air too began to be sucked past them before Ororo put a stop to it, the air simply reversing itself as she bent her will upon it until Jean threw up a TK bubble around the far end of the corridor. As the tow of them did that, Carol whirled away, holding up her mic to her mouth "Control, what the hell just happened!?"

"Explosive decompression!" said the communications specialist on the other sid,e one of a group of five who controlled and directed the work going on around the Ravenspire. "We had a team installing an external airlock, but it just blew! We've lost contact with the team installing it and mining team 2!"

Harry, Jean, and Ororo didn't wait to hear the rest of that, racing through the corridors, quickly exiting the bubble Jean had created and moving on, with Ororo nodding thankfully at Harry for having taught her the bubblehead charm, which she had just cast on herself. Thanks to their various powers they raced along the corridors fast than a man could run, blasting through another airlock and reforming it behind them, but even so by the time they arrived it was almost too late.

Using her telepathy, Jean found the minds of the men who had been out on the surface of the asteroid. Blown off the surface thanks to the explosion, their security lines cut, the four men had become Flying Dutchman, spinning away into space. If they had been wearing the old Nasa space suits they might well have died, but the Kree influenced space suits they all used were much more durable and self-sustaining.

But without Jean finding them that just meant they might have had time to enter atmosphere and burn up rather than die due to air loss. More than one of them sobbed with relief as their momentum was suddenly arrested, and then they began to be pulled back towards the Ravenspire.

At the same time hit Ororo brought forth the air she had been keeping back, while Harry quickly transfigured the ruins of the door into two sheets of metal, clanging them closed and warping them into one the instant Jean returned with her charges. With that done, air began to once again circulate and Harry turned, levitating the rubble off the side of the wall, revealing the broken, battered shapes of several miners.

By the time the emergency response team arrived, Ororo and Harry had already begun to heal them and learn what had happened. The exterior team had been emplacing the outer airlock door, when one of them had accidentally smashed the controls, which apparently were right over the small emergency battery that all the outer airlock doors had so that they could respond to external controls in the event of a loss of power.

It was a fault in the design, which Carol promised to correct later, but the battery's explosion had blown half the door off, catching in turn some of the miners equipment as well, which started a cascade. If that hadn't happened the explosion would have been much weaker, which in turn was a mistake in their operating procedures.

At Harry's glare, Carol threw her hands up. "Harry, were making this up as we go! There's bound to be some hiccups like this. Jesus, check out the injury reports on some of the first battleships or subs when they were being built!"

"We've had one hiccup already, the Kree attack." Ororo said, shaking her head as she helped one of the miners, a rather small but extremely fit young man to his feet. He'd had a bad gash on his arm under a suit puncture from some of the shrapnel. He was now looking down at both his suit, which had tightened around the joint to keep the rest of his air from escaping, and her healing of his arm with astonishment. "I don't want any more."

"Exactly." Harry shook his head "I don't want any more people to die on me like that. Not when it can be prevented by a little forethought."

"Do you want us to suspend operations until we get some kind of standard operating procedure in place?" Carol asked wincing slightly. If Harry was responding like that to an accident here on the Ravenspire she wasn't going to mention some of the close calls they'd had with zero-G environment accidents looking over the derelict fleet.

"As much as I want us to, sir," said one of the miners, holding up his hands. "We know this job was risky. Hell, you think mining on Earth ain't risky?" He barked a harsh laugh.

"Ask those poor fools over in Africa, mining out those red diamonds or whatever they're called." Said another, moving as if to spit to one side before stopping himself as his glance took in the three women present. "At least here we get a damn good healthcare, and these suits are freaking phenomenal! Our tools and even our living quarters aren't bad either."

"All right," Harry said slowly looking at them all. "I won't shut down the operation then. However, I am going to ask all of you on your days off to write up some suggestions on how to prevent something like this from occurring again. This time it was a faulty design, and I will be chewing out the team who designed it for that. Heck was this a Kree design or one of our own?""

"One of our own," Carol replied glumly. "It's supposedly more robust than the Kree design but I guess that isn't actually the case."

"And you okayed it?" Harry asked, his tone becoming slightly grim.

Carol stiffened her shoulders, but nodded firmly. "Yes sir. I have to say that I didn't realize the dangers Sir."

Harry held her gaze for a moment, then flicked his eyes over the people around them his message clear and she nodded, both accepting that message and that it would have been her fault. "We're all learning as we go," he said at last, "and there are bound to be mistakes. Goddess knows I've made enough in my life."

His eyes locked on hers once more. "Don't make this one again."

He looked around at the men all around them, then smiled. "How about instead of putting off those suggestions, you take the rest of the day off and do it now gents? I'll be interested to see what you come up with."

They all nodded, staring at him then at the two women who had come with him in awe before looking at the wall of metal that had replaced the outer airlock. Having passed most of the security to get this far, all the workers had guessed Harry had some kind of power, but until now hadn't seen it confirmed. More importantly to them however was his stance on their own safety.

"Yes sir!" said the foreman, actually saluting for a moment. Harry returned the gesture, smiling faintly but doing so seriously, watching as the man turned, leading the two crews off.

Harry heard one of them said, "Huh, so the big boss may be a mutant or something. Meh, he sure as hell cares more for us than the last bunch of bastards I work for."

"I knew that the moment I saw my paycheck from last week." said be one of the others tartly. "And stow that mutant talk, who the hell cares? We're all in this together, all humanity goin' through space on a single, fragile ship called Earth. Keep that in mind."

There were more nods at that and the men continued on their way while behind them Jean and Ororo exchanged a smile with Harry and Carol.

OOOOOOO

Of course, while all of this was going on in space, there were other issues on the ground, the mutant/human question continuing apace. Mutant supremacy reared its head again in Taiwan, a gang of mutants having broken into and assaulted a very rich and influential politician there. That gave mutants some very bad media but generally speaking public opinion was moving towards coexistence and understanding with Emma, Harry and their business empires behind it.

India was coming around faster than most had expected, though the caste system was still in place there, so caste mattered more than their mutation in judging how specific mutants were treated by the general populace. Switzerland had put mutant rights into law with as little fanfare as possible, as did Canada. Israel and Japan did as well, the emperor himself getting behind the social side of things and pushing, with Sunfire becoming a national hero and formally recognized as 'the Sword of the Emperor'.

At the other side of things, Germany was still a hotbed of racism of nearly every stripe, skinheads there lashing out at mutants just as much as Jews. Africa was very much a mixed bag of course, and many South American countries were leaning toward mutant suppression rather than equality, pushed that way by several drug gangs welcoming mutants into their ranks as enforcers. Greece had other issues, as did China. And the Pope had yet to make a statement one way or another.

And America was still, as Harry cheerfully put it 'being it's normal schizophrenic self'. Several key states, Pennsylvania, Utah, California, and others were close to ratifying laws of their own to give mutants rights, whereas others were close to going the opposite way. And the Friends of Humanity had become closely allied with several religious groups and been given the protection of said in many states, even the state which were looking favorably towards mutants. That Magical Minds had begun to offer to sell directly to the states that made the concessions necessary was a bone of contention of course.

To say the X-men were kept busy was an understatement. They launched several missions to protect various mutants from prosecution from up in Canada down into Venezuela. Many of those mutants were sent to Camelot, joining the group there, even a few families, while a few joined the older teens at Xavier's, though only the teens brought in as part of the second group of X-men had powers useful in combat.

Other things occurred too which had nothing to do with the mutant equality question. For instance, Reed and his family came to Camelot for the first time. Susan and Reed were both ecstatic about the nature of the school Harry had put together. Not only would their child be able to get training in his power, but frankly Haven was set up in such a way that it had far better standards and technology than nearly any school elsewhere. Reed himself would've had to get involved in the construction of the school to match.

"This is utterly fantastic Harry." Reed said, causing Harry burst out in laughter. Reed stopped then rolled his eyes "Oh of course, a pun. I've never heard that one before. Anyway, you might wish to look into letting unpowered humans study here as well eventually. After all, if what you want is coexistence then separating yourself like this might be a bad idea in the long term."

"I've thought about it," Harry said with a nod. "But I'm not going to open up the dormitory to non-mutants, not for a while yet if ever. Eventually maybe if I start bringing in students who come from unpowered families who prove to be abusive I might."

"The reason I bring it to mind," Reed said is the latest news coming from Britain. "Have you seen it?"

"Reed, I just spent the last 52 hours up in space working on my space industry without sleeping. No I haven't seen the local news." Harry replied dryly. "Why?"

"King William's young granddaughter was almost kidnapped yesterday. Her security team stopped it, but it was a very blatant move in order to try to put pressure on him for some reason. The terrorists haven't been questioned thoroughly about their reasons yet but I know your friendship with William so I figured I'd mention it."

Harry blinked, then blinked again and shook his head. "Yeah I haven't heard that. I think my spymaster is concentrating a little too much on the mutant equality issue. Or I need someone to give me a daily briefing."

"You had a daily briefing this morning," Jean said, yawning. "I think anyway. Dennis talked to us for a few minutes when we came down from Babylon, I think, or was that yesterday?"

"And that I think is a sign that both of you need more sleep when you're getting," Ororo said shaking her head and staring at them both. "Put everything on hold for the evening, and go to bed. Myself or one of the house elves will be up with food shortly."

"It's only five o'clock!" Harry protested then quailed under Ororo's glare. "Right, bed."

Jean nodded, leaning over to kiss her sister-wife on the cheek, before linking arms with Harry leaning on him as they both moved towards the headmaster's tower. Susan exchanged glances with Ororo, and both women broke out into laughter while Reed looked a little befuddled. "It was only two days, what's all the fuss about?"

Needless to say when Harry woke up next, he and Melody went down to talk to King William. The idea of sending his granddaughter to a school with as Harry put it "with enough protections to shrug off the entire American military including its nukes," was quite tantalizing to the king, and to say the little girl was ecstatic was a understatement. Harry spent a few hours constructing a runic doorway on the property, which was much more difficult than it should have been given the number of wards already present on it, but eventually he was able to tie it into the various sports games, and then tie the little girl into it.

He also tied Duncan and William into it, but did not remove the portion of the array on the other side that would tell him if either arrived. He liked them, but that didn't mean he wanted either to give either total access to Camelot.

Reed also finally was able to clear the AI core from Tony for installation the day after that meeting with William. Harry, Melody, Jean, Ororo, Emma and Reed were all within Babylon's control center as Harry and Reed installed the core. Melody was there to check on the song birds, but for some reason also wanted to see what this AI was like.

The installation was finished swiftly and a second later Harry ran through the startup sequence. "AI?"

"I am awake," the AI said through the speakers. "Yet, should I use that term? For that would imply I was asleep. Should I use the term, I am born? Yet that in turn implies that I live. Am I alive? Do I then, have a soul?"

"Of course you are silly!" Melody said, scoffing aloud. "Anyone that can think is alive. And I bet you could sing if you tried?"

"Sing? Music, sounds and words arrayed in a fashion designed to be pleasing to the auditory system. Interesting…" the AI mused, his voice becoming less monotone as he spoke, becoming a he rather than a robotic it.

"Hehehe, that's an odd way of putting it but I think you get the idea." Melody laughed. "I should introduce you to Disney, they have the best songs."

"In answer to your first question AI," Harry said with a smile as he wrapped one arm around his daughter pulling the girl into a hug. "You sound alive to me, but what that means in your case that's a question only you can answer. Do you have a soul? Again that's only something you can answer. However, I promise that I will treat you as if you do, and if you want to search for it, we will do so together."

The AI was silent, then said, "Thank you. I am newly born so I do not have the words for my feelings at present, but this welcome is most gratifying, and empowering. "But what is my function?"

"Your function is to be the AI of this installation, to manage and maintain any scanning equipment we, that is humanity and in person myself install here or reroute through this installation designated Babylon." Harry replied crisply. "You are to contact us if you see any hyperspace signals coming in, anything that could be a ship coming through normal space. Under no circumstances are you to link with any other systems on Earth other than my own except at my express permission. Under no circumstances are you to take command of any combat installation. You are our eyes, but we will be our own shield and sword."

"Agreed," the AI said, then asked, "But what is my designation?"

"If you are alive then I think you should name yourself, shouldn't you? You are our partner, not our slave or our possession despite the limitations we put on you."

"Then I am Pinoptes." the AI said his voice deepening, yet at the same time becoming friendlier, like that of an avuncular elder. "And I think it is past time that you humans get some eyes and ears."

Later that evening Jean came in to Harry's laboratory, cocking an eyebrow at the chaos all around. Illyana was in one corner with several of the other kids including Melody, while Harry and Piotr was stuck in the other corner. Both sides were behind what looked like either sand or snow castles despite the air not being enough cold in here for snow, as vari-colored balls of snow, water and light exploded up around them. Illyana was the offense for her group, while the other kids were using their powers to intercept the attacks coming their way from Harry and Piotr.

All of them stopped including Harry to stare at her sheepishly, but Jean simply laughed. "It's dinner time kids, so I suggest you all rush up to the tower and get changed before joining us in the Great Hall." She suggested. The kids being no fools left quickly, though many took a moment to hug Piotr and Harry before being hustled out the door by the large Russian.

Once they were alone Jean shook her head and Harry. "You're just a big kid at heart, aren't you love?"

"Sometimes," Harry said with a shrug, waving his hands at his fort, banishing it and it's counterpart. Some of the colors splattered around the room remained, and Jean supposed that those were from Illyana. Noticing her staring Harry laughed. "Illyana's control of her magic is growing all the time, soon I'll be starting to actually teach her some real spells now that she can connect with her magical core enough to not need a focus."

"That's nice, but you left a message on my door that you wanted to talk to me alone," Jean said sliding into a chair next to Harry as he sat back down, closing out a program on the computer which had to have been magically protected somehow from the chaos she had walked into, before shutting it down.

"Jean," Harry said hesitantly, turning away from the computer, his eyes flickering down to her stomach which was still flat and toned but which would soon show start to show her pregnancy. "We're coming up on the cutout point we agreed on for you taking part in combat missions. I wanted to try to convince you to stay out of this upcoming fight with Magneto."

"No," Jean replied crisply. "Next question."

"Jean." Harry said firmly.

"No Harry," Jean replied just as firmly, reaching out to grab one of his hands and staring earnestly into his eyes, Jade on emerald. "There are too many unknowns even with the information we've already gotten from Sean Dennis and Emma's work with what we were able to glean from Wendy's mind. Too many Acolytes and Brotherhood members, too many unknowns. You can't go into this fight without one of your biggest hitters! You cannot go into a fight like that after hamstringing yourself."

"I understand that, and it will be a risk. But think about it Jean! If you get injured heaven forbid, the kids might…"

"I know, and my suits already been reinforced with all of the Orihalcum scales it can be, and I know you'll hit me with as many of those defensive spells as you can above and beyond the runic arrays in it. But I am not some kind of wallflower, I am not going to sit this one out. Don't try to force this issue Harry." she said almost pleadingly. "I love you, I love you and I respect and understand your fears, I feel them too. But I am not going to let you go into this fight without me."

Harry still tried to convince her for several moments, but Jean was adamant. Neither of them tried to shout or browbeat the other, it was a heated argument, but it was based around their love for one another and their fellows, not the kind of argument histrionics or volume could help. Finally Harry threw up his hands. "Fine! If it happens within the next week and a half, I'll agree to let you go. But if we are forced to wait longer than that we'll be having this discussion again, and I will bring in Ororo and even Emma on my side of things. At that point I bet even Ororo would agree with me."

Jean winced knowing that was indeed the case. "Alright."Then she smiled as Harry pulled her in for a hug, to which she melted in against him. Both of them, while not pleased one way or another with the outcome were more than happy they could argue their differences without it fracturing their relationship.

OOOOOOO

The very next day Harry had finally gotten some free time to speak to Hela with Emma. He had finally gotten fed up with her not answering his mirror calls, and so was falling back on the type of ritual he had used previously. Jean was not going to come with them this time wanting to let Emma with Hela without her, since she was the only one of the group that had yet to meet her, yet also shared their concerns over someone who, at the least might be a friend in something of the same situation she had been.

The two of them were walking through the Hogwarts grounds and out into the forest beyond the wards when a house-elf suddenly appeared behind Harry. "Master Harry! The tracking arrays be stopped, and Cory be here!"

Harry groaned aloud then looked over Emma. "Rain check?" Emma shrugged philosophically, and the two turned back, breaking out into a run towards the castle.

OOOOOOO

The entrance to the Savage Land, or at least the one that Lensherr and his followers used to bring in supplies, was through a vast underwater tunnel which exited out into a small lake at one side of the massive underground cavern which held the prehistoric jungle that was the Savage Land. Originally it had been much smaller, but Magneto had widened it upon first entering the Savage Land from another, far smaller entrance, a cave which routinely froze and unfroze thanks to changes in geothermal activity.

Knowing that entrance was too small to be of real use Magneto had searched for why the lake had salt water, finding a small and very long tunnel leading out to the ocean. He had then enlarged that entrance, and then installed a halfway point within it, an armored door in the tunnel along with a small, observation point. Mastermind and his two aides, Worm and Senyaka, waited there with a stolen nuclear submarine.

Worm was a mutate, one of the few from the first batch who had lost none of his intelligence or personality under the Mutate process. His name came from the Worm-like lower body the process had given him, but his powers were dangerous despite the possibly derogatory name. His hands had changed too, enlarging beyond human norm.

One of the original Acolytes, Senyaka was a tall man who wore the traditional Acolyte colors of blue and red, with a red M on his chest and armor plates on his shoulders. He had come from a harsh childhood and was saved by Magneto, after which he had become a devout believer in mutant supremacy and Magneto himself.

The three of them would come out with the heavily modified nuclear submarine to meet the supply ship. There Mastermind went through the minds of the troops sent out to guard the supplies. After which he canceled out the control over their ship's crew, allowing them to go on their way none the wiser for having served the mutant cause.

If the troops sent out with the supply ship showed any sign of having done anything or having been influenced mentally the submarine would sink the supply ship rather than run the risk of having the Savage Land found. The Savage Land was Magneto's, a haven he hoped to use to gather the mutants of the world and prepare them for the inevitable war with humanity.

While the group sent out this time had passed his telepathic tests, Mastermind was still suspicious about them. There was no hint something had gone wrong or anything of that nature. But there was still something about their minds that had made Mastermind's paranoia, honed through 20 years of being first a criminal and then a mutant rights activist under Magneto to a finely honed instrument, rear its head.

He couldn't come up with a reason to sink their ship and the supplies within but on the slow voyage through the tunnel he was always popping up around corners. His telepathic powers flashed out rummaging through their minds, searching for even a hint of anything he missed. His two helpers also searched for physical evidence, not that they had any better luck than him.

Wendy hated it, and by the time they finally broke out of the lake's water, moving through the waves to the large peer waiting for them, she was about ready to burst a blood vessel. She hated knowing Mastermind was rummaging through her brain and not being able to feel it and she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. None of the Brotherhood girls did, but at least some of them, like Frenzy, knew she could snap his spine. Though whether she could do that before Mastermind could rewrite her mind was debatable.

About 20 minutes later the top hatch opened, letting in fresh air for the first time in two days. Everyone breathed a sigh of joy at that, but that was nothing beside the relief Wendy had as she finally disembarked, moving rapidly away from her so-called teammates. Not exactly the worst the Brotherhood or Acolytes had to offer but even so Wendy sighed in relief at getting away from them.

"What was that sigh for?" said Mastermind looking over at her from where he was directing dozens of servo-droids to unload the submarine. In appearance he was a middle-aged man with dark brown hair swept back and a smart looking goatee and mustache which he thought made him look debonair. He didn't.

"I'm happy to be back!" Wendy said tartly. "Besides which, Frenzy and Crucible do not make for good company."

Frenzy laughed as she passed by, making to punch Wendy in the shoulder forcing Wendy to flinch backwards. Frenzy stopped the motion, smirking at the reaction from the weakling. "And that's why you'll never amount to anything you Brotherhood bitch, you don't have any stomach for the fight!"

"Not the way you mean it." Wendy reposted, her hands sparking. But she knew she couldn't face the other woman and bowed her head submissively as Frenzy glared at her. Frenzy smirked and moved off, but Mastermind did not.

"There is something wrong with all of you, something about this is still bothering me…" Mastermind said striding forward so that he was within a foot of Wendy staring down at her. "Now, tell me the truth, what happened out there?"

"I don't think you need her to do that given the stringent guidelines you always follow on these missions Mastermind." said another female voice. Crucible and the others made way for Amelia Voght her eyes flashing as she stared at Mastermind. "Leave off! If you didn't find anything in their minds, then there's nothing to be found. I warned you the last time you tried to influence one of the Brotherhood girls Mastermind! Please, give me an excuse…" Her fingers began to turn in tangible, becoming gaseous.

That was Amelia's mutant power, the ability to transform herself and anything she could touch into a gaseous substance. Of course if she wanted to she could use that power on someone else then simply not change them back. She had done that a few times during the Savage Land campaign, and Mastermind knew that the woman wanted to do the same thing to him.

Worse, she was one of the oldest Acolytes, having been with Magneto even before Mastermind, and was someone Magneto trusted implicitly. As such, she had a collar around her neck which nullified any telepathic powers. Indeed there were rumors that she had helped Magneto to develop that technology.

For all his arrogance and sense of superiority Mastermind was a coward. He quailed under Amelia's glare, eyes moving from her to Wendy and back again. "Fine," he said, moving backwards quickly, skirting around Amelia. "You're right, I did clear them else they wouldn't be here. I should learn to trust myself more."

Turning from watching him move off, Amelia moved over to Wendy. Her hand becoming normal once more she reached out gently to touch the younger girl's shoulder. "You all right? He didn't do anything on the cruise did he? I really will rearrange his molecules for him if he did."

"I'm fine, he was just really paranoid on the trip in. I guess it's because this is the last shipment for a while but he was really suspicious of all of us, constantly going into our minds." Wendy shivered. "I'd had enough of it…I don't.. I mean…" she shuddered again.

"Let's get you over to my medical center Wendy," Amelia said frowning lightly. "I'd check with Frenzy but I don't think she's his type and if he blanked her mind enough for him to have 'fun' with, she might've well forgotten her own strength and broken him in half. There would be a certain amount of irony to that I must say," she went on rather dryly and Wendy forced a chuckle "but even so, best to be certain."

Luckily for Wendy's peace of mind the medical scan came up negative. After thanking Amelia for her help Wendy left, heading towards the dock's Brotherhood barracks. One of the original stations, it was small but nearby and Wendy didn't feel up to driving herself out to her normally assigned barracks. Her friends were all there, but right now solitude was what she craved the most, and with the only people in the docks being Mastermind, his helpers, Amelia and those of Crucible's team who had stayed to help the unloading, there was room for her to get that solitude.

Actually of the group she'd spent the last few weeks with, only Slither and Basilisk had stayed to help. Crucible and Frenzy were eager to head to the Citadel, a towering obelisk that the Sun People had originally built and Magneto had enlarged which was a more central location it to the rest of the Savage Land and where Magneto himself held court. The others were just as eager to report in to him personally, always vying for his attention and to know Magneto's plans going forward.

Indeed, Stinger's reluctance to do so seemed rather odd to them, but she had always been one of the least interested in currying favor, and whatever fervor for the cause Stinger had disappeared during the Savage Land campaign. Many of the Brotherhood looked at her askance but others didn't. They understood.

Sighing faintly Wendy threw her duffel bag onto her bed then collapsed on it as the door closed behind her on its magnetic rail, closing her eyes wearily. "Damn, it's good to be home. If home is where the heart is, if not the head. I wish I could've gotten ashore and learned whether or not the rumors we've been hearing lately from Milan and the others on the Tech Team were true, but I suppose simply getting back without Mastermind or the others having done anything to me is win anyway."

"You did learn much about the rumors miss." Said a voice, and she looked up abruptly only to stare at a short… creature… with long ears, that looked sort of like Yoda only not quite. Mostly because he was not green, and his face was far thinner and more pointed, his ears seemingly almost prehensile. He was also wearing an incredibly garish uniform, over which he wore a vest in camouflage motif, if sky blue and neon orange was supposed to be camouflage anyway. He also looked somewhat exhausted, nearly drooping in place as he looked up at her.

He held out a small bottle of some kind of… Wendy frowned as the bottle caught her attention for a second beyond even the creature's presence. It looked as if it held some kind of gas or silver liquid of some kind, though her mind was having trouble trying to decide if it was a gas or liquid.

But that wasn't important, what was important was this little creature actually being there and after a split second's shock Wendy reacted to it. "What the heck, who is, who are you and why are you in my room!?" She sprang to her feet her hands writhed in electricity as she began to gather power for one of her stingers.

"I am a friend miss!" the little creatures said, squeaking as he hunched his shoulders but making no move to get away. "My name be Cory, Miss. You met me on the ship."

"I think I'd remember meeting someone as strange looking as you, no offense." Wendy replied, calming down slightly as the creature made no move to attack simply holding out the odd bottle towards her.

"Yes Missy would, if yous not volunteered to have your memories taken." Cory said smiling happily up at her. "You was very brave, but Miss needs her memories back now. Please, take them."

Wendy blinked, then looked at the bottle and back to Cory's face. There was something about the little creature, how extremely earnestly was, not just his mere presence here in her room that was disarming her initial outrage at him. "I… my memories? Are you saying someone removed my memories? Did, did that bastard Mastermind really do something!?"

"Er, no Miss, not him, but please miss, the sooner yous have your memories back, the sooner I's can send a message to my master, the one you called Guardian, he's can be here." The little creature replied earnestly.

One hand moving through her blue hair, Wendy frowned, thinking now. "You said, you said I found out those rumors were true? How do, I mean why am even considering this!" Wendy stood up abruptly shaking her head as the oddness of the moment finally overcame her ability to handle it.

"Because you know you met me Miss, and now's you will remember it!" With that Cory suddenly jumped up towards her, opening the bottle and thrusting it forward towards her Wendy's face.

Instead of a gas or some kind of liquid hitting her face however, the silver strands of whatever was inside the bottle flew out of the bottle almost like string shot out of it before entering Wendy's head through her ears and nose. Even as she fell back, the memories of what had really happened sunk back into Wendy's mind, and she sat down abruptly shaking her head, her eyes closing as her mind worked to reintegrate the previously missing memories. When she opened her eyes Wendy grinned down at Cory. "What a trip! All right Cory, it worked!"

Cory wiped one hand over his forehead in relief then suddenly stiffened as he stared towards the door, his face blanking. "Two people coming Miss!"

With that he disappeared with a pop and Wendy frowned staring at the door. A second later it opened, and Worm entered along with Slither. Worm smirked evilly at Wendy while Slither's tongue flicked out, tasting the air. "Mastermind still thinks you are hiding something Stinger, and I'm beginning to think he's right. We heard voices, yet here you are alone. And the only teleporters are at the Citadel."

Wendy stood up, one of her stings in one fist as she glared at both of them. "I'm not hiding anything!" she lied. "Just because I don't want Mastermind's damn telepathy in my head messing me up doesn't mean I'm hiding anything! You know the rumors about what he's done before."

Surprisingly Slither nodded his head, moving away from Worm for a moment looking around the room. "We did hear voices though, two of them. Were you listening to something?"

"My headphones," Wendy said thinking fast and pulling them out from underneath her duffel. She always had them on her, along with a Walkman. "I'd turned them on high."

"Doesn't matter." Worm said shaking his head. Mucus began to form in his hands and along his bare arms, and he smirked at her once again. "We're to take you to Mastermind now Stinger. He wants to make certain there's nothing in your brain."

"Hell no!" Wendy said, moving back and watching Worm warily while Slither moved to the side, blocking the door but not, for some reason, advancing on her. Maybe he's supposed to be the good cop to Worm's sadistic cop? Fuck it, not gonna let him get that damn body controlling mucus on me. "Not unless Amelia or one of the other lieutenants is there!"

"You think highly of yourself to think you can demand such." Worm said, his voice now much lower, as he moved to grab Wendy's arm but she ducked back, raising her hand. "And you make it sound as if you got a choice anyway! You're just a Brotherhood member, not an Acolyte. Remember your place girl!"

That was as far as the conflict got before Slither's fist, which was slowly turning gray, slammed into the side of Worm's head hurling him into the wall. He looked up woozily from the impact, only to see a foot slamming down into his face.

Slither, or the person who had been Slither turned to Wendy, as his features continued to change. When the process finished, the being standing there was now about a foot taller than Wendy, with a tight blue suit with yellow hands and purple cape. His face was entirely white with no real outstanding feature save for the wide grin that looked, and indeed was, far too wide for that face.

"Morph!" Wendy exclaimed relieved, moving forward to throw her arms around her friend. "Am I ever glad to see you!"

Morph's grin widened even further his face looking almost like the Cheshire Cat's for a moment as he hugged her back. They weren't lovers or anything like that Wendy wasn't really his type, but Morph made a point of sticking up for her and several of the other Brotherhood members who were ostensibly low on the totem pole around here. An Acolyte himself, he was only a few years older than most of the Brotherhood members, but he had never been of the most militant among them, and always made a point of helping anyone he could.

After a second though he pushed Wendy away gently as he looked at her then around her room. "There's no way that was your headphones I was hearing, that was half of a conversation, remember I get a watered down version of the senses of whoever I morph into. What's going on Wendy?"

Wendy bit her lip then shrugged. Cory had no doubt already popped out back to wherever Guardian was, carrying the word and the coordinates to this place so the die was already cast. "Morph, you better sit down for this. You know those rumors about the Custodes Mundi, about how mutant equality was on the rise?"

"About how we might have been making war here for nothing? Yeah I've heard them." Morph said not sitting down but leaning against the wall, before he raised one foot, which swiftly morphed into a hammer as he brought it crashing down on Worm's head. As Wendy glared at him, he shrugged. "Better safe than sorry, do go on."

But before Wendy could, there were suddenly three more people in the room...

OOOOOOO

"All right," Harry said as he looked over the large group before him. They were all here, the Custodes Mundi, Mystique, Nikolai's sister Laynia who had agreed to join for this mission, the X-men and the Fantastic Four too who had agreed to help, though with reservations for Harry's rules of engagement. Kitty, or Shadow Cat, had also decided to join them for this mission.

The X-men included Sam, and three of the newest members of the X-men, Warpath, Thunderbird, and Wanda, or, as she had decided to call herself, the Scarlet Witch. Warpath, John Proudstar, was the younger brother of James Proudstar, who had decided on the Thunderbird moniker. His inclusion was somewhat last minute, having arrived with his older brother several days ago with the rest of the second class at the mansion.

The two of them had been added to the X-men roster immediately after a first 'getting to know you' test, where both had proven to have pretty good combat experience. They'd both passed the team exercises with flying colors, but Thunderbird was a bit more arrogant and confrontational than his younger brother. Despite that, they had both responded well to Cyclops and his lessons, so it was hoped they would continue to do so.

Havok wore the same uniform as his brother, while Polaris wore the same sort of outfit Storm did but with the colors green and white instead black and gold. Wanda had red pants, a tight blouse of black and red that hugged her curves along with long latex gloves of red.

It was a large force, but Harry knew they would still be outnumbered. They would have to strike hard and fast and keep moving, and rely on his spells to make up the numbers at need.

"We don't have any idea how large this place where Magneto and his group have taken over, but judging from the imagery that Emma got from their minds, it's a jungle of some kind, and it might be huge. This could be a full campaign we're looking at, or a series of sharp battles. You all should have been issued potion pouches, if you haven't raise your hands." No one did, though Thunderbird and his brother were still looking a little askance down at their own pouches.

And they also were both sneaking glances toward Danielle in her Ghigau persona. Her uniform and name had started an argument between the four Native Americans, with Wyatt and Danielle smacking the two newcomers down verbally for something Harry hadn't overheard and didn't care about.

"You all have looked over the dossiers Banshee and I prepared. You all know our rules of engagement. We take prisoners among the Brotherhood if we possibly can and if they aren't already wanted for murder or worse crimes. But as for the Acolytes…" he shook his head. "Unless they surrender, don't play around with them. Most of them are murderers multiple times over. We take them down and we take them down hard. Same for Magneto and his lieutenants. We all know what's at stake here, if Magneto is allowed to choose his time and place to reappear on the world scene, he's going to shatter all the good work we've done of late, and the idea of mutant/norm equality will die with it. I refuse to let that happen. If you cannot handle that kind of idea, that kind of battlefield tell your team leaders and you can remain here. There'll be no onus on you, this is war, and it's not for everyone."

They all nodded, even Susan and Reed, and he nodded back firmly. "In that case, Storm will port the infiltration team in first, Storm, Ghigau and myself." Storm and Harry could, thanks to their disparate mental defenses, defend themselves from telepaths without allowing an enemy telepath to realize their minds were even there. And thanks to her own mutant power, Danielle could do the same by hiding her mind behind a projection of an animal's mind.

"We'll clear the immediate area of hostiles if need be, then start porting you all in small groups." He looked over at Diamond who nodded. She would be coming with them in team two. Not to take part in any outright fight, but to match her skills against any telepath on the other side. Hopefully there wouldn't be many of those. Jean was a telepath of course, but the two of them were the only ones they had on hand here.

Charles was not coming with them, he was not a combatant and frankly Harry had talked to him, and Charles would have a major problem with the idea of killing Magneto let alone any of his followers. Cyclops on the other hand along with the other X-Men, while unhappy about the necessity, understood.

Instead Charles would remain here in Camelot along with several of the house-elves, Dr. Druid, Una Destiny and the others. They would be in charge of the medical side of things, with the Kree nurse in overall command, something that had shocked her when informed of it. But with Una, Charles and the others here, the number of potion, they would hopefully be able to deal with any but the most severe injuries brought in by emergency portkeys. Those they would at least be able to put in stasis until Harry or Ororo could deal with them.

With a final nod, Harry turned to Ororo, who nodded, closing her eyes. After a moment's concentration she could picture the image Cory had given her of the area he had been in, teleporting the three out. The three of them appeared in the room as Wendy, right where Cory had been standing.

Harry actually found himself staring into Morph's face, and was about to lash out automatically with a spell when the gray-haired face grinned at him. "You're Guardian huh, well, you don't look like anything like you do in the newscasts I've seen."

With that Morph shifted his face to match Guardian's Milan. "This close you look more dark stormtrooper than superhero." he said, before morphing back.

"That's part of the idea." Guardian said with a chuckle, looking over at Wendy. "I take it you found a partisan?"

"More like he found me Guardian." Wendy said, nearly sighing in relief as she saw all three of them, then blinking in happy surprise as both Guardian and Ororo pulled her into a comforting hug, wordlessly showing their happiness she was alright. They hadn't known her very well, but the risk Wendy had run had impressed both of them.

After a moment she pulled away, gesturing to the white-faced individual, who had been making faces at Ghigau, who was now nearly convulsing in laughter. "This is Morph, he's an Acolyte, but he's one of the nicest among them along with Amelia."

"Amelia was worried about the kid here, so she brought me along when we stopped by. I morphed into one of the locals when he ordered Worm over here to take her captive and came with him." Morph said with a shrug. "Mastermind thought she had a secret, guess he was right. Wow. And I mean that both in terms of him being right and the actual secret."

"Is Mastermind in the area?"

"He's still in the port," Morph said with a nod, then frowned. "Um, he might know something is up already if he was keeping track of Worm's mind, now I'm sorry I knocked the sadist out."

Without another word Storm teleported away. A second later she was back with both Jean and Emma and Emma, dressed in a skintight white suit decked with runic arrays glowing like jewels lashed out immediately in a flash of telepathic power.

Elsewhere in the port Mastermind, who had just been about to reach out for his follower's mind, felt like someone had just slammed a warhammer between his eyes. He collapsed out of the chair he had been sitting in, and moved towards an emergency alarm, only to stop his entire body freezing as his mind began to duel with Diamond on the astral plane.

Diamond's astral form was that of a woman, clad in diamond wearing an ancient Victorian costume. Her attacks were spears, bullets and flashing whips of telepathic power. Her opponent was nowhere near as solid a form. His power was subtle, insidious, black upon black here in the astral plane, with snakes of power reaching towards her trying to bind her as well as defend against her assaults.

But Mastermind, despite his experience was not a very powerful telepath as such things could be measured, and for all his experience he didn't have Diamond's verve, instincts or imagination. Beyond that Diamond was an Omega level telepath, one of the strongest telepaths on Earth. If Mastermind had come upon her unawares it would've been one thing, but she had ambushed him instead, and it took but a bare few moments for his defenses to crumble in the wake of her assaults. Ruthlessly she slammed attacks into his brain, activating the pain centers to such a level that he blacked out, his mouth open in a soundless scream of agony.

As soon as it had begun it was over, and Diamond was back in her own body, falling back onto Wendy's bed. "Mastermind is down for the moment," she said, shaking her head to clear it from the odd feeling of having just flown through a wall to return to her physical form, her voice cold at what she had seen in the other telepaths mind after she had broken his defenses. "I sense only four other people here, counting Worm. One is a woman, and two are by the docks."

"I'll take those two out." Harry said with a nod.

But Morph shook his head quickly. "Not without me you're not. Besides we need to talk. I know more about what's going on in the Savage Land than Wendy does. I'm an Acolyte, and no offense Wendy, but you're just a lowly Sister of the Brotherhood."

Wendy groaned a little. "You know I hate that joke!"

"Yep," Morph said with a grin. "I do. You'll need me."

He went on seriously looking at Guardian. "Not just for my powers, but for what's in my head. Besides, I can talk Amelia down easy if need be. She could be trouble if you approach her wrong, but Amelia's been as unhappy with Magneto's leadership lately as I have been. Heck, I think she's been the one spreading most of the rumors about the world at large that the Tech Team's been gathering lately."

"All right," Guardian said after staring into Morph's eyes for a moment, getting the feel of the man. "I'll agree to that."

Putting his hand on Morph's shoulder he cast a Notice-Me-Not on them both, as well as a Disillusion charm.

With one hand on Morph, Morph was unaffected from the silencing spell, but he stared as their bodies disappeared. "Neat trick."

"One of many in my repertoire," Guardian said dryly. "Now talk."

Morph nodded as he transformed himself into Slither, following Guardian as he opened the door. "Well, the first thing you need to know that you might not've gotten from Wendy, is the Savage Land is massive! We think it's about the size of Australia, maybe a little smaller."

"Damn, we didn't think it was that huge!" Harry muttered then looked up. "There's someone coming."

Morph nodded, taking the lead as they exited the barrack only to stare as Slither looked back at him. "Shit."

The other Slither spoke up quickly stepping back and pointing at his counterpart angrily. "Morph! What the hell, you're not even supposed to be here! Wait until Mastermind…"

That had been as long as it took for Harry to sneak up on the other mutant a stunning spell from his fingertips slammed into the other mutant back of the head from point-blank range, and he collapsed forward.

Morph whistled. "Nice. Let's hide him somewhere or cover him with one of the spells. I'll stay in this form."

Harry nodded, waving his hand and suddenly Slither's body disappeared. He, like any other prisoners they found, would reappear seconds later in the same asteroid they had initially set up for Dr. Banner. He in turn had been moved to another asteroid which had access to computers and other utilities. "You were saying something?"

With Harry on the job, taking out Basilisk went as easily as Slither had been. Neither of them had any kind of natural defense against magic, it was just that simple. Energy manipulators, some shape changers and a few mutants whose ability changed their skin to something else often had some resistance to magical attacks. But while Basilisk might have chosen that name and actually had powers which gave it some meaning, he didn't have a basilisk's magical immunity.

As the two of them moved through the port, destroying the droids Morph filled Harry in on how Magneto had conquered the Savage Land in a series of sharp campaigns against the other power players, turning some into his lieutenants, and crushing others. Zaladane and Sauron were not alone in this, indeed the first batch of mutates had joined him willingly, betraying their people in return for power. Eric had even used diplomacy at times, though he stopped after he had convinced Zaladane to join him. There were rumors that the two of them were lovers, but Morph didn't know if that was true, and neither man really cared.

Harry stopped him at one point, staring at Morph. "I understand Wendy wanting to work with us. She's young and not given to violence, the comparison between Magneto's campaign here and the reality about what me and mine have done has convinced her to help us. Well, that and a large dollop of guilt for her part in the campaign here. And I can understand you deciding to help us somewhat for friendship's sake, but not to this extent. So, why?"

"Hell, I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner." Morph chuckled rather wanly, as he pulled his hand out of one of the droids, having morphed his arm into a steel-like maul which had punched through the droid's carapace.

"I'm normally a very good judge of character, and Wendy trusted you. After what she did to help us find this place that gives her word a lot of weight." Harry replied simply, but his helmeted visage did not turn from staring into Morph's eyes.

"That's good, she's a good kid. As for me… My parents thought I was possessed and that beating me was the best way to get the demon out. When my body morphed into stone tough enough to ignore them, they threw me out, convinced I could no longer be saved. I was… ten I think, something like that, but one of my teachers took me in, he took me in, became more of a father than my own ever was, taught me to laugh at the world you know? But when I was fourteen some of the locals found out about my powers and burned out our house. I survived, he didn't."

Morph shrugged, hiding his pain from that memory with the ease of long practice. "Magneto's people found me and joining them was an easy decision after that. But I never really bought into the whole 'supremacy' angle. I watched what he and the other higher ups did, and I wondered, and just…"

He sighed. "Magneto might have started this fight to defend mutant-kind, but he's gone beyond the pale now. We've nearly wiped out some of the tribes here, enslaved entire species like the Cat People. The ends can't justify the means, not to this extent." Morph grinned suddenly. "Hope you were taking notes Guardian, because that's the last time you'll ever hear me be so serious!"

Harry looked at him thoughtfully then nodded. "Alright, that's fine by me and my friends call me Harry, Morph."

The two of them continued to move through the port, obscuring the few security camera there were, destroying the droids, while Jean, Wendy and Danielle moved directly to the control room, shutting down everything there for now, before heading to the hospital center and meeting Amelia there.

Amelia turned, smiling at Wendy who was first through the doorway, then shot to her feet, her arms suddenly turning gaseous as Phoenix followed the younger girl in.

"Calm down!" Wendy half shouted, holding out her hands. "Amelia, this is Phoenix of the Custodes Mundi. Er, you know those rumors?"

"I know about them…" Amelia said, then slowly, her arms began to reform. "I know they're real too, and that Eric's been mighty pissed about equality gaining ground, throws a lot of his beliefs about how the world works out the door, not that he's willing to change. I suppose I should say you're welcome here. I, I won't fight Eric, but I won't warn him you're here either."

Wendy smirked at Phoenix. "See, I told you! There's more than a few of us who've begun to question Magneto's leadership. Miss Amelia is the most senior of us. She could be a big help."

"With wounds, injuries and, after the battle, maybe other things. But I won't help you either." Amelia cut in firmly. "I owe Eric that much."

"Agreed." Phoenix replied simply. "If you are just willing to remain out of things here in the port and not warn him we're coming, that's enough for us." She then smiled, winking at the older woman. "And afterwards, I think you'll find that those rumors about us only touch the surface of what the Custodes have really been up to. And we're always happy to have more medical personnel. Especially if they're good with kids."

Amelia blinked at that, and Phoenix gestured her to follow them out of the small med bay.

While Ororo had remained behind to teleport the rest of the teams in small groups, Emma had left on her own little mission, moving straight to Mastermind's quarters. She looked down at the man for a few moments then pulled out a knife from her waist, and without preamble quickly cut his throat. She had already shut his mind down nearly to the extent she had Shaw's, but better safe than sorry after all. He was a telepath, he might have been able to come back from that but not from his body's death at the same time.

She ignored the blood gushing down his chest, the gasping gurgling of the empty body as she turned away. While anyone else would have been repulsed, or maybe even queasy after performing such an execution, Emma felt nothing more than she would have after crushing a cockroach under her heel, not after seeing what "Better than you deserved, you rapist bastard."

In the meantime Harry and Morph continued to talk as they moved around the port. He filled in a lot of the blanks in their information, including telling Harry about Exodus, who they had little to no information about from Emma's examination of Wendy and the other's memories.

He had never appeared in Interpol's information net, nor did Sir Douglas turn up any information about him other than a single incident in Germany: a skinhead rally had turned into a mutant hunt but had been slaughtered to a man, their bodies torn apart as if by some tremendous force. A security camera had caught a picture of the assailant's face, but that had been the only thing about Exodus they knew, even his affiliation to Magneto's faction was something they only knew by looking through Wendy and the other's minds.

Morph also informed Harry of Wolverine being there and having escaped from a secure sells somehow, which Magneto was still incensed about. But no one could find the wild man now, nor Shanna. They hadn't struck back at any of the patrols through the savage land, but it was still irritating to Magneto and the other higher ups.

The most important thing that Morph told Harry in the next few moments however was about Magneto himself and what Magneto considered his trump card. Twenty years ago or so Magneto had stolen several nuclear armed submarines from Russia and America, killing the crews by turning the interior of the ships against them and then simply stealing the ships. A few of those crews had been able to get the word out as to what was happening, making his attempt to start another world war falter at the outset, and a few of the subs had been recovered since.

However none of the nuclear missiles those subs had carried had ever been found. Those missiles were currently here in the Savage Land where Magneto and his magnetic powers could get at them. He planned to use them in his war for mutant supremacy. He didn't want to use them otherwise, but Morph wasn't certain if he wouldn't use them as a last act of defiance. He'd brought the entirety of his Acolytes and the Brotherhood here to wage his war against the inhabitants, Magneto had no other fall back base and knew it.

Something else that Morph had said was just as interesting to Harry in the long term though. "So these pillars of alien technology, they keep this place the way it is? Do they do more than just warm this cavern up or what?"

"No idea," Morph said with a shrug. "No one knows much about them, though they also keep that artificial sun thing going, night and day just like it would be on the equator like clockwork. Magneto tried to study them, but even with his power he couldn't get close. They've got some kind of field around them, any attempt to analyze them or touch them activates it, and suddenly Magneto found himself several yards away with second-degree burns covering his hands despite his electromagnetic shield."

Morph clicked his fingers as they turned back from the port's outskirts, heading back inward to the port's main supply depot, where there were several large trucks ready for the supplies which would be taken further into the Savage Land. "Oh, and they also somehow repair the cavern's walls. Magneto tried to make some kind of egress in the roof, and he couldn't make any headway."

"I might have to throw one of my big brains at that, though they've already got so many other things they're working on it'll take weeks or months before they can clear up enough time. And frankly, they're not high on my list right now unless this is some kind of alien experiment center but if that was the case I imagine the aliens would already be here to try and stop Magneto from messing with their backyard." Harry mused.

"The nukes though, those worry the hell out of me." In fact Harry was starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed here.

In front of them the expanded Custodes Mundi gathered under Ororo and Scott's directions. Wendy was there too, along with a tallish brunette woman who must be Amelia. They were all staring out past the port's outer walls, taking in the prehistoric nature of the jungle. a jungle whose sheer wildness and number of fauna was both like yet utterly unlike any jungle the Custodes Mundi had ever seen in real life.

In the distance to the left, they could make out a huge long-necked dinosaur of some kind. Harry had never actually been interested in dinosaurs when he was a kid, having much more important things on his mind. But that wasn't the only one in sight.

"The land that time forgot," Jean murmured as Harry and Morph joined them. "I wonder if Sir Conan Doyle found his way here or someone from here left somehow and met him."

"Doesn't matter right now," Harry smiled grimly getting everyone's attention with ease. "Alright, so the Savage Land is even bigger than we thought it might be. However, we've still got the element of surprise, and the threat is even bigger than I feared as well. So we're going to continue on in the tradition of the Custodes Mundi when faced with surprises."

"Kiss our rears goodbye and carry on anyway?" Piotr asked.

"Trust to luck?" Paige asked.

"Charge through and damn the odds?" Ororo quipped, a smile on her face as she reached over to gently touch Harry's shoulder.

That touch and the jokes, and the obvious high morale among his people calmed Harry down somewhat and he smirked at them all. "That's enough of that you lot. Here's the plan, such as it is. There's only the bare bones of it, but it should still work. First though, communications, can we contact Camelot?"

"Negative at least on the com net. We can't signal anyone outside of the Savage Land. I'd estimate the rock density is far too thick for that." Reed replied. "Your communication mirrors however work very well, even if you don't have one for everyone."

"Phoenix and I could possibly reach out to Charles, but not without warning any remaining telepath on the other side." Diamond said.

"So long as the emergency portkeys work, I think that'll be enough. I'm not happy with it, and I wish we had created com mirrors for everyone but they just weren't high on our list of priorities." Harry shrugged. Seriously have to look into a way to how to create some kind of, of magic clone or something. Despite Kitty, Dr. Druid, and Ororo magic's still a bottleneck. Even with delegating the science and business side of things there were just too many demands on his time, and Harry refused to spend even less time with Melody, Illyana, his friends and lover than he already did.

Putting that out of his mind, he began to turn in a small circle, pointing at each of them in turn. "Vanguard, you lead team snipe. That will be Coyote, Scarlet Witch, Nightcrawler, Carol, Ghigau… and Morph."

Morph grinned at everyone bowing to each of his team floridly. "Charmed I'm sure everyone, hope we all get along."

The others looked at him askance save for Nightcrawler, who grinned at him seeing a kindred spirit in the newcomer.

Harry swatted Morph over the head. "Quiet. He'll try to lead you through the jungle out there on an angle from the main road between here and Magneto's citadel."

All of them nodded, staring out through the small outer wall and gate at the road leading out through the jungle which began a bare two hundred yards away from the port's wall. It led off into the distance near ruler straight, trying to impose a bit of order over the chaos of the jungle.

"You'll be covered with every spell I can use on you to hide your presence. Your job will be to either attack the flanks of any force sent out against the main troop, or attack targets of opportunity, drawing off attention from the main force. Hit and run, don't get bogged down in any one position, understood?"

Nikolai nodded his head seriously while the others replied verbally. Harry nodded back and went on, looking at Ororo. "Storm, you'll lead the flyers, that's Banshee, Darkstar, Torch, Cannonball and Polaris. Not Phoenix, sorry love, but you'll be with me on the ground for now, and neither of us are going to get it stuck in right away, we'll be the reserve force. Morph, tell them what you told me about Sauron, Zaladane and Exodus. We don't have time for you to tell us about all of the others."

Realizing this was no time for jokes Morph refrained from making any with difficulty, instead repeating what he had told Harry earlier. There were some worried mutters when Exodus' abilities were mentioned, and Jean subsided quickly from her anger at Harry trying to protect her, their argument over her participation in this mission still fresh in her mind, to realize that she had been right to come along in the first place. And by the look in his eyes as he looked at her, Jean knew Harry had realized that too. That made gloating rather redundant really.

"The flyer's job will be to forge ahead of the main force, which will be the rest of us. It will be your task to spot and possibly overwhelm any traps or ambushes before we run into them, then, when Magneto sends his main force out, to take control of the skies. Air superiority will help turn the tide on the ground whatever we're facing."

As the flyers nodded grimly, Harry made a point of catching Lorna Dane's eyes. "Storm is in charge in the air, you will follow her orders regardless of if you see Magneto, is that understood?"

Lorna bristled, but Wanda reached over and toucher her half-sister's shoulder. When Lorna looked at her Wanda gave her a thumb's up. "Don't worry sis, Daddy dearest and Pietro will both get theirs, regardless of who gives it to 'em."

"I'm not saying you can't confront him Lorna, but that isn't why we're here. We're here to make certain he can't start the war he seems set on happening between humanity and mutants." Harry said. "You're here because you said you understood that and passed all of Charles' tests, can I trust you to not go off the handle now?"
Looking between her sister, Alex and Harry, Lorna nodded. "Yes sir. I won't promise not to say anything if he and I meet up, but I can promise not to disobey orders to go after him."

"Good." With that, Harry turned to Reed. "Mr. Fantastic, you'll be left behind here with Diamond. I wish I could leave you more people to help secure the port, but I'm afraid I'll need everyone I can at the front or on other tasks. Your job will be to jam Magneto's communications and protect Diamond, whose job will be to offset and shut down any telepathic assault in conjunction with Jean. Wendy and Amelia will stay here and Wendy should be able to help you, along with Susan, I'll take Ben with the main force."

"Actually" Wendy interjected, actually raising her hand as if she was in class. When Harry turned to her she gulped a little, but went on. "I think I can convince a few of the Brotherhood members I'm friends with to if not come over to your side, at least not follow Magneto's orders for the rest of this campaign."

She looked over at Morph who frowned for a moment then grinned, his hand changing into a giant foam thumbs up and she went on more confidently. "We're not the only ones who have started to question Lord Magneto's orders or his way of doing things."

Amelia had been standing to one side, talking quietly with Susan being of an age with the other woman, getting a near-to firsthand account of the progress towards equality Harry and his group had made. Now she spoke up nodding her head. "She's right, there's at least five or six other members of the Brotherhood I know of who no longer believe Eric's methods are the right ones."

"Alright…" Harry mused then nodded. "You know where they would be?"

"Yes, the Brotherhood is spread out through the Savage Land, but most of the times so long as our numbers were kept at a set number, the Acolytes and the higher ups didn't bother us. I know my friends and I had gathered at one of the barracks by the northwest," She gestured in that direction, pointing out away over the large lake towards the far side of it where she knew the jungle gave way to a rocky plain. "If I can get to them before Lord Magneto sends anyone to rally them…"

"It's a chance, and…" Harry trailed off not wanting to tell Wendy or Amelia that removing as many of the Brotherhood members who hadn't bought in to Magneto's policies and willingly joined his terrorist acts would make the battles to come easier. "Yes, I think we need to try it, and you've earned my trust before this Wendy. Wendy, Psylocke, Mystique and… Susan?"

Susan nodded firmly at Harry's question, moving over to place a hand on the teenage girl's shoulder while Mystique merely nodded. She'd only been able to identify a few more Acolyte members than the ones they'd gotten information from Wendy on.

"You three can head out right now see if you can convince your friends to not take part in the fight. That's all I want, I don't want them to turn on their fellows or anything like that, so long as they don't take part in the fight that's fine by me."

Wendy nodded firmly and she, Psylocke and Susan moved towards a small four wheeled buggy, one of a series set beside the two large trucks designed to help single people move around. They roared out of the port before turning off the road heading off on a small path around the open area along the lake's edge.

"Cyclops, Magma, you'll be my lieutenants in the main force. We'll be hidden behind my spells for a time but with a magic user on the other side that might not last. I don't actually want to attack the citadel, so we'll move slow, using these trucks to move for now and searching for a place to set up."

Harry saw the question in many of their eyes but Colossus, Ghigau, Cyclops and Magma all nodded. Cyclops took it upon himself to explain for the others. "You want to pull them out of their main defensive position force them to fight us in the open."

"Exactly. Magneto's not that good a tactician, and he's an egotist, not a real field commander, he'll attack us just like that with his full force once he realizes we're here. When Magneto and Exodus do appear, Phoenix and I will counter them, maybe take them away from the main battle if we can, certainly counteract their attempts to help their fellows. If we have to though, I might not be able to do that and command the battle. That'll become your job then."

"I also note you've sent a magic user with each group," Ororo mused.

Harry nodded watching as Cyclops and Magma exchanged a glance before both nodded firmly. "In that case, hop aboard and let's go." Everyone replied in the affirmative and raced towards the waiting trucks, with Vanguard leading his team out on more buggies for now.

The battle for the Savage Land and, more importantly, to stop Magneto's faction, had begun.

OOOOOOO

Eric frowned as he sat in his throne room. His recent set back in attempting to analyze the pillars had irritated him, forcing him to remove himself from the day to day running of his Acolytes to no good effect. But that wasn't why he was frowning at present. No, he was frowning because Mastermind was late with his report on the latest supply run. It was well into the afternoon now, and he was supposed to call in around lunch time.

Nor had Amelia returned to the citadel just yet. He understood Amelia's reasoning and even applauded her for her defense of the Brotherhood members. Mastermind was a leech, a lothario and an all-around untrustworthy individual to have around young women. But he was useful, and so Magneto would put up with him for now.

He was also normally very punctual hence Eric's frown. I wonder what has happened, he better not have gone behind Amelia's back and began to manipulate Wendy or any other girls. The blue-haired girl might not be the most powerful Brotherhood member, but she is a Brotherhood member, and I warned him the last time what I would do to me if he prayed upon them. There are dozens of young native girls who haven't been put through the improved mutation process for him to prey upon if those urges get to him.

With a wave of his head the master of magnetism activated several small programs connected to the port, video cameras sound enhancers, other things that he routinely used in all of his bases to keep tabs on things at need. After a moment he frowned as nothing came through them. That meant there was something far more serious going on here, and the coincidence of the communications and security being down just now made Eric wary of enemy action.

Another wave of his hand activated an intercom and Moments later his deputies were gathered. With a series of terse phrases Magneto filled them in on what might be going on, giving them their orders.

At Eric's command Exodus had reached out with his telepathic power only to be blunted and pushed back by at least two equally powerful telepaths. While not a very precise individual, who had trouble finding enemy minds and couldn't use his telepathy at the level Mastermind could, Exodus still had power to spare and should have been able to overcome that defense with ease. But he could not, his astral form flung back into his body by a two female images, one of fire and one of seeming diamond.

That did not tell Magneto who was attacking them, but it certainly made the attack a reality rather than a fear, and he began to issue orders crisply. Exodus would remain with Magneto, ready to take the field when their enemies were pinned down.

A group of the fast reaction force of the Pteradon people would be sent out with the Kleinstock brothers to find the attackers by the air. A group under Milan, an Acolyte whose power had little combat application but major information gathering ability, would be sent on an oblique angle to the port to retake it if empty and to check to see what had occurred there.

Other scouting groups would be sent through the jungle just in case, while the main force of mutates, Acolytes and Brotherhood members would gather at the citadel. Whoever this was could not match the numbers or force strength Magneto could bring to bear.

As he was outlining his strategy his lieutenants listened intently, but Sauron's mind was on other things. No, he had no interest in simply following Magneto's plan blindly. From conflict will come opportunity, all I have to do is wait.

OOOOOOO

Where he was with the main force Guardian frowned looking over at Cyclops as Diamond and Jean informed him they had just fought off a telepathic attack. Not like he needed that information, Phoenix's hair suddenly flaring with telekinetic fire and her eyes behind her small mask flashing the same way had told him something was going on. It had been several hours since they had left the port, and he was actually been surprised it had been this long. "How powerful do you think he is?"

"Powerful, but not very skilled. He's definitely strong though, and I doubt either of us could get through his defenses alone. I'll try if I get the chance but don't expect anything there. He can't use his power to find us though, his telepathy doesn't work like that I don't think, his mind is too closed off for his telepathy to work like ours." Phoenix shrugged her shoulders. "But Magneto knows somethings up for certain now."

"Great…" Nodding his head, Guardian used the microphone that was part of his mask to signal Storm and Vanguard. Wendy's team would not be contacted like this, even with Reed interfering with their opponent's communications it would still be too dangerous for them. Even to the other two his message was short. "Magneto knows we're coming, be ready."

OOOOOOO

Unbeknownst to Guardian the Flyers which had gone ahead of his main force had already spotted the opposition. Several dozen miles above and in front of the far slower moving main force, they were out of range of aid and eye, but still following the same route.

The Klienstock brothers were three triplets who could all fly and fire energy beams of varying strength from their hands. The mutant powers weren't very powerful individually, but for some reason when they acted close together their powers amplified one another allowing themselves to be decent long-range and short range combatants.

The three of them were now leading the tribe Pteradon people into the air, heading towards the port. Normally Sauron would be leading them, but not now, given he was still in conference with Lord Magneto.

The Pteradon people were among the most numerous tribes of the Savage Land, and were very warlike, aggressive and antagonistic to everyone who they saw as weaker than they. They had not changed physically for the most part due to the mutation process but had lost somewhat in intelligence, not that grunts like them needed much in the way of brain power.

A few of them had developed the ability of echolocation, which Harry hadn't thought of when he was casting spells over his flyers to keep them from being seen until they could finally attack the citadel.

Worse, they weren't total idiots. Instead of shouting that they saw enemy flyers in the air, they passed the word quietly, spreading out slightly so as to fully envelop the enemy air force.

Unfortunately for them, Storm was very paranoid. She noticed the group ahead of them in the air, and had pulled her own group upwards and back so that they had the height advantage, continuing to do so as the enemies began to try to envelop them.

"I think they see us somehow," she said dryly as the flyers once again ascended to the same altitude that she and the others were on. "I think we have to start the party now regardless of what we wanted."

"Fine by me! Yawooo!" Johnny shouted before rocketing forwards, moving far faster than his illusion spells could handle. A pillar of flame appeared from his hands, streaming forward, slamming into and through several of the Pteradons, burning their wings off and sending them plummeting down to the ground. Since Morph had told them all the Pteradons and the Amphibians of the Savage Land had agreed to go through the mutation process and the fact that it was irreversible had removed the last barrier to using lethal measures the Fantastic Four let alone the Custodes Mundi had in dealing with their enemies here.

Behind him Cannonball, Polaris and Banshee shot forward in turn.

Cannonball shot ahead, slamming bodily into one of the three human looking individuals among the enemies. That impact threw the young man backwards, cartwheeling through the air losing all of his forward momentum but still retaining some control, coming to a slow halt in midair as Cannonball continue to roar forward, slamming into more of the Pteradons, hurling them aside.

Sending out a blast of ice, Storm froze a Pteradon then ascended into the air raining down lightning and blasts of razor fast wind even while reaching up to one temple to tap her communicator. "Guardian, this is Storm, we are engaging a force of flyers that somehow spotted us despite our spells. Nothing we can't deal with just yet, but be aware we won't be scouting ahead of you for a bit."

Ahead of them, more and more Pteradons flew toward them from the distant mountains. Storm however was undaunted, and began to use some of the spells Harry had been teaching her.

The new flyers also had hi-tech gear, which Polaris gleefully tore apart, turning each gun into so many flechettes, tearing their users apart. At the same time Banshee and Darkstar began their own attack runs. Dark Matter power based beams of destructive force lashed out as did wide area sonic blasts.

Storm began to spout orders, pairing up the flyers, always ascending in groups of three, ordering them all to begin to loop all around one another, always in position to guard one another's back while constantly moving save for Cannonball. Sam's kinetic shield kept him from being injured so long as he was moving.

Polaris worked with Banshee and Darks Stall providing long range cover while Storm aided Cannonball and the Human Torch up close and personal. The attackers might have had numbers, but they didn't have organization, and even the Klienstock brothers couldn't keep their fire on Storm and the others long enough to get through their Orihalcum protected suits.

For now the numbers on the Acolyte's side was keeping the battle going but skill stood with Storm and her fellows. It remained to be seen which would win the day, but Storm consoled herself with the knowledge that her group was at least keeping the flyers from attacking the main force on the ground.

OOOOOOO

Nor was the flight team the only group that had run into trouble. While Magneto was busy gathering his forces, some scout groups beyond the flyers had already been sent out.

Vanguard and his group had ditched the buggies when they began to run into dense jungle flora. They were moving on foot was slowing their advance considerably of course, but Vanguard and Carol had decided it was better for them to be slow than for them to run into anything they couldn't handle.

This was why Vanguard was the first to spot some movement through the forest ahead of them. Stopping quickly he held up a hand clenched in a fist then motioned downwards with that fist opening into a palm for moment indicating everyone should go to ground.

The only one who didn't recognize the signal understood quickly enough when everyone else fell prone, their rifles out and searching the area. Morph looked over at Wanda, who he was now sharing a bush with, a thought with such connotations that it almost made him cackle aloud. "So, what did that mean?"

"The fist means stop, the open palm going down means go to ground, he saw something." Scarlet Witch said with a shrug. Cyclops had drilled her and the other newcomers in such communication after they had started training with the X-men.

"Which also means you should be quiet," Carol growled from nearby, sweeping her sector of the forest through her sniper scope. "No hostiles in my sector," she murmured into her communicator.

"Four enemies incoming to the left and right of our line of advance," Vanguard murmured into his own communicator, built like Guardian's into his mask. "Wait, numbers going up… at least twelve. All mutates apparently, they look like Swamp Men almost, only bigger and some of them have spots of scales, fur and claws, and more than one of them have four arms. All of them are armed, some kind of blaster it looks like, but don't look as if they are expecting trouble."

Morph leaned in close to the Scarlet Witch, make certain to whisper but just loud enough to be heard by her microphone. "Is one of the four armed ones wearing an Acolyte uniform?"

"Wait one." Vanguard replied, pushing himself backwards deeper into a bush as he pulled out his rifle, citing along the sniper scope towards the back of the group. "Negative, why?"

Morph scowled angrily. "The boss of that group, Barbarus he and his cronies sold out his people, the Swamp Men, to Magneto. At the time everyone was happy with it, he wasn't willing to fight us. But when we learned the mutate processwasn't reversible, and what it did to most of their minds, well that was sort of the last straw for me."

The others nodded, and Vanguard waited while the group of Swamp Men made their way through the forest ahead of them, moving to the left from their current position. He didn't think they were making for the port, not along that route anyway but he didn't know one way or the other.

"I want to be clear on this," Nikolai murmured, "The mutate process isn't reversible, and that this lot will fight for Magneto regardless of anything else?"

"Yes and Yes. Part of the mutate process makes them obey orders from 'Lord Magneto' without question. They and all the other second-tier mutates are supposed to be cannon fodder in the war to come." Morph said, his voice going falsetto on 'Lord Magneto' before becoming serious.

"Alright. Everyone in position?" Vanguard waited for a few moments until the other snipers were in position, and Morph had moved to join Nightcrawler. The Scarlet Witch's powers wouldn't be necessary for this, but would be needed to renew the cloaking spells on them afterward. "Light them up."

With that the jungle's verdant foliage was lit by two plasma guns and two gauss rifles, the bolts zooming forward unerringly accompanied by the 'FZZARRK' of the gauss rounds. Three heads and one chest on four of the Swamp Men mutates exploded in gore, and the others began to scatter. Before they could, Ghigau took a second one in the back. Whatever durability the mutate process had given them wasn't up to stopping a gauss round. After that the snipers swiftly rolled away from their previous hides, moving to new positions.

Before the Swamp Men could ready themselves or even figure out where the attackers were in the dense jungle, Nightcrawler and Morph popped into their group. While Morph wasn't the martial artist Nightcrawler was, he was still strong and his shape shifting ability gave him a major advantage in hand to hand. Not even a minute after the ambush began it was all over.

"Move!" Vanguard shouted into the com, gesturing the others to follow him away. Rule one of any sort of ambush was to get away as quickly as possible so you couldn't be hit in turn.

He kept his team moving at a brisk pace for ten minutes, racing through the jungle to put some distance between them and the ambush site. After that they began to move silently once more, with their cloaking spells renewed by the Scarlet Witch. But even with that and Vanguard's caution they ran into trouble.

It was Carol who spotted it this time, but the danger wasn't in the form of individuals this time. "Trip wire," Carol said, moving back and leaning down to stare at the trap. It wasn't just a single trap either, but a series of them. "What the heck…"

"Retrace our steps, whatever this is we'll go around it. Morph any ideas?" Vanguard ordered, motioning Ghigau, who had taken up the rear, to lead them backwards and away.

"Probably a holdover from the war against the rebellion. Ka-zar and Wolverine were nightmares to fight out here in the jungle, and both sides made use of such traps. I'd watch out though, if they are still here we might be near some of the active patrols looking for Wolverine."

"Right." With Ghigau and Vanguard both leading the way now in a double file, they moved off, everyone looking out into the forest warily. Moments later they came upon one of those active patrols. By Vanguard's estimate they were heading back to the citadel, but he might be wrong.

The patrol consisted of several more mutated Swamp Men, but there were a few others among them this time. Once of which looked like a frogman, standing upright but with froglike features and wide red eyes. Another was a giant of a man standing as tall as Colossus though not as wide.

His eyes were opaque, seemingly blind but he stared toward the hidden team of snipers as if he could see them despite the cloaking spells and their having taken up hiding positions beyond that. "Invaders! Kill them for Lord Magneto!" With that he raised a large hand blaster he carried at his side firing at Coyote.

Boxed in his hide Coyote was forced to use his teleportation device, hopping to the top of a small hump in the jungle's floor nearby, rolling as he came out of the teleportation. Kicking out Coyote steadied himself against a tree trunk rolling onto his stomach and pulling his sniper rifle around, firing back.

His bullet whizzed over the large man's head as he ducked underneath it, turning quickly in the direction of the shot as more of Magneto's troops appeared from beyond the patrol. It was evident at least two, possibly three active patrols had joined together before returning to the Citadel. And though much of the numbers consisted of Swamp Men mutates, there were others there, mutates who had taken to the process better than their fellows for one reason or another.

One of them was the four armed mutate that Morph had mentioned before, Barbarus. He held too large handguns in to two of his arms, while the lower arms held large trench knives.

The second was a tall man in a black suit under a normal Acolyte uniform, his eyes slightly larger than normal seeming to glow slightly as he looked around the clearing. That gaze caught Nightcrawler before he could teleport away, and Nightcrawler immediately fell to his knees as a wave of vertigo hit him, worse than the after-effects of any teleportation Harry had ever put them through.

It was all he could do to keep his stomach down, and he was practically helpless for a few moments before Morph grabbed him and dragged him into cover at Vanguard's orders while the leader put a gauss round through the head of a mutate who stood between him and the mutant who had targeted Nightcrawler. The man had ducked behind a rock before he fired though, so the gauss shot missed wide, taking both that unlucky mutate and another out of the fight, hitting the second in the side and tearing out his guts.

Morph didn't meet the other man's eyes firing blindly around a tree at him with a blaster Vanguard had given him ("I always have a spare") before rolling to cover. His legs morphed into a giant spring, pushing him forward faster than their opponents could couple with. Morph's eyes disappeared into his skull, and his ears enlarged to almost resemble that of a bat as he slammed into the man, bearing him down. One hand rose turning into a hammer which he brought down with a sickening crunch.

While the first two groups went to ground and began to return fire, Vanguard began to order his men around, ordering the snipers to keep their distance for now, and for the Scarlet Witch to wait until the enemies clumped up before using her magic on them. They slowly began to envelope their enemies from multiple sides, cutting down several of the grunt type mutates.

But the battle changed again as more people rounded a giant tree, several dozen of the mutated Swamp Men and a woman. She had the complexion of light chocolate and looked to be around middle age despite a hair style that looked better suited for a teenager. But Morph, spotting her as he bore the first man to earth realized she was the real threat. "Take her out quick, or else she'll capture us all!"

The woman raised her hands and some kind of energy emanated down her arms and out towards Morph and Vanguard, who were the closest Custodes to her position. Only Ghigau, with her telepathy-based powers could see it, and realizing the woman had some kind of telepathic power herself Ghigau turned her rifle on her. A gauss round caught the woman in the shoulder despite being hidden behind a tree. The gauss ripped right through her arm and out away through the jungle, showing the woman had little to no enhanced durability to speak of.

"GAHHHH!" the woman yelled, falling to the jungle floor as she screamed, holding the ruins of her shoulder.

"Leash! Damn you, kill the traitor!" Barabarus howled, turning his guns toward the shape shifter who leaped away from his own victim, who was now a bloody broken mess himself.

"Carol, Coyote fall back to our right flank and lay down cover fire. Ghigau, fall back to Nightcrawler, get him back until he recovers, Scarlet Witch, cover Morph with defensive spells. Keep your offensive spells in reserve." Vanguard said smoothly, his own round smashing one of the mutates back minus his head as the others continued to return fire with limited success. Every one of their suits had Orihalcum plates in them, it was only their joints and faces that didn't, save in the case of Ghigau, Coyote and Carol, whose helmets and armor had been even more reinforced.

The forest floor rang with explosions and blasts from their various weapons, the normal 'FZZARKK' noise ringing out for a few more moments. However the mutates continued to try and close the range, using the leapfrog technique to do it, some of them laying down cover fire to keep Vanguard's team from firing on their fellows as they advanced. And during this maneuver, Vanguard lost track of five of the brute type mutates.

He turned in shock as they flanked his team, laying down a blistering array of fire, solid shot and energy. The giant who had first spotted the Custodes led them, and he charged in, eager to come to grips with the enemy.

"Cover me," Vanguard ordered, breaking out of cover himself. He charged towards this flanking group, his shield in front of him taking several blasts of laser light from the enemy's weapons as he closed leaping into the air over the first Swamp Man who dropped his rifle to reach forward eager to grapple with the red-clad man. As he cleared the man, Vanguard struck down with his shield the edge of it slamming into the back of the Swamp Men neck.

The Swamp Man didn't fall instead he merely twitched, turning towards his foe but Vanguard pulled out a handgun and shot him in the face, while he hurled his shield away towards another Swamp Man. That first Swamp Man fell, his eye and brain pierced by the plasma bolt, while the shield slammed into the second taking him off his feet but that was all.

Two more fell to bolts of pure magic from the Scarlet Witch. Further magic lights went off, blinding more than half of the attackers from the front, who had taken this time to close to near hand to hand range.

That concentration would have cost her have without Vanguard's intervention. The first giant was blind and her strobing lights did nothing to him so he was free to line up a shot on the Scarlet Witch. But Vanguard's shield had rebounded to him and he hurled it low on the ground, taking the man's leg out from under him, causing the shot to go high.

The bolt of energy slammed into a tree right above the Scarlet Witch's head, which wasn't armored as much as the rest of her. And Wanda's own magical shielding wasn't up to stopping that kind of attack.

Next to the Scarlet Witch Ghigau whirled, firing at the giant only to curse as a random enemy blast hit her rifle shattering it. "Fuck! Fine, I never liked the thing anyway!" Throwing the ruined rifle down she pulled out Sigyn's Gift, which morphed into a spear as the giant hurled himself to his feet, lunging toward her instead of turning to deal with Vanguard.

Blocking this attack, Ghigau then slipped her spear butt between the fellow's legs, twisting and sending him to the ground when he ignored the spear, assuming it would break like a normal piece of wood might have. The giant rolled away from her downward stab, flipping up with a trench knife in his own hand, and Ghigau dodged around it, watching as the blow shattered the tree behind her.

Inside her mask Ghigau gulped lightly, but wasn't dissuaded and kicked out with her hover boot. Pushing into the air off the giant's face, doing no damage but heading up into the jungle canopy, she landed lightly on a large tree limb above the battlefield at present.

To one side she noticed that Coyote had done the same thing elsewhere, raining down heavy fire on several of the mutates around Vanguard. Carol was also dueling with that first Frog-like man, who had hopped up into her tree, slamming the individual backwards.

"Little rat, you're an idiot if you think that can save you!" The giant bellowed shattering the tree's trunk with a single blow before backing away and firing with his handgun up into the foliage as the colossal tree fell.

But Ghigau hadn't been idle, Sigyn's Gift changing into her bow. As the tree fell she carefully pulled an armor piercing arrow out of her bag of holding and waited.

Below her the giant smashed several tree branches coming toward him into pieces, grinning as Ghigau fell through the air, seemingly losing her footing as the tree continued it's descent. She fell forward, then flipped, and his smile faded for just a second then he knew no more. No matter his body's durability, it wasn't up to stopping an arrow with a velocity rivaling most rifle rounds through the eye.

Near the front of the battle Barbarus had closed with Morph, who changed his hands into maces matching the other man's trench knives. His rifles had been dropped somewhere along the way, but he had pulled out two further trench knives, forcing Morph to change his form again to match him, four arms against four.

"Man Barbie, you don't mind if I call you Barbie do you, with that hair and how little I see you away from Gaza, and he's more Ken with that hairstyle. No judgements here, just saying. Anyway, I see why you like this Barbie, having four arms is really handy! Get it, handy?" Morph quipped, even as his mace-hands slammed the other man's knives

"Silence traitor! You will die and your new allies with you. No one can stand against Lord Magneto!"

"Barbie, Barbie, Barbie, you should've listened to the rumors about why we were all here in the first place. Lord Magneto ran here dude, Guardian, only I think he was just known as Potter then, beat him! Sent him running away with his tale between his legs." Morph laughed.

Nearby Amphibian realized the battle was lost. Only five of his former tribesman beside himself and Barbarus were on their feet, two of them rushing to his iad now while the others exchanged fire with two of the attackers. Looking over to where they had left her Leash had seemingly bled out from their wounds as well, making this a costly fight already in terms of real mutants.

The irony of that statement did not register in his mind as he ducked under a blow from Carol shouting, "Barbarus, we must retreat!"

"Nien mine friend, I think not!" No longer feeling the vertigo that had seized him, Nightcrawler teleported forward slamming down with all of his weight into the Frog-man's face, burying him into the ground as suddenly his hands were filled with two sabers that he whirled in either direction, cutting into the chests of two nearby Swamp Men.

Their durability however made the sabers simply skitter over their chests not wounding them at all. He was forced to pop away while the two of them turned their weapons on him.

Carol instead took the brunt of their weapons as the frog-man got to his feet. The impact of the energy weapons hammered Carol backwards before she could teleport away in turn, and she crashed against a tree, uninjured but with her head ringing slightly in her helmet.

Her boot slipped on a bit of moss at the base of the tree, and she heard a click. She looked down but wasn't fast enough to activate her teleportation device and one of the traps they had spotted earlier went off. Well, shi-AHhh!" the claymore exploded to her side, sending her rocketing backwards, her life only saved by the protection of her suit.

Even so, her head slammed into the ground several times as she flipped end over end from the impetus of the explosion. A second after she stopped moving, her body disappeared, her suit's emergency portkey activating.

"Scarlet Witch, gloves are off!" Vanguard shouted into his mike, turning and moving to help Morph against Barbarus. Coyote, Nightcrawler and Ghigau, finish off the frog ублюдок! (bastard)!"

The four armed mutate held them both off for a time, until one of his arms disappeared from a gauss rifle shot from Coyote, whose group had quickly finished off the frog man and the two mutates with him. Retreating had been the smart thing to do, but it had simply allowed the snipers more range to gun them down.

Even as Vanguard blocked two of his remaining trench knives the man fell back screaming from that wound only to gasp as Morph's arm suddenly changed into a stiletto, slamming into and through his mouth and up into his brain.

Morph stared as the dead mutate fell off his slowly reforming hand and Vanguard looked at him. Morph shook his head slowly, looking down at the body, his voice suddenly serious. "He betrayed his people, betrayed them into servitude, sterility, and brain damage. I hated him and the other willing mutates for that, and hated Magneto because he rewarded him for it. Yet, why do I feel so bad now?"

"If you didn't, there be something wrong with you." Vanguard said, putting an arm around the other man's shoulder turning him back towards the others. "Report! Did Carol teleport out okay?"

"Apparently, at least her emergency portkey activated, but you know we can't contact Camelot from here. Personally, I'm just happy the portkeys work as expected." Coyote replied, shrugging his shoulders. "What do we do now? Do we continue?"

"Let's get away from here at least," Vanguard ordered, gesturing into the woods and away. "We'll change our rout to go further around Harry's, that is Guardian's, straight ahead route towards the citadel. We'll rest up, go slow and avoid contact for an hour or so, until we're in a position to launch a few of our own."

As the others moved off Vanguard shook his head castigating himself fiercely. Dammit, should've done better here. With a sigh he looked down at his shield, rubbing one finger onto the white star on the red background. "Sorry Captain, I'm not certain I'm worthy of this just yet, but I'll do better from now on."With that he moved off his eyes determined.

OOOOOOO

The battle in the air petered out after the death of the second Klienstock brothers, joining more than three dozen of the Pteradons. The remaining flyers retreated in disarray towards the citadel. But Storm forced the others with her to fall back instead of continuing the fight, not wanting to get too far ahead of Guardian and the main force.

Holding still for a moment Storm recast the spells hiding them from detection, thankful that Diamond and Phoenix had apparently been able to beat off the enemy telepath. Diamond's report on that individual however was grim as was the lack of a larger reply from Magneto.

Scowling Guardian shook his head. Bucket head's playing this cagier than I expected, which makes me even more certain I don't want to attack him in his center citadel. Time to up the ante. "I think the time for guile has passed." Looking over at Cyclops in the other truck, he bellowed. "They know we're here, I'm going to cancel the cloaking spells on us. Instead of looking for a place to set up the battlefield we're going to play target for bit."

OOOOOOO

Instead of striking out with all his power at the flyers his own people had reported, Magneto continued to gather his forces back towards the citadel, emptying several of the nearest barracks, while ordering the other barracks, both Brotherhood only barracks, to empty bolstering his forces. Then he began to arm the Sun People, who provided the largest number of troops along with the mutates, though as they also formed the majority of his base personnel and workforce they didn't normally go around arms.

After ordering Zaladane to continue that process he murmured to Exodus, "You and I will remain apart from the main battle for now. If that telepath tries an attack, respond but otherwise remain aloof for now."

"Why master?" Exodus asked. "Between the two of us we could slaughter any enemy!"

"Not if Guardian is here along with the others that he's gathered under his shortsighted vision of equality. I want their attention divided between the rest of our forces and us before we strike. Even you my friend would have trouble with Guardian and Phoenix at the same time. We have to separate them move them away from any ability to reinforce one another."

At Exodus's surprised expression Magneto elaborated. "I have made a study of everything Brainchild and Milan have been able to discern of Guardian's fight with the alien, and with some other rumors in the world abroad, putting it together with my own contest against him. Guardian's magical power could well be a match for all of your own abilities, and even I would be hard-pressed by him alone."

"As for Phoenix, some of what I've seen recently about her powers worry me almost as much as Guardian." And then there's Munroe and her new ability to use magic as well judging from the evidence from that American embassy in Armenia, he thought coldly. Alone none of them would be a match for me and Exodus together, but all three combined, they could well overwhelm us, or maybe even both of us at once if you throw in that unknown telepath.

As Exodus bowed his head Magneto nodded formally then turned away quickly looking over at the communications officer, a young mutate who had gone through the process without any apparent loss in higher intellectual functioning but also no show of mutant power. "Have you been able to cut the port out of our communications net yet? And has Milan reached the port?"

"Negative to the first, positive to the second Milord," The young mutate responded, looking up his face creased in worry. He was one of the Cat People, one of their youngest actually. The Cat People had long been a thorn in Magneto side, siding with Ka-zar's tribe in his rebellion, but the few who had been put through the new mutate process had surprisingly taken very well to it.

"Whoever is on the other side of the communications net has been able to crack all of our communications protocols, whereas I can't crack theirs. Perhaps they captured Mastermind and made him talk?" The youth went on.

"Hmm, send for Brainchild, get him up here to help you. I want our communications free of enemy interception, and their own communications cut out of the net." Magneto ordered frowning realizing he had been… less than wise in sending Milan out with so small a force, underestimating the threat, but with no com net to reach that far he couldn't call them back.

Still, Milan's loss is negligible in the short term. Moving over to study the map of the Savage Land, Eric put that thought out of his mind with ease, wondering where the main force of his enemy was. The Flyers could not be all of it after all. "Where are you Potter?"

OOOOOOO

Milan had two mutates as guards on his fact finding mission. The two mutates were among those who looked somewhat like Amphibian, one of those among the first batch that had gained much from the initial mutate process. The only difference was they didn't have his intelligence and their heads more resembled a cross between frog and fish rather than simply looking like a frog.

Because of this they travelled underneath the water with the two mutates pulling along Milan in a small electromagnetic force field within the water. Because of this they were able to enter the port without Mr. Fantastic or Diamond noticing their presence at first.

They moved through the silent port, becoming more and more freaked out by the fact that there weren't anyone around, not even the bodies of the individuals who should've been here. That and the droids destruction worried Milan, who wasn't a combatant by any means. He was simply here to gather information.

Closing on Mastermind's quarters they founded the first sign of someone, though Milan gasped at the sight. It was Mastermind himself slumped against his chair, his throat neatly cut execution style. The site made him shudder and he was about to open his communicator to relay this to Lord Magneto when a voice came over the intercom nearby. It was a female voice, cultured and urbane, but controlled

"Attention the three of you, we know you're here. Mastermind was executed for being a serial rapist and murderer a few times over. Both Basilisk and Slither were merely captured, without undue distress. They will be tried and if guilty of crimes elsewhere will be turned over to various world governments I believe, but those who aren't not guilty of any serious crimes will be allowed their freedom eventually. Surrender now, and you'll be given the same treatment."

"W-who am I speaking to?" Milan said as the two mutates made for the door exiting quickly. In his hands his communicator opened and began to record at no physical signal. That was his power at work: called electropathy he was able to mentally connect with electronic devices, and even translate mental thoughts into projected electronic signals.

The answer came not through the intercom but through a voice out in the hallway. "I'm Mr. Fantastic pleased to make your acquaintance." The two mutates were smashed back into the room with Mastermind's body and Milan turned just in time to see a massive rubber fist slamming into them hurling them backwards.

Milan gaped as Mr. Fantastic appeared in the doorway, a small electronic device in his hands. Before he could bring his power to bare on it, there was a hiss, a sizzle and he fell to ground shocked into unconsciousness.

Mr. Fantastic looked down at the young Milan, smiling slightly. He had not been happy when Harry had confirmed Diamond had executed Mastermind, but given what she had found in his head he couldn't really say it hadn't been justice. He should've been tried, but the other prisoners would eventually be, and many of them like this young man would be given their freedom at least here in the Savage Land in the future. Harry's rules of engagement were very clear, and he was thankful to follow-through them in this case.

"Three down several dozens more to go."

OOOOOOO

Several hours after leaving the port Wendy and those with her had reached the barracks she knew most of her friends had gathered in.

Entering the barracks she was met almost immediately by one of her friends, a young man named Neophyte. He was a little on the short side, with brown hair, and light blue eyes, and a caring expression completely at odds with the Acolyte uniform he wore. "Stinger! We've been expecting for hours! Have you heard what's going on, you must've left the port just the right time."

"Not exactly," Wendy said with a slight wince. "Who else is here?"

Neophyte looked at her askance at her tone, but answered easily enough. "Myself, Scanner, Orator, Chrome. Projector, Spoor and Gambit are here as well. One or two others might be around the place, but those are the only ones I've seen in the last few hours."

Among the Brotherhood and the Acolytes, very few people used their real names. Lord Magneto had ordered it so, that they be known by what set them above humanity, that they be reborn from their lives before joining him.

"Spoor?" Wendy winced again or an entirely different reason. Spoor's ability was to manipulate pheromones, generating feelings of hate and anger in other people, making them go crazy. He couldn't direct it at specific targets very well when he had to do anything else, like when he was under fire, but it was a devastating support attack. He was also very strong and almost bestial in nature.

"Could you gather them all in the rec room? I have something I need to talk to them about."

"You're acting a little weird… but sure." Neophyte said reaching over to slug her shoulder in a friendly sort of way before moving off.

Behind him, Wendy made to follow whispering to her cloaked protectors. "If anything happens take out Spoor first, he'll be the aggressive hairy bastard."

Moments later all of them were gathered, and Wendy smiled rather wanly at them all.

"If this is about Lord Magneto not calling us in just yet, I was told we should wait another 20 minutes or so for Lord Magneto to figure out where he wanted us. Apparently a few of today's patrols haven't returned, so the officers are wondering if we should be sent out to find them or join the gathering troops at the citadel." Said Spoor sternly, staring at Wendy from under his shaggy brows. In fact shaggy was a very good way of describing everything about him.

"Though he didn't know you were here Stinger. Exactly how did you get out of the port before whatever happened there happened?" He asked, standing up and slowly reaching for a gun he had on his belt.

Chrome reached out a hand, grasping Spoor's wrist lightly. "Let her talk," he said looking at Wendy. "Stinger's a friend, remember, a fellow Brotherhood member. We're all friends here right?"

Around the room three other Acolytes who Neophyte hadn't told her were here nodded, but made no move to threaten Wendy, simply looking on. Anne Marie Cortez was smiling lightly at her and Wendy smiled back if somewhat wanly. The older girl had been going through a rough time since her brother's treason had been found out, but the other blue-haired woman had not been part of that, and been cleared by Exodus, not Mastermind.

But Wendy had no idea at all how she would jump despite being closer to her than any Acolyte save Morph. She was friendly, and the two of them had bonded over having the same color hair, but Anne was a true believer in mutant superiority, even if she took little pleasure in violence. Or she had been, before Fabian's attempted coup.

Behind her stood Katu, his cybernetic arms gleaming. Another one who was a true believer he spoke English with a slight Croatian accent, and hated all things Russian. Beyond that, Wendy knew nothing about him. Across from him at the pool table was Kamal, a middle-eastern man whose hate for all things Islamic was a burning pyre within him, and fueled his fervent love for Lord Magneto.

Licking her lips, Wendy began. "Well, the first thing I have to tell you is those rumors about mutant/norm, er, flatscan equality being on the rise, they're true." Wendy started, quickly using the derogatory term they all used to talk about normal humans. "The Custodes Mundi, they've been doing what we should've been doing all along, fighting the good fight for other mutants not just on the ground, but also through laws and economic pressure, though I'm not really clear about that aspect."

From there she put a video into the video player which Storm had provided just before her team had left. She was silent as it played, watching their faces.

Gambit's cagy face was inscrutable as always where he leaned against the door frame. He always acted as if he was one of the smartest people in the room, or like he had some secret or something, suave and rather flirtatious Wendy had liked him initially, but he was flirtatious with everyone, and a little too fake for her to really like him. He also felt himself a little bit above most of the other Brotherhood members, since he had long been considered a candidate to be raised to the Acolytes. It was only his effort in battle holding him back

Surprisingly Katu and Anne were among those also looked neutral, or at least as if they weren't going to attack her, which was all she wanted right now. Wendy was suddenly realizing she didn't know anything about Psylocke and Shadow Cat's combat abilities, and realizing the four women were very much out of contact here.

Of the others Projector looked noticeably angry, shaking his head angrily several times, almost speaking out but silenced by the others around him. Spoor looked contemplative, but there was something in his eyes that scared Wendy. Kamal also glared at her as if she was dirt on her shoe.

Chrome, Scanner and Neophyte though were looking conflicted. Wendy knew the feelings going through them all too well, having wrestled with her own feelings about this topic before. They were happy that such progress had been made in terms of mutant equality, wondering if maybe that was a better, more peaceful future than Lord Magneto's vision of mutant supremacy, and feeling very guilty having realized the war they'd fought here might have had no point in the long term.

"Um, so, uh I guess it should be obvious that the Tech Squad didn't come up with this." Wendy said as the video came to a stop, suddenly realizing she hadn't thought this plan all the way through. "Um, Crucible's team was hunted down by a force of Custodes, and they figured out a way to follow us here. Guardian is offering us places in his, I guess faction is the best way to describe it. Um, but he doesn't want us to fight for him or anything, just not fight against him right now."

Scanner and Neophyte shared a glance, and suddenly Wendy remembered the persistent rumors the two of them were involved. Scanner was an important member of the Brotherhood, whose ability to find mutants in an area by a sort of radar scanning power had helped Magneto bring in a lot of the Brotherhood, despite its short range. Her distaste, even loathing for combat however limited her utility. Neophyte had been among those who were trained for information gathering and espionage, his phasing skill invaluable in that area though having little combat potential.

The others were still looking conflicted but before anyone else could speak up Projector launched to his feet, his hand glowing. The tall man thrust his fist forward, and a Force Field generated around his body launching forward from the end of his punch towards Wendy. "You're a traitor Stinger, a traitor to your own race and Lord Magneto! And you all know what we do to traitors!"

Wendy ducked to one side and the force-field fist slammed into the TV, smashing it into pieces. That however seemed to be the signal, and suddenly everyone had chosen a side.

"Sorry cher, the Mexico might have a temper and have no idea how to treat a gal, but he's right." Gambit went from leaning against the wall to hurling one of his energy packed cards toward Wendy, but she could combat that. Her hand glowed with electricity as she summoned up one of her stingers, batting the card aside into a wall where it exploded on contact with the solid wall.

Neophyte, Scanner and Orator dropped to the floor before crawling toward the door as Kamal joined the target practice, grabbing out a gun by his side rather than using his mutant power, which was to take on the property of anything he touched. Bu Chrome stood up, launching himself forward at Wendy's attackers.

Chrome transmuted the chair leg into titanium and cracked it down on Kamal's arm, foiling his aim. "What does it say about you lot that you're not willing to let anyone else have opinions before starting to attack huh!? I didn't know Lord Magneto was so against us thinking for ourselves!"

At that point the fight became general and Wendy's hidden defenders decided they'd seen enough. As Wendy had warned them, they struck Spoor first. While he launched to his feet and brought his hands forward beginning to direct his pheromone powers Mystique, who had also known about his powers, stabbed him as she came out of cloak before kicking out, bringing Anne to the floor. "Hello Anne, nice to see you again. You weren't about to do anything stupid were you?"

Anne blinked then smirked, holding up her hands the gold of the bracers of her Acolyte uniform glinting in the strobing lights of the battle going on all around them. "Long time Raven, um, no, if it's all the same to you I'd like to do nothing but lie here right now." She knew what Raven could do and more importantly what she had done in the past for the cause so if Potter was willing to give her a chance, Anne was willing to at the very least talk to him.

Nearby Projector suddenly found himself weighing about a hundred times his normal weight, and he grunted, collapsing onto his knees before falling to his chest. Next to him Kamal screamed as he suddenly found himself stuck in the floor then was quickly shocked into unconsciousness as Shadow Cat phased into the room from the floor below them, smirking as her hands flickered with magical lights. God I love magic, gotta thank Ororo for teaching me again when I see her.

Psylocke went after Kamal, her telepathic dagger slamming through the back of his head even as he turned. He fell to the ground twitching in agony.

"Wh-?" Gambit muttered, charging more cards, but then he felt a monstrous blow from an unseen fist, hurling him back and out the door and into the wall opposite the rec room, which collapsed around him.

Looking up and around at the sudden and lethal violence, Anne whistled appreciatively. "Okay, hell yes. Mutant and flatscan equality suddenly sounds like a great idea, especially if it's backed by someone ruthless enough to order something like this."

"You get one chance with us," Susan Storm said, sliding into being as she allowed her invisibility to fade. The sight of one of the Fantastic Four backing this, whatever it was, attack wasn't right if Potter was willing to convert them instead of cut them down, made Anne even happier she wasn't trying to resist this.

"Y-yeah…" Neophyte gulped, shaking his head as he helped Scanner to her feet. "Um, neutrality is sounding really good just now."

Nearby an explosion rang out and Shadow Cat turned, phasing back through the floor moving toward the rubble over Gambit. She came back moments later, shaking her head angrily. "He's gone, blew up the floor underneath himself then the outer wall before racing off. He was out of sight by the time I phased through the rubble."

"Crap, he'll be bringing help any moment now. Any way we could catch him?" Mystique asked. Unlike Anne, Fabian and a few of the other Acolytes, she didn't know Gambit, though by his accent she could guess where he came from. One of Candra's bunch, definitely. No doubt a true believer just like she was.

"Doubt it, none of us have speed powers." Shadow Cat shrugged.

"And there are probably a few mutate patrols in the area, hunting for food mostly but still enough to make a fight of it here, pin us down." Wendy shrugged. "Can we get out of here now?"

OOOOOOO

About twenty minutes after the others left retracing their steps toward the port, in the now abandoned barracks Gambit slowly pushed himself out of his hiding place. He wasn't injured much, though his head was ringing from the hit the Invisible Woman hat laid on him. And ain't that a damn surprise, and a sign of things to come…

He frowned thinking hard, then shrugged his shoulders and exited the barracks, grabbing a motorcycle and heading towards the citadel. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen near there, and his real employer would probably like him to be in place to take advantage of whatever it was.

OOOOOOO

Harry sighed faintly staring around the dirt road and out into the jungle as he listened to Mystique report over the magic mirrors. Reed had recommended they not transmit anything by the electronic coms they didn't want to hear about an hour ago. He'd been having free reign of the Savage Land's integrated communication and computer systems, but that had ended swiftly. Someone on the other end of things was able to keep up with him, blocking him out of their own systems while trying to attack the port's computers in turn, cutting them out of the net.

Regardless, both sides could no longer use their communications gear, which would have been bad for Harry and company if they didn't have his magical backups. With them they were still able to organize the disparate forces in motion in the Savage Land. He knew now that Mystique and her team were on their way back to the port with both prisoners and possible converts, leaving behind two dead, including one whose power might well have made a big ass difference in the main fight.

Why was someone like that with the group of Brotherhood members and Acolytes who even Magneto needed to realize were not the most warlike? Ah… because he could use his power on them and turn them into berserkers once any battle was joined. And the other Acolytes were there to back him up, clever.

He also knew that Vanguard's team had ambushed seven groups of patrols, but hadn't turned up any clue just yet to Logan or his friends. Most of the other sides' casualties in that were among made by the brute class Mutates, but the losses among the real mutates in that second ambush were considerable.

But too much time's passed since that and the patrols are still disappearing. So what's Magneto up to? He knows about the flyers, and can at least guess about where Vanguard's moving around.

So far we've run into the low scale teams, the ones that Magneto could afford to lose. He hasn't put any of his chief lieutenants out despite two of them at least being able to fly. And despite what Vanguard's team reported, we haven't seen any real high-tech assault teams yet either. Is he waiting for us to come at him in the citadel? That'd be smart, but also far too defensive for Magneto's personality. Unless… unless he means to pin us against the citadel's defenses.

"Slow down," He ordered aloud, startling all around them. They could see the citadel in the distance, visible against the 'sun' which was well past it's midday point. Going by his watch it was around six pm, but the sun made it seem like it was far closer to midday than that. But the important thing was they stayed away from the citadel for now. "He's still waiting for us, we need to draw him away from his citadel..."

"I don't think so." Jean said suddenly, looking over at the small electronic devices set along the road. The small light flashing on the ones in sight suddenly died as Jean and Harry watched. "I think we just had to get past the reach of Reed's interference…"

A few seconds later the main strike force began to hear a strange musical note from the jungle to their left, some distance away but still within hearing range if barely. It sounded like someone was playing a flute.

Then from out of the darkness dozens, hundreds of dinosaurs and other large beasts appeared, charging toward the two trucks who suddenly were no longer protected from them.

"Action left, likely a diversion, everybody out of the trucks." Guardian said loudly, turning in that direction. "Cyclops, take command of the lead truck, keep them ready for action from the front, Jean take the rest and be ready on the right. I'll deal with the dinos."

"Roger." Cyclops said calmly. "Rogue, Warpath, wait in the center for now. Spyke, on the left, remember to follow my or Jean's order if she calls for fire on target, Havok right, I'll take center." At the same time Cyclops was seeing to that, Phoenix, Thunderbird, Colossus, and Magma waited.

As the dinosaurs continued to charge there was another shout, this time in a barely human voice, from the front as hundreds of mutates, many more than Wendy had reported, boiled out of the jungle along towards the attackers. "Attack!" Another charge of larger monsters attacked from the other side, including two T-rexes and several other huge dinosaurs they really should have seen coming. "How the hell… we've got action on the left and front."

"Roger Phoenix, any sign of Magneto or any of the other lieutenants?" Harry asked, as he stared out into the jungle. Wait for it, wait for it…

"Negative." Cyclops and Phoenix said as one before Cyclops elaborated even as his shooters took the attackers coming at them from the front under fire.

His eye blast of power was matched by someone on the other side, Peeper from the report he'd seen. But his attack was more powerful, and the other's attack coming at an angle couldn't overcome it, merely redirect it. "We've got mutates, Brotherhood members and a few Acolytes in sight, nothing major."

"Good." Guardian suddenly smirked pointing from one dinosaur to another, starting from the largest and down to the smallest. "Muffilatio, Muffilatio, Muffilatio…"

The dinos blinked one after another, shaking their heads and looking around as if they were coming out of sleep. Then they reacted to their strange circumstances in various, rather predictable ways. The herbivores bellowed racing off either in a group or as individuals, while the meat eaters snarled, attacking them or each other.

From somewhere in the distance there was a scream and the music, which had still controlled the other animals and had even begun to send bugs and smaller beasts at them, cut off abruptly. "Well, that was easy."

Turning back from that, he took in the rest of the battle now. "Storm, start attacking from the ground, Magma, make us some defensive ramparts. Cyclops, once she's done that, pull back with your brother to provide cover fire. Shi Jundai!"

With that shout Harry fell to his knees, slamming his hands down on the ground, and suddenly there was a small army of rock golems puling themselves out of the ground of the jungle and the road. The charging mutates and even those few dinos still trying to come to grips with his people found themselves facing the massive stone spears and swords of the golem army.

Cyclops obeyed pausing a brief to flare his eye blast at one of the attackers, smashing his weapon into pieces before it could range on the trucks front. At the same time Peeper found out his eye blasts couldn't deflect Havok's energy attack for some reason, and his assault slammed into a group of mutates, smashing them back and turning one into a corpse, his chest and side missing.

"Die flatscan lovers!" Crucible bellowed form behind the line, where he, Frenzy, and several other Brotherhood members had charged forward to add their weight to the battle. He tried to use his powers against the now attacking flyers, only for Storm to use a blast of wind that nearly flew back into their faces. "Damn it!"

Despite the flyers attacks however, there were more and more attackers coming out of the jungle mostly mutated but now they weren't alone. With them came the Sun People and mutated for the most part, all of them riding small two men skimmers of some sort armed with heavy weapons between the trees and other plants. The fight became close and desperate in places, but the golems had come as a major shock, and the brute-class mutates couldn't close.

The Sun People however were having much better luck, zipping around or creating small firing positions here and there in the battlefield. The first one that did cheered as their group fire caught Havok out in the open, but those cheers died when he leaped to his feet grinning and throwing back his own attack. It impacted the group sending their bodies flying this way and that like rag dolls. "Damn Guardian, this armor is awesome!"

"It's not perfect, don't get cocky," Cyclops warned, ducking underneath several energy blasts of his own.

"Colossus, Thunderbird, take point, Thing, Rogue, Paige and Warpath follow up, spread to either side of them. Make certain none of their own strong men get through to the shooters." Harry said calmly. "Cyclops, pull back along the right flank, Havok lay down cover fire. Magma, you ready?"

In response the entire jungle rumbled for a moment then several large berms of rock and dirt shot up between them and their enemies. "How's that for you boss?" Magma yelled, removing her hands from the ground then charging forward, her entire form now the energy form she used when she was exerting herself. She flung two balls of plasma out slagging two skimmers that had tried to get around their new defensive position.

At the same time, Cyclops pulled back with Spyke while Havok and Magma laid down a blistering cover fire on that side of things.

While his team members fell back Colossus charged forward, slamming into and through some of the mutates as the Sun People fired on him, but the blows merely rocked him backwards on his heels if that, unable to get through his steel clad frame and the Juggernaut armor. Beside him Warpath and Thunderbird shouted an Apache war cry together slamming into and through several mutates, their massive cleavers cutting and chopping.

Between one punch and the next Colossus had a brief second to watch as the golems began to take the fight to their ambushers .

That seemed to be the hint for the other side to throw in their next wave, this time Brotherhood members this time including some of their own front line troopers. "Die race traitors! Lord Magneto has commanded your deaths!"

Thunderbird went down from a right punch that threw him backwards through a tree, shattering the tree and nearly his jaw from a giant standing several feet taller than even Colossus. He had one eye, a beard, and wore what looked like an Acolyte uniform modified to resemble that of a circus strong man.

He was about to attack Thunderbird again when the Thing's fist slammed into his side. "Let's dance One Eye!"

Colossus and Warpath fell back in the face of four others. Frenzy Laughed gaily as she charged forward. Next to her a slightly taller girl with long thin horns coming out of her head, claws on her fingertips, and seemingly equally strong came forward grimly, catching a blow from Warpath and returning a slash that skittered off his chest, unable to pierce his armor but sending him back slightly from the impact.

But Colossus was faced with the largest fattest foe on the field, his fist nearly disappearing into the fat man's stomach as he brought his own two fists crashing down on Colossus' head, staggering the metal goliath. "Nothing moves the Blob pipsqueak!"

Rogue grinned pushing herself forward as she hurdled a downed tree smashing a mutate aside with ease. "We'll see 'bout that sugah!" At the same time four became three as Cyclops' blast took Frenzy in the chest, hurling her back with a cry of agony as her chest shattered under the power of his force beam.

Harry's commands continued to wrap out, commanding the team to help each other at need, but more importantly keeping the flyers concentrated, breaking up any large group of Sun People. They also kept Pyro, Crucible and a few of the other long range fighters among Magneto's troops at bay, allowing Havok, Magma and Cyclops free reign from their positions above the berms.

Despite that, Senyaka, Mastermind's guard, closed the distance to Cyclops along with a mutant that looked almost like Rahne, save her werewolf form looked even wilder. From his arms long energy whips appeared lashing out and trying to catch Cyclops around the neck. Spyke got in his way, his own arms sporting dozens of knives as he went toe to toe with the whip user before the werewolf girl got to him.

She proved strong enough to snap some of his bone knives, but Cyclops had gotten some distance at that point and Harry quickly redirected two golems to aid the two. A stone sword flashed down, and the werewolf girl jumped to one side cursing aloud with a distinct Californian accent. "Damn it all, where'd the fucking clay men come froMMMAGH!"

Her words trailed off in a squeal of agony as Cyclops' eye beam caught her in the side hurling her away to smash against a stone formation behind her. But Senyaka had closed with him, and his whips caught Cyclops around the chest and leg, picking him up and hurling him away to crash with bone-jarring force into a nearby tree.

"Stinking flatscan symps like you, you make me fucking sick, always wanting to protect the status quo, never knowing or caring what they've done to your own race, what they still do to us whatever you bleeding hearts think! I'm going to enjoy this you damn hypocrite!"

"Spare me," Cyclops grunted, surprising the man by getting to his feet. Even more surprising he didn't look as weakened as he should have. The Orihalcum reinforced suit Cyclops wore had not only blocked the heat of the energy whips but had also helped block Senyaka's secondary attack, which was to drain his victim's life force away via his whips.

As the sounds of battle continued all around them Cyclops went on. "I understand you, and those like you might have real grievances, might have gone through harsh lives, but that's no reason to paint all humanity with the same brush. And just so you know asshole, we're the same fucking race! Just because you've got powers and a few different genes doesn't make you any better than humanity, just the other side of the same coin as the Friends of Humanity!"

"We're nothing like them! We're fighting for our very existence!" Senyaka roared, lashing out with his whips once more, forcing Cyclops to dodge.

Yet instead of trying to open the distance in the jungle, which was becoming increasingly more open as the battle continued chopping down trees left and right, he close the distance, his eyes flashing out to impact not Senyaka but the ground underneath and around him. "Oh yeah, you've really been fighting for your existence here in the Savage lands haven't you? Preying on weaker people, forcing them to go through procedures to turn them into mindless drones, quite the statement for the so-called master race."

"GRAHHH!" Senyaka screamed his whips catching Cyclops, slamming him into several trees before pulling him close. "I'm going to drain you until you're a husk traitor, then I'm going to snap bone-boys neck, then I'm going to torture that gal over there in green and yellow in front of your…your… dying… eyes…"

Senyaka trialed off as his energy whips disappeared, dropping Cyclops who shook his head blearily. Despite the Orihalcum scales in his suit, the energy draining of the whips had begun to get through with that extended touch. Above him, Senyaka touched the hilt of the knife sticking out his lower chest, before staring at Cyclops over his red wraps. Without another word he fell, and Cyclops pushed to his feet, shaking his head as he moved to help Spyke against the were-wolf girl before they both fell back.

While this was all going on Guardian and Phoenix kept their distance, launching attacks of their own at need to keep their friends from being flanked, and taking out a few of the Acolytes they knew had strange area effect powers. One of them, Whiteout, had barely begun to send to the bright flash of psionic light that would have blinded everyone she wished, only to collapse as Jean dropped a tree on her, having felt the buildup of psychic force nearby.

Another, a man who had been about to manipulate gravity under Magma and Havok, had collapsed when a Bombardacaught him right in the chest at long range. Whiteout would survive her wounds, the man, later found out to be called Lifter, would not.

In the main however Guardian kept control of the battlefield, while Jean kept an eye out for Magneto and Exodus. However, it wasn't either of those that were the first to take the field, but Zaladane.

Riding a chariot powered by her magics Zaladane appeared surrounded by the remnants of the Pteradon tribe who began to rain fire down on the X-Men and the flyers, caught out of position as they finished an attack run on the ground forces. The flyers scattered, followed by their fellows, who were joined by more Sun People rising out of the jungle further away.

Magneto's citadel also began to fire on them, electronic bursts of power that acted almost like flak. Banshee howled as he was nearly blinded by one, his decision to not wear a mask coming back to haunt him as the electronic blast singed his hair, skin and nearly his eyeballs out of his head. He fell but then disappeared, his emergency portkey activating to save his life.

At the same time as the flyers scattered Zaladane shot spells of magic down. It was orange and blue blasts, her magic shattered a golem before slamming into Spyke's shoulder where he had a bit of his bone armor protruding.

It was the worst kind of spell he could have been hit with, Zaladane's equivalent of a Bone breaker curse. It shattered the bone, then continued on, shattering every bone in his body, thankfully without imparting enough force for the bones inside him to explode as the one he had extruded did. But that was scant comfort.

"AGHHGHHG!" Evan screamed in agony, and then was gone, teleported away thanks to the emergency portkey function.

Zaladane turned in her chariot about to fire at the berms protecting Magma, Havok and now Cyclops again only to scream in turn as her chariot exploded in a wave of lightning that could never have been made in nature, more powerful than any lightning spell she had ever seen. It was only a last-minute levitation spell that kept her from plummeting to her death, and even so she was forced to the ground to dodge several dozen ice crystals and blasts of wind.

Storm landed in front of her, her eyes sparking like little lightning bolts her teeth clenched as she glared at the woman who had just nearly killed her nephew. "Your people apparently call you a high priestess. Let us see how you fare against a goddess!"

Around the two battling Sorceresses the battle continued, with a massive spell lighting up the air zooming over the battlefield to smash into the distant citadel. Whether it was that or Reed's ongoing electronic warfare, the electrical flak cannons fell silent. And then several dozen of the golems linked up, becoming giants who smashed down at the Sun People and the mutates in the jungle around them.

Slowly the battle was swinging in the invaders favor. Their better equipment, training, individual powers and, most importantly, organization told against the haphazardly organized if at times individually powerful Acolytes and Brotherhood members, though there were still several Brotherhood members missing still. Magma too seemed almost unstoppable at this point, her energy form giving her some immunity to damage, and her ability to change the environment of the battlefield at need had turned many a flanking attack back on itself.

Now more than Guardian and Phoenix were wondering, where were Exodus and Magneto? Unfortunately for the Custodes they didn't have long to wait for the answer.

OOOOOOO

Magneto scowled angrily as his hand reached out, rearranging the metal and ferrous material wall of the citadel, opening up the wall so as to let him out into the open. Behind him Sauron's body continued to twitch and sizzle quietly as Exodus joined him. Sauron had held him up, pointing to the scattered number of patrols that hadn't checked in since the start of this attack, and the Brotherhood barracks which hadn't replied to Eric's call to join his main force in his citadel.

He had been concerned about that, but it was next to nothing compared to the reports that were coming from the front. He'd hoped to pull Potter and his troops against the citadel, but they hadn't taken the bait, coming forward too slowly, forcing him to push his own troops out to the limits of the citadel's defensive cannons. Even so his troop's initial ambush had gone well, but then Potter had joined in, turning it back.

Now his attempt to catch them between hammer and anvil was in tatters, but he still had more than enough troops scattered both behind and around Potter's troops. It was just a matter of breaking Potter himself, and Phoenix. If he could do that, Storm alone would not be able to turn the tide.

A bare few seconds after sending the order to the Tech Team to start using the cannons, Sauron had attempted his bit of treason. Eric had felt the Pterodactyl-like mutant's arm on his shoulder turning him, and then the energy vampire had attempted to drain Eric of his power.

But Eric had known Sauron was a treacherous creature, and had thus been prepared. A blast of electromagnetic power had thrown him away, and before Sauron could move, Eric had reached out to the electromagnetic pulses in his brain, frying them. It was a technique he'd been working on for months, the amount of concentration necessary to do it at all then to use it in a combat situation was phenomenal, but it had paid off. The assault had utterly bypassed Sauron's ability to absorb the life force of his victims and his durability to kill the traitor rather easily. Now to see if it works on Potter.

With a nod at Exodus Magneto took to the air, zooming forward towards the battle. "Head for the ground as soon as my initial attack ends Exodus, you know what to do then." Exodus nodded his head while Magneto reached out with his power, tearing up pieces of wire, iron, steel and other ferrous materials from the jungle. When he had a vast wave of bits and pieces of flotsam behind him, he hurled it forward, using his power over electromagnetism to push the speed of the bits of junk almost as fast as a gauss shell.

But his concentration on his attack broke as another mind tried to fight him for the ferrous materials of his attack! It didn't succeed in stopping it, but it had slowed. And this wasn't like the time he had fought Potter to control the material of the base where they fought (wherever it was, Eric still had no clue, and felt that he hated Potter all the more for that).

No, this was someone else using the same sort of mutant power based he did. "What?"

Exodus looked at him then dodged to one side as someone else blasted a large stream of charged particle through the air he had just been occupying. With Storm engaged with Zaladane, that left only Darkstar to command the flyers, and she wasn't able to stop Polaris, Lorna Dane, from charging toward Magneto the moment she spotted him.

"Hello father!" Lorna spat then attacked, bringing her power to bear against Magneto's.

"Father… foolish child what are you talking about?" Magneto asked blocking her energy attack with his own electromagnetic shield looking at her curiously, his fury and desire to turn this campaign back against Potter stymied for the moment. Waving Exodus on, he continued. "Just because you have the same powers as I do does not mean we're related."

The two of them began to fly around one another, blasts of energy flashing out only to dissipate harmlessly against their shields.

"Xavier tested my blood, I saw the results! You're my father, you left me with a foster family instead of taking care of me yourself, and they turned me over to Shaw the moment I started to show my mutant powers. But then again, I suppose I should be grateful you didn't get me committed to an insane asylum like you did my half-sister Wanda!" Lorna shouted her eyes filled with angry tears as she raged.

Wanda, ahh, that useless fool Pietro's sister I had almost forgotten about her. "If you are here, and if she is here, that is proof that you are powerful enough for me to acknowledge you, which I assure you I would have if I had known of your existence. I never knew I had another daughter, so whatever decision was made after that was not on my orders. Wanda was a… special case. Her powers made her mad, unstable, a danger to all around her." Eric replied, his voice coaxing.

Moving backwards and not attacking for a moment he strengthened his shields against Lorna's attacks. Already Eric could tell she didn't have his sheer power, but her will was decent enough. She could be trained, trained to give him a true heir. With that in mind he held out a hand grandly. "Join me daughter! If you worked under Shaw, and yes I recognize the name, you must know that mutantkind's rightful place is to rule over our evolutionary predecessors. And if you are here, that is proof of your strength of will. Join me, and rule by my side!"

Polaris practically gaped at him, then broke out in a mad half laugh half sob, "Th, that's all you care about isn't it, your, your damn mission, your vision of the future, your own place as ruler of mutantkind, fuck you've even changed your damn helmet!"

Indeed, Magneto's bucket-shaped helmet now had a small platinum band around it's top, with bits of diamond and ruby set into it here and there.

"If I wasn't a mutant, would you even care about me at all!? Wanda was right about you, you sick bastard!" With that she renewed her attack, lashing out blindly, ripping up more of the landscape to grab bits of ferrous materials, hurling them at Magneto while redoubling her energy assault. "Screw you, and your fucking vision you're just like god damn Shaw, Magneto!"

"Unfortunate. You would have been a true successor for me. But perhaps you will think differently after this is over." Magneto shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly his shield exploded outward, a wave of energy that slammed into Polaris' shield carrying all of the power of her previous assaults, popping it like a bubble. She screamed in pain as his next attack slammed into her, sending her shooting down to the earth unconscious.

Magneto watched her fall only to blink as she disappeared right above the admittedly shattered and broken tree line. "Interesting, some form of teleportation even under that condition? If so, she was most definitely more interesting than her half-siblings."

Putting the odd moment out of his mind, Eric turned his attention to the battle, searching it for Potter ignoring the ignoring the battle in the sky above him between Dark Star and what few remaining flying assets his own people had. Potter was his target, the rest of the battle would sort itself out once he and Phoenix were removed from the action.

But that was not the only family reunion occurring this day.

OOOOOOO

Initially the sniper team had been supposed to first take out targets of opportunity, trying to pull Magneto's attention slightly off the main battle, mostly to draw off some of his numbers into an environment where they couldn't all be brought to bear than anything else. After that, once the main battle began they would then come in and flank Magneto's main force. Yet while they could move through the jungle as easily as could be hoped, they were badly out of position because of their second encounter, and were nowhere near close enough to take Magneto's forces under fire when they moved to engage the main attack team.

Once they heard the main battle in the distance, they double timed it back towards it in single file, with Vanguard's mutant power activated and him in the lead to take and spring any trap in their way. It happened several times, and he was gasping in exertion by the time he and the other snipers felt they were within range of the main fight. The fact a lot of the jungle around the battle had been shattered and blasted made it much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Scaling a nearby rock face Vanguard and Coyote found a place where they could set up their sniper rifles, and they began to belt out gauss rifle rounds into the distance while Ghigau, Morph, Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch waited. They would head forward once the combatants in the snipers sights responded to the attack on their flank.

Vanguard's first shot took out the last Kleinstock brother, impacting the side of his head and blowing through it in a welter of gore the caused some of the nearby Pteradons to squawk and turn in his direction. This cost them badly against Darkstar and the others. Relieved of not being Magneto's targets and with orders to remain in the air, they pressed the attack against the Pteradons and Sun People on their hover boards, slowly winning air superiority through skill over their numbers.

Beside him Coyote's first shot was nearly as good. He took out one of the Sun People's skimmers, smashing its engine into pieces and hurling the man over the front of it as it lost power crashing into the ground.

Below the two snipers the Scarlet Witch scowled, pacing around irritably. "How much longer!?" She'd been getting more and more irritable as the day passed with no sign of her brother and father in the jungle. Or as Wanda put it, 'silver-haired daddy's bitch' and 'He Who Must Be Neutered'. That last name was one she'd come up with after Lorna and she had come to grips with their sisterly status.

"Ease up Fraulein, we'll get it stuck in once again soon enough." Nightcrawler soothed, putting an arm over her shoulder, squeezing her shoulders companionably. "It will be only a matter of time before they reply to our little attack here."

Suddenly the Scarlet Witch tackled turned under his arm, tackling him into the ground as suddenly a blast of Arctic power went straight over his head had been. "Never tempt fate like that!" She shouted into his ear, before rolling away into the underbrush as Nightcrawler teleported himself away, smirking lightly at the remembered feel of Wanda's form lying on his own.

Where they had just been lying another blast of some kind of energy attack hit the ground. A second later Quicksilver appeared, zooming through the woods towards Nightcrawler's current position. At the same time a group of mutates and a few Brotherhood members attacked out of the broken jungle landscape. Most of them were animal like, two of them, male and female, looking like werewolves, while another looked almost like across between a wolf and a cat in form. They were accompanied by a pack of similar mutates, their eyes blank and their faces set in a rictus snarl.

Two of them however would have been familiar to Nick Fury if he had been there. Laura, or X-23, and Fatale, charged forward behind the more animal-like mutants.

"Take it to the flatscan lovers!" Toad of all people shouted, jumping up toward the snipers. He screamed and fell back when Vanguard threw his shield at him, the edge of it slamming into Toad right between the legs.

"Um, oops, sorry?" Vanguard muttered, leaping up. "Coyote start porting around, concentrate on providing cover fire to the main battle, the rest of us will take this group on up close and personal."

Even as Coyote acknowledged Vanguard leaped off the outcropping, his rifle behind him as the runic array in his hand flashed white, filling it with a plasma gun at his shouted command of "Gun three!"

Landing he hosed the mutates with it on full auto, the sounds a staccato rhythm of 'zzzrrakk' sounds, barely audible over the sound of combat.

Ghigau and Morph closed with the feral mutants Sigyn's gift morphing into a spear, then a sword at Ghigau's mental commands, as Morph's arms morphed at will. "Lupa, Lupo, Thornn, what's up peeps! Chase any good bones lately Thornn? If you haven't I got one for ya!"

"Oh that was just bad." Ghigau muttered, shaking her head from nearby.

Quicksilver had paused, one foot raised in the air as he stared, only to duck as Nightcrawler popped in from having kicked Lupo's face, a fist flashing through where Quicksilver's head had been. "W, Wanda? Wha, what are you doing here!? Why, how'd… why're you out of the Vault!?"

Seeing her brother for the first time in years and hearing that question Wanda lost it completely. She slammed her hands together and with cry and a surge of power her ability to manipulate chaos magic spread out. The trees to either side became whips, slamming into a few mutates. The ground collapsed into mud, the air becoming filled with sparkly bits of pure magic that exploded on contact singing or changing what they touched.

Even Quicksilver collapsed, his footing lost under the wave of unnatural transfiguration that Wanda had caused. She stepped forward staring down at him her face a rictus of anger. "Hello, brother. We have to talk…"

Quicksilver somehow got his feet under him once more, still staring at Wanda, the battle forgotten for a moment. "But, but Father, he… he said you had to stay in the Vault, that your power was too dangerous to let you out, to let you stay with us. But if you've actually learned how to control it… that's wonderful! Is that why you're working with the flatscan lovers, to use them to find us?"

"Hell no you ass-kisser! I joined up to kick your ass, and his too! You can take that whole Mutant Supremacy crap and shove it!" Wanda scowled. "And don't talk to me like you think leaving me in the hellhole was for my own good, the old man just didn't want to deal with my powers, it's that simple."

Wanda scoffed, almost absentmindedly conjuring up a wall of air to slam Lupo back, then flinging a few of her hex bolts at the werewolf-like mutate. "I've never understood why you were so eager to chase after his cloak tails, but I don't care either. Surrender Pietro, and I'll only smack you around a bit. Or," she smirked, her hands still sparking with Chaos magic. "We can do this the hard way."

"Potter must have brainwashed you like he did the Brotherhood in New York!" Quicksilver gasped, shaking his head. "Well don't worry sister, once we get you away from them you'll see things more clearly."

"Pietro you stupid bastard I just said IEE!" that was all Wanda could get out before Pietro almost disappeared, speeding towards her so fast she couldn't target him again.

But Nightcrawler had both anticipated this response and finished off Lupa, teleporting with the female werewolf-like mutate up into the air and dropping her. She might eventually heal from that, but not fast enough to matter to the rest of this fight.

Before Quicksilver could reach her however, he was forced to dodge to one side as Nightcrawler nearly took his feet out from under him. "Sorry mine old enemy, but attacking your family like that is just not on."

"Damn it! Get out of the way blue boy!" Quicksilver barked, zooming towards Nightcrawler, who popped away only to reappear, his fist slamming into the silver-haired man's face with enough force to send him sprawling for a second. But Quicksilver's fist shot out, connecting with Nightcrawler in turn before he could pop away.

"I am a man, a blue man!" Nightcrawler gasped as he came out of his teleportation. But that moment of levity was enough for Quicksilver to target him, not from the front this time. He zoomed away through a few amazingly still upright trees, coming in at an angle as fast as he could go. His arm snapped out, and just as Nightcrawler turned toward him, his arm clotheslined the X-man in the neck, hurling him backwards gagging. That would have crushed any normal human's jugular, but Nightcrawler had quite a bit more durability and strength than any normal man.

Rolling on the ground, Nightcrawler kicked out, catching Quicksilver in the chest when he moved to follow up. As he staggered back, Wanda announced her presence once more, smashing him away from Nightcrawler. "Thanks for the assist Kurt, but this is family business, butt out!"

With that, she turned her magic on Quicksilver, her face set in a grim frown. "Hard way it is Pietro!"

Elsewhere in the battlefield, Shanna led her small rebellion in to aid the snipers, with her, Puck and Logan in the lead. He snarled, roaring aloud as he saw Laura trading slashes with Ghigau, her claws against Ghigau's weapon, which had changed into a hunting dagger to match Laura's close range. Laura looked up, and spotted him, her eyes going wide before a kick sent her skidding away.

Fatale also turned, frowning as she looked first at Logan then at the battle going on beyond them. Exodus had arrived, and above him Magneto. If we don't win this now, no way we will…

OOOOOOO

Exodus hit the battle like a bomb, his patrician face angry at having had to wait so long to join the battle. Before he even touched down he swatted the Human Torch out of his path with the equivalent of a telekinetic slap, lashing out telepathically at the same time, while Darkstar avoided a similar fate with difficulty

That this slap broke every bone in the Human Torch's body despite his flame was immaterial. As was the fact he disappeared between one second and the next, spirited away by the emergency portkey on his suit, which was really proving it's worth today.

His telepathic assault however met with staunch resistance, the attack dying almost as soon as it left his mind, blanketed and confounded. For all his power Exodus lacked experience when it came to telepathic conflict. He couldn't even figure out where the two telepaths facing him were, only that there were two by their differing styles. Nonetheless Exodus' defense was far better than his offense, something he was about to learn.

He plowed into the battle occurring between the Custodes and his own allies like a runaway train, hurling Warpath, Paige, and Thing aside and bolstering his own forces, shattering hundreds of the strange golems with a telekinetic assault that looked like a solar explosion. At the same time he lashed out with his fists, punching the armor clad warrior at the attacker's head aside.

Magma and Rogue closed, with Magma hurling balls of magma before trying to open up a fissure directly underneath him only to watch Exodus bat the magma aside almost contemptuously while at the same time hovering a foot off the ground. Rogue nearly got in place to touch him, but found herself suddenly in the air, then hurled backwards, though it didn't hurt at all, and indeed gave her a bit more strength thanks to having absorbed Shaw's mutant power. "I know of your power X-man Rogue, and I will not let you touch me!" Then he stopped, his forward momentum barely stopped by a blast of force impacting his head.

While Colossus skidded away shaking his head groggily saved from a broken jaw only by his Orihalcum helmet and his own metal-clad hide, Exodus turned in the direction of that blast. He recognized its originator as Cyclops, the field commander of the misguided and brainwashed X-men. Normally Exodus would have some sympathy for him, seeing him as merely a tool of the arch race traitor Xavier, but now, seeing the X-men here with the other race traitors the so-called Custodes, he knew Cyclops had willingly chosen to stand with humanity against his own race, and the idea of sympathy went out the window. "Die traitor!"

A blast of telekinetic force lashed out from his hand towards Cyclops, a blast of such power that the X-men's leader probably would have been turned into a pile of offal despite his Orihalcum reinforced suit if it had landed. It didn't because it was intercepted by a blast of equal or greater power in the form of a gigantic punch of telekinetic fire as Phoenix soared across the battlefield. "Why don't you pick on someone in your own weight class asshole!"

Phoenix's own telekinetic assault lashed out again, smashing Exodus off the ground and away from the main battle despite his hastily reinforced telekinetic shields, the chief Acolyte having no time to embed himself into the ground. He was unharmed, but that hadn't been Phoenix's chief objective, no her job was to take him out of the main battle once again, he'd already done enough damage.

Seconds later after Guardian had replaced the golems lost Magneto appeared, several large ferrous or metal giants moving forward at the same time to combat Guardian's golems. While those golems began to do battle with their counterparts, he sent out a column of energy blasting Havok backwards and using his magnetic power to hurl both Colossus and Paige into Magma.

The Kentucky native pushed herself groaning to her feet and Colossus grunted in pain, noticing his broken arm while the two leaders slammed into one another in midair over the main battle, a beam of pure magic slammed out into Magneto's electromagnetic shields. "Cyclops, you've got command for now, wait until myself, Storm or Phoenix return."

Ahead of Guardian, Magneto's shields held but buckled, forcing Magneto to pour more of his strength into them, losing control of the metal behemoths he had brought into the fight and the thousands of metal and ferrous material spears he'd slowly been gathering once more after Polaris' unexpected confrontation. A wave of Harry's hands transfigured those into glass, hurling them into packets of Sun People who had tried to form gun emplacements here and there in the riven jungle battlefield.

Then Magneto lashed out, slamming a blast of electromagnetic power into Guardian, and he lost the ability to concentrate on the battle at large. "Good luck Cyclops!" He spat through the com gear in his helmet before he began to press his attack against Magneto.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere Phoenix found herself smashed out of the sky by Exodus, who had suddenly teleported right into hand to hand range. Only her reinforcing her shield had protected Jean from taking more damage. That and the number of spells Harry had layered her with and her uniform's Orihalcum reinforcement. Note to self, don't let this bastard close the range!

While smashing Exodus away from her physically, Phoenix also attempted a physic assault, she felt she had the measure of her opponent's ability given her hasty reinforcement of Diamond a moment ago and was willing to chance it. On the psychic plane a wave of telepathic fire arced out and away from her tentacle tree protected mind, only to run into a wall of adamantine power. Damn it!

Her assault encompassed that defense, looking for some chink in its armor, but Exodus' mind was inviolate, and he lashed out in turn both physically and mentally, splitting his concentration in a way that Phoenix had to match. His own attack beat back her telekinetic assault though his physical assault lost to her own and he slammed into the ground of the jungle, the jungle's growth around them flattening and searing into ash in an instant.

On the astral plain the fires of Jean's assault was banked swiftly, and she hastily threw up the psychic equivalent of a firewall, not trusting her Belsham tree to defend her from an attack of that magnitude. The two of them attempted a few subtler probes while their main assaults were stymied against one another, but there Phoenix's belsham-trees saw her through, snagging and smashing Exodus's probes, ripping them into pieces before they could break her second line of defense. At the same time however, her own assault couldn't get through the adamantine wall of Exodus' will.

Realizing she couldn't win this battle on the astral plain Jean left the fire wall in place, devoting a bit of her mental ability to keeping it up while concentrating on the material plain for now. Their telekinetic duel became even fiercer for a time, with Exodus attempting to close using his teleportation ability matched with her ability to track his mind just enough to keep one step away from him. Then Exodus made a mistake.

His own attack on Jean's mind might have failed, but he had felt something in her body: two other, slowly forming living souls. "I can feel the lives growing within you Phoenix. Do not worry, I am not a monster who would paint the child for the treason of the mother to her race. I will make certain to extract your ovum from your corpse. They will be raised by the Acolytes to follow the righteous path of Homo Superior supremacy."

Jean saw red. Not only was this bastard so blasé about his eventual victory, but he had threatened to brainwash her children afterward! Hell, she could swear she felt the Phoenix respond, too! Her anger merged with her power, breaking what little restraint Jean had on her power and a sudden punch of telekinetic power smashed through Exodus' shields, smashing into his jaw, retaining enough power to pulverize his jaw and most of his teeth in his mouth.

"You fucking DARE!" Phoenix roared, her voice a mix of an angry lioness protecting her cubs and a bird of prey such that any animal in hearing range, even the dinosaurs, froze in atavistic terror.

Her opponent didn't, but even as he tried to reinforce his shields and his healing factor, one better than even Logan's, went to work, a second blow smashed into those shields. This wasn't a jab however, but a battering ram of force that impacted his chest, flinging him upward into the air and continuing as Phoenix followed, keeping her attack going crushing his ribs, as she closed somewhat.

Before Exodus could counteract their momentum Phoenix's assault smashed him into the roof of the massive cavern that encapsulated the Savage Land, protecting it from the outside world and the normal artic weather. That ceiling of rock was miles thick, no one knew how dense. But the rock gave way behind Exodus' body as he continued to try and break free of his opponent's assault, only succeeding as he burst out into the Artic sunlight.

Ignoring the arctic cold which would have killed any normal man in short order, Exodus fell to his knee for a moment before angrily pushing to his feet, lashing out only to see Phoenix actually dodge his assault, returning fire with her own telekinetic blast. He tried to teleport towards her, only to smash his fist into some kind of mixed telepathic/telekinetic illusion of some sort. While Phoenix couldn't' get through to his mind, she could use the her own telekinetic powers to obscure herself as well as using her telepathic powers to hide precisely where she was, and she did so now.

As the battle continued and Exodus began to use his teleportation power more often, she even created a type of body double made out of her telekinetic power, encapsulating a Phoenix fire assault. This proved horrendously effective when Exodus tried to punch through it. Despite his body's durability and his own telekinetic shield, the power of the Phoenix fire got through, incinerating his arm from the elbow down.

"GRAH!" he roared in agony, and as Phoenix tried to press in lashed out from below her, slamming her up and away. While his healing ability went to work on reconstituting his arm on the atomic level, he threw all of his power into that attack, smashing Phoenix up and through the stratosphere as her assault had previously done to him.

Jean somehow felt many of Harry's defense spells fail all around her body as she grit her teeth, blood flowing from her eyes and mouth as her body couldn't deal with the amount of power she was putting out for a second before that same power began to heal her, imitating her opponent's healing ability but needing her to direct it whereas his did not.

A second later she threw off the attack, righting herself only to find the attack had smashed her out into space. Good, out here there's no chance of us accidentally incinerating anything important, like oh, the rest of the Antarctic!

She had barely a second to formulate her next attack before Exodus was on her, his own powers encapsulating his body with enough air to fly as easily through space as she could. His arm had finished reconstituting itself, and he felt he had the measure of her now. "You are powerful Phoenix, I can see that, but you are no match for me! My sympathy for your unborn children will not save you!"

"Keep jawing fucker!" Phoenix growled back then lashed out as he did the same, their telekinetic powers blasting into one another with enough force to shatter continents now that they were out in space, neither holding back any more. Indeed many of the world powers could now detect the outpouring of energy they were putting off, and many, including a certain one-eyed professions paranoiac wondered what the hell was happening.

Not that either of the people involved had any thought to spare for that. They matched one another blow for blow, with Phoenix retreating as she had to keep the range open, unwilling to let Exodus use his greater physical abilities against her as he had once already. Aided by the few remaining spells on her, Phoenix's own attacks began to get through Exodus' shields. Despite his massive amounts of power, he didn't quite have the endurance Jean did, thanks to her training and, it must be said, her status as an Avatar.

His healing ability and teleportation continually acted to keep her own her toes, and she gritted her teeth more than once as his attacks got through her power once or twice, but the stalemate continued for more than fifteen minutes as they tried to batter their way through one another's defenses. But if the material plane had devolved into a pure power exchange, the renewed telepathic battle was a thing of leverage, of two judo masters attempting to throw one another off-balance enough to get in a killing or disabling blow.

Once again the living nature of Jean's second layer of defenses served her well. She could afford to concentrate more on her own attacks because her Belsham-trees were mostly self-sustaining by this point, able to snag the bits of Exodus' power that got through her fire wall. Her own assault couldn't quite get through the wall protecting Exodus' mind, but she was still pressing in against it, forcing him to divert some of his attention.

And that, in the end was what finally ended the battle, the number of things the two of them could concentrate on at one time, and Jean's ability to plan just a little bit ahead while Exodus mostly relied on his instincts. Between one dodge of a physical attack and the next, Jean moved her body just slightly, covering her previous position with another TK illusion hiding a Phoenix fire assault.

She hadn't moved enough to let Exodus sense it, his ability to find her mind having become too good for that to work. She had simply adjusted her position upward somewhat, the illusion encapsulating her legs. A punch that would have smashed into her head smashed into her leg, shattering both Harry's few remaining defensive spells and her own shields before crushing the bones within it rather than her skull as Exodus had hoped.

Then the TK bomb of Phoenix fire exploded, incinerating Exodus' arm up to the elbow despite his own shields and durability just as Jean, gritting her teeth from the agony of his assault, struck both on the material and psychic plane. The pain of that attack and the need to split his attention cost Exodus, and for just an instant his physical shields slipped as he hurled her telepathic attack back. His other arm rose, smashing into Jean's shoulder, shattering it despite her TK shield, Harry's defensive spells and the Orihalcum in her suit.

"RAAHH!" Jean screamed not reinforcing her shoulder, rather throwing her strength into an attack. This attack was not a battering ram but a single claw of TK force, slicing instead of smashing into Exodus' defenses. Those defenses might have withstood that assault if Exodus had been able to concentrate on it, but he couldn't and her claw carved into his shields, then his body, slicing into his eye and the brain behind it.

Yet even that Exodus' healing ability could have dealt with. If Jean hadn't immediately followed up with another rapier of power, slicing into his faltering shields right over his heart. His heart exploded under her attack, and Jean reached out, crushing his body as his mind began to shut down from the agony he was feeling. And she didn't stop, Phoenix Fire searing away at Exodus' form until there was nothing left, not a single cell on top of another.

As his body finally disappeared under her assault, Jean sent out a probe through the psychic plane, ignoring her exhaustion to make certain that nothing of her opponent lingered. Only when she was certain nothing remained of Exodus did Phoenix let her power fade, exhaustion and pain setting in. Not a one of Harry's defensive spells remained, her suit was ruptured in places, and the ribs along one side of her body hurt like fire, indicating they were at least broken, just like her thigh bone. It was only Harry's spells that had kept her from taking internal injuries from that last blow, and Jean was more thankful than she had ever thought she would be for his paranoia.

It took her more than a few moments to concentrate through the agony of her injuries to do more than keep a sphere of air around her. When she did, Jean didn't immediately turn her attention to get back to the Savage Land and the battle occurring there. No, her thoughts turned to what Exodus had said to enrage her so near the start of their own engagement.

"Minds, as in plural?" She murmured, unheard by any, one hand moving to rest protectively over her stomach, which, she was assured, would begin to show her pregnancy within the next few weeks. Jean wasn't looking forward to that, but even so… "Heh, I wonder what Harry will think of that…"

OOOOOOO

In the battle between Harry and Magneto it was Harry who was attempting to close with his opponent and Magneto who had to keep the range open and was facing his opponent's ability to apparate. The one time he had allowed Harry to stay within striking distance Magneto had paid for it with a couple cracked ribs despite his ability to channel his powers into his body making him nearly as durable as Colossus sans his Juggernaut armor and even his forcefield, which had given way under the blow for just an instant. Magneto's own ability to teleport away was all that saved him from an ignominious defeat right then and there.

Despite all he had learned about Harry's attacks in their first engagement he could not match the sheer scope of those abilities, only able to overcome or dodge them at his best. His ability to read his opponent's body language gave him an edge in anticipating Harry's attacks, but not their type. He could locate Potter easily enough thanks to being able to localize his electromagnetic signature, but couldn't grasp and use that field, making Potter's attempts to hide or use illusions useless. But Potter learned that quickly, and began to hide real attacks mixed in with illusions, or scattered conjured attacks among same.

Magneto's reflexes, which he could enhance well beyond human norm thanks to his speeding up the electromagnetic signals in his brain, were enough to keep him from being overwhelmed, but it was a near run thing a time or two. His shield was called upon more often than he would have liked, and Magneto was quickly realizing that he wasn't the only one whose repertoire had grown since their first clash. Damn you Sauron, if you were here to aid me this would be much simpler!

The two of them teleported across the landscape, engaging and disengaging quickly, throwing direct attacks at one another and attempting to get through their opponents defenses with little success at first. A few bruising attacks got through, but nothing decisive. Worse for Magneto though he didn't know it, was that Harry was still holding back a lot of his attack spells just in case he'd need them later.

About five minutes after their first clash, the two of them hovered near Magneto's citadel, staring at one another across the empty air between them, waiting for their opponent to make the first move.

Magneto slowly shook his head. "Potter, why do you fight me? All I have done is for the good of mutantkind! Look at this place, a haven safe from the outside world and now entirely ours! Think on it, a hidden base from which we can launch our war of genetic superiority without fear of reprisal."

As Harry hovered there silent, Magneto went on, his tone that of a father trying to reason with a son. "Can you not see that your attempts to guarantee equality for mutantkind is doomed to failure? You made some progress I'll admit, but much of it was reversed because of that madman in the Asian Ocean. And what of the Middle East, Africa, the Southern Americas?"

He went on, taking Potter's silence as an excuse. "Your movement lacks numbers, I have those numbers! You lack conviction, conviction to do what is needed, I can provide that. Only united can mutantkind stand against those who would oppress us. Only through force can we take our rightful place."

"Rightful place?" Harry asked his voice cold.

"Yes! Only by being on top, by forcing humanity to realize we are their betters can true peace be achieved! Only by conquest can mutantkind be saved from its genetic inferior! Humanity's time is at an end, the future belongs to Homo Superior!" Magneto shouted, his eyes burning with the power of his vision.

"If your genetics make you so special, why did you need to use technology to create your mutates? If you're so superior, what does it say that you have to resort to near genocide here in the Savage Land to get your way?" Harry asked. "My god man, I might have made fun of you for it the last time, but you really do sound like Hitler, you know that?"

"I am nothing like that monster!" Magneto roared in fury lashing out with an electromagnetic blast of power, a PPC stream that cut through the air between them, forcing Harry to dodge. At the same time, he reached out, attempting to use his power directly on Harry's body once more, only to find his power unable to get through Harry's magical shielding. "How dare you say that, you who never lived through the Holocaust, you who are a mutant in name only!? You know nothing of suffering!"

Harry laughed hollowly, suddenly stopping in place, his hand coated with magic smashing Magneto's next attack out of the sky. "I know nothing of suffering? You know, if I at all respected you, I might try to explain how wrong you are. But as it is, I'm just done listening to you!"

With that Harry went on the attack. "Rifela, Diffindo, Neque Hasta et Longinus!" Hidden among area effect transfiguration spells and several dozen illusions from his other hand these three attacks homed in on Magneto in a matter of seconds. Worse however were the blasts of pure magic power, energy and force given bare form and sent at Magneto.

Unlike the first time they fought Magneto's shield held this time against the penetrating attack Rifela, and he dodged the cutting spell easily. When he attempted to use one of his wormhole-based teleportations to get away from the condensed explosive spell however, he found the wormhole actually sucked in the explosion around him for some reason, hurling him out at an angel from where he had hoped to appear though not penetrating his shield. Magneto's own attack, a series of charged particle blasts and metal shrapnel ripped from the ground beneath Potter, went awry, only catching him with the edge of their impact, which wasn't enough to get through his shield.

The two of them once more danced around one another, Harry attempting to close once more behind a myriad of illusions and transfigurations while Magneto kept his distance, attempting to find some way of getting through Harry's shields. His attempts to disappear using his power to bend visible light failed, Harry able to follow his movement by use of low-level Shatter Shakers and watching for where the magical waves bounced off clear air. Harry's attempt to do the same also failed, having no spell to cover his body's electromagnetic signature even if he could prevent Harry from using it.

In response Magneto tried to change the gravitational field of the planet directly under Harry, making him hundreds of times heavier. Harry grimaced, but his Magia Erebea allowed him to survive this and he quickly cast a levitation spell on himself, cutting off the effect of the enhanced gravity while lashing out.

Magneto was then forced to dodge as the trees around him suddenly reached for him, ignoring a few that were obvious illusions only to nearly get impaled as Harry switched out an illusion with a real spike of diamond at the last second. Ducking under that assault he felt the spear clip the top of his helmet and growled angrily, redoubling his assault. Using his ability to manipulate electromagnetism he fired off blasts of power at his enemy, trying to keep Harry still long enough to force him to the ground. Need to limit his mobility somehow!

It was Harry's turn to dodge and teleport away from danger, and he did so, only to run into Magneto's next attack. Harry looked around to see several small silos in the ground around the citadel open, and out came the nukes Morph had told him about. There were only twelve of them, not the dozens he had feared but even so it was a horrifying sight. Magneto hurled them all at Harry, who was able to transfigure two of them before Magneto threw up a shield around Harry and the missiles enclosing them both and then reached out, manipulating the missiles' detonators into exploding.

The nuclear explosion was magnificent, hurling Harry away with a cry of pain to embed into the side of the citadel. Which, since most of it had been made by Magneto, was metal. The sides of the dent all around Harry moved swiftly to entrap him as Magneto hurled himself forward eager to end this fight. "Die Potter!"

But Harry wasn't nearly as hurt as Magneto had expected. His Magia Erebea given durability and his Orihalcum enhanced crysis suit saw him through the worst of the attack with only a few capillaries in his eyes and his mask having broken in place. He was battered, bruised, but very much alive, and had yet to unleash his full magical power just yet. Now with the nukes dealt with, it's time to end this.

The metal around Harry transfigured into diamond again, a mix of a transfiguration spell and his Terraemotus offensive spell, hurling towards Magneto who despite his surprise at Guardian's survival batted them aside or took them on his shield, only to blink in shock as Harry apparated right into his face before Magneto could track him. A Fulgur Plumbum slammed into Magneto's shields from point blank range powered by as much magical strength as Harry could put into it, and Magneto's shield popped for a split second, leaving him open to Harry's next assault.

This wasn't so much a spell as pure magic, a magic blast with a barely formed idea of CUT behind it. But the power of it was such that it made nearly any actual cutting spell pale in comparison

And it hit Magneto right above the waistline, cutting him neatly in two despite his power's reinforcing his body. "GAHHHH!"

Magneto's body fell from the sky in two pieces, slamming into the side of his citadel a few times as he did, each time screaming out in renewed agony. Normally he could have used his power to hover or reach out to the metal of his citadel to halt his momentum somehow. But the pain from being literally cut in half overcame even Magneto's ability to control his powers. Magneto never even saw where his legs landed, having dropped straight down unlike his upper body.

He slammed into the ground with another cry of agony, as his helmet, a helmet that, Harry noticed had like Morph said changed to more resemble a crown complete with a ring of golden spikes along the top, rolled off his head, coming to rest nearby.

Harry landed nearby, reaching down to pick it up, looking at it contemptuously as his suit's mask disapeared. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown Eric. You always saw yourself as a savior, the ruler of all mutantkind, never admitting anyone else could have any clue as to how best to lead 'your' people. But instead of trying to simply save them, you wanted to reverse what you saw as the racist status quo, putting mutants on top. I can understand it, but I could never condone that idea."

"I, I, all I wanted was what best for mutant kind. To, to protect us all. Not, not another Holocaust, never again…" Eric said, concentrating on the words to get them out, his body barely being sustained by his powers now in some fashion Harry didn't understand. Either that, or it was sheer will power that drove the other man on, something Harry could respect. "I, never again, no…"

"You were blinded by your fears, and your fear turned you into something you hated." Harry said, no feeling rather sad it had to come to this. "I wish it could've been different, but you proved how far you'd go here in the Savage Land if you hadn't already."

"S, spare me, P, Potterrrrr…." Eric coughed, getting the energy to glare from somewhere. "You, you don't know, don't, don't know…"

"I know pain, I know death, and I know suffering Eric." Harry said, simply weary now. "I also know that no matter what side of the coin you're on, oppression and terror in the name of race, genetics, or some supposed superiority is never the answer."

He raised a hand and Eric continued to glare as another cutting spell lanced out, slicing through his neck, detaching his head from his shoulders cleanly.

OOOOOOO

Gambit shook his head as he turned away from the screen, having just watched Magneto's death. That guy, Potter, he's not one I'd like to tangle with. Time to get the hells out of dodge I think.

Having just arrived himself, he was in no position to warn Magneto or aid him or any of the others. Not like he was going to either, no getting involved in a direct confrontation between the Custodes and Magneto's faction wasn't what he was being paid for. Sinister wanted me as a spy and to retrieve his little creation, time I best be doing that and moving on I think.

Moving through the corridors of the Citadel, he quickly descended through the metal and concrete portion deep into the small rocky outcrop that had been carved into the original Sun People's citadel over time. Here, surprisingly away from the more ferrous material of the newer construction, were a few of the Magneto's most secret projects.

He was stopped halfway there by one of the Tech Team, Brainchild. A mutate, he was somewhere between a true positive response to the mutate program and a failure. He had developed a mutated brain, which gave him the intelligence of a genius and the computational skills of a computer, but emotionally he had become almost stunted, reverting to acting like a petulant child at times.

This was not one of those times. "Gambit, there you are! We've lost, though I calculate you know that already, why else would you be down here? You must be looking for a hidden way to escape, of course you are. You always seem to want to keep your options open don't you?"

"Yeah, that be 'bout the right of it mate," Gambit said, narrowing his eyes at the smaller man with his overlarge head.

"Good, we'll escape together. I have seen all of Potter's impact on the world at large, I can analyze his overall goals, what he will do to achieve them and what he will never allow, there is no place for me here no matter how kind he might be to those he's defeated. No, no, no!" Brainchild shrieked suddenly. "No, I want my toys, I want to conquer!"

Before he could return to normal, Gambit had flung a small card at him it's edge sharpened and empowered by his mutant ability. The card impacted Brainchild's overlarge head, exploding with as much concussive force as three grenades. Brainchild's head exploded like an overripe melon and his body fell backwards, dead. "Been savin' that for any of the strong-arm men I might be meetin' on mah way out, but that don't seem too likely now. Sorry Brainy, but Ah got no time fer you."

Luckily Brainchild was the only one he met as he made his way down into the caverns beneath the citadel. Unfortunately this was because Harry had sent a dozen mud golems into the citadel to take prisoners, something mud golems were uniquely suited for despite being energy consumptive, not very fast or intelligent enough to take orders beyond the first one given. They captured the rest of the tech team with little trouble, and several of them began to make their way down from the top of the citadel, cutting Gambit off from the surface.

Two near disasters and he was running now, scared of being discovered before he could get out and travelling further away from the entrance. Several minutes of this passed but he was able to leave them behind for now as he found the hidden lab.

There he found the two projects he was here for. One was a young boy, around twelve, in a cryogenic tube. He had white hair and looked a lot like Magneto, almost as if the boy was his son. He wasn't though the truth was close to that, if much stranger.

Pietro had severely underwhelmed Magneto as an heir. So Eric had decided to make another by the 'simple' expedient of cloning himself using technology he had stolen from one of Sinister's bases, though Eric did not know who had owned said company.

The other was a young redheaded woman who was hooked up to an IV, barely conscious. "Ah there you are Cher." Gambit breathed, reaching down to pull the Iv out of her arm slowly, putting a small bandage on the area when he was finished. With that done he raced over to the computers, downloading everything on them into a small handheld computer of his own before erasing everything on them then destroying what was left.

As he finished the girl woke up, blinking her green eyes at him. "Wh, who, what's going on?"

"Covered all the bases there didn't you mon 'cher?" Gambit laughed nervously, looking over his shoulder toward the door as he heard a now familiar 'shloop, shloop' sound of a mud golem moving down the corridor. "Come on, we gotta get out of 'ere."

"Gambit, right? Magneto introduced you before he began to, to find out what my mutant power was beyond blocking anyone else out of my mind." The girl sat up groggily, shaking her head. "Did he have any luck?"

"Not as much as he'd hoped, but enough. But Magneto's gone now, Madelyne and we gotta go or we'll be joining him. So unless you want to meet the Custodes Mundi up close'n personal, I suggest you get a move on."

Watching the girl nod Gambit breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently some of the hypnosis the girl had been put under had taken despite her mental defenses. That was good, and probably a sign of his employer's influence on the girl before released. Chemicals could influence her far easier than normal people despite her mental defenses, which was just the tip of the iceberg. "Now come 'ere cher, I'm gettin' the both of us outta here."

Madelyne nodded docilely, moving toward him and taking Gambit's hand. He looked over at the cryo-tube, and was about to drag her towards it, but the 'shloop, shloop' noise reached the door, and a muddy fist slammed into the doorway, denting it. Madelyne gasped, and Gambti scowled. "No time, blast it!"

He reached into a pocket, pulling out a signal device, which sent out a powerful signal to a waiting transceiver which piggybacked out into the group of radio devices that the Tech Team had used to gather information on the world at large. As the door gave way to the mud golem's assault, the two of them suddenly disappeared into the device.

They would reappear moments later in a little country of the west coast of Africa.

OOOOOOO

After Exodus and Magneto were dealt with the main battle was a veritable pushover. It had turned into a rout when Ororo rejoined the battle, and ended for the most part when Jean and Harry returned to it having dealt with their opponents.

The aftermath of the Savage Campaign, the name coined for the battles against Magneto's faction by Colossus or Cyclops though neither were willing to admit to it, was ugly. But not nearly as ugly as it would have been had Harry, Kitty and Ororo not put emergency portkey arrays into the suits of every member of the Custodes and X-men, including their newcomers. Yet even with that and the FF's aid there were too many wounded for Harry to like.

Evan, Carol, Banshee and Johnny were the worst off by a wide margin. A concussion was one thing magic could not heal, only time so not even Ororo could do much for Carol's concussion, despite having healed the majority of her other wounds. Not without leaving a few scars, which Harry's salves cleaned up.

Johnny's injuries were worse, but still they healed his bones and skin easily enough. His internal bleeding and ruptured lungs were tougher, but Ororo handled them, while Harry healed Banshee's burns and other hurts.

Evan too was healed relatively quickly, but he didn't seem to bounce back as the others had. Unlike the others he hadn't been that badly injured before in his life. And it had happened so suddenly, without Evan being able to protect himself at all. Harry knew that would leave a mark on him, but Scott had noticed the same thing Harry and promised to be there for the younger man if need be, as did Ororo.

Thunderbird had a shattered ulna and a mangled hand which was tricky, as was Colossus' warped forearm, but Ororo could deal with them, despite Colossus muttering of 'Why is it always me?'

The rest of Nikolai's team had various wounds none serious, though Nightcrawler was complaining of a sore throat from Pietro's attempt to decapitate him via clothesline, and had taken a long gash to his jaw from something in the heat of battle.

On the other hand Pietro wasn't going anywhere for a while. Realizing her brother had no magical immunity and didn't exhibit any kind of immunity to her mutant power based on their sibling relationship like Alex and Scott had, Wanda had banished his knee caps. And his elbows. Right out of his body.

She was going to do his teeth one at a time but Kurt had stopped her, and then had Ghigau knock the man out. They had captured both him and Toad, though the Blob had died in the battle, his brain box vaporized by a joint attack by Havok and Cyclops that had overwhelmed his bodies immense durability.

When Ororo told Kurt she could make the gash on his jaw disappear, Kurt waved the offer off. "The chicks dig war wounds, ya?"

Judging by how Wanda had looked at him when he said that, the jury was still out on whether or not that was true.

The fact Ororo also had a new scar from her fight with the sorceress and had refused to have it erased did not surprise any of her lovers. "Our scars are part of what makes us who we are after all." Nor did the fact she had left the former high priestess as a greasy stain on the landscape

The rest of the teams had taken bruises, scattered broken bones despite their suits, but not many. The Orihalcum could take a lot of punishment, though Harry made a note on working with Reed to put together a better shock absorbing layer later on (and, he knew, not for the first time, but maybe he would get some of these backlogged projects done in the near future). Now however he had to deal with everything else.

Leaving the wounded for now, Ororo and Harry returned to the Savage Land where they met with Logan and Shanna, or whatever her name was. The two of them, with the young claw user Laura and her partner Fatale strangely enough, explained what had been going on from their perspective, which dovetailed for the most part with what Morph and Wendy had supplied them with. The fact Laura was standing so close to Logan was odd too, but Harry frankly had no interest in what the cause could be at this point.

The strange thing was that other than Fatale the three wanted to stay here in the Savage Land. Shanna was the de-facto leader of the tribe of cave-men who were now the largest surviving faction in the Savage Land and had good relations with the Cat People, who were the next largest surviving group. Both were willing to leave Harry and his people alone, provided they didn't go out of their way to destroy the jungle where they both lived. Harry was fine with that, the resources of the Savage Land were immense, but very few of them were to be found in the jungle.

"Oh, paleontologists etc. might go gaga for what's out there, but I've already got sources for metal, rare materials and so forth, so the idea of mining doesn't really interest me. No, what is here is space which I can turn to farmland, and the secret hidden haven Magneto thought this place would be for mutants when he began his war." Harry shook his head. "Despite the progress we've made, that might still be necessary for more mutants than I can house in Camelot, that much at least Magneto had right."

"He might've had it right Potter, but don't forget the methods he was willing to use." Logan growled, causing Harry to nod agreement, remembering the cryotube they'd found in the citadel. The young boy inside it would be taken out eventually, but only after Dr. Druid, Amelia and Una all looked him over as much as they could.

Who he was or why he looked so much like Pietro none could say, but they had ideas. Wanda for example was convinced he was some kind of clone of her father, but was determined to see if he had any of Magneto's memories before passing judgments. Lorna didn't care one way or another, not waiting to have anything more to do with anything connected to Magneto. Meeting the man had been a severe let down. Pietro was horrified, and wanted 'the little brat dead!'. The silver haired young man, no longer a teen, had major inadequacy issues.

"In any event, even that is beside the point to the technology here. Not just Magneto's but those tech spires that Magneto couldn't access. Alien tech for certain, but what it's doing here and for how long, that will be the question. I am going to hire a lot of tech people, hit them with as many spells to keep secrets as I can and then throw them at this, unless…" Harry turned away, cocking his eyebrow at Reed and Jean.

"Hell no." They both replied then Reed went on. "Harry even I have limits to the number of projects I can concentrate on at any one time. I am already working on my own projects and several dozen of yours, no."

"Me too Harry, sorry. My times taken up by the team, my own projects, my job as chief engineer for Arc Technologies, and well…" Jean actually flushed slightly, gesturing down to her stomach. "This is going to start taking up a lot of my time and cutting into my mobility soon."

"I was just joking, love, I actually just wanted the two of you to sit down and go over the scientists we've already hired. Find five, then I'll meet with them, have them hire a larger team and have them work on those spires."

They both nodded relieved, and Harry went on seriously. "But Jean, I want you Emma and Sage to work on the technology Magneto left here. I want it cleared of booby traps. Let Emma take what info she can find from the prisoner's minds, and hopefully you'll find some things to add to our own tech base."

Emma and Jean exchanged a glance then nodded as one, exchanging thoughts via telepathy for a moment before Emma replied for them both. "We can do that. Will you be using whatever else we find in their trials?"

Despite the mud golems, There weren't many actual prisoners. Outside of those Wendy had been able to talk around, only around five people, Acolytes, Brotherhood and mutates, had been taken alive. The mutates for the most part had fought until they were killed. Among the mutates who had taken to the mutation process, only a woman named Lorelei had been captured to join the others.

"Yes." Harry sighed. "We'll try them all for any crimes they committed. Banshee, work with them, you know what to look for, what questions to ask to force them to implicate themselves. Then I want you to see if you can figure out who is missing. We know Gambit was the only one to get away, but did he do so alone, and if so, how? I want to know."

Banshee nodded and Harry turned to the tall, powerfully built woman in barbarian garb. "Shanna, you represent the people of the Savage Lands. I'll turn any who did more than simply fight your troops cleanly over to you, and you'll sit with me on the tribunal."

"Agreed Chief Potter. My people, the Cats and any other survivors out there will follow you. You freed us, you promise us your protection, and will not interfere with our ways of life. That is all we can ask now that we have to share the Savage Land with those from beyond." Shanna replied.

Harry nodded, understanding the seriousness of that statement but not wanting to deal with it just yet, going on. "As for those who committed crimes elsewhere…"

Harry sighed once more, his emerald eyes growing cold. "Those we will deal with if we think those countries are unable or unwilling to. Magneto, I don't think he was involved in backing the various pro-mutant violence we've seen of late, not enough of these people knew what was going on for that, and getting messages out and in from the Savage Land is too tough for that. Someone else is out there, and I refuse to let Quicksilver, or our other prisoners out where they could be broken free then recruited. And if their crimes warrant it…"

He trailed off but none of his listeners needed him to fill in the blanks. None of them were happy about it for various reasons, but even Reed could understand the necessity. Only Emma however smiled, if grimly. And so Harry takes one more step to being king, if not solely of mutantkind anymore.

"On a lighter note, I think you might want to speak to Wendy and the youngsters she talked into following her. I talked to them myself, and I think they will all fit in well in Camelot." Ororo said.

"And on an even lighter note, I have some news Harry…" Jean said, smiling and taking his hand placing it gently on top of her stomach.

End chapter

I would also like to say that the producers of Dr. Strange stole the runic doorway from me, I thought them up long before Dr. Strange came out, heh.

Exodus: For all his supposed power and massive potential, he's always been a follower, and never really has been shown to throw down with the more powerful mutants out there outside a few small clashes with Apocalypse, the X-team minus Jean, and a few others. Jean had more power, endurance, training, help in the form of Harry defensive spells and frankly she was pissed off and could equal him in ruthlessness. Even so, it was a much more even fight than between Harry and Magneto. I wanted to show how far both groups had come, why Harry and the Custodes were so much more dangerous than the canon forms beyond even removing the no killing rule. Also, Harry was a team leader from the get-go, Magneto was not. There is a difference between leading a movement, being able to rabble rouse, even to being able to organize a terrorist organization and being able to lead on the battlefield against an equal opponent, especially when your own arrogance gets in the way. Their preparation for this encounter was also nowhere near even, and Magneto had a lot of internal issues as well that he didn't know about. Hope you all enjoyed the battle scene, and as always please review!

As for Semblance of hope, I will release it tomorrow night. I have a lot of it done, just a few more scenes to finish, but it won't be edited, and it really isn't the chapter I had hoped to put out. The new poll will be up by tomorrow as well, and will stay up until the 15th.