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.

36. Slow Progress New Enemies Playing, Old

Rest in peace, Stan Lee. You were a visionary followed by a horde of barely adequate hacks. Whoever he has named in his will owns Marvel, and I ain't a British woman either.

Summary of the last chapter (yes I know I need to do better on including these, LOL): The aftermath of the battle against AIM's taken over Hulkbusters and other SHIELD assets continued, with Emma cheerfully acting like a carrion crow around the corpse of Ozcorp, taking choice bits for herself. Another link between Asgard and Midgard is found in the form of a certain hammer, the container of which had become the source of a lot of the energy-based weaponry SHIELD had. Dates occur, along with talks during these as Ororo rejoins the swing of things. E and Steve organize a meeting, and the US formally joins the growing group of countries willing to back Harry's space defense platform, with a few caveats. Sinister remains at large, but his operations are slowly being mapped out. Elsewhere, Thanos returns to give Loki, lost in the endless space between dimensions, an offer he can't refuse. He is also sighted in Skrull territory by Kree spy ships, something that Ronin the Accuser learns about before deciding to shift resources around to allow other races an attempt at taking Sol, believing any of them a better, more easily defined threat than humans or letting the Skrull take it. Harry meets with the UN, introducing himself and finally stepping out from beyond his mask, laying out his requests and demands for help in terms of the EDF. Yet, as that issue takes a few steps forward, the Mutant Question still causes trouble, with both sides developing terrorists and killers in equal measure, the MLF (Mutant Liberation Front) and the Reclaimers, who the X-Men in particular have to deal with.

A bit of a warning: This is a setup chapter. Harry and co don't honestly see a lot of action, and there is only one really big event. It is simply to show the new shape of the world and to set up the next two major events, both of which will happen in a single large chapter or two smaller ones, since they will almost entirely overlap in terms of time. Sorry if you were expecting the Sinister showdown, but Apocalypse didn't genetically augment no fool there, just an obsessed asshole, LOL.

Thanks go to Mordreek and to Michael. Michael is the small mistakes guy, and I think the chapter will read a lot better thanks to him. Mordreek has been and continues to essentially be my co-author when it comes to Hela, the Asgardians, and the Asatru portions. He has those sections of this chapter but hasn't gotten it back to me yet, but since I promised I would have this chapter out for Thanksgiving and since it's been so long since I posted a chapter for this work, I felt I had to go through with that promise. However those segments might change in the near future if he gets those segments back to me.

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Chapter 36: Slow Progress; New Enemies Playing Old Enemies Stirring

"Boss, those two Middle Eastern businessmen who requested a face to face with you a few days ago are at the front security desk. Do you want to meet them down there or me to assign them an escort? Oh, and the Taiwan ambassador called, asking if you could stop in tomorrow morning for a breakfast meeting," Mary Jane Watson said after knocking on Harry's office door and receiving a verbal reply. She looked down at her PDA for a moment, then nodded. "Security's cleared them already, so that's a good sign, I guess."

"It is, and I think I'd like them to be led up here, MJ," Harry replied as he looked up from his work at the redhead. "As for the ambassador, see if you can schedule him for afternoon tea instead. If not, then see if you can find out what he wants to talk to me about before bumping it back to me."

"Gotcha. Don't forget, though, you've got that meeting with the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the public honorarium at the Arc de Triomphe with the King, the French PM, and Captain America tomorrow too."

"You can call me boss when on duty and Harry when not, but you still can't call him just Steve?" Harry teased then waved her off as MJ blushed. "I'm just teasing you, MJ. Go on, get back to work. And don't worry; I won't forget."

Watching as she left the room, Harry smiled for a moment. Some people made it a habit to rise to any challenge put before them, and somehow Mary Jane Watson had proven to be one of those people in her chosen field. How much of that was based on the fact that she and Wyatt Wingfoot were now bunking up together in a large apartment nearby was up in the air, but she had taken the series of revelations about who her bosses actually were quite well after the attempt on her and Paris's lives, and all of them had learned, in turn, to prize the young New York native's grasp of public speaking and interacting with the common man. Now she served as his, Ororo's, and Sage's primary secretary and public relations manager and seemed to be thriving.

Glancing down at the paperwork he had been working on, Harry sighed but put it away. It had been a concept Kitty and Dr. Druid had come up with to speed up work on enhancing the emergency port system runic arrays, the ones that would be fitted on all EDF personnel in space. Those were tricky, since they needed to hop the line between porting them away to save lives and not doing so for anything less than life threatening injuries or circumstances (like, say, a Raven blowing up around its operators). Space and space combat was a cold hard bitch and Harry was grimly certain even with magic people would die in battle. But these would be a major force multiplier.

Standing up, Harry stretched, walking around his office in the Magical Minds headquarters just to get some kinks out. Since he had come out in front of the United Nations, this had become his principal, public, headquarters. Indeed, it had become the head of his whole movement/operation, whatever the label should be for everything Harry was doing, had done, and was going to be doing.

Ororo, Harry, Sage, and MJ all had their own rooms within the suite that took up the entire topmost floor of the Magical Minds building. Ororo was rarely in hers save for meetings, busy as she was in Camelot, with Hela in the Savage Land, and with Pinoptes up in orbit. But it was still there for that purpose, and, beyond her work on creating the educational systems for Fortress Mars, Camelot and the Savage Land, she had stepped into the position of public second-in-command for this entire boondoggle Harry had started.

For her part, Sage practically lived in her room, which was actually larger than Harry's, though most of that was due to the massive super-computer that took up a third of it, which Reed had designed for Sage personally. It let her handle all the work she was given with ease while allowing her time to focus on helping to steadily enhance their connections with various spy agencies the globe over.

Sage's work also included having taken over most of what Harry had initially been doing on the business side of things, thankfully. Magical Minds and its smaller companies ran like a machine now. This included the burgeoning business of supplying raw ores from Harry's asteroid mining operations with Emma's help, Saab's ongoing restructuring, and Arc Technologies and its rapidly growing list of clientele and infrastructure.

This allowed Harry to concentrate on the political, magical, and organizational sides of things. Yet, even there, Harry had finally learned the magic of delegation and did so relatively well. A case in point being the creation of his own country, which had really started to take shape now, in the Savage Land and on Fortress Mars. But, once the initial Bill of Rights and Responsibilities had been written, Harry had washed his hands of the process of creating further laws. He was a hardcore personal rights person in many ways but understood that a lot of people didn't think that way and was willing to see what solutions other people came up with, so long as they realized that he was serious about retaining veto power in his hands and a few other matters.

But Harry had found that a lot of people simply had no idea what amount of work had to be done to create a working government, especially one that was growing out of a company and a military which were already largely in place and growing even faster. Still, he'd found Sage to be a help there too, along with MJ as a sounding board, Douglas Ramsay and his father, and several hundred lawyers hired from dozens of countries on just as many recommendations. He figured that eventually their arguments about verbiage and this or that governmental type would create what he wanted: a democratic monarchy in the line of what the UK had at the moment, but with a few more powers in the hands of the crown.

Although I still have to chuckle at how those lawyers all had conniptions about how major an impact easy access to Veritaserum will have to the legal side of things. There's no need to have lawyers involved in cases of rape or murder outside of how to phrase the questions asked once the perpetrator has been identified or even narrowed down to a small list. And many of them had declined his job offer when they learned that Harry would enforce the death penalty for rape and first and second degree murder, but enough hadn't to fill a large hotel.

Laughing, Harry set those thoughts aside and sat back down, picking up his cup of tea and heating it with a spell as he stared at the roof of his office ruminatively. A month tomorrow. It's been a full month since that first UN meeting, and so much has changed in that time. Yet, even so, there are so many things to do, and many of the problems we were dealing with then still exist now.

Even now Harry could only chuckle at how naïve he'd been to believe he could work with the UN as it was structured on something so huge as what he had been asking for. Numbers and shouting loudly won in the UN rather than reasoned argument, and the Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries, most of whom had seats in the UN, had reacted badly to the idea that they'd have to pay for the defense of Earth and that he wasn't going to be giving them any handouts that wouldn't help them meet that criteria. For many reasons, religious, economic, and societal, many of the countries had just rejected his offers outright when he was in front of the UN. So Harry had, after about a week of nonstop talking, decided to bypass the talking heads entirely to meet personally with the heads of their governments.

Russia shut him down cold, which Harry was very worried about. Worse, Russia's saber-rattling continued even now and was getting worse. They were making noises of reuniting with other Slavs, but that was just a sop to their own public opinion. But at least Harry and his allies were no longer alone in their concerns there. NATO too was getting worried, and the US and other NATO forces had moved in troops to respond to any aggression.

Of course, NATO doesn't know that Poland, Finland, and others have made treaties with myself and Doom, either. Although, they have been warned by Reed and me that aliens might be involved in Russia's growing mutters about needing 'elbow room'. If they believe that, though, that I can't say, even now. NATO's not been friendly towards me and mine for some reason, though I'm getting an anti-mutant flavor there.

But instead of meeting with each government in turn, Harry, with Sage, Emma and Hela's help, had conducted meetings like the one he had after the last Kree attack with the heads of countries from each continent and, from that, created five new organizations which he imagined would grow into seven in time. Each of them had a sphere of influence, working with the countries of those areas to meet the requirements he was asking each country to meet, tailored specifically for each. It would take a long time, even so, for many countries to meet those requirements, but it was a better way forward then a simple blanket demand had been.

The names each group had come up with, that was all them. And if they eventually grew to be miniature, local versions of the UN, that was fine with Harry. So long as it wasn't at gunpoint, Harry was willing to leave how the various nations went about getting him the people or resources they had agreed to up to the countries in question.

The South American Resource Union had, perhaps, the easiest time of getting up to speed for various reasons, mainly being that Harry had bluntly stated that, outside of mutant rights, he didn't care about their internal issues and wasn't going to make any further societal demands. Those countries also were used to feeling as if they were weak in comparison to foreign powers, and none of them had the history of fighting against such the Middle Eastern countries did, and had seen the lights in the sky from the last Kree attack. There had still been several dozen violent anti-mutant protests in Ecuador and Colombia and in Brazil, but not in Argentina or Bolivia.

SARU was led by Brazil and Nova Roma, and, for the most part, those countries had agreed to trade resources and manpower for defense. Building of recruitment and training centers was going full tilt in those countries, though the education and vocational levels of those countries varied. But some of the other resources his people needed but couldn't supply in space, in particular, food, for now—meats and such—were just as good. Because of that, two of the first ten Verdun space defense platforms which had come online had been stationed over the center of South America as a visible sign of what those countries had earned.

Alas, SARU did not include Mexico, which had refused to even talk to Harry or his representatives. Venezuela too refused to speak to him. SARU hadn't been able to make any inroads towards bringing them around. And Ecuador was something of a problem child.

The African Defense Organization was led by Wakanda and others, though Wakanda and its king, T'Challa, was the major power there. They were working with their neighbors to contribute numbers, but little in the way of resources outside of Wakanda's vibranium. Those men and women were entirely untrained for the most part, and a lot were entirely uneducated. It would be years, maybe even a decade, before most were worth the amount of cash and time Harry, Pinoptes, and Sage had begun to pour into their education and training.

Wakanda had an immense local tech base and was slowly becoming the center of what could become a modernization of the industrial and transportation capacity of the rest of that continent. But it was going to be incredibly slow, and it too had problem countries, like Somalia, Sudan, and others. Here, Harry had turned over to T'challa weapons, plans, and resources to bring any nation to heel who attempted to steal, invade, or otherwise get in the way of the modernization program, with all due force. No one had pushed beyond their own borders yet, but everyone Harry talked to about it were convinced that was only a matter of time in Somalia's case given its pirate problem. Sudan too would be an issue once it saw its neighbors starting to have better infrastructures and economies than it did. Uganda might become an issue as well, if its warlord decided to be even stupider than normal.

Harry and the Custodes had also been heavily involved in protecting mutants from one edge of Africa to another for the past month as the ADO attempted to get to grips with that side of things in conjunction with the retrieval team under Wendy (Stinger to her enemies). Some four thousand mutants of all ages had been extracted from various mobs and hunting tribes. But they had also clashed openly with Sinister's Mutant Liberation Front in low key skirmishes: no real, set battle. Most of them had joined the 'colonists' in the Savage Land, while many youngsters with more dangerous powers had joined the classes in Camelot.

But if Africa was a hotbed for violence, at least a large portion of Europe had matured beyond such. The European Union was the name that that organization had come up with and was led by France, Germany, and Italy. Many of those countries were actually starting to make noises about shifting the European Union into a permanent, broad governmental body rather than an organization to meet their treaty obligations with Harry and the EDF. Harry didn't think it would survive for long, but it was a step in the right direction.

In every country west of the Ukraine, the governments had been dealing with mostly peaceful protests, a lot of angst, and feet dragging. But with France on board at last and helping its other former shadow allies of Germany and Italy, that meant the largest players in the region were herding the others along decently well.

Hell, Germany just passed its first law stating that mutants were people under the law and therefore had all the rights of other citizens the other day, and already attacks on them have dropped. I'll take that as a win right there! The fact that work on the first Arc Generator in Germany had just begun was not lost on Harry, but he still took it as a win, hence why two more Verdun Platforms were stationed over Europe.

In contrast, most of the issues the Pan-Asian Alliance was running into were organizational, with education being just a slightly less irritating issue. With China and India moving together, none of the other nations were making more than vague noises about being against the requests in manpower and resources. India and China both had already earned their own Verdun platforms overhead. The others, though, just didn't have the educational or internal infrastructure necessary to meet Harry's requirements.

In Asia, again, the mutant question was a hot topic, and both Custodes and X-Men had been called in on missions there, once more running into the MLF. But in Asia, the carrot of educating the people who came forward to join the EDF and grants to their families to receive further education, plus pumping money into those economies, served well enough to get many over the anger of being dictated to by a foreign power.

But even in Asia there were problem children. Despite China telling their 'little neighbor' do go along with things, North Korea refused to have anything to do with the EDF or Harry's pro-mutant stance.

Of course, Harry dealt with many countries directly, as he had been for a while. Britain, China, and the United States were the most important of them, since all three were giving Harry what he so desperately needed over the past month: trained, educated naval men and women to grow the EDF beyond its current size. The US Navy was slowly downsizing its surface fleets, starting with two of its CATOBAR-equipped fleet carriers, their fleets added into others but not sent into mothballs. Those men and women had been added into the EDF, and now Fortress Mars was nearly fully manned, if not equipped. Fully half of the ships they had stolen from the Kree were now online and working up in various games. Even the Hydrogen Harvester was online, fuel flooding into the ships as they came online. Now we just need time to get their training and reeducation on how things work in space and the various systems up to snuff.

So, on the whole, Harry was happy with how things were going on the EDF front and the general trend of the whole 'Mutant Question.' Although, that last was now the chief source of his headaches when dealing with the world at large.

Father Garnoff and Nikolai had begun to lead a kind of Underground Railroad project effort to get mutants out of Russia, who still came down on mutants, treating them like they had the Jews before them. Only, in this case it's not largely beatings or seeing their houses burned out mutants have to fear, but death by bigoted mobs or conscription if their mutant power makes them 'valuable to the state.'

The Middle East was still something of a quagmire. The Mullahs in Mecca had taken to branding Harry "The Great Satan" and had even called for a Jihad on him and Magical Minds for their obvious worship of Shaitan. Luckily, most people weren't listening, and, even there, the United Arab Emirates and others, including Egypt and Israel, were proving more susceptible to his overtures.

Outright bribes, really, in many ways, but whatever works, Harry reflected, scowling as he remembered the list of names which had appeared in the book in Camelot from those countries only to go black nearly immediately. Harry had created a spell to transfer those names to another list, and it was growing quite long, something that he was quietly very angry about. But there was a limit to what he could do about it unless he wanted to pile up the bodies.

Elsewhere, the Reclaimers and the MLF fought each other and the X-Men out in a few cities in America, but they seemed to be based in different areas. The Reclaimers had their primary bases in the United States and Canada having grown out of the Friends of Humanity, while the MLF was based in Africa and Asia. Genosha, in particular, was becoming a hotbed of conflict from both sides, something Emma was personally watching over.

"Harry, I know I've mentioned Genosha before—the blackout they created a few months ago, pushing foreign business out," Emma had said, scowling as they all sat around a map of the world. "But there is something…off about it. It's nothing in the data. I've had Sage looking, and she can't find anything. Yet all my instincts scream that something is going on here! It came about too…too suddenly, the story about there having been an attempted military coup is too pat, and the rising tension is just worrisome in how quickly it's spread."

"I agree with you, love," Harry said, squeezing her hand. "And you're right, there's something odd going on there. But until we know what's going on, I don't want to send us into that morass. The MLF is too strong, and their opposition, too, for that to be a simple decision."

Worse, of course, was that the MLF, while not gaining in terms of numbers all that much, were still around, and so was its mysterious leader, Sinister. There, though, they were at least able to gain some information on the man himself, thanks to Sage and Destiny.

Flashback:

Sage had requested a meeting and had even come to Camelot to give her briefing. Normally she tried to stay away from Camelot and any other area with a high amount of background magic. It seemed to interfere with her powers somehow, making her twitchy and nervous for a reason they hadn't been able to devote enough time to figure out. But she had had to for this, because of her fellow speaker, Destiny.

Destiny was fading fast; everyone could see it. Her body might not have aged any more than it had since she and Mystique had joined Harry's faction, but her energy, and even her mind at times, had begun to go. Dr. Druid and Una both said it was simply age catching up to her, coupled with the strain of her powers finally breaking into her mind. And no magic could cure old age, save the elixir made from the Philosopher's Stone, but that was beyond Harry's knowledge.

But at the moment she seemed to have some of her old energy back. She sat up in her chair and looked around with bright eyes as she sat next to Sage, looking around what Harry had taken to calling his High Council.

Looking around at them all, she smiled wanly. "As some of you might know, but most do not, myself and Raven left New York and Magneto's employ not because we had decided we disagreed with his policies at the time, but because of an external threat to my life. Specifically in the form of a man we knew as Dr. Essex. He was a mutant we had the displeasure of meeting in passing during World War II, where he was working in Auschwitz, performing experiments on some of the prisoners."

Wordlessly, Sage input a command and an image taken from a Gestapo file popped up. Next to it were two more, a still-life painting and a color photograph marked to have been taken in Cambodia. Though the hair was different and the eyes differed in the painting, all three were very obviously the same man, which Destiny elaborated on by saying simply, "In my vision of him which warned he was after me, I saw him as the same age he was back in World War II, aged not a day."

"So we are talking about someone who's possibly immortal, a healing factor of some kind, I presume?" Harry asked, looking over at Steve and Logan questioningly, the reason for Wolverine's presence here, since he rarely left the Savage Lands these days, becoming clear. "Anything either of you can add?"

Neither of them could say that they had met Essex, but Logan said gruffly, "His healing factor might be better than mine is these days. I mean, I age, no matter how slowly, but it looks as if he doesn't age at all."

"Indeed. His healing ability could be better called regeneration, perhaps. I also know that he is able to use telepathy," Irene said, a shudder of revulsion going through her. "He can influence those around him to a certain degree, deaden pain, even force people to respond to his questions as if they came up with them on their own. We can also assume that he can hide himself from other telepaths, or at least keep their influence out of his mind."

Sage took over the meeting for a moment, showing two more images and a video. The video was grainy, looking like something taken from a security video of some kind, and was of a battlefield. It showed two men fighting one another: a middle-age man with a long coat and dark hair and Sinister himself. The man with the long coat tried to keep his distance, lashing out with energy attacks of some kind. But Sinister took a blast from the other man and kept on coming, smashing the man with a blow that sent him crashing through what looked like a concrete wall.

"Super strength as well. And if he has telepathy, then he might have telekinesis himself," Jean mused. "That's…a lot of different powers for one mutant, admittedly. But if he's that strong and if he believes in mutant supremacy like he seems to, why didn't he work for Magneto, or even vice-versa? Did Magneto know about him?"

Irene shook her head, as did Amelia Voight, who had been asked to join them just for this point. "Not to my knowledge," the latter supplied. "although if he worked for the Nazis, it's no surprise they wouldn't have been working together."

"I also do not know if he believes in mutant supremacy so much as the supremacy of constant evolution," Irene equivocated. "From what little Raven and I overheard when we tried to infiltrate Auschwitz, at any rate he believes humans are an evolutionary dead end. I believe mutants whose powers are not strong enough would be treated similarly."

"We also know that at one point he had a family in London," Sage supplied, enlarging the still painting where it hovered above them, the image supplied by the hard light system. "This man was known as Nathaniel Essex, and he was a contemporary of Darwin who was kicked out of the Royal Scientific Society for his immoral views on how evolution should impact the human race."

Sage allowed herself a small, victorious smile. "Someone tried to erase all records of the man, but I was able to discover that and the fact that he was married to a Rebecca Essex, but she divorced him for reasons I haven't been able to discover. I also found a newspaper article from the time which implied that someone was snatching up homeless and performing experiments on them."

Nodding, Harry leaned back. "So, we know his powers, and we can at least infer his goals and why he might have been willing to grab Jean." Everyone there nodded at that, various levels of anger showing at the idea. After all, Jean's children would be the sons or daughters (or both) of a powerful wizard and an almost equally powerful mutant, so could be seen as a excellent source of genetic material or something to experiment on, an idea that made Harry's blood boil. "The question is, what resources can he bring to the table?"

End Flashback

From there Sage and Irene had remarked about how some Nazi gold had never been recovered, how the man had been around for a long, long time, and that he had been working in the shadows for all that time. Whatever his end game was, no one knew, and, worse, they had not seen hide nor hair of the man, even with Mystique and Morph infiltrating the MLF. A planet was a very large place to look for a single person who could hide from telepaths and magic both, after all.

Harry had tried to find him magically, using everything from the simple Point-Me to more obscure rituals with Dr. Strange, even Gaea helping. But even the goddess could not tell them where Essex was. Something blocked her from finding him even though he strode her earth. No, unless they could find something the man had owned and treasured or some of his blood, there was no magical means to find him.

Despite that, though, thanks to Morph and Mystique they were building up a list of known mutants allied with the MLF and a feel for the group's resources. When it came time to really hammer it out with the MLF's big players rather than their expendable recruits, Harry and his team would be going in armed with that knowledge, an invaluable resource. Although the reports about Mystique seeing mutants which match some of the ones Cyclops told us were killed in the assault on the Vault is very worrisome.

But this was pure espionage work: slow, slogging, and, in the end, they just would have to wait for a break to go their way or maybe for some luck to turn their way.

So, with that in stasis and the EDF slowly becoming more independent of his day to day running of it, beyond the political issues, Harry had been able to concentrate on the magical side of things. For one thing, he had truly begun to train Illyana for three hours every morning. This actually led to a bit of an adventure for the Russian born sorceress:

As part of their weekly schedule, Melody, Illyana, and all the other students in Camelot went on a trip to the Savage Land, so long as their parents/guardians gave their permission. Harry was usually able to routinely go with them, making it part of Illyana's magical education since he had begun to take her magical training more seriously. One week though, Harry couldn't get out of a meeting with the German and Swedish ambassadors who had requested to speak to him personally instead of his representative to the European Union. This left it to Ororo to watch the kids with the other teachers.

Unfortunately for Ororo, Illyana had been feeling a little put out that day and, worse, bored yet full of energy at the same time. The meeting between the ambassadors was going to go all day, which had also cut into her time with Harry that morning. Piotr had also been busy with something for his girlfriend all day too. Thirdly, Hela had turned the tables on her again that morning in their ongoing pranking feud.

Finally, thanks to yesterday's lessons with Harry, Illyana had access to the library. As any parent or guardian of a highly intelligent child could tell you, access to a library is most definitely a mixed blessing at times. When the child in question is a magic user with access to a library with magic spells, that duality is magnified.

With Melody cheerfully singing to a few giant birds nearby and the other kids watching her or listening to the teachers explain to those interested some of the flora and fauna of the Savage Land and why it was important, Illyana had moved slowly through the crowd, away from her friend. After reaching the back of the group, Illyana concentrated, then attempted to use a spell that she had read about which apparently was one of the ones that Harry and the others made frequent use of, a notice-me-not spell.

She didn't have the movements precisely right, but she got incantation correct, or so the young Russian later supposed, considering she was able to leave the group. She'd ducked behind a tree nearby before looking around her excitedly and smacking her hands together eagerly. "It's time to go exploring!"

With that in mind, she headed out deeper into the un-cleared portions of the jungle, away from the group. Several minutes later she pushed through a series of low hanging giant vines, not noticing that she was passing through the field of the sonic disruptor stations that kept all of the larger animals out of the area around the tower and the rest of Harry's holdings here in the Savage Land.

Illyana's absence was eventually remarked upon by Melody, causing Ororo to turn away from where she had been explaining about some of the animals. Wolverine and his daughter Laura had helped with that portion, with much grumbling, admittedly, from Wolverine, and Ororo had hoped that it would be interesting enough to grab all of the kids' attention, despite the fact that it had been pouring rain the past three days in Scotland and this was actually the first time any of them had gotten out of the Castle. She'd even planned to let them all swim in the lake that formed the center of the Savage Land. A small part of the lake had been walled off for such things and, with enough adults around, including many of the locals of several tribes, it would have been safe.

At first Ororo wasn't worried. Illyana could handle herself, and, even if she couldn't, she had several dozen magically charmed items on her, just like the rest of the kids, thanks to Harry's paranoia. With those, Ororo doubted anything here in the Savage Land could harm the girl. Terrify her, yes, but harm Illyana, no.

However, when she questioned the other children closely on the last time they saw their companion, that made Ororo more worried. The area where she and the other teachers had talked about the plants was closest to the border of the natural Savage Land and the area claimed by Harry and his allies. With that information, she quickly left the children with the other chaperones, boosting up into the air.

By that point Illyana had cheerfully wound her way through the Savage Land, stopping and staring at one of the giant herbivores for a time before moving on. She found interesting animals who showed no fear of her, including a lizard the size of an iguana with a massive frill of gold, purple, and lime green. She climbed over rocks and ducked under massive, cool looking trees, always moving away from where she had begun with the cheerful confidence of youth.

At one point, after ducking under a tree that looked like a baobab tree but with different colored bark and leaves, Illyana stopped, a loud growl echoing through the forest from nearby. She turned to the left and was just in time to see a giant cat that she recognized as a sabertooth leap towards her.

Squawking more in outrage than fear, Illyana ducked to one side and thrust out with one of her hands, the jewelry on her wrist flashing with magic as she did so. That jewelry, a thick gold and bronze band, was charmed by Harry and Kitty with various spells. So when the tiger tried to pounce on where she had been a second ago, it found itself pushed up and away as if it had been hit by a battering ram of air.

It yowled in shock, then quickly shut up when the side of its head smacked into a tree headfirst. It didn't kill the tiger, but it certainly warned it away from this odd little human prey, and, after shaking its head a few times, it snarled once before twitching and moving away, its entire posture saying that it had just been playing and that the last few minutes hadn't happened.

"Hehehe! For all its size it acted just like a house cat," Illyana chuckled. Then she turned, skipping away.

Eventually she began to get a little tired. Standing on top of a bluff overlooking an awe-inspiring series of waterfalls, she sighed and looked around her before looking back up in the sky. "I suppose it's time to head back. I wonder if Ororo is already looking for me." Illyana sighed, knowing she was in for a scowling and possibly a loss of privileges. But in her mind it had been worth it. This hike had been fun, and she had been bored, darn it.

With another put upon sigh and a pout, Illyana turned back, only to stop as, without any kind of warning, a dinosaur around the height of a normal man sprang out of the foliage to one side. It was low slung with long back legs marked by huge, spur-like claws and somewhat prehensile claws on it's forearms, which were shorter but not so short as to be like a T-Rex, which Illyana had always thought just looked silly. The thing had a full mouth of large teeth, and it tried to clamp them down on her.

Another charm activated, covering her with a protective spell, and the dinosaur's attempt to clamp down on her stopped before it was repelled. Its jaws were flung so wide by the defensive magic there were the sounds of cracking and shattering bones, and it reared backwards, falling to the side, its jaw broken and all its teeth shattered. But, before Illyana could think the danger was over, another raptor burst out of the foliage nearby, its back claw lashing out in a cutting slash towards her.

This attack too bounced off her, shattering the raptor's leg and claws. But the impetus of this attack, unlike the first, pushed Illyana backward too, and, with a scream of shock, Illyana found herself knocked off the cliff. She fell rapidly to splash into the river, where she was rapidly grabbed by the current and pushed downstream.

Gasping, Illyana pushed her head out of the water, but couldn't work against the current, not even enough to get to the side of the river. This was one threat that she didn't have a specific charm for. After all, Illyana could swim perfectly well for her age and would always be around other people, and in the lake by Camelot there was no undertow to worry about. This left it to Illyana's own skills, and it was all she could do to keep her head up above water. She felt her back and sides smack into rocks with enough force to activate her protective charms until they simply ran out of juice, and she started to feel real pain, and with that came even more panic.

But just as Illyana's strength began to waver, she dimly heard a series of splashes. An instant later something soft and furry suddenly was under her feet, thrusting her backwards against the current. Another furry thing pushed into her side and began to thrust her to one side of the river and into a shallow eddy there, a twist in the river protected by several large rocks. Gasping and hacking out water, she clung to the furry thing, hearing a chittering noise now over the pounding of the water and her own heartbeat.

Opening her eyes, Illyana stared into a face almost as large as her own but very, very different than any human face. "Oh!"

The animal in front of her was larger than her, about half again her own height, perhaps, in length. Its face was wide with a short snout, whiskers, and black fur except for right underneath its chin, which was white. It had small, beady looking, but somehow kind eyes backed by small little flaps of ears, which seemed to be able to close down over themselves. Its fur was currently wet but felt soft, and it chittered at her.

She nodded at it and said, somewhat hesitantly, "I'm fine now. Thanks. Wow, I was not expecting that.…"

Around her she heard other chittering noises, and another heavy body pushed against her in the back. She turned in that direction and saw another creature, which she now knew to be an otter even though they were larger by far than any otters she had ever seen in any pictures, and their hands looked a little more prehensile too. She stood up at the second one's nudge, and the one in front of her moved to her side while the second one pushed her lightly in the back again.

She looked around, and found seven other otters of various sizes, including four that looked little more than children. There was also a huge male one who looked even longer in the body than Piotr was tall, its face and sides marked by scars.

It looked at her and honked out a distinctly amused sound before turning away, obviously leaving her fate up to the youngsters around her. Nearby she saw a few others only slightly smaller going back to fishing, making little noises at one another as they did so, but she couldn't understand them. "Darn it, if only I had Danielle here. She could maybe understand you all."

At the otter's nudging, Illyana sat down on a nearby rock sticking out of the water and watched them at their play for a time until the one she had found herself staring at before came over to her, pushing its head against her knee. "You want me to play?" she asked, then smiled and slid off the rock back into the water. The others all looked up at that, but Illyana had regained control of herself now and tread water there, going so far as to splash the otter in front of her.

For some reason she could understand with this one was saying, though it took her several minutes to realize what that meant.

The two of them were still playing when Ororo zoomed overhead, having followed another charm on a tiny clip on an earring that Illyana had almost forgotten about. Looking at the scene below her, Ororo sighed in relief and alighted down slowly so as to not spook the large clan of otters who had seemingly found Illyana, or vice-versa.

The otters all quickly moved away, barking in challenge and warning, except for one that was closest to Illyana, with the patriarch looking warily at the tall human. But Ororo simply nodded at them all and then smiled at Illyana ruefully. "I see you've had a bit of an adventure," she said, gesturing the girl over to her.

A few cuts and bruises that Illyana hadn't even noticed she had acquired in the river were quickly healed, and Ororo did the same thing for all of the otters nearby, who all looked down at their bodies and then chattered excitedly at one another. "I hope you've learned a lesson about not running away. Those charms of yours are supposed to be last-ditch defenses, not an excuse to run off like this. You do know you will be grounded when we get back?"

Illyana pouted, then pushed herself up, grinning before reaching down for the otter she'd been playing with, who barked happily, leaped into her arms, and then somehow crawled up her body to wrap itself around her shoulders, its weight making her grunt, given its size. "Well, if I'm going to get in trouble, at least I got something out of it! Ororo, meet Skipper! I think he's my familiar!"

This had led to Harry upping her training quite a bit, but with Skipper next to her, Illyana had surprisingly started to take her training more seriously. I Just wish I could convince myself it was because of her brush with danger rather than more…impish reasons, I suppose?

Beyond that, Harry had been working on bits and pieces of magical research and specific tasks only he could do. These ranged from being in space with Lorna and Jean, working on Fortress Mars to make it more livable, to using magic to help aid crippled veterans from the fall of SHIELD along with Ororo every Saturday for four hours here in Magical Minds. Both of them wished they could do more there, but unless they wanted to devote their time entirely to creating such 'miracles,' there was a limit to what they could, or even should, do. Even now, most of those who had been healed had their memories of how that had happened erased.

One exception to that was Dugan. He had been crippled during the battle, where he and his team of agents had been pinned down during AIM's assault on SHIELD. After Steve had told Harry where to find the man, Harry had quickly gone there and healed him before helping Dugan escape from the permanent care center he'd been dumped into. America's government understood that he hadn't been high enough up the food chain to have been tainted with the same brush as Fury and the others in command, but there was little they could do for a spine and missing limbs.

Harry had no such limitation, and, after healing him, Dugan had agreed to step into the chief trainer position for Wendy (AKA and her team of retrieval experts on weapons and tactics. Dugan wanted a break from the spy business, and training up an emergency/hostile environment rescue team like that was something he could sink his teeth into for a cause he could get behind.

Another exception to the use of memory charms was Charles, although in his case he was also not actually healed. He had finally followed up on Harry's offer, only for it to fail. Even with his spine healed, Charles couldn't walk. The master telepath and psychologist believed his inability to walk was now psychosomatic in nature and something he would have to come to grips with in time.

Beyond that, there were two projects Harry took on, one of which was for the pure, personal joy and desire to help someone dear to him: creating a magical array like the one he had given Rogue so long ago to allow Melody to think clearly. This was proving to be very difficult, but Harry felt he was close to a breakthrough now. The second was not entirely magical in nature, though magic would eventually be the means through which it was possible: space colonization and terraforming. The impetus for this crystallized in Harry's mind during a conversation between Harry, Reed, and Dr. Doom as they prepared to explore the solar system beyond Pluto.

"The phrase, 'all your eggs in one basket,' comes to mind very strongly whenever I stand up here and look down on Earth," Dr. Doom had mused, as he, Harry, and Mr. Fantastic stood on the bridge of the ship Doom had captured in the second Kree assault on Earth. Around them Latverian naval ratings and officers moved about their duties with purpose and confidence, a sign that won a brief nod of approval from their monarch even as he continued to sip at the wine Harry had brought along.

"Agreed. I hope to use this and other explorations to find disparate planetary bodies and figure out how hard it would be to terraform them to suit as second homes for humanity. I'd think about setting up a moon colony, but not only is that too close to home, but that would be a project and a half, considering the moon doesn't have an atmosphere," Harry replied, pouring a glass for Reed, who twitched but remained silent, something Harry noted with an internal eye-roll.

"You realize that I have already begun my own search for such, and that I will take it most poorly if you attempt to poach any such discovery?" Doom asked mildly, if forebodingly.

Harry shook his head. "Understood and respected, Your Highness. I would, however, think there is a limit to your means, if not your ambition. And colonization of that type serves everyone, just as Fortress Mars does."

While Doom chortled at the subtle dig, Reed nodded, moving over to a computer and popping up some planetary data. "Actually, I think we should start in the outer edges of the system. For one thing, our scanners are, perforce, detailed to spot incoming threats, not threats which might already exist out there. And, for another, there are so many questions about the Oort Cloud and the area beyond Pluto that we could answer."

When Doom nodded at that, Harry shrugged. "Gentlemen, this is a break for me. So long as we get away from our giant blue marble home and all the people on it who just know they have to talk to me, I don't honestly give a bloody shite what we do."

"Rough day?" Reed asked, as Doom, with a gesture, sent his crew moving, pulling the ship out of Earth orbit.

"Rough week. Politics, business, public speaking, and no rest for this weary soul to be found at home. Let's just say that Jean has been having mood swings and leave it at that. I've taken my turn in the trenches there, and now Ororo can take her turn."

"Not Ms. Frost or the Goddess Hela?" Reed asked, looking a little bemused. He had been somewhat uncaring of Harry's romantic entanglements, but the idea that his young friend had a harem of such immensely powerful, willful women was still something of an oddity to him. As was, to be honest, the idea that gods existed at all.

Harry looked at the rubbery scientist in shock. "Are you mad, man!? Emma has about as much compassion towards Jean's mood swings as she does the common man on the street, and Hela is many things, but calm and able to put up with someone else's mood swings is not one of them."

"Ah, a point, I suppose," Reed replied, wincing while, again, Doom chuckled in the background. His own romantic issues were proceeding as well as they should, and that was enough for him at present. For Reed and Susan, this was their second time on that adventure, and so long as they both didn't make the same mistakes as last time (and didn't have to deal with extradimensional entities attempting to steel Susan away) they would make it through this time well enough.

From there the three of them talked about what Doom wanted in space, what questions Reed was most interested in answering, and then, to Harry's amusement, the two super-geniuses started to take potshots at the regular scientific community back on Earth. Their opinions on specific scientists were hilarious to listen to, and the way they spoke about those scientists who worried about, 'messing up space as we have Earth,' was unprintable but certainly enlightening.

Within the Oort Cloud, Harry marked seven asteroids for especial mining operations, their ship getting readings from them showing they were heavy in certain rare metals. Hauling them in would be a nice project for a few EDF crews. A few others were marked by Reed as having unusual readings entirely, which showed they might have been from a proto-planet which had never formed.

One more find, though, had Harry step in as mobile peace keeping force for a moment. "It is not a planet!" Reed asserted. "Look at its orbit; its too elliptical and it hasn't cleared its area of space of small detritus! By the very definition it is not a planet!"

"A definition decided on arbitrarily by fools who thought that such a definition was important for purposes of pure nomenclature," Doom responded, a sneer in his tone even if it was not visible behind his mask. "That planet is patently massive enough to make its own gravity and thus shape itself into a sphere; indeed, it is denser and heavier than Pluto! If you think Pluto is a planet, than that, too, is one."

"I have never ascribed to the theory that Pluto is a planet either," Reed retorted hotly and, Harry felt, drunkenly. "Neither of them are large enough, nor are their orbits predictable enough. And again, look at their near orbits. That, at least, I agree with."

Harry held up a hand, getting physically between the two scientists as Doom looked to be ready to launch a energy blast Reed's way. "Gentlemen, is this really important right now, the definition of what we are seeing, I mean?" He waited a tick, then went on, his own words heavily enunciated so as to push past his own rather nice buzz. Jean had given him an exemption of his promise to not drink alcohol today, and it was quite nice to unwind a bit. "Rather, I think we should be looking at whether or not it is a material find, rather than a scientific one. Unless one of you can tell me something different?"

There were two grumbles at that, and Harry poured them all more wine. "So," he said after draining half his cup. "Any takers on what this, whatever it is, will be comprised of?"

It turned out there were a lot of light and heavy metals, but nothing really that stood out beyond that. So, while interesting, the find, the name of which they were still arguing about hours later, didn't matter all that much. Still, Harry wondered about it.

And, of course, since that first UN meeting there had also been the personal relationship side of things to consider, a single moment of which stood out starkly for what it meant:

At one point Harry found himself with a blessed night off, and, to his joy, he found that he wasn't the only one. Hela and Emma were both free as well on that cold, rainy night in Scotland. Jean and Ororo were both out. Ororo had spent the day with the younger students and teachers but was currently out with Steve, Ben, Piotr, and Betsy, for some reason, over in California.

Jean, on the other hand, was up in Fortress Mars, going over some plans with Carol and the design teams, with the implicit plan to bunk up there in the quarters they had all prepared for themselves. And, while it hurt Harry to think it, he was happy that she had decided to do so. Over the past month Jean's attitude had taken a turn for the worse as her body really started to show, limiting what she could and could not do. Physically, Jean was fine. Her body was handling the pregnancy about as well as any woman's could, according to Una and Amelia.

But emotionally was a very different thing. Worse, her powers had started to act up occasionally, meaning that Harry and the others were not willing to take a chance with her being out in public at all. This, in turn, had forced Mary Jane and a few of the others to step up and take her place in public events dealing with Arc Technologies and Saab. But Jean wasn't someone who took enforced idleness—she called it captivity, occasionally—very well, which added to her emotional turmoil.

However, those thoughts were not foremost in Harry's mind as he looked down at the recipe and then around at his items. "Traditional Norwegian dishes it is," he muttered, shaking his head. "Although, since I haven't had time to practice either dish, you'll forgive me if they aren't very good."

"They must be better than your first attempt at that first lutfisk you attempted, my Seidr man," Hela said with a laugh, taking the glass of wine that Emma held out to her. She sniffed it appreciatively, then took a sip before nodding in approval.

Unlike Ororo and Harry, Emma had never really tried to keep to the no alcohol rule that they had imposed upon themselves in a gesture of solidarity with 'the pregnant one.' Emma thought of that as so much foolishness, and Hela had never even made a attempt to join them in it. "It's a Cheval Blanc red from 1947," she said to Hela. "I understand it is supposed to be fantastic with meat dishes, although I will of course bow to your superior knowledge of the dish in question to make certain that it is worthy of the wine."

"Ouch. Pile on me, why don't you?" Harry muttered, smirking over his shoulder at her. "Although I do have to say that I understand where you're coming from, since Hela's right. My first attempt at traditional Norwegian food was nothing to write home about."

"Ah, being told I am right, a thing no woman can truly get enough of, but I must disagree with the rest of that statement. It was something to write about, in the obituary column," Hela replied lightly. "Considering that the fish had the consistency of tar and tasted of poison.…"

"The fish was supposed to soak in a solution of cold water and lye, something I've never tried before, and don't get me started on the preparation time," Harry replied with an eye-roll, turning back to his duties as chief cook.

With a shared chuckle the two women returned to setting up the table between them by hand, something Hela felt was necessary for some reason. As they did, they went back to their earlier discussion on what they had each been spending their time on.

Emma was personally having the time of her life working with Sage and Harry making deals, both public and back door, to bring in more materials for the EDF; pressuring different countries on pro-mutant rights; and, even more importantly, making deals to bring in the raw materials Harry was mining out in his various asteroid operations in various ways so as not to throw the economy of the world into a spin.

"Although," she muttered, looking over at Harry as she finished talking about a deal to bring seven-hundred thousand metric tons of nickel iron into China, "of late whenever I bring up that point with Harry, he simply smirks at me for a second before taking it seriously. Is there anything you wish to share with the class, Harry?

"Not if I can help it," Harry said with a shake of his head, though his voice had the ring of honesty to both ladies' ears. "Let's just say that some of the material we've found isn't going into the open market and leave it at that."

"That's the best answer I've gotten from him on that point," Emma said morosely as Harry quickly turned away from her glare to concentrate again on the food.

"Perhaps you're not using the correct…interrogation methods?" Hela asked, a sardonic smirk on her face as she looked Emma up and down. "I would be astonished if you could not come up with some means to get the answer out of him given your past crass comments and flirtations with both Harry and myself."

"Oh, I've tried that too," Emma said without any attempt at prevarication and no sign of embarrassment. "It didn't work. He simply smirked, said it was for my own good, and then, when I attempted to insist while we were busy in bed, did this thing with his tongue that.…"

"Yes, thank you, I have heard more than enough about his lingual skills," Hela hissed irritably.

"Hearing and feeling are two different things," Emma replied drolly, her tone ruined by the salacious look on her face as she looked Hela up and down in turn.

"But what about you?" she asked after Hela didn't rise to the bait. "What have you been up to? I don't think I've seen you in person for, what, two and a half weeks now? God, we're all to fucking busy, aren't we?" she ended morosely.

"Yes, we are, else I would have gone forward with my idea of going to some Althings in Norway and elsewhere," Hela retorted irritably. "But that simply hasn't happened, which frustrates me no end. But as to what I have been doing, I have been overseeing the Savage Land and its various groups and their interactions with the settlers, for one. Seeing to my own duties, for another, which are magnified now that I am on Earth and Earth itself is cut off from the rest of Yggdrasil and its various realms."

That had been a pleasant surprise, but had perforce caused her to redesign portions of her realm to house those souls she would normally not have had access to: those souls that would have gone on to Odin or Freya's halls. This had taken some time, since, in many ways, Hela was far more flexible than her realm and the magic within it. Oddly, Hela had also seen some of what could only be called seepage: non-Asatru dead whose souls found themselves within her realm. That was beyond bizarre, but thankfully Hela had been able to contact Death and had begun to solve that issue too. "I have also been looking in on how the process of creating Harry's new government is going."

At that Hela turned to glare over at Harry. "You really should be going back to a more hands-on touch with that, Harry. I have caught several attempts of the lawyers and their ilk to limit the power of your crown."

"No," Harry said bluntly, turning her down flat. "I'm no lawyer; I'm barely a revolutionary. I am a leader, admittedly, and I suppose I would hold my hand up to being a statesman at this point. But that doesn't mean I know how to really create a long term bureaucracy and governmental body. And I know about one of those attempts, Hela: the creation of a senate to oversee the further creation of laws and ordinances. I endorse it so long as everyone involved knows that I will retain veto power and nothing is done to take away from the fact that the EDF and the defense of the Earth will always have first priority in spending, followed by the educational system. And that I was serious about certain rights and the use of Veritaserum for capital crimes."

The two of them locked eyes for a few moments, but then Hela sighed and nodded. "It is not how I would be going about things, and I find many of the laws they are attempting to create repugnant in their pandering to those with scant drive and little ability. But if that is how you wish it to go, do not come complaining to me later when your government is not what you intended."

"As long as it works, expands, doesn't steal rights from people in the name of defending them, and doesn't run on a deficit, that's all I care about," Harry replied with a shrug.

Hela shook her head but then turned back to Emma. "In short, I haven't had much time at all to simply have fun. What little time I do have for such is spent in mealtimes with everyone here in Camelot or with Ororo and, at times, Jean in private."

"Are you fishing for sympathy, Hela?" Harry asked quizzically, looking over his shoulder at her as he finished preparing the first plate of thin, yet soft, bread, something like pita bread only not quite, turning and moving over to place it on the table between the three of them. "If so, you should be prepared for disappointment."

"No, I'm simply making a comment. And you'll note that I didn't mention anything about trying to figure out a way to hurt those Shadow-blighted bastards, wherever they are!" Hela growled. A few months it might have been since Harry and Emma had saved her, but the feel of those tentacles in her mind, the touch of their creatures' boots on her realm, still galled and horrified her.

This was made worse by the fact they still didn't have a means of striking back yet. For one thing, nothing they had done during her escape had actually hurt the Shadows themselves. Hela had been broken free of their connections, but that was a long way from actually hurting the ones who had ensorcelled her so in the first place. For another, while Harry might be able to get them to the Great Tree again, if they didn't have a way to actually strike at the Shadows directly they couldn't do anything to free her fellow Asgardians and would inevitably find themselves in conflict with Odin and all the rest.

"I understand your anger, Hela, but we can but wait for an opening," Harry replied with a sigh. "We haven't made any progress with freeing Sigyn from her stasis either, if you'll recall."

"And she hasn't been any help on either of those points," Hela said of the side. "We can't even free my mother's mind from their touch!"

"Fighting shadows is difficult: the brighter the light you shed, the more there are shadows elsewhere. I have a few theories, and Dr. Strange has a few more, but essentially, unless we can get back in to those realms without their finding out, we would be faced with a war on two fronts, mentally and physically. And, no offense to Emma, but I think I'd prefer to go into that kind of fight when Jean is at the very least recovering from her pregnancy."

Harry frowned, staring off into the distance even as his hands continued to stir the meaty stew dish that he was creating. "I have a theory that the Phoenix Force could possibly be a deadly element against the Shadows, but there's no way of testing it." Harry had tried to get in touch through Jean with the Phoenix Force on that point, but the entity had not responded.

"Let's change the subject," Emma said brightly, if a little sharply. "Perhaps to something with a solution we can actually work at rather than tilting at windmills?"

"Yes," Hela said, almost glaring at Harry. "Let's talk about these separate deals you're making with different countries. You're not going to demand the same type of aid from all of them? That smacks to me of a sign of weakness, almost, considering what all it might entail."

"No," Harry said mildly with one raised eyebrow as he set the soup down on the table. "It would be a sign of weakness if I had caved to the demands that I turn over control of the EDF to the UN or the demand for 'national units.' I didn't, and there aren't going to be. My officers will be chosen by me, with consultation with others and based on combat experience and general intelligence. The units will be composed of randomly assigned men and women with the needed skills, and they will conform to the EDF and its culture. A culture that I have taken from the British and American navies, true, but since those are the largest navies in the world and, inarguably, the most experienced and battle-tested, I don't see a problem there."

"Ah," Hela said with a nod, backing down with a faint smile. "I had been concerned about that last point, given some of the rumblings that I overheard from the South American contingent when we met with them last. On the other hand, you did follow my advice and went over the United Nations head eventually, so I will take that as a sign of your gaining wisdom, if slowly. Then again, councel is just that, for guidance and 'counsel.' One rarely meets the right course of action letting such dictate all their lives, and you certainly know the modern man better than I do."

Harry winced at that, wondering if that was the case, but didn't argue as he put the finishing touches on the gravlax. These were small sliced salmon fillets marinated in a cognac mix, and they were to be dipped in a kind of mustard sauce.

"For my part, I wish Reed would own up and get us in touch with the Inhumans! We need to approach them," Emma said with a sigh. "They could be a major help, but they're so bloody isolationist I don't want us to approach them without the Fantastic Four acting as liaison, and they won't act in that manner. It's not like we don't know where they are, already!"

The Inhumans apparently lived in a sprawling complex on the dark side of the moon, protected and cut off from the rest of the universe by means that Harry and his people couldn't quite figure out. It was like someone had taken a dimensional gateway and stretched it into a bubble surrounding the settlement: you couldn't get in, and those within couldn't get out.

Harry and his people knew it was there and even could see vague shapes through it, but his magic couldn't figure anything out about it, and Reed refused to allow any of them to use scientific methods to probe it. That had nearly caused a fight to break out between Reed and Doctor Doom, which Harry had been forced to mediate. It had not been pleasant.

"Reed thinks that the Inhumans are too isolationist as a society to even let me speak to Black Bolt. I think we could offer them something in return for technological aid. You know, getting even trained naval men,…"

"And women," Emma interrupted archly.

"And women, yes, up to speed on space combat and the Kree technology is tough. I don't even want them in a combat role," Harry complained. "I want them as teachers and trainers. There's a vast difference between running the systems of a ship, even after reading the manual, and knowing how they actually work. I want our work force to be as educated as possible. Ororo and I are in firm agreement on that point. But Reed won't do it, fearing Black Bolt's response and the idea of creating another enemy."

"I take it as a sign that wisdom and brains are two different things," Hela said with a laugh. "But then again, one needs only to look at old One Eye's adventures to realize that. Yet do not judge them too harshly. Could they help? Certainly. Is it right for them to help? That is a different matter entirely. Perhaps they have good reason to remain isolationists, reasons that would affect us just as much as they."

Hela then changed the subject, leaning forward as Harry finally sat down, ignoring the meal in front of her for a moment to pin Harry with her eyes. "But there is something more important we need to talk about that deals with Reed Richards: Franklin Richards and his growing power. It might be different from my own brand of deity-based power, your magic, or anything similar, but it is mighty. Energy and matter manipulation on a level that is worrisome, especially in one so young with a mind so unformed. He isn't just using telekinesis, Harry. Franklin is doing something far more fundamental.… Almost, almost warping reality. We need to start training him."

"He's barely a pre-kindergartner," Harry said mildly, but then sighed. "Yesterday, Reed told me that Franklin had changed the matter of his entire bedroom into glass so he could stare at some of the pretty birdies perched on the window sill better. Before that he had deftly sent all of his peas and other undesirable foods straight into Reed and Ben's faces without the need for the items to cross the intervening distance." As his listeners chuckled, he smirked rather ruefully. "I agree he needs training."

"Exactly. Madame Harkness is a formidable woman," Hela said, showing some respect for the ancient sorceress. "But she does not have enough power to train or even restrain Franklin should he be become recalcitrant."

Harry frowned then looked at her thoughtfully. "Hela, are you offering to train Franklin yourself?"

Hela slowly nodded, eating some of the gravlax almost absentmindedly, a smile crossing her face before she replied verbally. "I may not be a seeker and purveyor of knowledge like 'Grandfather' Odin. But, given the youth's power, it must be one of us, and you already have an apprentice. So yes, when Franklin is old enough, I will take him as such. Until then I can teach Franklin a few mental exercises, and, between the two of us, I think we can create spells which will work to inhibit Franklin's power until his mind has grown to the point where he can control it and knows when to do so. As it is, his power is controlled by his whims, and that is dangerous in the extreme."

That was still more than Harry had expected Hela to commit to. After all, taking on an apprentice was supposed to be a full-time job, something Harry often felt guilty about, considering Illyana and the fact he could only give her three hours a day, and even that interspersed between hour-long segments. The fact that Illyana had a non-magical education to pursue salved his conscience somewhat, but not all that much. Further, he was aware of what a goddess like Hela could truly teach someone like Franklin, whose growing power was indeed worrying.

"I'll talk to Reed and Susan and Madame Harkness. Harkness will probably go for it, but Susan and Reed will take some convincing to make certain that we're not doing anything that will impair Franklin's mental growth," he said, smiling thanks at Hela's suggestion.

"Reed Richards, the family man," Emma said with a smile. "The mind boggles. Then again, even if he is the quintessential absent-minded professor, mad scientist, or whatever, he's leagues better than my own father was."

Looking down at her meal, she scowled angrily. This would be the first Christmas where she wouldn't have to deal with her parents, which was a good thing. But she would miss her older brother, Christian, keenly. "Cordelia was always an irritant when we were growing up, a constant threat to my position even if she wasn't actually doing anything. You know about my older sister, of course, and my father. But my brother, I miss him. Christian was so gentle, so kind, but he was also…weak." She stabbed down a bobbing piece of sausage with her spoon, growling as it moved away. "And, in the end, Christian died simply because it was a way my father could attack me without doing so physically and thus weaken his own position."

"What about your mother?" Harry asked softly. "Has there been any progress with her?"

"She is fighting the help we've tried to give her to accept for her alcoholism," Emma said flatly, her voice leached of all emotion now. "Over the past few months since we forced that on her, there hasn't been a single sign that she wants to become sober again, and she certainly hasn't made any effort to reach out to Cordelia or myself."

Hela reached out, taking Emma's hand and squeezing it gently. "She is making her own choices. You must live your own life lest she drag you down with her. Too many in Helheim are from both sides of that ordeal, and all were filled with needless regret. And you still have your younger sibling. Your relationship with her is somewhat normal between human siblings, I understand."

When Emma nodded, Hela went on. "So your family situation was no worse than my own. Or, rather, what I thought was my relationship with them all was. That past history that made me so bitter and angry at Loki Truthbender was not the reality, but even the truth isn't exactly all sweetness and light. My father was apparently an…interesting character and wouldn't have won any awards for fatherhood, according to my mother."

Sigyn and Hela had talked several times since that first moment they had been reintroduced, though not as often as Hela would have liked, given the fact that they couldn't break the stasis crystal surrounding Sigyn's body or figure out a way to remove her soul from where it was hiding within Dani's blood. After the third time, Dani had started to show signs of mental strain, showing that her body couldn't take Hela pushing her spirit out into it.

"But for the longest time the only one of my family I ever got along with was Fenris, and he was rather limited in his mental faculty. Then.…" She smiled towards Harry. "Then this one and you stepped in, reuniting me with my mother and slowly proving that what I knew was false. While normal healers were valued among my people, one such as you who can reconnect family members would have been even more highly prized, my Seidr man."

Harry shrugged, taking first Emma's then Hela's hands and kissing their palms. "Family is important to me. Although being a father was something I didn't expect to occur as it did, if ever. I just knew I wanted to make my own family, you know? You can't choose your relatives, but you can choose your family, and that's what I did."

For a moment all three of them were silent, then, with a start, Hela took a dainty taste of the soup, which had remained untouched in front of her as they talked. Then she smiled approvingly. "This lapskaus tastes precisely how it should taste, Harry. Well done. As did the gravlax."

Surprisingly, Emma also enjoyed the meal though she wasn't a big fish person, and the talk moved to happier topics, including what Jean was turning her hands to now that she couldn't be out and about. She had decided to go forward with the idea of creating her own car, taking the chassis of a Bugatti Veyron and creating something altogether different inside.

Emma moaned about it, shaking her head and mock-whining that her old 458 was going to be left in the dust before smirking, her eye alight with delight. "On the other hand, I have seen pictures of a new McLaren that is coming out, and that might be worthy of becoming my new car. I think I've deserved an upgrade for a long time. Although my Ferrari has served me well. The only race I ever lost was to Harry, here, when we first met."

She smiled, taking another bite of food. "He cooked for me then too, you know," she said to Hela as an aside. "It was the first time any of my dates ever tried that."

"Ahh, I take it that it worked out far better for you then than his first attempts to cook for me did," Hela said dryly, then she looked over at Harry. "I would hope that you would not take all the domains of the womenfolk under your craft, lest we find ourselves with too little time and start plotting—what is it your supervillains always crave?—ah yes, 'world domination.'"

"Huh, and here I thought we'd already accomplished that. I could have sworn I crossed it off my bucket list," Emma said mock-quizzically as Harry laughed and Emma smirked at her own witticism. "But that brings up an interesting point, Harry," Emma said, setting her spoon down and locking eyes with Hela before looking over at Harry. "Firsts and equality."

At that cue Hela's lips shifted into a more tender smile as she reached over, clasping Harry's jaw lightly and turning his head to face her fully. "You asked me a question several months back, and I told you that I would give you my answer after the United Nations business was done. It is done for a given value, and I believe it is time to answer that question."

Harry's eyes widened, then he reached up and tenderly took her hand in his, pulling it away from his face to kiss the back of it. "I wait with bated breath for your response, Lady Hela," he said softly.

"Your courtship has won my heart and my hand, Harry Potter, and I offer them to you freely. Do you accept them?" she asked softly.

"I do, and I give you my own back," Harry said firmly. "It might not belong solely to you, but it does belong to you and has for some time now, my lady goddess." He then smiled whimsically, and, with a gesture of his free hand, a box appeared from under the bed, moving through the air toward them. It was large, about a foot in length or so and at least four inches to a side.

"And we will all continue to strive to be worthy of one another and for the treasures we have thus shared," Hela replied, one eyebrow quirked as she watched this, anticipation rising from within her. Yet her own hand was also working, opening a small rift to her hall out from which appeared a box, about as long as it was wide, yet not very deep.

Harry smiled, not looking away from Hela's eyes. "All of my ladies wear a gift from me, both practical and something to signify our connection. Each of them is different, and something I've labored over in each case."

With a theatrical eye-roll, Emma raised her hand, where a ring gleamed. Physically it wasn't much, simply bands of vari-colored gold of all types intertwined with blue gems. Magically it was easily the most powerful of the items he'd created, with dozens of protection spells. "They can be a bit too gaudy, but they are nice enough," she drawled.

Opening the box, Harry gently reached in and pulled out a vambrace, a piece or armor designed to protect the forearm. It was matte black, matching the armor Hela wore, but here and there along its length were deep-set jewels: emerald, opal and ruby. There was also inscribed runic work visible along its length, spells of defense, mostly, with a few other little surprises.

Gasping in delight, Hela held out her hand and allowed Harry to clasp the vambrace around her right forearm, smiling in delight at the feel of it, the inside of the vambrace somehow lined with silk, smooth and soft to the touch. She then held it up to her face, staring at both the magic and the physical item. "It is amazing, Harry. Thank you. I will treasure it." Then she shook her head and smiled. "Yet the exchange of gifts goes both ways in my culture, my Seidr man."

She held out her own package, which Harry took, opening it slowly. Inside Harry found what appeared to be, at first, a simple cloth bracelet. Yet the leather was marked by several bits of gold and black thread—thread, Harry realized, which matched Hela's hair color perfectly. And somehow Hela had worked actual gems into the cloth in such a way that they merged into it magically.

That was impressive in itself, but that bracelet was so magically charged that it equaled Harry's promise gift to Hela. A visible sign of this showed even to Emma as Harry looked at it, showing a view of Camelot from the outside, then from the air, then, after a brief blink, Fortress Mars, before shifting into the Savage Land and then going on to show images of Harry and Hela together with the other ladies.

Slowly sliding it on, Harry let his eyes tell Hela how pleased he was with her gift and then leaned in and kissed her. This was not the chaste, lips-only kisses they had shared, no matter how passionate. This was a full lip lock, an attempt to merge their mouths into one, and within a few seconds their tongues were tangling together, first in Hela's mouth, then in Harry's, and then back again. It was several moments before Hela pulled up for air, gently pushing Harry back into his seat. "But equality," she said, breathing heavily, "means different things to different women".

It took a moment for Harry to retain his senses, and, when he did, he surreptitiously shifted himself slightly so the two ladies could not see the physical reaction Hela's kiss had just caused. "I, ahem, I, I see," he said, trying to sound normal despite a growing urge to take Hela and head to bed right now, and not to sleep. "You have decided on the weddings and such things? As a man, I know that I don't have to have anything to do with the weddings except to say, 'Yes, ma'am,'" he said with a gleam of humor in his eyes offsetting his desire, which grew more visible as he went on. "Now the wedding nights, those are groom's duties."

Both women surprised themselves by blushing at that and the look in his eyes as he let his eyes rake down each of their bodies. Emma, in particular, was shocked that she was able to blush at something like that given what she and Harry had done together since becoming a couple, not even including Jean and Ororo's contributions to their carnal activities.

But despite her blush, Hela replied gamely. "If you expect to be the one doing all the work that night, Harry Potter, I suggest you think again. But yes, we have decided on the wedding ceremonies. Emma will be the first to marry you."

"Over my strident reservations at first," Emma said dryly. "But, considering that our business alliance has come to light, I don't think we're going to be able to make any more mileage from keeping our friendship secret. So I agreed. But it will be a small one," she cautioned. "No more than twenty witnesses and family. I've never been one of those women who have dreamed about an extravagant wedding, and if we were to have it at all out in the open it would slowly start to be the social event of the season," she said caustically, almost spitting out the words. "Jean will stand as my best woman, of course, with Ororo and Hela as maids of honor."

Harry looked over at Hela. "You're not going to officiate? Ororo said that was one of the ideas you all were talking about."

"I will officiate over Jean's wedding, which will be the next one planned. Father Garnoff has agreed to officiate Emma's. Indeed, he said something about it being about time," Hela replied with a smirk. "But Jean's wedding with you will be an even smaller affair. And it will happen right on the heels of Emma's. A New Year's wedding, a most auspicious time for such things. But those children of yours will be born in wedlock, Harry Potter, no matter how barely," Hela finished sternly.

Then Hela looked out into the distance and shook her head slowly. "I have begun to feel the power of those two souls within her. They will be extremely puissant. We will need to be wary of them as toddlers and babes as much as we are of Franklin. But I suppose with the number of house elves around, we will at least be able to deal with much of what they can contrive, better than the single one you assigned to Madame Harkness to help her with Franklin."

"Ororo will be the one to have a large public wedding, down in Africa somewhere. It will be a major social event, possibly as a sign that the African Defense Organization has come so far by that point, possibly just as a social occasion," Emma said, shrugging. "And then Hela's will be last."

"But," Hela took over with a tart smile on her face as she stared almost challengingly at Harry, "I will be the only one of the four to go down the aisle a maiden still. I am setting that as a rule now, Harry Potter."

Then she looked away again, down at her hands. "…It is very important to me as a woman and as a goddess that that be the case. Our wedding will be more elaborate in many ways than the others' as well, hand-fasting as well as many other things from my own people's wedding ceremonies. Again, I feel that is important."

"I agree. I agree with all of it, although, to be fair, Hela, I don't dread your wedding half as much as I dread the public version with Ororo. That just screams overblown to me, but I'll go along with things for now." Then he smiled a wicked little smirk as he leaned over the small table towards Hela, kissing her hard on the lips before pulling back to wag his eyebrows at her. "Besides, going down the aisle a virgin leaves room for many things."

It was the first time that Emma had seen Hela do a full facial blush, visible despite the fact that she still wore her mask, even here. It was worth the wait, she reflected, and she decided to capitalize on it. When Harry pulled away, Emma leaned in, kissing Hela in turn and for the first time. For an instant Hela stiffened in shock, which allowed Emma to dominate the kiss for a time, but then Hela got over her surprise and began to kiss back just as ardently, and Emma caught the thought, Oh, dearest Emma, you think you can lead here? That is positively adorable!

When Ororo joined them later that night, there was no hesitation there, and Hela kissed her just as ardently as she had the other two, and would later do the same with Jean when she came back from Fortress Mars. This was her way of showing that, while Harry was her primary focus and reason for joining this relationship, she did love the other three in her own way.

That night marked the first time Hela slept in the same bed as Harry and the others, minus Jean for that night, though Harry had already enlarged the bed to make room for Hela. And he had been right several months back: It truly was the most glorious sleep she could ever recall.

Shaking his head to escape that memory, Harry looked up as MJ ushered in two men of Middle Eastern descent. They represented a few medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies in Turkey and Iraq and wished to purchase MM supplies but couldn't quite pay for it at the cost that their home countries would otherwise have demanded. Harry was sympathetic, but he wondered why they wanted to speak to him in person. Still, the fact that they came from those countries at all and were supposedly respected there had made Harry want to speak to them in turn.

"Gentlemen, please, sit," he said, gesturing them into chairs and smiling at MJ. "MJ, make sure that Sage is following up on that one ship we have off Somalia again, would you? I want to know the instant those pirates give me an excuse. Then I think it'll be time to head up to the soiree, correct?"

"Right in one, Boss," MJ replied with a grin and a mock salute. "I'll be ready to hobnob and, more importantly, turn men's minds off whenever you want me to, no special powers needed."

Chuckling, Harry waved her off then turned to the two men, who were also smirking, not taking the gorgeous young woman's words seriously, though perhaps they should have. MJ used her looks occasionally to do that very thing, after all, and could turn it on and off as easily as Emma could. "So, Mister Sabir and Mister Livauq, what can I do for you?"

"First of all, we must apologize for the deception, Mr. Potter. We are indeed representatives of several hospitals in Turkey, but, at the moment, we are not here to meet with you about your Magical Minds products. Rather, we wish to talk to you in your position as head of the EDF," one of them said, holding up his hand as Harry's eyes darkened and then for some reason darted over their heads. The man went on unhurriedly. "I represent the Turkish government, and this man, who goes as Mister Sabir at the moment, represents a majority of the Kurdish people."

Eyebrows arching in surprise, Harry tapped a small button under his desk and, an instant later, could feel Jean and then Emma in his mind as he relayed this. "I see. And what would you ask of me while I'm wearing my EDF hat, as it were?"

"Turkey would prefer to be a homogeneous country, and the Kurds want to have self-governance, as I do not doubt you already know. There have been numerous clashes between a terrorist organization called the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê to fight for that freedom, and.…" Livauq, which was almost certainly not the man's name, gritted his teeth before admitting, "And I have to say that our own military are rather excessive in how they have responded to the PKK's atrocities."

"Such a nice way to say they too are guilty of war crimes," Jean remarked sassily.

"True, but this could be a good step to solving that issue in a nonviolent manner," Emma thought, already seeing where this conversation was going.

Harry had already spotted that same thing, and he nodded. "I see. And you wish to talk to me about colonization, repatriation?"

"Exactly. If there is a place on another world where we can create our own nation, that would solve a lot of problems here," Livauq replied.

When Harry's eyes slid to him, the other man shrugged. "We have no wish to continue to fight one another, yet we also wish to have our own nation, to have the right of self-determination, and we cannot get it on Earth. Not without war. Allah willing, with your help we can find another way."

"That is an interesting concept, and I am willing to talk about it, gentlemen. But two points: One, regardless of anything else, any colonization attempts would be months in the future and expensive for all concerned. And two, how exactly are you going to convince me that you deserve to be allowed to set up humanity's first colony?" Harry asked, leaning forward.

OOOOOOO

Sinister smiled, leaning back. It had taken over a month, but Genosha was ripe for his plans, everything within ready, just waiting on his word. He had also come up with several means that might work to cripple his magical powers, which, coupled with his existing technology, meant he could handle the so-called World Guard if they fought on territory of his choosing and didn't bring in the rest of the world's militaries. And for that, thanks to my contacts in Russia, I now know precisely when they will start their invasions of Finland and Poland.

For a moment he paused, his lips quirking into a frown. Why Finland, though? Croatia, Poland, fine, they were part of the old USSR, but why Finland? The best my agents can determine is that there's some new mineral they've found there, but not why it's so important or even what it is at all. That's bizarre, but considering Russia's buildup and the fact that NATO's on the move too, I should be able to use that as an opening for my own movement in Genosha. That is the most important thing, which means I might finally be able to turn things to my own goals.

Scowling, Sinister looked over several notes that were stacked up to one side. A few were from a few robotic spies he had emplaced around Xavier's mansion to watch the comings and goings there. Not too close, since there was some magical defense up that slowly began to erode their programming, but close enough to know that Cyclops had not been out of the mansion since the UN meeting.

Oh, Sinister knew that Summers had been out and about. He had appeared on TV numerous times at the head of the X-Men, going after the Reclaimers, protecting a pro-mutant rally, and fighting mutant criminals the police couldn't handle across two continents and several island chains. Even giving a few impromptu public statements afterward. But he hadn't ever left the mansion in such a way that circumstances could be created so as to let him meet Madelyne Pryor. And the two times Sinister had tried to create an opportunity where they might meet had failed simply because Scott hadn't been leading the team when those events occurred!

Weeks of psycho-conditioning to create her new personality and instill Subject Summer's image into her brain so as to activate her powers and make him interested in her. Days of finding the precise timing, the look, and the perfume to shut Subject Summer's mind down and make him madly in love with Pryor regardless of any previous romantic feelings towards anyone else. And all of it for nothing because of Subject Summer's sense of duty and random chance working together to keep them apart!

Sighing, Sinister typed out a recall order and sent it out to his retrieval team. This attempt had failed utterly, so Sinister would go back to his preferred method when the World Guard attacked him in Genosha: retrieving Subject Grey and the children she carried. Even a straight clone like Pryor would not have the spark of the Phoenix entity within her that Subject Grey has, which makes her so much more powerful than she might otherwise have become. And comparing a child of her body and that of a magic user to that of one with Subject Summer's DNA will simply be fascinating.

OOOOOOO

"Damn, Boss, you clean up good. Well, except for that abomination you have around your neck," Lorna Dane said as she walked into the private suite of rooms Harry and his ladies had on Fortress Mars. He was dressed now in a decent blazer and good shirt and pants combo along with a tie that he had rather foolishly let Illyana and Melody pick for him.

It glowed. It sparkled with tiny sequins, it was orange and green and pink in places, and Harry sighed as he pulled it off to gently hang it up on a peg. "I think Illyana actually transfigured it from another of my ties. So as a test of her skills and mental acuity it's actually quite impressive. But yes, I know it looked horrible."

So saying, he pulled out another tie from thin air, conjuring it into being with an ease that made Lorna blink. "Can conjure up a tie, but can't make it appear tied around my neck," he muttered, turning to a mirror. "Anything new you want to report? I can see you're ready for this evening, and I return your previous statement, my dear."

Lorna smirked, looking down at herself. She was dressed in something like a cocktail dress, a dark gray color that set off both her pale skin and dark green hair to good effect. Her hair fell to her shoulders in loose, bouncing ringlets, and a small necklace was around her neck. "Thanks, but you're not my type, Boss." With that out of the way and knowing that Harry had just meant his words as simple compliments, she went on, shaking her head. "Carol's people got the third gun battery up and running again; it was an electronic issue just like the last time. For my part, I've finished hollowing out another cavern with Wanda. And you know we did final checks on the surface of the current expanse of Fortress Mars yesterday."

Nodding, Harry looked at her reflection in the mirror as his hands worked at the tie. "No problem with the dry dock's doors?" When Lorna shook her head, Harry smirked. "Excellent. In more amusing news, have you had a chance to meet with your bank account manager yet?"

Harry had worked hard to get all the 'specialists' who worked for him their own bank accounts, just like with the Custodes. They were not only doing something they wanted to, they were being paid for it. Harry thought of that as just another source of motivation, and it wasn't one he wanted just his normal personnel to have. That and a place in his new country whenever it was fully set up.

"No, not really," Lorna said with a shrug, gesturing around her with both hands. "I've not even been back to Earth since that job to fix the Eiffel Tower." She laughed then, and Harry had to smile at the difference a few months had made from the angry, twitchy, and depressed young woman Lorna had been before and after the battle against Magneto to now. "Seeing 'Gay Pari' was nice, but building this Fortress with my mind and my own powers, that's been just glorious."

"Ah,…" Harry said, wincing internally. That probably meant that Alex's recent clashes with Scott and Thunderbird had nothing to do with chaffing under their leadership and had everything to do with being in a relationship with a woman who he only saw when he made the effort to come to her on Mars. I wonder if she's tried to break up with him and he's just not gotten the message, or if he's just being mopey and moody. Ugh, teenagers. Glad I never was one.

The tone of voice made Lorna look at him sharply. "What? What's the problem with my accounts, Boss?"

"Oh there's no problem with them, so to speak. But, well, you know that most currency is based on the gold standard, right?"

"Yes,…" Lorna said slowly, her eyes narrowing.

"And that you get a rather large percentage of that metal from any you find,…" Harry said, turning now to look directly at Lorna, who's eyes had just started to go wide at the implications. With a smirk he clapped her on the shoulder and then headed for the door. "Well, congratulations! You are now the richest woman on Earth, possibly to ever live. Just don't tell Emma. She would take it…poorly."

With that he was out the door, leaving the green-haired woman to gape after him. "Wh, what? Just, what?"

The meeting Harry was on Mars for was to be held in the atrium, and Harry smiled, watching as Ororo led in some of his guests to join the others already sitting down with him. Next to him, King William smiled wanly, staring all around him. "I must say, I have seen your halls in Camelot, but this is something else altogether, Harry."

Duncan nodded, looking around in something approaching awe. "You just call this the atrium, really? That's, that's…underwhelming to the reality."

Nor were the two Brits alone in their awe. The senators and Chinese representatives being led in by Ororo and Lorna, who still looked a little off-balance, to join their fellows also were looking around them in awe.

The atrium was a massive cavern set high up above the main base that was Fortress Mars, about a third of the way up the stump of Olympus Mons that had been left after Harry and Thanos had fought. There was an entire wall seemingly open to the world beyond, the backdrop of the surface of Mars providing an austere sort of beauty. A series of large raised daises thrust out of the cavern's walls. They hung over the cavern's actual floor, which was covered by a monstrous botanical garden grown by a young mutant named Marisol Guerra from Mexico.

Wendy and her team had had a bit of an adventure extracting her, but nothing they couldn't handle, despite the fact that Marisol had almost refused to come with them at first. It wasn't until Stinger had agreed to take her family with them that she had agreed to be rescued from the drug dealers who had threatened her life.

She and her family were living on Fortress Mars for now, being paid for her work via access to Ororo's educational system and money, which they were setting aside for when they returned to Earth. None of them wanted to stay on Mars, though they were happy enough there. Marisol was determined, though, to use her powers to help as many people as she could, and she felt she could do better on Earth than here.

Marisol had provided the plants, although that had been actually the last part of this project. Lorna and Wanda had created this space between them, hollowing it out of the solid granite of the mountain. Then Harry had stepped in and used his magic to transfigure the wall. With that and a few mirrors outside to shine in direct light occasionally, the plants would thrive even when Marisol left.

"And this isn't a weakness in the defense of the fortress?" Duncan, William's son, asked. "I mean, that, that looks like glass, but it can't be, can it?"

"Hah, no. It's transfigured granite. We're actually several dozen feet into the side of the mountain here. I crafted the spells so that it appears to be glass. I even was able to create it so it is like a magnifying glass, almost, but retains all the properties of the stone it was."

"Further, the Scarlet Witch and myself have been at work on the surface of Olympus Mons and elsewhere," Lorna said as she guided the two Chinese men into seats before sitting down herself. Around them were several other round tables where other dignitaries and workers who had been part of this project sat conversing quietly. "The surface of Mars above the fortress and out to a kilometer in every direction has been covered with the same kind of compressed steel the Kree use in their warships and then further hardened with the Scarlet Witch's magic."

Since Mars didn't have its own nervous system of ley-lines, Wanda would have to renew those spells every week or so, but the toughening spells Dr. Strange had told her actually stuck, as it were, better than the ones Harry knew. Of course, unlike Lorna, Wanda had a lot of demands on her time back on Earth, including, to Harry's surprised bemusement, a budding romance with Kurt. But even so, several hours every week wasn't much to ask of her, and she'd been paid well for her work.

"This is…a beyond impressive edifice you have created, Mr. Potter," said one of the Chinese men, looking around keenly. "Indeed, it is as impressive as a living space as it is a fortress. And it is so good as one of those that I am very thankful it isn't mobile."

"I can't take all the credit. The vision of it might have been mine, but it was built by other people's hands. I might have lent my magic, but that's all," Harry demurred. "What you see here, gentlemen and ladies," he said making a point to nod towards where Germany's representative sat. "Is a sign of what mutants and normal, intelligent, skilled workers with access to technology can do if they work together."

Under Carol and General Murphy's direction and a month of work from thousands of willing hands and a near equal number of Doom's worker bots, Fortress Mars could now live up to its name and was getting stronger all the time. The droids from the secret time-enhanced space had all gone to work immediately expanding the fortress from the surface, digging out tunnels and adding gun placements and underground missile bays, etc. Those guns couldn't traverse, and they could be plugged, but they could not be destroyed unless the attacker cracked the very planet, and, with the mirrors in space to bounce power off of, they could work very well. They were like monstrous barrels, but the barrels were buried underground.

The human workers then followed up, creating the actual guns, the missile factories, the wiring, the lighting, and thousands of other little things. Work went on round the clock, and even now work was continuing in various areas, expanding the fortress aspect of Fortress Mars. But, as it was, fully twelve thousand workers lived up here under the joint command of Carol and the General. The vast majority of them had already decided to go from simple employees to citizens and had brought in their families, adding nearly twice again to their numbers.

They'd also added another problem to Harry's attempt to create a government for them all, but at least by this point there was a light at the end of that particular tunnel.

Looking up, he smiled as Mary Jane led in Steve, Betsy Braddock, and a somewhat spare looking African American man towards them from the entrance. Both the newcomer and Steve were dressed in formal dress uniforms, joining Carol and more than a few others like Whitaker and Duncan in that along with several others scattered throughout the crowd. And is it just me, or has Betsy been spending a lot of time around Steve whenever she can contrive it?

Betsy was supposed to be here since she was acting as Carol's secretary and civilian go-between. Carol did not understand or very much like kids and other dependent sorts and had no desire or interest in being politic when talking to them. She'd also proven to be very good at finding people after a few cave-ins, which was one of many dangers of the work going on here. Using her telepathy, Betsy found the minds of the injured and then worked with the house elves and workers to get them out before they could suffocate.

But her coming onto the platform with Steve was a surprise.

As Harry stood up to greet the newcomers, Steve smiled, clasping hands with him. "Harry, good to see you in person. Haven't been able to do that in three days now." He then smirked mischievously. "I hope I wasn't too hard on you the last time we sparred?"

Harry laughed, shaking his head. He had asked Steve to help him train himself in hand to hand, and, unlike Shiang-Chi, Steve was both physically capable of keeping up with Harry's reflexes and more than stubborn enough to sit on him if he felt Harry was attempting to get out of it. So, twice a week, come what may, the two of them would meet for sparring and training, with Harry taking very much the worst of it without access to his suit or the use of his magic. "No, nothing like that, but you know how little my time is my own these days."

"You were the one who wanted the job," Steve replied unhelpfully.

Harry blinked, holding up a finger, then as he thought about all the steps and ways life had changed to get him to where he was, to create everything he had created. At no point had Harry sat up in bed and decided, 'Oh, I'm going to create country today,' or, 'I want to be the head of an Earth Defense Force.' But instead of saying all that aloud, since it would have sounded far too much like whining, Harry sighed. "It was more like I saw a job that needed doing and that no one else was doing it in the right way. Everything sort of spiraled out from there, I suppose."

Shaking his head, he looked at the man next to Steve. "Would you like to introduce your friend here?"

"Sam Wilson, sir," the man said, holding out his hand. "I understand from Steve that you're looking for troopers to step up and join some of your special forces teams."

"I suppose you could call the X-Men and the Custodes that," Harry replied with a nod, looking the man over again. "But you'll forgive me if I ask what your background is that Steve would recommend you."

In fact, Harry had indeed asked Steve and others to look around for likely candidates to add to the X-Men and the Custodes. With the amount of territory they had to cover, the two main combat teams were becoming quite stretched. None of the new influx of mutants they had rescued or the new team of X-teens at the mansion were ready for real combat, though the latter had begun to step up on simple rescue missions and others. But one area they needed a dedicated team for was assault: close in base or ship combat against prepared enemies. They had the people for it, but if they pulled those people from other teams—Thunderbird, Betsy, Carol, Wanda, and Sam Guthrie under Thunderbird's command—they would leave holes in the original two teams. The Custodes wouldn't miss Betsy and Carol overmuch since neither were primarily combat personnel these days, though Paige's presence would hurt, but Scott would be losing his second-in-command and the first person Scott and Harry felt could have stepped into that role. So adding another person who could be a leader of the team and could also add some more military training would be a good thing.

"Sam's a paratrooper, but a…very special kind," Steve said, handing over a file while, around them, other delegates began to arrive.

Nodding, Harry moved over to the edge of the plateau, resting against the railing as he read, blinking at one of the pictures in the file. "Huh." That looks an awful lot like the suit the Vulture used. We'd wondered what had become of him,. Guess the American government might have cut a deal with the man. Well, since he hasn't shown up on our radar since, I'd say more power to the old bloke. Given the fact that the Vulture was older than even Destiny, Harry doubted he would be around for very long.

Looking up at Sam, Harry asked, "You ever use this gear in combat? It says you've seen combat, of course, but not if it was with this suit." The suit in question was a flight suit of some kind with wings and what appeared like a gun strap of some kind, though the guns looked very high tech. The file also said that Sam had tried out for NASA but had been rejected, and that he had been a sergeant in the Paratroopers.

"Two of the ops were drops performed by the Special Paratroop team," Sam said gamely. "Another was a SHIELD operation. I was one of their agents at one point."

Nodding, Harry kept reading as people kept coming out onto the plateau before blinking. "You punched your superior officer?"

"Ah, yeah." Sam looked sheepish as he replied, even going so far as to look away as he hissed, "Fuck, I didn't think that was in there, Steve!" To which Steve just shrugged and made a get on with it gesture to his friend. "Um, he was a bit of an asshole. Don't think his name would mean much. But he made one too many jabs about me being from Harlem and my rough background for me to stand. I sort of organized a time for the two of us to meet in one of the gyms for a boxing match, and floored him with a single combo."

"And, instead of doing what any reasonable officer would have and simply back off or have you reassigned, he pressed charges. What a big girl," Harry said, looking over at Steve, who nodded. "Didn't Fury know about this? And, speaking of, what is going on with Fury now? I haven't heard about him in two weeks."

"Nick didn't know, I don't think, although since Sam was kicked out of SHIELD before I was thawed out, I can't say for certain. Sure as shooting wouldn't match with what I know of the man," Steve said, still sticking up for his old friend. "As for Nick himself, he's still under house arrest. I understand from those I've talked to that he'll remain in house arrest for at least a year while serving as a special councilor at need. Then he'll take over the UN's anti-terrorist branch."

Harry nodded at that, but his mind was on the man in front of him as he thought about what he had just read. "Well, your background and experience speak well of you, but let me ask you, did you volunteer for this?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said, nodding his head, making Harry smile somewhat crookedly. Being called sir by men and women near his own age always bothered him a little. "Frankly, I've been cooling my heels for months and been itching to getting back into things, especially in the air. I took a look around, and I've got no desire to be a little cog in the big machine again. Better to be a medium sized one at least and have some say as to what your part of the machine does."

"That makes sense." Harry looked over at Steve, who looked back steadily, and Harry nodded again. "All right, since Steve's willing to vouch for you," and you got through the portals without any alarms going off, "I'll introduce you to Cyclops. He needs a new second in command and also needs to start integrating non-mutants into the X-Men. If you and he get along, you're in. For now I'll introduce you to Carol, our local trouble-shooter and one of our space experts, and Thunderbird, the man you'll be replacing on the X-Men."

With that Harry led Sam over to another table, sitting him and Steve there before moving back to his own table, exchanging a smile with Ororo as he raised a glass in the air. Looking around, he saw MJ sitting with a group of carefully chosen reporters and a few cameramen, the last people to join the gathering. When the redhead nodded, he smiled slightly. Showtime. Harry held up a hand and clicked his fingers, sending out a bright spark that grabbed the attention of the hundred or so people sitting all around him, and his smile widened. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I hope that you all have enjoyed your day of exploration and that what you have seen today shows you that your resources and people have been put to good use. Through their sweat, brain power, and time, this Fortress has come a very long way from what it was even a bare month ago. Together, humanity can.…"

From there Harry went into his prepared spiel, sending a brief smile towards MJ, who, unseen by her table-mates, was smiling and making a get on with it gesture as he finished. "Today we culminate the second stage of making this Fortress the linchpin of our defense. We make it into more than a fortress, we make it into a port. But what does a port need? It needs a harbor, a runway and…a dry dock."

At that cue the view out on the surface of Mars began to change. As people on this plateau and every other one in the atrium craned their necks to see, two huge slabs of ground began to quiver and then slowly open, the edge of the new gap disappearing out of sight from everyone within the atrium. Even the sides of the dock were too large to be seen soon.

Designed and built largely in the last month by American and Chinese workers, backed up, of course, by two hundred robot workers, this was the dry dock Harry had just been talking about. Work wasn't finished on it, of course—they were still expanding the interior of the monstrous dock even now—but even so, it was a momentous milestone for those gathered here, a sign their countries' contributions had not been in vain.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the first Mars dry dock. The dry dock where the first human built extra-solar spaceship will be built. Until the design of that ship is final it will be…" Harry trailed off as again something new was added to the image.

Everyone here had heard about and even talked to the Kree prisoners occasionally. They knew about the ships the Kree had used in their attack on Earth. But few there had seen any of the ships, and certainly not the massive, kilometers long ship that had just descended into view. "The dry dock will be home to the Kree dreadnaught Devastator before it is revamped, repaired, rearmed, and christened the Warspite. This ship will become the flagship of the EDF Home Fleet. After the meal, you can speak to your table's waiter if you want to receive a tour, and he will get in touch with those who can arrange it. This, ladies and gentlemen, just as much as the atrium all around us, serves as a visible sign of what we humans can do if we all, despite our differences, work together. Thank you, and I hope you've both enjoyed the view and the meal."

With that Harry sat down to a loud series of cheers, and he felt the link to Jean open up. She and Hela were in a private room nearby. They could have joined Harry and Ororo at the table, but Ororo had become Harry's public second-in-command, and Jean's own powers and those of her twins had begun acting up, creating an aura which made protective spells and even illusions difficult to cast on her. At the same time, Hela wanted to keep out of the limelight as much as possible.

For all that her powers were acting up ,though, the link between Jean and Harry was as strong as ever. "That went over very well, love. I have to wonder how Russia and the other countries will take the reports about Fortress Mars, though.

With Jean using her telepathy on her as well, Hela joined the conversation at that point. "Russia will make of it what they will, something like, 'western militarization of space brokered by the capitalist masters of America.' For all that Russia is not technically Soviet anymore, the rhetoric has not changed over much. Still, their opinions matter not at all to Fortress Mars so long as the so-called free world understands this fortress is for defense and not for our own aggrandizement. No, what we need to be aware of is internal morale and that of our allies, not enemies. This move is for them. Leave concerns of our enemies for another day."

Harry replied in like manner. "I don't see Russia as an enemy so much as a dupe, but for now there's little we can do until a way to spot the aliens hiding among them is found. For now, ladies, I need to get back to the party. I'll see you both at home."

"Shouldn't Admiral Powers have been here?" Steve asked an hour later. Most of the diners had left, eager to be shown around the monstrous Kree warship, leaving Harry, Steve, and a few others behind, including representatives from both China and America, which was somewhat surprising to Harry.

"They've got to want something. Is Betsy picking up anything?" Jean asked.

Harry sent back a mental no and was about to signal Betsy to see if she could read the surface thoughts of the men and respond to Steve's question when he overheard a woman at a nearby table. Since the atrium was a major draw for everyone who lived on Mars, the moment the tables had cleared of his guests other people had come in, eager to enjoy the view. Harry supposed he could have ordered this plateau held clear, but he didn't want to create that kind of distance between himself and his men and women.

The speaker was a young woman, some kind of welder or other in engineering. A scowl on her face, she muttered to her companion, "How can they be so gauche as to smoke like that in public?"

Harry looked around and found that not only had William begun to smoke a large cigar, but that Sam and Steve had both pulled out cigarettes. William and Duncan had struck up a conversation with Steve, Sam, Carol, and a few others sitting nearby listening intently, while Harry had been listening with only half an ear and talking with Ororo about Kitty and her progress. She was getting good enough with magic that she could be trusted to learn combat spells if she so wanted, but Kitty had shown no inclination towards those, opting instead to study healing spells and a lot of the charms Harry used.

Before Harry could say anything, William waved a gnarled hand. "Milady, I am over eighty years old. My eyes are failing me, my body aches from head to toe with rheumatism, my heart gives me conniptions, my knees ache every time I have to get up out of a chair, and I can barely remember what it was like to go to the bathroom without issues of one sort or another. Smoke will be the last thing that will kill me."

"As for me, I can still remember all too well a time when these were currency to us troopers in Europe." Steve said, holding up cigarette. "I remember one time I traded three cigarettes for a full four star meal in Paris once. The meat was horrible, but the bread was decent, and the wine good too. Another time I traded a sniper rifle and four rounds with it for a full pack. The smell, you see, would help you block out the smell of…other things, and, unlike our pay, the cigarettes were good wherever we were and whatever we were trading for." He smiled apologetically at the woman. "I'm sorry if it bothers you, miss, but some habits are really hard to break."

Sam, on the other hand merely smirked at the woman and blew out some smoke towards her, smirking. Harry decided that he rather like Sam, 'the Falcon.'

"In answer to your question, Steve, the admiral would be here, but he's running a training game with the ten ships we've been able to crew so far. We've nearly repaired all the ships we've captured, bar the two dreadnaughts, but training is slow."

"We're not going slow," Murphy replied irritably. "It's going as fast as it can, but there's only so much training we can.…"

Just then a harsh red light began to buzz around the Atrium and in every other room and hallway of Fortress Mars. Harry leaped to his feet and was halfway towards the doorway leading out into the rest of the fortress by the time one of his guests asked querulously, "What's wrong? What's the light about?"

William rolled his eyes, amused that his son and Steve had swiftly raced after Harry and the others, even if he wasn't technically on duty or even a soldier any longer. Can take the man out of SAS but not the SAS out of the man. "I believe, Senator, that this means that trouble has come knocking once more." Sighing, he leaned back picking up his cigar. Running around like that was for younger people, after all. "If we were in danger here, no doubt we would be told about it. I suggest we all just sit back and wait for news."

OOOOOOO

Badoon Fleet Lord Patriarch Sasskhanna, a distant and young nephew of the Crown Royal, smiled as his fleet came out in formation in the Sol system. "The Kree are fools to pull back their fleets as they did and leave this prize. So many strong ones, so much fresh blood that can be added to our Empire. It will be glorious!"

Around the Badoon royal, his command crew cheered and bent to their instruments eagerly.

The news that Earth had produced hundreds of individuals with powers and abilities beyond the norm made the planet both dangerous and valuable. The Badoon had no real equivalent, making them even more valuable. They had created monstrous cyborgs as heavy troops, but that was the only equivalent. Yet they did possess means of fighting such powers, having clashed several times with the Shi'ar Royal Guard and others.

Sasskhanna had been given leave to attack Earth with his personal retinue to see if he could add it to his personal holdings before a full war fleet could be gathered to claim it for the Crown Royal. This consisted of thirteen ships, though the Badoon did not use the same ship types as the Kree or the Skrull. They preferred large, monstrously heavy ships about half again the size of a Kree battleship, but not quite up to a dreadnaught, as their sole capital ships whatever their chosen task. These looked like a series of concentric, ugly seeming spheres, each of them larger than the one before it in both height and width.

The things positively bristled with weapons, but even those weapons were not quite the same mix the Kree or Skrull used. Due to the fact that they preferred a single ship size, the weapons were modular for the most part, a ship able to be assigned the weapons it would need for any specific mission. But, then again, there was one weapons systems the Badoon made heavy use of that was not modular and which had made even the other three superpowers wary of tangling with them. That and the fact that they had no issues with using nuclear weapons to make life-sustaining planets radioactive wastelands.

Sasskhanna reflected on this fact with a wide grin on his reptilian face. What other, weaker races called wastelands, his people could not only survive in, but thrive. Hah, whatever the primitive humans did to make the Kree back off will not work on the Badoon. And if they do not submit, I will simply bombard them from space until their whole race is smashed back into the stone age. That would be a pity, though. Human women are supposed to be nearly as beautiful as Kree women and far less flimsy than those Shi'ar fowls.

Unfortunately for the Badoon, they couldn't hide a hyperspace jump, and their sensors were just as good as anyone else's. His smile slipped off his face as their own sensors began to tell them about the Sol system. "What is this!" he snarled, glaring up at the tactical screen, on which a Badoon ship took up half the bridge. "How did the humans build up to this level of industrial capacity?"

"We do not know, Fleet Lord," replied one of his officers servilely. "But it appears obvious why the Kree had decided to cease their efforts to guard this sector of space from us."

"Yes.… They cannot allocate enough fleet assets to crush this odd race," Sasskhanna mused, then nodded, his equilibrium restored and having decided the way forward. "Launch seventy percent of our kinetics towards Earth. Use the remaining twenty percent on the various assets we can see elsewhere." Most of these assets were around the fourth planet from the sun of this system, but there were a few other targets elsewhere in the system, including what looked like a fully operational hydrogen harvester over one of the gas giants. Destroying that is regrettable, but this system has gone from being a prize to being an enemy, and we cannot leave any strategic asset in place if we can help it, just in case we are forced to retreat.

The kinetic bombardment systems of the Badoon were special. Instead of simply launching giant rocks like most did, their systems launched prepared shells which could enter hyperspace for brief periods of time like communication drones before coming back out. They retained the speed they had going in, adding further kinetic energy to the impact they caused to the target.

If even three of those get through, the human issue will be dealt with and all that will remain will be their space assets and whatever specially-powered individuals are off planet at the time of destruction, Sasskhanna thought. Not the conquest I was hoping for, but I should receive some recognition for stopping another extra-system power from appearing on the galactic sphere.

OOOOOOO

"Hyperspace footprint indicates ten ships. Gravitic sensors indicate an unknown weight class. Checking; does not appear to be a Kree vessel we have information on nor a Skrull. We would need a visual to get further.… Wait.…" Pinoptes's voice cut off for a moment, then resumed. "Sensors indicate ten…twenty…thirty…four hundred smaller hyperspace splashes coming from the ten anomalies and climbing."

The AI's voice once more cut out, then came back sounding far more robotic than it had become of late, indicating how much of Pinoptes's attention had just been diverted to the literally millions of various sensor devices and stations that were scattered throughout the system by this point. "Before the new hyperspace splashes were detected there was a series of appreciable weight changes to the ships, as if some of its weight was lost, indicating the launching of a projectile or drone. Judging by the angle of the splashes being sunward rather than outward, I estimate a ninety percent chance that these splashes were created by a weapon of some unknown classification rather than a drone."

"Shiiiit.… Some kind of missile or a bombardment weapon, which Mar'vel was soo certain we wouldn't have to deal with in numbers. Yet again, here we are." Harry growled, shaking his head. "Pinoptes, record as many readings of that weapon as you can. If it has the kind of targeted range this attacks suggests, we might have just found a new primary weapon for Fortress Mars beyond the stellar cannons we've reverse-engineered from the Devastator. Carol, get the word out to the personnel on the hydrogen processor to abandon the facility; same goes for the two ships currently docked with it." Those two ships had been taking on fuel as part of their trial runs, having just been fully repaired and manned with scratch crews. But they would be sitting ducks, their ships immobile and lashed to the processor.

As the communications officers leaped to do that, Harry turned to the others who had followed him in. "Steve, get on the horn and get as many of our people up here as you can. We'll want them just in case we get a chance to board one of those ships. Pinoptes, power up the Verdun defense platforms. Hela, Ororo, grab some suits; you're with me. We'll see if we can interdict those weapons. Pinoptes, do whatever you can to stop them from firing off more of those things."

Jean, too, grabbed a pair of headsets, glaring at Harry for not mentioning her, though she knew why he hadn't. Still, her powers hadn't gone wonky enough to stop her from taking part in this. So long as I wear a spacesuit, anyway.

"I can stop the ships from firing further if I aim the Hyperspace Trap towards them rather than making it uni-lateral, but it will take the majority of our current power supply to reach out so far. Further, doing that will stop me from catching the projectiles that have already been fired," Pinoptes warned.

"Target those weapons for a two second burst—force them out of hyperspace—then target the ships. We'll have to rely on a close-in defense for this, or else they'll just toss so many at us we have no chance of stopping them all," Harry ordered, and Pinoptes hastened to obey.

"Sir, I have Admiral Powers on the line. The emergency medical rooms are also reporting; they are ready for any injured." These rooms were specially prepared rooms where the emergency teleportation wards would drop anyone they could port out before they died. Normally Ororo or Harry (or Kitty, if she was around) would be there to help heal the most severely wounded, but they had other matters to see to today and Una and the human doctors would have to see to the wounded on their own for now.

Harry hesitated, but then nodded resolutely. "Get Spur and Horseshoe out of here. Send them via jumps around the system until they are behind the attacking ships—we'll want to catch any drone they try to send back with information." Those were two of the cruisers that were only barely operational at this point, hence why they had been left in orbit over Mars unlike the rest of the ships both fully repaired and not. But their weapons were fully online along with their sensors.

"As for Powers, tell him he's the admiral; I'm not going to jog his elbow from here." Hela and several of the others looked at him in shock, Hela especially. She was very much in favor of a firm hand in military matters. But Harry shook his head firmly. "Let the EDF win its spurs." "They need to know they can handle this kind of attack without superpowered help, and I'll be better use elsewhere."

That caused Hela to pause and nod understanding. With that she reached out, and Harry teleported them all to their personal runic doorway, heading straight back to Earth.

Once they were in the castle, Harry continued to shout orders, pulling Torch out of whatever he had been up to in order to join the defense, with E already breaking atmosphere. He also roped in Laynia, Nikolai's sister, into joining them, despite the fact she no longer wanted to be a field agent. With Pinoptes's count of incoming shells still growing, they needed all hands on deck for this one.

Even with the Hyperspace Trap stopping the thousand plus projectiles from coming too close to Earth, the battle was hard simply because of the sheer amount of space in which they had to search for them. Like the Kree missiles, these projectiles were hard to spot, with only a tiny energy source and nothing else they could detect. Seeking spells didn't work on that wide an area; they had to rely on simply spreading out and using Arresto Momentum and other area of effect spells spread out as far as their magic could reach to slow the incoming rounds. It was tough, hard going even with the Verdun platform's aid, and using spells on that wide a scale—magical spells were not made to cross light years—quickly exhausted all the magic users. Many of the projectiles nearly hit atmosphere before they were destroyed, with one even smacking into it before it was finally demolished.

This all forced Harry to concentrate on this aspect of the battle entirely. Luckily, he had capable people in place to deal with it already.

OOOOOOO

Before the ball went up, Admiral Powers had been in his room on the Bowman, going over paperwork to do with the training exercise he had just overseen. Harry had attempted and, indeed, succeeded in pairing down the amount of paperwork needed to make the EDF work, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

In the background, the song 'Rule Britannia' was playing as he finished up the last officer's review he had to write up, and Powers smiled, hearing it. There was more truth in that song than most thought: where went the navy, there went Britain. Its fleet had been its sword and shield long before its army or air force, and Powers often thought that that was one reason why his king and, in turn, every officer seconded to the EDF from the home islands had jumped on the idea of the EDF. It was a way to, once more, bring the navy to prominence, even if the name had also changed. It was a highly egotistical, self-serving thought, Powers reflected, but it was surely a British one, and he was happy enough with it.

His smile disappeared, however, when alarms began to blare an instant before a voice shouted out from his intercom. "Admiral, we have an incoming hyperspace pulse. Captain Sandara's sounded general quarters across the flotilla and has ordered us to power up our combat systems."

Thinking quickly, Powers slammed a hand down on his intercom. "Tell the Raven squadron, Bowman, and the three frigates they are exempt from that. Tell them to go to full speed away from the pulse."

This was consistent with one of the plans his small, still being put together staff had created, and it was called Operation Suckerpunch. They hadn't trained for it yet, but he hoped the crews of those ships were up to what he was going to ask them to do. "I'll be there in twenty seconds."

There were two things he liked most about the EDF. First, the uniform was simple: black pants and a light blue undershirt coupled with a long coat in cobalt with a gold frock over it in formal situations. Even the officers' uniforms were simple and comfortable. They also could be transformed into space suits with the simple expediency of locking gloves in place on the thick sleeves, a bubble helmet to the equally reinforced neck piece, and hooking up a small air system.

The admiral grabbed the pack containing these items, raced out the door, and was soon on the flag deck, revealing the second thing he liked about working for the EDF: the officers' quarters were very near the secondary bridge. On the Bowman, the former Kree battleship currently serving as his flagship, this deck had been pressed into service as his flag deck, and he found his aides already all in place, working out what was going on.

Being informed about the fact that these ships had come out so far into the outer system that they couldn't be grabbed by the Hyperspace Trap in Fortress Mars, Powers nodded slowly, then turned to his communications officer and the screen showing Captain Sandara's face. His communications woman was a young Chinese officer, one of the two twin mutants who could share thoughts over any distance, even their senses. Sandara was a man of Rajput descent from India, one of the first men of that nation to have made the jump to the EDF and one of only four to have kept the rank they had in their home military. Sandara, like many others, had been blooded in battles against pirates, and in his case he had actually fought a comparable ship, a former American WWII destroyer which had wound up in pirate hands somehow and refitted with modern weapons against his own semi-modern destroyer.

"Barring orders from Grand Admiral Potter, we'll go with Operation Suckerpunch. Task Force Shadow is hereby ordered to go black, repeat, go black. Captain Sandara, my compliments and please relay to your fellow captains that the rest of Task Force Punch will form up on Bowman and make a straight line for the hostiles," Powers ordered.

The title Grand Admiral was both a correct label of Harry's position of authority in the EDF and a bit of a dig, which Harry well knew. He didn't have the training or knowledge necessary to be an admiral, but he had a good tactical mind and had come up with several plans like Suckerpunch to handle different methods of attack that Fortress Mars, for all its reach, couldn't quite deal with. Still, Harry knew his limitations in this area, and Powers hoped that wouldn't change.

"Aye aye, sir," the captain replied, saluting before turning away to obey.

At the same time the Chinese officer also relayed his orders. Barely a minute later, that worthy looked up and reported, "Sir, Admiral Potter says you have command out here. Pinoptes has reported those launches as possible missiles or kinetic weapons, and he and the rest of the Custodes will be busy dealing with that."

Shivering, Powers nodded brusquely to get rid of the feeling of dread he had just felt at those words. "In that case, get me a readiness report from all ships, and tell me the instant our non-gravitic scanners come within range of the enemy ships."

Going black like that would not protect a ship from being found if their enemy was already looking for them and had gravitic sensors. However, considering their starting point was within the Oort cloud, it was unlikely that they would be spotted as more than random debris if Admiral Whitaker gave the enemy something else to concentrate on, which he was very definitely going to do.

Of course, communications would've made those ships stand out even so. Further, in space there was no such thing as instant communication after you hit the light year range. But with the two Chinese mutants to pass along messengers, the admiral had the ability to communicate real time sensor and positioning data as well as actual communications, something he was going to use as ruthlessly as he could possibly get away with.

Soon their ships hit the range where their more fine tuned sensors began to work, and Whitaker turned to loom over his sensor specialist. "Talk to me," he ordered.

"They're heavy ships, somewhere below a dreadnaught in size, sir, but heavier than anything else we've seen or have a classification for," the man said to buy time as his sensors finally began to paint in the image he was seeing. "We're getting a lot of interesting readings off them now, sir. Heavy weapons, four main banks to a side. Um…a lot of energy output for even their size, though, judging by the speed they're moving at.… I think those generators of theirs are radiating so much radiation it would kill even a Kree, let alone us weak humans, in short order."

Whitaker's tactical officer came over and began to map out another weapons system on the direct forward, facing point, if such a word could be used to describe the ball shape of that portion of the ship. "Pinoptes reported that this was some kind of projectile bombardment system. But it's fixed. If we can keep out of its firing arc, I think we'll be good. None of the other weapon systems we're seeing time at this range are anything unusual.

"All ships to evade!" the admiral ordered, although, given the fact that his flag ship had been listening to this, all of the ships already had been. As he did, several warning lights blared, and the sensors reported that several large trajectory marks were shown passing through where some of the ships had been a moment ago. "I want all ships to go to full speed; spread out! Each battleship is to take command of five of the frigates; cruisers stay together and go low."

With what little training the crews of these ships had done together, attempting to stay in a fixed formation would have been a disaster, but Whitaker had more respect for their captains and helmsmen than their ability to work as a unit. The four battleship crews had had some time to train up together, but staying together in a attack formation would have limited their maneuverability, and, given the speed with those with which those projectiles traveled, somehow the admiral doubted even a battleship would be able to survive getting hit by one of those.

The voice of Pinoptes reached out to them, and the admiral looked up. "Admiral Whitaker, we have powered up the Hyperspace Trap and trained it on the enemy ships. Those projectiles of theirs won't be able to enter hyperspace any longer. But they are still traveling very, very fast when they're released, so be aware of them. You should, however, be able to destroy them once they are in space."

OOOOOOO

Sasskhanna saw the incoming flotilla and frowned. "Am I reading this correctly, worm?" he bellowed at his sensor officer. "Do those read as Kree ships?"

"They do, Your Mightiness," said his sensor officer tremulously. "But they're not moving to engage us as Kree ships would, oh virile prince!"

That was true, Sasskhanna reflected as he watched the formation, if it could be called that, break up. They were moving far faster than Kree battleships would have to engage them, putting a tremendous strain on their engines for a short amount of time, and, further, the frigates were not in a skirmish line in front of the battleships. Rather, each battleship was following a wall of five frigates. "They're not going for a broadside engagement,…" he said suddenly, realizing what was going to happen. "They're going to shoot past us in a firing pass instead. Lock all weapons onto those ships! Priority is to be given to the battleships; do not let them get past us."

"My Lord, what about the cruisers?"

The cruisers had dived downwards in spatial terms and looked to be trying to come up underneath the Badoon fleet. "Ignore them! Target them with secondaries if they come within range, but keep fire on those battleships as they close with our main cannons. If we defeat the larger ships in detail as they are offering us, we can clean up the rest of this riffraff easily."

"My most perspicacious Lord, I regret to say we are experiencing difficulties with our remaining kinetic bombardment projectiles," said one of his weapons officers tremulously. "They are not going into hyperspace as they should."

"Great Prince, sensors indicate some kind of gravity well has suddenly popped up into existence all around us!" shouted another Badoon worker at the same time. "We're trapped here!"

"Fools!" Sasskhanna barked, though at first his officers didn't know if he meant them or the enemy. "That's too little, too late. Hundreds of our projectiles are already on their way to the planet and to that other fortress-like structure on the other planet deeper in the system. Once those hit, whatever is holding us here will be destroyed. Their attempt to hold us here just means we'll need be able to deal with this fleet first. Can we still fire the projectiles?"

"Yes, Most Mighty! But they will not be going very fast in spatial terms. They will be able to be shot down."

"Yet, even so, they will force the enemy to remain on its current plan of a limited engagement, which will in turn allow us to deal with each group in turn. Fire!"

Moments later the two fleets came within range of one another, and they began to fire their normal weapons.

With the frigates concentrating on destroying any of the kinetic bombardment weapons they spotted, the battleships zoomed in, unloading their ordinance as they flashed past the slow Badoon ships, coming in at an angle that forced the Badoon to try and twist with them to bring their broadsides to bear, but they weren't quite able to. By that point the former Kree ships were going about as fast as they could, and the computers of both sides couldn't quite compensate for that speed.

Hits were few and far between at first, then the cruisers opened up, zooming through the battle at even faster speed than the battleships had been going, straight through the Badoon formation. They had an advantage, however, because the Badoon ships were not moving on the same angle as they were and were further moving far more slowly. All seven of them targeted a single Badoon ship, one whose shields had already taken a few hits, and, as they zoomed out of the formation, that ship came apart, exploding soundlessly in space.

Yet by the time the third and fourth battleship groups flashed past, the Badoon ships had been able to correct for the relativistic speeds of the two forces. Both of those forces, including the Bowman, took a hammering now. Shields flickered and began to fade on the capital ships, and two of the frigates died, exploding under a few stray blasts from one of the Badoon's main broadsides. But the ships were twisting this way and that, letting the shields take the pounding and never letting just one sector face the Badoon long enough to get knocked down.

Yet, despite that and the fact that these humans had figured out a way to block their projectile bombardment weapons, Sasskhanna was pleased with how the battle was going. Loss of a ship to those cruisers was concerning, but their speed would take them out of the battle for a while. Now his fleet could turn and continue to fire on the battleships, which were the real threat here.

"My Great Lord!" said one of his men in alarm. "Our shields are fading. Request permission to start rotating as we turn to continue the engagement."

"Of course, damn your incompetence! The helmsman should have been doing that already," Sasskhanna said absentmindedly, then went back to staring at the plot. Another of the human, or Kree—after all, it was possible they were dealing with the blue-skinned fools despite their new tactics—frigates died under their fire, and he smirked victoriously.

"My Prince, we are out of projectile weapons!"

"Irritating," he said, waving that man off as well. "But not important any longer. With the planet already dealt with and the fortress soon to become rubble, we can win this fight easily enough."

The weapons officer in charge of their primary weapon system gulped. "My, my most beneficent Lord, perhaps you do not understand. But the kinetic bombardment weapons, we, we have begun to lose telemetry data from the projectiles we fired towards the third and fourth planets."

Sasskhanna looked up at that, his face creased into a snarl that showed his fangs in a display of aggression as he crossed the distance between his control point and that man's position. "Explain, fool!" he roared, reaching out and grabbing the other Badoon around the throat.

For a second the other male's gurgling only enraged him further, then, with a sigh, he realized what was happening and released his grip. "Explain," he ordered as his ship rocked under a blow that had gotten through its shielding.

The lower caste male cringed, then did what a Badoon of his caste did best: he attempted to shift the blame to someone else. "My Lord, I cannot say what is going on. All I know is, we are losing telemetry data on the projectiles. For anything else you would have to ask the sensor specialist."

"Dammit! These humans certainly are clever," Sasskhanna mused, leaving the male on the ground there before moving over to the male manning the sensors. Before he could get there, however, the Badoon prince got another taste of that cleverness.

"My Lord! Strange looking shuttlecraft have just appeared behind.…" That was the last word spoken before all hell let loose as if the demons of the beyond had reached out for his and his sailors' souls.

OOOOOOO

The Ravens were the only ships that had so far been retrofitted with both weapons systems that Reed Richards had come up with, the graviton cannon and the phasing energy beam. Those weapons were large, larger than most Kree weapons, and the blue boy ships would have to be retrofitted with them. The four battleships had been fitted with three batteries of the phasing energy beam, but they didn't do any damage against shields.

The graviton cannon, however, worked very, very well against shielding. Especially when all twelve Ravens fired at a single target as they roared up from behind the alien ships, one after another, while the Badoon were attempting to concentrate on the battleships and their smaller escorts. The frigates followed them in, their own weapons blasting point blank range.

Large segments of the Badoon's shields went down on every ship, and the admiral quickly ordered the next maneuver. "Fire as you bear! All battleships slow and move to engage the enemy at point blank range! Cross the T, repeat, cross the T!"

The Badoon ships had panicked, almost. Their shields had been ripped down by ships they would term as little more than planet-to-orbit shuttles. Even as they smashed back, most of their shots missed, with one of their ships blasted apart by a new kind of weapon system that turned their armor into nuclear blasts, tearing it apart. No longer acting in tandem, they nearly hit each other several times, though three of the Ravens popped out of existence, immolated under a wave of fire. And the two frigates had to race away with both of them heavily damaged, but were not destroyed outright.

So busy were the Badoon with the Ravens, they didn't notice the battleships coming back into the fight. Moving far slower now, the four battleships lined up their shots with a calm, cool deliberation. Then they crossed the T, moving in line right in front of two of the Badoon ships, blasting their broadsides straight down the ship's prow.

Three more of the remaining Badoon ships came apart within a few minutes of this bombardment, though they hit back, twisting this way and that to bring their own broadsides to bear as they quickly tried to shift fire from the little demon ships who were still tearing away their shielding. But the damage was done, and then the cruisers came roaring back in. Their part of the fight hadn't been as well managed as the ambush by the Ravens, but, even so, they hit hard now.

The battle continued for several more minutes, with the Badoon unable to retreat and unwilling to surrender. One of the battleships, the Adamant, under an American captain, was mauled heavily and fell out of formation, leaking atmosphere and other fluids into space as if it was a living thing. But at last, the last Badoon ship was blown up out space.

After last Badoon ship exploded on his plot, Admiral Whitaker sighed, leaning back in his crash chair, utterly exhausted. Overhead he heard his flag captain stand the ship down from battlestations, which would send even more men out to help the repair crews and would, in spaces like the flag bridge, allow the men and women to remove their helmets. Whitaker did so now, breathing in deeply for several minutes before getting down to business once more.

"Communications, get on the line to Fortress Mars. I pray that those emergency portkey systems worked, or else we just lost a lot of fine people. Sensors, work with communications. I want a full damage report from all ships. Tactical, find me five of the least damaged frigates to stay out here and mark this battlefield. The scientists might want to go over the debris."

There wasn't much of that, he reflected. Whatever was done to the Badoon ships to make them that fast and yet that strong in shielding made their generators very volatile when they were damaged. There might be a few chunks of outer hull, maybe one or two bodies flung into space by hits dealt earlier in the running fight, but he doubted there would be much more than that.

OOOOOOO

While they couldn't stop instant deaths from happening, the emergency portkeys did work. The EDF had nearly a hundred seventy-nine dead, but they had over two thousand who would have died without those portkeys, although despite Ororo and Harry using Ororo's healing spells on them not one of them would be good for duty for several weeks. Having to power jumping from that far away had hit the metabolism of all the survivors hard, burning calories as if they had been on a marathon run for weeks while fasting at the same time. They would be eating like starving men for weeks, so much so that it would have a noticeable impact on Fortress Mars's food stores.

But everyone from Harry on down knew that the EDF had won this fight. That the Earth Defense Force, without anything in the way of help from superpowered individuals, had done it; they had stopped an enemy fleet. Admittedly, they wouldn't have been able to protect Earth from the projectile weapons, but Harry certainly wasn't going to point that out to anyone.

Seeing to the wounded took hours, and finished the job of thoroughly exhausting Harry and Ororo, and at the end of it, they had to return to the atrium. Stepping out onto the plateau, the two of them were immediately inundated by hundreds of questions, but he held up a hand wearily and moved to the table to grab a carafe of water and drain it before saying anything. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you know doubt have figured out by now, we had a bit of an emergency. An unknown alien force jumped into the system and immediately began a long-range kinetic bombardment of Earth. They had a few tricks up their sleeve, but myself and the Custodes were able to stop the projectile weapons from getting close to Earth."

Harry went on after draining another cup of water. "As the Custodes were doing that, the Earth Defense Fleet, such as it is, under Admiral Whitaker, engaged the aliens. He was able to achieve victory, but not without cost. I will make a formal statement in front of the media tomorrow morning as soon as I have a full list of the dead and wounded. I have ordered Admiral Whitaker back to Mars, and he should be here in a few hours. For now, let us set aside questions of the battle. I will have people show you to your temporary quarters for the evening or back to the gateways if you wish to head home. But please do not press them or anyone else for more information on the battle. We don't know who these aliens were, only that they used weapons systems that were very different from the Kree or any other alien race our prisoners have fought before.

"We also know that they were very bloody-minded," Harry finished grimly. "The bombardment that they targeted on Earth would have smashed our civilization back into the Stone Age. Now, if you'll excuse me," he said after draining yet another cup of water. "I need some bloody sleep." With that he left the atrium, causing shouts of anger and affront to amass as other people came in, moving to take charge of the different delegations and groups and gesturing them out the door.

William looked up as his son moved to his side and helped him rise. "And did you have fun?"

His son rolled his eyes. "Oh, indeed, Father. I had a front row seat…to watching little red dots and blue ones disappear on a screen. Even so, I don't think this is the proper time to press Mister Potter on the idea of colonization; he is not going to be amenable now."

"No doubt," William said, glancing over at the Chinese and American representatives, who both frowned but eventually nodded agreement. "I don't suppose you gentlemen would like to join me in the quarters I've been assigned for the night? If, that is, you hadn't made your own plans?"

Hours later there were smiles and cheers all around as the EDF ships who had been involved in the battle returned to Mars. Most of them remained in orbit, but more than a few, led by the Adamant, were heading down into the new dry dock for repairs.

Their crews, on the other hand, all came down in shifts to many shaking hands and smiles from their fellows and from the delegates and others who were quick to grab at this momentous PR moment. Carol and MJ organized this, along with Steve and Duncan, getting together a regimental band for the occasion, not just for the incoming crews, but for the formerly injured as well, bringing in their loved ones and friends to cheer them up.

While this was going on, Harry and his high command debriefed Admiral Powers. "I don't want a full after action report, Jacob," Harry said, waving Powers back into his chair in the pickup. "I don't even want you working on it for the rest of today, you've earned some downtime. Right now, I just want your impressions on the flotilla, how it fought, what your impressions were. You can tell us more about your impressions on the enemy in the AAR."

"We need more Ravens," Jacob Powers said simply. "The weapons Mr. Richards devised are amazing, and I'd love to see them on our ships, but the Ravens, the enemy had no answer to them. Ships that small seemed to take them completely by surprise, and their systems couldn't track them very well. They had weapons which could target small objects, but not enough to have all around protection, and they seemingly couldn't deal with the Raven's dodging around."

He paused, then shrugged. "More Ravens, and maybe more shielding for our capital ships. Double up their defenses since I think our offensive power will be more potent than the number of weapon systems might suggest."

Harry waited to see if Jacob had more to say, but when it was clear he didn't, nodded and moved on. "Alright, now give us a brief piece on your tactics, something I can tell the newsies and the other civilians. Then, I think you've got a reception to get to."

With MJ's help Harry incorporated what Jacob told Harry and the others into a speech and a public announcement. They didn't know yet much about this new species other than their name, which Mar'vel supplied after being told about the ships and how they fought: the Badoon. Sifting through a battlefield several light years wide for debris was going to take a very long time, even with Jean and the Scarlet Witch doing the sifting from one of their cruisers.

After his speech, Harry gathered the delegates along with William and asked them if they had any questions about the battle or about Mars and the plans going forward. When they didn't, and didn't have any other further questions for him, he led them all back to the Gateway except for William and the two he and his ladies had picked up who wanted to speak to him about something else.

"We want to talk about colonization," Williams said bluntly. "Colonization rights and ability."

"Rights are one thing," Harry said with a shrug. "Ability is another. I have been thinking about it, honestly, but the how will differ greatly from one planet to another. However, what exactly are you going to pay with?" he asked, leaning forward with a smile as he felt Emma's interest rise behind him.

OOOOOOO

No smile was in sight as Harry looked at the blood covering literally every surface of the small kitchen he was currently standing in. He, Dani, Hela, and Ororo were in a house in downtown Detroit, the home of a poor family, two of whom, the father and the oldest son, had been working for Harry. They had both been taking training in how to work in a space environment as miners but were among the thousands of Americans who, now that it was on offer, preferred to come home after training. They hadn't reported back in, and their supervisor, another man from Detroit, had decided to just stop by and see what was going on. He'd promptly called the police, and Harry had discovered what had happened a little bit after.

The entire family had been killed here in their own kitchen. This consisted of a father, a mother, two kids in their teens, and their oldest, a twenty-four-year-old who had lived at home. All of them had been of Hispanic heritage and had been murdered in as bloody a manner as possible.

"The police report seems to indicate that the police felt someone owed money to the wrong people, and one insensitive detective stated that it was probably a good thing that the kids had all been boys. What might've happened to girls of a family who owed the wrong people money didn't bear thinking about," Ororo said, her blue eyes chips of ice as she bowed her head in prayer for the five innocents who had died here.

That callousness struck Harry as just wrong, coming from a policeman, but Harry supposed that the man just simply saw too much horror to feel anything. Chicago and Detroit were known as the twin crime centers in America at this point, thanks in part to organized crime taking a major hit in New York, thanks to Spider-Man, and all of California, thanks to the Fantastic Four, and shifting to those cities.

Unlike the policeman, Harry did feel something. He felt fury, as did Hela, judging by the fact that she was simply standing there, vibrating in place, her hands clenched on her sword at her side and her new vambrace glowing with her wrath. These had been his people for all that they were Americans, not his actual citizens. Two of them had worked for Harry, and they could've used the money they were earning to lift their family out of this place and whatever trouble they had been in. That was enough.

Moreover, Harry wondered if this might've been a deliberate attack for another reason. There had been other incidents, men and women known to work for him as miners and so forth being attacked when they were at home, their families being stalked. None, though, had reached this level. While most of the time Harry was willing to let local authorities see to such, this was different and demanded a response.

The police weren't even going to open up an investigation, not having the manpower and, frankly, not having the reach into the Hispanic community here to follow up on any leads they could find in the first place. Harry had other resources. "Dani? I know this to be unpleasant, and I hate to ask it of you but.…"

Dani shrugged, trying to put on a brave face. "Blood doesn't bother me much, Harry. Nor does violence, as you should know by now."

"There's a difference between taking part in violence and seeing it happen without being able to do anything," Ororo said gently, touching her shoulder in turn as Hela did the same with her head. "And whatever happened here, it was ugly."

"I know, but whatever I can do to help to bring these down, I'll do it," Dani replied firmly.

With that Dani knelt down and touched the ground where one of the chalk outlines was, carefully not touching the blood splatters with her fingers as she looked around. She then closed her eyes and summoned up her mutant power. Part of her power allowed Dani to communicate with animals and even commune with nature, which had made her the hunter that she was. But her power was devoted to feeling out the empathy of people and places, backwards in time. With enough of a feeling suffusing an area, she could re-create what had occurred in the form of images. And here, here there had been a lot of pain and a lot of fear.

An instant later, all around them, the images began to appear. They watched two men enter the kitchen, the younger man grinning and giving the older man the finger, something that, Dani thought absentmindedly, would never have occurred to her to do to any elder. Then both of them paused as seven men around the kitchen pointed guns at them.

These men were done up like a mix of pop-rockers and, oddly, some kind of crazed clowns or band members, like a few of the wilder groups Dani had seen in videos. One of them even had his head uncovered, showing a wild mane of blonde hair, a face done up with far too much cosmetics, and a wild grin on his face. He had stars painted or tattooed around his eyes and teeth that looked almost like that of a crocodile.

What happened then was horribly unpleasant, and Dani soon found herself outside, throwing up what she had been eating for the past few days. Harry was beside her, gently rubbing her back and shaking his head as Hela and Ororo stood nearby, regaining control of themselves. Of all of them only Harry hadn't been sick, with even Hela turning away and running outside to get some fresh air. He had seen worse after the Death Eaters had had their fun.

Eventually Dani recovered enough to sit up right and shake her head. "I, I've got enough of an empathic sense off one of them, I think," she muttered, shaking her head. "I should be able to find him, given time."

No voice or words could come through Dani's ability, but there had been some signs there that Harry took to mean that the police might have been onto something when they said that the parents owed people money, and he said so now, not removing his hand from Dani's back. "I'll get Emma and some of her people on that aspect and the past of this family. Most of what happened here was deliberate sadism, but that group was set on that family by someone else. I want both the one who ordered it and the group which carried it out."

He frowned thoughtfully, then asked "Who else would you take to hunt these people down?"

Dani frowned in thought, then slowly said, "I don't think I'd take anyone, unless I can have Wolvering, Giau Su and Coyote? Nikolai too, maybe, but he would probably refuse to go unless you ordered it, sir, and even then his heart wouldn't be in it. He is really becoming more and more concerned with the upcoming Russian issue."

Harry winced at that. Both Nikolai and Garnoff had been talking his ear off about how to try to get Russia to the table, but Russia simply refused to talk to him, calling Harry's position and activities an American plot in the news, and what propaganda that was coming out of the country was not good. Someone was trying to whip the Russian populace up into a frenzy about 'regaining their rightful lands,' and other such, and it was working

Luckily for all concerned, there had been no further mutant deaths in Russia, simply because no further mutants had been born there, or, at least, so Harry supposed. But Nikolai was itching for a chance to go in and see if they could root out the aliens who he was convinced were the cause of the problem. Harry wasn't so certain about that, but at the moment that was a problem too convoluted for them to solve without being given an opening.

"And frankly, sir, this is going to be as much an investigation as a hunt, and none of the others have any powers or abilities that would help us there or even any background experience except maybe Logan."

Harry looked at her closely, then nodded. "If you want just the three of them, Dani, you've got them. Just find me a target, Ghigau; that's all I'll need."

"You'll have it, my Jarl," Dani replied formally, causing Harry to twitch and Hela to let out a slight chuckle at the choice of honorific.

Later that day Dani prepared for the hunt in her own way. She spent the morning saying goodbye to her friends, exchanging hugs with Amara and others, then spent a few hours just tramping through the woods with the kids before sending them back off to the castle to warm up.

Several minutes later found Dani meditating alone in front of a fire, her hands in front of her in a triangle as she pushed past the horror of the executions she had just witnessed via her powers, pushed past the event entirely and sifted through the emotive signature of those who had done the deed. Most of them were indistinct, but, thinking back on it, she could make out the mark of one of the others, one of the chief cameramen. That gave her two people to look for with her mutant powers, one of whom she had seen enough to be able to track physically.

Opening her eyes, she stared into the fire for several seconds, then bent down to the tiny cairn she had created with a few rocks and other totems in front of it. Prominent were two bear claws and a large falcon feather. Dani had hunted and killed them all, including one of the bears, which had been rabid at the time. The falcon, though, was the one she was proudest of, having taken it while the bird flew on the wing in a killing dive.

Bowing over the cairn, she sent her thoughts out, not to the totems of her people, but to the Aesir goddess she felt closest too. "Skadi, lady of the hunt, hear my call. Guide my senses so that I might find the trail of these monsters. Aid my eyes that I might see true, so that I can bring the dead justice," she murmured.

Hela had walked her through this ceremony earlier that day, but then left Dani to meditate on her own. Hela was many things, but she was no huntress. She just hoped that Skadi, who she had met but briefly to her memory, would be able to hear this particular prayer despite Midgard being cut off from the realms of Yggdrasil.

Dani was not surprised by the deep, rumbling growl of a voice behind her. "Would that I could go with you, young huntress. From what my mistress told me, these monsters in human flesh need killing."

The young Cheyenne turned to look at Garm, coming out of the cold, windswept forest like the earliest nightmares of man-made flesh, but for all his dangerous appearance, she simply smiled. "I know, and I wish I could have you along too. Your experience would be invaluable. But your duty is to your mistress, and while this is a hunt, it is smaller than one such as you should be tasked with." Then Dani smirked. "Besides, you'd be miserable hunting through a city. It isn't nearly as clean as a forest, and even covered with spells I'd bet your presence would make itself known."

Garm huffed, then turned away. "I will not wish you good luck, young one. A huntress of your skill needs no such. Simply keep your eyes sharp and your hands steady, and that will see you through."

Smirking at the gruff animal's way of wishing her well, Dani picked up Sigyn's Gift and moved through the forest back to Hogwarts.

There she found Logan, Shiang-Chi and Wyatt waiting for her in casual clothing, much like Dani was for all that she had been tromping through the woods. Nearby a house elf waited to bring them to New York at the Xavier Mansion, where they would pick up a truck to take and use in their hunt in Chicago. "Let's go."

OOOOOOO

Somewhere in the massive foliage of the even more monstrously huge tree of Yggdrasil, that prayer, among many, had an impact. Perhaps it was because Dani was indeed a huntress in a time when few real such remained who followed the ways of the Asatru faith. Perhaps it was because, as a convert, her power of faith was a little more strident. Perhaps it was because of the magically imbued area, or that Gaea subtly helped it along as she had begun to do with all such. After all, just because she preferred not to act should not be taken as a sign that she didn't have VIEWS on the Shadows and what they had done to her old lover and his people.

"Just picture it there. We stand by the lady's door as She waits with bated breath to hear her fate. Ah, didst I most want to beat the horrible little dwarf's head in. Verily, such as Alviss daring to touch a dove of Asgard like her? The body shudders. But her father didst make the agreement in good faith for the dwarf's aid in crafting a weapon for himself. Not that it was worth much in the end," Volstagg bellowed in laughter, smiling and waving a haunch of meat around as if it was a sword, nearly braining Hogun, who sat beside him around the fire. "Why, I tell you true, it shattered the instant it did meet my own in later combat. Ah, how he and I came to blows is an even better tale!"

"Nay, my loud friend, you know the rules of the campfire. You must finish one tale before giving over the floor to another. There shall be no trickery, no adding one tale to another," Fandral quipped.

"The overly pretty one has the right of it," Sif said with a smirk of her own. "Yet I do notice you have been most careful not to use any names but the dwarf's in this tale, fat one."

"Thy tongue is ever sharp, dear Sif. After all, is it not the heart of chivalry not to name a lady who might have been so wronged, or, indeed, a father so foolish?" Volstagg retorted, but moved on with his tale. "But the dwarf, being nearly blind save with his hands, did not realize I was not of the house myself. So I did come up with a most crafty scheme. It was pushing midnight, you see. Such as dwarves cannot abide the touch of sunlight, as we all know."

"Ah, I see where this is going!" Thor bellowed in laughter, clapping his large friend on the shoulder. "How did you convince him to hold his suit until daylight?"

This was the best part of being home in Asgard, to Thor's mind: the easy camaraderie and the mead, of course. While the battles were not as telling just yet and he had chafed to return to Midgard, this quest, for all that it was taking over long, had allowed him time to re-forge bonds he had neglected since being introduced to humans and the changed world of Earth.

"You skip ahead, my mighty friend, but very well. After a time I have convinced Alviss that I was the true patriarch of the family and that the agreement was not valid just yet. That to win my favor Alviss had to had to impress me with his deeds and beat me best two out of three in a game of chance and learning! As if such a little man could impress on such as the Mighty Volstagg." Vlostagg guffawed again.

From there Volstagg went on, lavishing the tale of this impromptu flyting with all the detail of such things, but Skadi was no longer listening. Instead she was looking up, as if she had heard a sound at the edge of her hearing. Staring out into the the foliage beyond the light of their morning campfire, Skadi strained her ears to listen past the sounds of booming laughter and camaraderie behind her. Not that any of the others noticed.

The party had been climbing down the ancient World Tree for nearly two months now, their progress slowed because of the morning mists and the need to rest. Even gods felt the impact of climbing Yggdrasil, the World Tree, sapping their wills by its sheer size. Luckily there was game aplenty living among the bowers of Yggdrasil, and they ate well every day. The others were still enjoying it despite the length of the quest, Thor most of all. But Skadi was a more solitary individual and occasionally she wanted to, for example, break Fandral's balalaika over his head. If he attempts to flirt with me again, I swear I'll do it!

Now, though, she was not concentrating on that. She was instead looking around for a moment in silence.

For their part, the Shadows watched this and were pleased. The illusions and other misdirection-type traps they had set up for anyone trying to find Níðhöggr had caught Thor and his fellows. They were so caught in the illusion that they had basically been climbing the same portion of the World Tree every week without even noticing it, up and down.

Yet, despite the fact that their traps were working along with the war between the Dark Elves and Asgard continuing to escalate, the Shadows also felt a bit of consternation and worry. With Hela and Niflheim gone, cut off from the rest of the realms of Yggdrasil, so too was their ability to influence Hela gone. But for some reason the connection between Niflheim and the rest of the pocket dimension created by the joint will of all those within, and, most importantly, Odin, was not.

It wasn't quite one of their tethers, but it was pulling at their control in some fashion they had not anticipated. It was almost like when Thor was on Earth, only worse. The prayers of the Faithful were oddly getting through at times now, and they were having an impact, strengthening the gods in ways the Shadows had not predicted. The Shadows, of course, knew they could take of that sustenance , but even so the Asgardians too were regaining some of their old strengths, and, while the Shadows could slow that, they could not stop all the prayers from getting through.

So it was that Skadi felt the prayer of Dani. "See my target; see the trail true," she murmured, frowning as her eyes glimmered like rainbows with god-light, shaking her head and nodding down the nearby mountainous trunk. "Come, fellows, we must be away, lest you want this mere female to claim all the glory?"

Sif laughed and moved to join her while the men grumbled but stood up quickly, clearing the camp. Then they moved toward the monstrous tree trunk and began to climb, not down as they should have, but up! Skadi barked out a shout of, "Halt, fools! I know you lot like to jape, but climbing upward when we should be heading down is beyond foolish."

Looking at her in confusion, Thor stared then at the tree trunk under his hands. "Skadi, are you feeling well? We are climbing down, as we have for many days now."

"You were just going up, Thor!" Skadi said, moving over to them and tying a rope to each of them in turn before glaring at Fandral. "And if you say I am trying to make a joke, know that it is most certainly not my way!"

As they were tied to the goddess of the hunt, the other Asgardians twitched, as if shaking off a fly, and they followed her downwards without further ado. As they all did so, Skadi scowled, thinking hard. What was that? Some kind of, of mental trap, perhaps? Thor and the others, they did not truly realize what was going on. But what kind of power could ensnare us all like that?

Nor was she alone in thinking about what had just occurred. Thor, Sif, and Tyr were also thinking about it, in particular Tyr, who was most disturbed by the idea that his senses could be muddled so. They climbed in silence for a time, spreading out slightly as they all took in their surroundings, with four of their party now doing so with far more intent gazes then previously. No longer were they just going through a wild forest full of dangerous animals. Now they were traveling through enemy territory, even if the enemy was unseen for now.

As the foliage around them lightened with the sun moving overhead, Thor finally decided to broach this shared thought. He looked around at his fellows, all of them tied to one another as they descended, and cleared his throat. "I think we need to speak of what happened earlier this morn. Skadi, it was you who did free us from the illusion. How long dost.…"

At that point there was a snarling, chittering sound, loud as Volstagg bellowing, and the Asgardians found themselves beset by all sides. Not by any enemy they had ever thought to fight, though. No, they were suddenly attacked by.…

"I thought there was only Ratatoskr!?" Tyr shouted as he freed his sword from his back, swinging it at the first of the, yes, giant squirrels that were charging at them from every direction. They were huge, easily the size of any of them even discounting the large brushes for tails, which doubled their length. Their paws were tipped with claws that gleamed almost like iron, and their teeth were flat-tipped like any squirrel, but were the size of a large axe. And there were dozens of them, climbing toward them from every direction.

"Apparently we were wrong, and, of course, squirrels multiply like rats!" Skadi shouted, the earlier conversations and concerns leaving her mind as a squirrel barreled into her from the side. She attempted to smack it to one side but only succeeded in keeping its axe-like teeth from her side. The thing's body continued thrusting forward, smashing into her and knocking her off the side of the trunk.

Luckily she was tied to all the others and swung there for a moment, battling the squirrel and getting many a cut for her troubles before landing a blow in one large eye. The squirrel yipped in pain, and, in an instant, Skadi's free hand flashed down to her waist, pulling out a large hunting knife out and stabbing it into the thing's neck. The Ratatoskr stiffened and she put a foot up, kicking the corpse away.

Elsewhere the others found themselves equally beset.

Hogun grunted in pain as one Ratatoskr bit him in the leg, only the armor on his thigh keeping it from shearing the limb off, but still drawing blood. He lost his mace, the weapon falling down into the endless depths beneath them. Another attempted to tear his head off, only to be blocked by the helmet he wore just long enough for Hogun to reach up and grab it by its throat with his free hand, hurling it out and away from him before thumping several blows down on the Ratatoskr gnawing at his leg.

"Foolish animals! Squirrels are not a threat to warriors; they are but dinner! Dinner does not eat Volstagg; Volstagg eats dinner!" Volstagg bellowed, slamming out with the powerful blows that were his hallmark almost as much as Thor, even as he still clung to the trunk.

"Get to the nearest branch! We need ground under us to work with!" Sif shouted. She and Tyr had been the only ones able to free their blades before the horde of Ratatoskr was on them and were lashing out to either side, but, given the fact they couldn't turn to really engage their enemies without losing their grip on the trunk, they were still being pressed hard.

Looking around them, Thor used a small cooking knife to cut at the rope tying him to his fellows. Battering aside one Ratatoskr with a solid blow from one hand, he roared and leaped downward, landing on a nearby branch. A Ratatoskr who attempted to intercept him met Mjöllnir in the face, which he had pulled out midair. Thor's flight continued through the bloody shattered form of the squirrel, tossing it to one side and then turning, hurling Mjöllnir up towards a Ratatoskr and smashing it as it attempted to attack Sif from above. "Skadi, to me!" he roared, while other Ratatoskr attacked him now from every side, not even pausing as Mjöllnir returned to him, the foolish creatures.

Yet with Thor's feet under him he could use both fists and even kicks several times. The Ratatoskr were quick and dangerous, but they didn't fight as a real hunting pack of animals would, getting in each other's way, and Thor now bellowed in laughter, having fun as he easily crushed or threw them aside with wide sweeps of his hand and hammer.

Skadi grunted and cut herself free as well, going into free fall for a moment before almost dislocating her shoulder when she grabbed at a large leaf, flipping herself up to another branch. She had lost her bow, something Skadi was furious about, and she too laid into any Ratatoskr that came near her.

Sif and Tyr moved together, protecting one another as they made their way to the same branch that Thor was on. They still were wounded multiple times by Ratatoskr attacking their legs or their heads, but got there. Bloody and sore, they moved to stand back to back cutting any Ratatoskr that came at them.

But that still left the warriors three. Fandral had been the topmost of the group, and he retreated up to the nearest bough. He had been nearly knocked off the tree by a giant squirrel bodily dropping on him, but he leaped for the bough just in time and clung there to one of the smaller branches, kicking the clinging squirrel off his legs before climbing up to the one he'd originally been going for. Weaponless, he had to rely on battering the Ratatoskr away with his balalaika and took several bites and cuts from the blood-maddened beasts.

"Away, beasts, away! You will all feed even Mighty Volstagg for many a year after this battle is done!" Volstagg roared. He had made his way to a small branch like the one Fandral had clung to and, in a moment of cleverness most would not have credited him with, tied himself there with the rope that the others had cut away from themselves. This allowed Volstagg to use both hands like the others who had made it to safety, even though he too had lost his massive great sword in the initial rush and was bleeding badly from many wounds. Yet, unlike the others, he had enough natural armor to his girth that none of the wounds were all that debilitating.

Hogun had been completely knocked off the tree. Grabbing the giant squirrel which had smashed him off his perch, with its tail of all things, he had smashed its head there while he hung there for a moment connected to Tyr and Sif, who had been closest, until one of the other beasts had bitten through the rope. Then all three had fallen, with the still living Ratatoskr angling its fall so as to hit the trunk and climbing after the others.

But Hogun wasn't dead yet. He grimaced and twisted so that the body of his former foe was between him and the tree branch far below, using it to mitigate some of the impact. Grunting, he rolled free of the splattered corpse, only to blink as he came nearly forehead to blade with Volstagg's greatsword. Looking around, he sighed when he saw no sign of his mace. "Verily both good and ill luck here, I think. Still, far be it from one such as I to turn away from such a gift from that most fickle of maidens."

Grasping the greatsword with both hands, he cut the first giant squirrel in half, crossways, and then limped to put his back into a small crevice in the branch, protecting himself from being attacked form the side as he swung the heavy blade, each time nearly throwing off his balance but unwilling to go to his knees in front of such animals. "Come then, meat! Come to Hogun."

Despite being separated, the warriors of Asgard were eventually able to slaughter enough of the odd herd of Ratatoskr to force the few remaining to retreat. With a series of angry chitters they were gone, disappearing into the foliage all around them. Staring after them, Thor shook his head. "Well, I think that was perhaps the oddest fight I've ever been in."

"Look at the bright side," Skadi shouted up at him gruffly. "At least we have enough food to last us for years.

"You're disgusting," Sif bellowed back. Then, with a sigh, she sheathed her blade and moved down to help Hogun, who she could barely make out below them.

As they began to gather together, none of them, not even Skadi, saw another illusion settling around them.

OOOOOOO

While Shadows continued to crawl in Asgard and the still unnamed shape-shifting, magic using aliens in Russia stirred the country to war, there were yet other problems brewing, distant yet from Earth, but which would impact Harry and everyone else who lived there.…

Thanos smiled as he looked down at the leader of the Chitauri, laying one massive, burn-marked hand on the being's head. He could easily have crushed the being's skull, and, judging by the way it trembled, the High Primarch knew it. But he didn't. The burning city, if such a term could be used to describe the current home of the Chitauri, made his point for him. As do the dozens of ships in orbit I personally destroyed.

"I accept your obeisance," he said instead of indulging in further violence. "I have need of you and your people."

Holding up his other hand he created a hologram showing Earth and its galactic coordinates. "This is Earth. It is ripe for conquest, but is on its guard against normal space-based threats. But with your dimensional warping, you can bypass any defense. That is what makes you and your eternally traveling race the threat it is, even to the greater powers out here. I want its people smashed. I want its heroes slaughtered. I want to build a mountain of skulls to my Lady," he said, his voice becoming more and more manic with each word.

"We can do that, my lord," the High Primarch said quickly. "It will take time for us to move within striking range, judging from those coordinates, but once there, and once the dimensional doorway is opened on the other side, our people can pour through. But, my lord.…" He hesitated, then asked hurriedly, "I mean no offense, but how will we infiltrate the planet in order to use our gateways? They must be opened from both sides, after all."

Thanos smiled, having regained control of himself as the Chitauri spoke. He now turned to look over at Loki, who was standing nearby, staring around him at the burning city. "Well, Loki, I have an army now. Are you ready to go through with your part of the plan when the time comes?"

"Of course, Great Thanos," Loki said with a florid bow. "You will have the Earth, and I will have Asgard. This is a simple and profitable agreement for both of us.…"

OOOOOOO

Galactus stared down at the husk of his latest meal before straightening up, his constructed tools dissipating and return to the pocket dimension he held them in as his ship, a nearly planet sized construct on its own, opened, and he strode up into it. "That meal was mildly pleasant but not filling enough, my herald. I must have more soon. Leave now. Find me a new world to sate my hunger, Morg."

"As you wish, my lord," Morg the Executioner said, clasping his massive axe to his chest as he bowed to his monster of a master. He smiled, pointing spinward from their current position and moved in that direction. He knew just what kind of planets could sate his master best, and who cared if the Shi'ar Empire lost a few planets to his hunger. There were millions more, after all.

OOOOOOO

Two days later, while everything continued to brew, Harry and all of his ladies were able to get an evening off together. It was something they had planned for weeks, having wanted some time to themselves, all of them together, which hadn't happened much at all since the big announcement. And, lo and behold, no new crises or political/organizational issues came up to stop them from actually going through with their plans. So Hela found herself standing in her quarters debating between some of the clothing she had bought on various outings with the others.

Owning so much clothing, and so much of it made of cloth, silk, linen and other such things, was still something the goddess of Helheim was getting used to in many ways. Hela was used to armor, leather, and more coarse fabrics, things she could create at need, of simple, if elegant (though she said it herself), design or austere in their utility. The sheer amount of different clothing that was available here on Earth continually surprised her.

Deciding on a simple pants and blouse combination, she laid them out and then turned, heading into her private bathroom, clicking her fingers and sending her nightshirt and underwear to fly and hang themselves up on a few hangers. A quick shower later, Hela was busy thinking about the sights they would see on this date before she caught her reflection in the mirror of the bathroom and gasped.

Hela stood a little shorter than Ororo, who was the tallest of the ladies, her black hair flowing down her back like a waterfall, though at present it was matted and wet. Her body was fit, svelte, and well-cared for, with high, perky breasts around a mid C-cup in modern parlance. Normally her skin was a healthy if somewhat pale color. That last, however, was changing in front of her eyes. Everywhere she had touched with her towel had become neon pink or bright orange in splotches, as if she had been hit by two teams of mad paintballers. "What!?"

Scowling, she looked down at the towel, setting it down and looking around herself, scowling angrily and using a detection spell. "Come forth, darn it!"

She snarled angrily at a sudden chitter of distress and watched as her spell splashed over a previously invisible form, canceling the spell on it to reveal Skipper, Illyana's familiar. The giant otter was nearly halfway to the door to the hall before she hit it with a paralyzing spell. Heedless of her nakedness, she stalked over to the creature and hefted it into the air by the back of its neck, staring into its twitching face. "Of course, Garm stayed with young Rahne and that young African boy with the jackal transformation last night."

With Dani gone, it fell to Garm to keep up Rahne's training with her were-form, and he had taken on the young boy as well, trying to nip some very bad habits he'd grown into in the bud. "Whatever his breed, no wolf-like animal should have so little respect for themselves as to grub after other's leavings!" he'd snarled when the boy had initially been brought in and explained how he'd survived on the streets of Dakar. "You have much to learn, young one!" Garm didn't seem to like the youth, whose name was Salim, very much, but he forced himself to take on training the boy along with Rahne, whose confidence had risen in leaps and bounds since Garm had taken her under his paws.

"So, your mistress sent you here, yet however did you even get in?"

Skipper chittered at her, a low mocking noise, which Hela took to mean he would never tell her that, and Hela shook her head. This is a new and worrisome show of both Illyana's growing ability and an escalation in our pranking competition. I knew Skipper had developed some magical abilities as Hedwig has, beyond his enhanced intelligence. But to turn invisible and somehow get into my room past the spells that keep my door locked? That is a little more worrisome.

Staring first down at her body and then back into Skipper's unrepentant eyes, Hela sighed. "Truly, there is only one response to this a goddess such as I can make. Escalate further." She then grinned, a wide, wicked thing on her gorgeous face, uncovered for a moment since only Skipper, an animal, was here to see. "And you, oh furry trouble-maker, are going to be my tool in this."

Skipper's eyes tried to widen, but he couldn't get away as Hela laid her other hand on his forehead and began to create a spell.

Several minutes Later, Illyana was sitting in the main hall, ostensibly going over some homework while looking at the doors into the hall, her face scrunched up in anxious anticipation. Sitting next to her, Melody giggled, amused by how her friend's music changed whenever she was waiting or planning a prank, shifting to sound like something out of Looney Tunes. The other kids worked on, oblivious and, admittedly much more anxious about their work than Illyana was.

The door to the side of the hall leading up into one of the staircases opened, and Skipper pushed his way in, looking around before he spotted his human, and moved in her direction, his entire body drooping and his tail dragging along the floor. Illyana tsked under her breath, then stood up and moved to her familiar, somehow gathering its large frame into her arms and moving back to her seat through the crowd. The hall was the center of Camelot's daily life, and it was almost always crowded these days.

Setting the giant otter down on the table, Illyana ignored some of the other kids shifting away, looking at Skipper with a pout on her face. "Are you okay?" When Skipper nodded in a manner he'd picked up from humans, she smiled in relief before asking, "Okay, so you just got caught before you could drop off that towel I charmed?"

Skipper shook his head again, and Illyana's eyes widened before she leaned forward eagerly. "Wait, so you were found after the prank sprang?" Skipper nodded, then seemed to shrink. "Well, it must not have worked then. But that's not your fault, Skipper. I should have found a way to make the spells stronger or something. What's wrong?"

With a downtrodden expression, Skipper opened his mouth to reply. But instead of the normal chitter, growl, yip, or low rumble noises he usually used, a loud, obnoxious voice blurted out, "This is the song that doesn't end! It goes on and on my friend!"

"Good Lord, that sounded like that Springer ass from that American talk show," muttered Illyich.

"Who let you watch that?" Piotr asked, shaking his head and also trying to keep from laughing at the look on his sister's face.

The song continued for a time before Skipper could finally shut his jaw, while Illyana sat there, her arms crossed and her fingers twitching. "Oh, it's sooo on!"

"I applaud your attitude, child, but perhaps you should learn the term, 'better part of valor?'" Hela said from where she stood nearby, dressed for her outing with the others, with Ororo next to her, the weather witch's blue eyes sparkling with humor. "I would understand, of course. No mere mortal witch can stand against a goddess, especially given the differences in our experience."

"Never! I have yet to even begin to prank!" Illyana shouted, standing up dramatically, Skipper rearing up on his hind legs to stand next to her in agreement.

"Oh, good. I would have been disappointed if you had backed out," Hela quipped, then turned away, laughing. "Do enjoy the song, by the way. It will remain on Skipper for the rest of the day unless you can figure out how to break it."

With that Hela linked her arm with Ororo and the two turned, exiting the hall before Illyana could reply.

Outside the hall the two of them found Harry, Jean, and Emma waiting for them. Harry shook his head. "This is rather like watching a one legged man challenge someone to an arse-kicking contest. Still, it is kind of funny to watch.…" He trailed off, then leaned in to kiss Hela on the cheek right below her mask. "Especially when the one legged gal gets in a hit. Neon pink and bright orange, huh?"

"Ugh, do not remind me, Harry," Hela groaned.

"On you it'd look good," Jean said with a grin, then looked around at the others anxiously. "Now, come on, let's get this show on the road before the next crisis happens."

Laughing agreement, Ororo teleported them all up to, first High Note, then the five of them moved over to the frigate they had simply called Explorer. For a time, as they moved around the small bridge or used their powers, they were quiet, just murmuring out instructions to one another. But eventually, as the ship pulled out of orbit and made for their first stop, the discussion turned to personal things. By mutual agreement, there would be no talk of any official business besides the one thing they were out here to actually do, at any rate: survey a number of planetary bodies to see what it would take to terraform them.

Needless to say, Emma and Harry's upcoming nuptials, which were due in less than three weeks, was the first topic. Ororo hadn't been very involved in the planning at all for various reasons, and Jean had been more involved with thinking about her own, so both listened eagerly as Emma and Hela explained what they had already decided on. The wedding was being planned abnormally quickly for such events, and Emma herself was acting as coordinator, with Father Garnoff helping her since he would be the one marrying them.

"Wait, what does the color of the shades and the arch matter to the wedding? I mean, I understand the symbolism of white, but why pair it with purple, and why is it such a big deal?" Harry asked at one point.

"Because it was a royal color at one point, and it sets off both my blonde hair and the dress I'll be wearing, Harry, you silly man. And it's not white, it's ivory."

"Um, isn't ivory white?" Harry asked, then chuckled as all four ladies rolled their eyes at him. "Right, silly male shutting up now. But I maintain that I will not wear a bow tie. A tie, yes; a cravat, certainly; but not a bow tie."

"Your objections have been taken on board and will be tossed over the side soon enough, Harry," Ororo said teasingly before pulling him into a kiss. Harry swiftly deepened it, though, to the point that she was moaning and clinging to him, much to the amusement of the others.

"Heh, someone's feeling a little deprived," Jean quipped, then held up her hand like a student answering a question in class. "I'm next!" Then the very pregnant redhead almost squeaked as Emma swooped in, kissing her with a whisper of, 'Why wait?' right before their lips met.

"You did ask for that one," Hela said with a throaty chuckle and a shake of her head before moving towards Harry to take her own turn. "Which means your place is forfeit."

"Why don't you take off the mask, Hela?" Harry asked softly a few moments of kissing and teasing later as he sat on the captain's seat, with Jean in his lap as the others moved about the bridge. "We're alone here, after all."

Hela tensed, then sighed and nodded, reaching up to her mask and slowly pulling it off, the mask disappearing for a moment as she smiled at them all, causing Emma to hiss in surprise and Jean to just smile. Hela was drop dead gorgeous. She had a slightly thinner face than Jean or Emma, but one not quite as queenly as Ororo's. Her nose was small and just slightly pointed. Her face held the same coloration as the rest of her body, her cheeks slightly rosy at present thanks to her fleeting embarrassment. The only blemish was a scar under one eye and another scar just in front of her ear.

"You are gorgeous, sister," Ororo said simply, moving over and gently running her fingers along the tiny scar under Hela's eye and then down her cheek, her black skin a distinct contrast to Hela's skin, which was a little paler than even Emma's. "Why you feel the need to hide your features, I do not know, but please don't hide them from us."

"I suppose it is silly to do so at this point. Perhaps I will tell you about why I wear the mask soon. But not right now. It is a rather angst-riddled tale, after all, and today is a time for joy and romance."

"It is, and, on that topic, I have something for all of us," Jean said, waving one hand and sending a blast of telekinetic energy that reached out into the hallway beyond the bridge. The five of them were the only ones on the ship at all, the rest of it having been fully automated to give them a survey ship/yacht. The Fantastic Four, Carol, and others had made use of it since it had been retrofitted, but Jean and Harry had used it first, and they still felt it was primarily theirs.

"I know I haven't been the best of company lately, and I wanted to both apologize, thank you all for putting up with me, and also show how much I love all of you. So I created these. I got the idea from the rings Harry gave us all, so I bought the raw materials and then shaped them using my telekinetic powers. Then I had Dr. Strange put a few spells on them, nothing really defensive, though there's some kind of communication charm on all of them," Jean explained, looking a little sheepish.

From out of the corridor came four small jewelry boxes. Each, with a small shudder as her power tried to give out, zoomed to a different lover.

Harry caught his and, with his arms still around Jean's belly, opened it at the same time as the others. Inside was a simple ring of silver, burnished to a shine and marked by a small image of the phoenix, holding in its claws a small emerald. Slipping it on, he smiled, holding her tightly. "Is this supposed to be my wedding ring, love?"

"Mmm...from me, at least. I bet the others will come up with their own versions before their weddings, but I wanted you to have mine now," Jean murmured, leaning back. Through their link Harry could sense her rising lust and then her dismay that she was too far along in her pregnancy to enjoy most of their play. He sent back rueful agreement, hugging her tightly yet tenderly, wordlessly telling her she was one of the most important things in his personal universe as well as telling her that he too would have liked to show that more physically.

Then they both turned to watch the others as they opened their gifts, one after another.

Emma's were a pair of diamond earrings, but not like a normal diamond earring. The diamond instead had been shaped into a small triangle, with a chime of gold set into the opening, tingling gently as it moved, but not with any wind or movement from Hela. It also stilled as Emma looked at it, and she blinked and then nodded, realizing that it had responded to her thoughts. "I love it, she said simply, knowing Jean would feel her reaction. Chimes and such were one of her secret pleasures.

She moved over to kiss Jean again, then stood next to her two sitting lovers as she put the earrings on, turning to look at Ororo and Hela.

After a moment of looking at one another, Hela opened her gift next. Inside was a choker of spangold, bronze, and copper bands worked together so as to be smooth both on the inside of the choker and on the outside. In the center was a large ruby the size of Hela's own eye. "It's charmed so if you touch it, the ruby will help dispel any illusions or other spells trying to obscure things. That was the most elaborate work I had Dr. Strange do for any of the pieces."

Jean blushed as Hela looked at her, and shrugged. "It, um, well.…"

"It is both appropriate and beautiful, my dear. Thank you. I will need to create something of equal value for you," Hela said, then moved over to kiss Jean in turn. It wasn't the first time the black-haired goddess of death had kissed the avatar of the Phoenix, but it still sent a shiver of amused delight through her as she did, both at the physical feelings and the sheer oddity of their relationship given their disparate positions. She was still smiling as she sat down on the opposite armrest from Emma, putting her arm around Harry's shoulders in turn.

With that, all the lovers turned to Ororo, who, with a smile for them all, opened her own. Inside Ororo found a torque, a kind of jewelry designed to go around the upper arm. It was made of bronze and copper worked to have images of vines and trees in its surface along with words in flowing Latin. It also smelled of crushed pine and lavender, which were among Ororo's most favorite scents.

Ororo read the words out loud with a faint smile on her face. "'From knowledge comes strength.' Now that is a statement I can approve of." With that she moved over to Jean, leaning down and giving her a long, languid kiss before dropping to her knees in front of the captain's chair and putting her arms around both Jean and Harry as much as she could. "Thank you, my love.

I will treasure it."

For a moment they all just hugged, silently taking strength from one another. Their relationship might have been far beyond the norm, but, then again, none of them were normal in the first place, and having one another to lean on gave them strength and joy. Indeed, they were still there when the navigation computer beeped at them, telling them they had arrived over Venus.

They would need this strength in the days to come. After all, there was a vast difference between preparing for the storm and enduring the storm once it arrived…

End Chapter

---

I have the next chapter ready already written out in note form once I can get to it. It's a combat heavy chapter and will be at least equal to if not larger than this chapter. Despite the lack of real action besides the Badoon, I hope that you all enjoyed this. I may put ATP up on my monthly poll for January and then from that point on, we'll see.