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.

22. Attack of the Spandex Dilemma

A third Path 22

I do not own Marvel or Harry Potter. Let's just leave it at that at this point.

Since a few people have asked for this here is my extremely brief summary of the last chapter: Harry's corporation goes live, with vultures already circling, as he and Emma begin work cleaning up the Hellfire Club's London Branch. Jean produces a few new toys for the team, an ongoing project, while the castle welcomes a new surprise inhabitant. The last cache of the dead Selene is raided, wherein Paige feels the pain of not listening to instructions. Balder gets in touch with Harry representing Asgard, but nothing is agreed upon yet. Reed produces the first of many scanners for High Note. Thanks to Reed's efforts, Betsy Braddock is found serving as a TV show actor on Mojoworld, the team goes in with the plan to help a burgeoning resistance over throw the tyrant. Mojo dies, killed in battle by Harry. Storm barely beats Spiral thanks to outside influence while the rest of the team with the aid of the Fantastic Four wreak havoc after handing over weapons bought through use of the promise of future medical aid from Tony Stark. Betsy is returned to earth and will be released to her brother, pending a medical review by Reed, before which she expressed the desire to possibly join up with the team in the future.

I would like to thank Byakugan789 for giving me the suggestion for Dani's first team name. Would also like to apologize to him about the whole 'poisoning' issue, but hey, this is the last time it will be mentioned. And of course thanks go to Kathryin518 for her work as my beta. My Wild Wolf muse overwhelmed me for the last two chapters of that tale I put out, and this effected many of the scenes in this chapter, something I would not have noticed or corrected without her input.

That being said, this hasn't been given the Jessolt touch, and as such will no doubt have many more small mistakes than usual. I apologize for that, so if that bothers you, you will want to wait until I update the chapter with the one he has looked at.

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Chapter 22 Attack of the Spandex Dilemma

With nothing business-related planned for the next day, Harry actually allowed himself to sleep in, and he woke up in a leisurely fashion when the chime of the clock hit ten. Opening his eyes he saw the familiar sight of white hair splayed out across his chest. Harry propped himself up on one arm to stare at his lady love. Asleep like this Ororo seemed almost innocent, a faint smile on her face, as she cuddled into his shoulder, but her face hinted at the strong soul within, as well as her innate kindness. "God I love you Ororo," he said to himself, before looking over to where Jean should be and frowned a little.

Jean wasn't there, having surprisingly got up out of bed without waking her two lovers and left the room before they woke up. "Now I understand why they don't like waking up without me here. It's very disconcerting not seeing your bedmate beside you when they were there when you fell asleep." He said shaking his head.

This movement seemed to jostle Ororo awake, and she groaned a little stretching in place which did very interesting things to her anatomy. Harry shook that thought off however, wondering where Jean was, which had driven his original plan for the morning out of his mind.

He had actually intended to pamper Ororo a little this morning, since her part of the operation against the Spineless Ones had been much more difficult than Harry's or Jean's. Spiral might have used a slightly less impressive repertoire of spells, but she had been much more mobile, and her teleportation skills had been phenomenal according to Ororo. Neither of those last two points had applied to Mojo himself, even if he had more power, which was itself debatable given how he seemed to lose power halfway through the fight when Reed cut him off from the broadcast systems.

A few of the spells Mojo used had seemed interesting, but Harry was unwilling to look into them, fearing that they might have long term effects on him. Back in his old dimension the 'Dark' label was handed out to anything the ministry didn't want to deal with for various reasons, most especially an inability to track certain types of magic. Or that they were blood-related which, despite its label even in non-magical society to the contrary, did not mean that they were Dark in total.

Yes, there were certain rituals that were undeniably evil, those needing unwilling sacrifices and cannibalism for example. But many blood related rituals were designed for familial protection or security. Harry was living proof that the strength of well-prepared and willing sacrifice was powerful indeed.

But despite the Ministry's debasement of the term Dark, there were spells that marked the soul of their user, one of which looked disturbingly like one of the spells that Mojo had used in his battle against Harry. The coruscating ball of red and black energy reminded him of one that was designed to make your innards turn slowly to acid inside you, a pure torture spell that effected the person using it by making them revel in the pain the spell caused. That example and the darkness spell that tried to act like a Dementor's aura made Harry very wary of trying to figure them out.

That didn't matter right now though, and he leaned forward, taking one of Ororo's ears in his mouth for a moment licking and nibbling at in just the right way to cause Ororo to jolt into full wakefulness with a gasp. "Morning Ororo." He said his eyes full of love as he leaned down to kiss her now as she looked up at him with a smile on her face.

After a blissful moment she pulled back and looked across him to the other side of the bed, her brows furrowing. "Where's Jean?"

"That was a question I was thinking myself. Shall we go see if we can find her?"

Ororo nodded and got up out of bed, as always uncaring of her nudity. Though she did notice Harry had a bit of a 'stiff' issue which caused her to laugh wickedly. "Later for that, my Harry."

"And there goes my plan for a nice morning in." Harry grunted as he got out of bed, looking down at himself and willing his reaction to disappear for now. "You'll get your fun later." he said in an almost mocking tone, still looking down, which caused Ororo to laugh again, shaking her wild mane of hair as she did.

After Ororo got dressed the two of them linked arms and exited the room heading downstairs to search for the third side of their triangle. They found Jean in her workroom, working on something that Harry didn't recognize offhand. It was a board of some kind, and it took a moment for Harry to realize it was one of the hover boards that the Spineless Ones had used to get around in.

Jean had several new items in her room since before the meeting with William and the others, including one deep construction analyzer that was the best she could buy from Reed Richards, coupled with the hard light technology that she had already installed. It allowed her to fully map both the exterior and the interior of an object quickly and efficiently without the need to take it apart. Jean actually preferred to take things apart herself, but this way she could concentrate on different aspects of reverse engineering rather than the nuts and bolts of it. She could thus spend more time building her own versions, which was even more fun.

As her two lovers entered the room Jean was walking around the hard light display of a cutout of the device, enlarging one section after another while dictating to thin air, apparently having set up a recording system connected to the computer that she had dedicated to her laboratory, another purchase from Reed. None of the four computers Jean had added to the castle to replace the first two they had been using were purchased on the open market. Like her lab computer she had bought them from Reed at a rather hefty sum. While Reed was not a businessman he was not going to turn up his nose at profit either, even when dealing with friends.

"So miniaturization will not be a problem, so long as the central power unit that runs the antigravity device remains intact. If I can do that, there is no issue with creating smaller hover boards or something similar. The computation and control aspects will be more of an issue, because despite the advanced nature of the hover-technology, the computers and their abilities are somewhat more primitive than I would've expected, definitely designed to only do a few jobs. Certainly someone like Reed or Stark or, though I hate to say it, that sexist prick Pym could do a better job on the computers."

"The weapons technology however is much more interesting, most especially what looks at first glance as if it is some kind of pumped fusion weapon, which Ben Grimm reported." Jean went on, lifting the hover board that she had been studying off the scanner with a telekinetic hand and putting it to the side for now. She whistled a little as she reached into the bag of holding that she had taken to carrying, pulling out what looked like an almost undamaged heavy combat android from Mojoworld. "God I love magic!" she said laughing aloud.

"We do too." said two voices behind her.

Jean whirled her grabbing at her chest in shock, her heart thundering at the sudden surprise. "Gah, sorry didn't hear you come in. Err, morning, you two."

"Where did all this come from?" Harry asked looking at the stuff she was currently looking at, a faint smile on his face.

"What, you didn't think I was going to leave all that lovely technology just lying around did you? While you were busy with the injured, and are you all right to be up and about Ororo?" Ororo nodded and Jean went on. "Well anyway, while you were doing that, I was scrounging around. The battlefield was so littered with bits of android I was able to pick and choose the best parts. I don't think the actual robotic technology is going to be much good, or at least we might be able to better it, but the heavier weapons were very effective. They nearly got through my telekinetic shields a few times, and I know they singed Colossus and Ben."

Harry laughed quietly shaking his head looking at the hard light diagrams spread out in the air of the room. "Glad you kept your eyes on the prize like that Jean." He loved watching Jean work, it was like watching Ororo teach languages or either of them fly or even Emma while she conducted business. It was part and parcel of their characters, and Harry loved every piece of their personalities.

Jean flushed under his appreciate gaze, then moved forward quickly, catching Harry in a kiss. Harry deepened it, his hands going down to her shorts clad rear and lifting her up off the ground for a moment.

She reluctantly leaned backwards, then leaned to her side to kiss Ororo even while Harry kept hold of her rear, her legs lifting to wrap around his waist. Ororo too deepened the kiss quickly, her own hands gently moving through the redhead's hair while Jean put her arms around both of them.

After moment however she moved backwards, huffing a little when Harry reluctantly let go of her rear. "Anyway, I have a lot of things I need to look over now. I'm not certain how much of it I'll end up adding to our team's combat gear, and you really need to think up a name for us Harry, but I have no doubt that a lot of it can be incorporated to this or to our future space projects. Flight boots for example, or even jumping boots. I'm not certain how well the hover technology will do if we take it any appreciable length away from the ground, but we'll see. There's also repulsor technology, something like Iron Man/Tony uses, but a bit more compact but less energy efficient."

"The weapons though, I bet we can scale them up, and maybe have our first weapons system for any kind of space-based battle we get into."

By the end of that Jean's eyes were shining with something other than physical desire, and she turned back to her work eagerly. "I'm going to work on this until lunch. After that, I'll be working with Dani for the rest of the day. She's almost close enough for me to let her continue on her own, we're concentrating now on actually controlling her powers rather than just stopping them from lashing out without her input. Have to say her powers might go a lot further than just being able to create the illusion of someone else's fears, but it might take a few weeks before she's ready to really use it."

"Excellent, and I think I'll speak to the rest of the team about this." Harry said waving his hands. "We should make it a standing order that if we can, we should scrounge for anything useful after a battle."

"That supposes that we'll always be the winners rather than being forced to flee or something similar." Ororo said dryly but she shrugged. "It's still a good idea though."

Harry nodded, then looped one arm around Ororo's waist. "In any event, we'll see you for lunch Jean, now I'm going to go pamper this lady for a time. Again, damn good job."

Jean grinned. "Have fun!" She winked at Ororo who actually blushed a bit, but was willingly led out of the room by her hand as Jean turned back to her work.

OOOOOOO

Later that day Jean smirked when Ororo and Harry entered the dining room. Ororo was practically floating, and not because she was using her powers. Ms. Brown was the only other woman there who was experienced enough to know what she was seeing in Ororo, and she smirked too then looked over at Dr. Druid, who shivered a little as if someone had just walked over his grave.

Harry motioned to Amara and the rest of the team that had operated against Mojo to come and join them at one of the dining tables, while the rest of the castle's denizens went back to their food. "Now that we've had a night to rest and recuperate, does anyone want to say anything about our last mission? I've decided not to do formal after action reports, not yet anyway, but I think we can learn from every mission we go on, and I'd like all of your input."

"More command and control." Nikolai said promptly. "More communication between teammates would be excellent especially if we split off to assault different objectives like this last mission often, though we were able to get by without it this time thanks to Phoenix. One of the things that Jean showed us that I would've liked to see us all use is that heads up displays, some way to monitor our systems heavily was also mentioned, how far along are you on that?"

"I've finished building prototypes for the actual helmet, as well as disks that can monitor your health, which we'll incorporate into all of our uniforms. For the HUD system itself, that we'll need a programmer for. I'm an engineer not a programmer, give me a physical problem and I can solve it but that's not a physical one. The prototype helmet I showed you all works, but getting information into it will be much more difficult."

"I could ask Reed to look at it, but he's got his own projects, and he's already admitted that he doesn't like programming all that much." That wasn't to say he wasn't good at it, Harry thought to himself, Reed was after all a genius and that wasn't an overstatement in his case. But that didn't change the fact that he had the attention span of a rabid weasel for anything not involved in pushing the bounds of known science of his family, and simply disliked programming.

"What about Forge?" Ororo asked. "He has a young Native American mutant we met a few days before you arrived Harry." She explained, noting his quizzical expression. "And he's a good engineer and programmer from what I can remember. Something to do with his powers I think."

"Forge was grabbed up by a legitimate government think-tank a few months back." Jean replied with a shrugged. "I looked him up right after Harry offered me the job of being chief engineer. It's legit, I made certain of that, even asked Emma to look into it which actually helped her cover after she came by that first time. They're looking into the Hulk you know? He's been on TV a few times, but they're looking for ways to detect gamma radiation and both shield from and remove it somehow."

"Sounds important." Harry nodded. He had seen a few images of footage with the Hulk, and wanted no part in dealing with him. Oh, he could think of several magical means of controlling or simply stopping the Hulk, but right now he wasn't about to go looking for Banner. He had more than enough on his plate right now, and the only way he would be able to find Banner was if he went Hulk on someone, not something Harry was happy about contemplating. "Kitty's at least a year of hard work away from becoming a good enough programmer to do this for us, so let's move on to anything else you guys can think of."

Piotr frowned a little. "I personally would like to get some long-range weaponry added to my battle gear. My armor withstood most of what I was hit with, but it would have been nice to hit back without having to throw things or smash the ground to create shockwaves, especially if I'm fighting aerial targets. Also, possibly some kind of 3-D mapping system, something to stop us from running into an ambush. Those TV stations would have been deadly traps for us if we had been facing a more flexible enemy."

Even with the androids not being able to make plans for themselves, the TV station had proven deadly enough. The rebels had lost dozens of men in that assault despite the best the adventurers from Earth had been able to do.

Nikolai nodded at his fellow Russian. "You've been training with myself and giáo sư on your aim anyway, so that's a good idea." Shiang Chi refused to be called master in English, saying the word had been badly debased in Eastern cultures. "And on that topic, can you think of a way to make the plasma or rail guns into semi-auto fire, or a machine gun mode? Something so we can lay down covering fire quickly, rather than shoot at a specific target would be excellent."

"Again I could build something that would be able to scan the environment I suppose. It would be difficult to build one that would be able to scan through rock and steel up of course, but it could be done. Miniaturization would also be a problem." Jean mused. "As well as programming of course."

"That apparently needs to become our priority, we need to find a programmer we can trust." Harry replied.

"Or possibly sublet the different programming issues." Ororo said with a shrug. "The British government is incredibly happy with us at the present, I bet we could ask them. Or we could ask Emma to find us someone trustworthy."

"Emma would be my choice." Harry said firmly. "I like the British government, and I like King William, but I don't want anyone that could be even tempted to create back doors or something doing anything for our teams. I know just enough about programming to know that's a severe worry. Anything else?"

Amara held up her hand. "I'd like something like what Wyatt used, a personal teleporter. If we run into anyone who can remove me from the ground, I'd lose most of my offensive abilities. I'd also like to step up my training on a gun. I think I'm far enough along in my sword training to make up the loss. Also, emergency portkeys back here linked to whatever device you all create to monitor our health. That might be a major help down the line."

Harry waited a moment to make certain no one else had any more suggestions, before smiling at all of them in approval. "I find all this good, excellent brainstorming people. Jean is working on some more stuff that might be added to our battle rattle later, but for right now I think you all have deserved a day off. So shoo." So saying he waved his hands like he was warding away flies, before turning and ordering some food from one of the house-elves assigned to the lunchtime meal.

The younger group left with a grin leaving Harry with his two loves for a moment. They smiled at one another, happy at how the conversation had gone and then set to their food with a will when it appeared.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere another magic user had closed in on her prey. In fact the Enchantress, whose name, though few knew it, was Amora, had found Thor the day before, but had been sidetracked several times. Still she was here now, and the gorgeous (if she said it herself) blond woman sat on a nearby roof, hidden under an illusion while she pondered how best to get the thunder God to agree to go back to Asgard. She watched him for several hours that evening, frowning irritably at the simpering stupidity of the courtship going on in front of her although she noted that Thor was a little irritated as well, and seemed to tense his muscles whenever he kissed whatever-her-name was. As if the Enchantress could be bothered to remember human names.

That gave her an idea however, and she waited until Thor was asleep, on the couch for some reason, while the woman slept in a bed in this small human apartment. After waiting another hour she quickly cast a series of spell on herself, floating over to the apartment's window easily enough and then through the wall before once again becoming solid. On silenced feet the Enchantress padded over to Thor then touched his brow briefly while she intoned a rather complicated spell, connecting her mind to his for a brief time.

Thor knew he was sleeping, knew he was dreaming but that didn't make what he was seeing have any less of an impact. For a moment Thor was held in stasis, watching as Jane, human woman he had fallen in love with aged and died. Indeed the entire world around them, some kind of forest, much like the park they had been to earlier that day on their 'date', which was the odd human name for courtship, moved through the four seasons. The park had been 'pretty' enough if a little too controlled for his liking.

However, he watched now as that somewhat familiar landscape and Jane continued to grow old before his very eyes while Thor remained the same. Eventually he was left standing over her grave, a eulogy of some sort being said in the background.

Thor looked around irritably. "This is not mine own dream, someone is trying to tell me something. I would prefer to speak face to face, reveal yourself now!"

"Gladly oh prince of Asgard." Said a female voice and he turned quickly.

Behind Thor stood a statuesque blond woman, her hair falling straight over her shoulders and down to the small of her back. She wore form fitting green and white armor, with a headdress to match, which left her legs from mid-thigh down, her midriff and arms bare. Nor did the dress so much hide her chest as bring it to your attention while still barely covering her feminine treasures.

"Lady Enchantress." Thor nodded his head slightly, taking in the sight before him, before shaking it off. "Are you here of your own volition, or has Odin-father sent you to take me back?"

"Lord Odin has given me the task of convincing you to come home, using any means I see fit." Amora replied, conjuring up a set of chairs. Her own was of a kind she'd seen in a store earlier that day as she walked around the human city, a 'recliner' it was called. She sighed pleasantly leaning back in it and putting her feet up. Humans have made some of the most marvelous inventions since the last time I had dealings with them.

"I chose simply to force you to see that you and this woman are two different species. You are a god of Asgard, and she is a mere human. Unless you know of a way to lengthen her lifespan or wish to shrink yours, what I showed you will come to pass sooner or later. Worse yet, she will come to resent you, as you keep going unchanged, while she grows old and withers."

"Ah but it will be sweet while it lasts." Thor replied.

"Will it? Can you even hug her without having to control your great strength?" For some reason the blonde was able to convey a wealth of meaning in that term, so much that Thor actually flushed, which did not go away as she went on. "How likely is it you would lose control during your lovemaking and thrust a little too hard? Humans are fragile creatures after all. You'll always have to be careful, and what if you want to become a little more… passionate a quick, steamy tryst rather than leisurely making love? A single moment of inattention would cause serious harm to her." The Enchantress finished, again giving that word a wealth of different meanings, smirking coyly as she stretched purposefully to bring attention to her assets.

Thor blanched, but responded gamely. "I am in full control of my strength at all times lady. I will not be swayed by thy blandishments temptress, no matter how difficult that may be!" Despite this declaration he had difficulty pulling himself away from the view the Enchantress was giving him. Yet eventually he looked away, frowning.

The enchantress waited, crossing her legs not at all incidentally flashing quite a bit more of her thighs at Thor who gulped a little. He was a man after all, and as such he had certain needs, which hadn't been met lately. Worse, Thor was beginning to realize unless he found a way to limit his own strength, they might not be able to be met with Jane at all.

After a moment however, Thor's love for the mortal seemed to prevail, and his face firmed up. "No. I will not leave Jane. No matter how short our time will be, I will spend it with her gladly, regardless of any difficulties we face, either within or without!"

He went on more grudgingly. I will however allow you to create a way for me to speak with Asgard. Yet even without my feelings for Jane I would be loath to return to my father's mighty city. There is much to be seen on Earth, much to learn from these humans." Beyond his infatuation with Jane, Thor knew he was addicted to many of the human's food so he desperately wanted to stay on Mid-guard.

"I cannot fault you there." The Enchantress replied honestly. "I am somewhat fascinated by the humans myself." In her case however it was the furniture and fashion. She had watched a show where women had been striding along some kind of walkway, wearing all manner of clothing that looked magnificent! And there were groups of people called fashion designers, whose entire job was to simply come up with new and interesting clothing. That appealed greatly to her, and the Enchantress wondered what one would have to do to join such a group.

Still she frowned, wondering how best to continue with the task Lord Odin had given her. In a martial contest Thor would destroy her. Nor did Amora wish to simply eliminate Jane, not yet. While her orders allowed for that, it certainly would set the Thunderer against her, something Amora didn't want. Besides, as she had shown Thor, a mortal's life was simply to brief, too weak to worry her one way or another. Amora felt that Lord Odin was overreacting badly, and that simply waiting would be the best course. If Odin wanted her to take more direct action, he could tell her in the future.

Right now, she decided to take what she could get. The fact this would allow her to remain in Midgard herself without having to worry about Lord Odin recalling her personally was also a major factor of her wait and see attitude.

"I will remain in this realm myself, and if Lord Odin demands your turn and has a solid reason for it, I will return you to him." She said seriously, holding up what looked like a bracelet made of stone on one wrist. "This is a runic array designed by Lord Odin personally to transport you back to Asgard if I must, even against your will. It was not however your being in Midgard that bothers him, it was only that you left without a word or order, and that he fears your love with a mortal woman will cloud your judgment."

"My father worries overmuch, and my judgment is not impaired by my love of Jane, rather it is enhanced by her good council." Thor replied virtuously.

Amora shook her head in amusement at the very idea, but shrugged as well. "I cannot say Lord Odin will not order me to try to force you to end your relationship with the mortal girl more aggressively, but until then I will not act against you." While she would have preferred to get rid of the human woman and pursue Thor herself, he was a magnificent specimen of man after all, the human realm fascinated her too much to want to push that now. "For the rest, a formal apology when you see him next can smooth over his ruffled feathers. So long as you vow to return if needed, our discussion is concluded."

Thor nodded, and with that the dream ended. Enchantress smiled down at Thor as his eyes opened, then leaned down, her teeth nipping him on the ear before immediately changing into her gaseous form and leaving quickly, leaving behind the sound of her low, throaty, almost sensual laughter, echoing around the room. Thor stared after her for a moment before resolutely turning away to his bed on the sofa.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Ororo spent the rest of that day with Melody and the other children, all of them having finished their lessons for the day with Ms. Brown, who was of the firm opinion that mornings were for work and afternoons for makeup work or athletics. As none of her students presently had any makeup work she was fine with it. Fay knew however that eventually, when more and more students joined them and lessons became much more formal that would change. She was a little worried about the youngsters getting spoiled by the half-days they were doing now, but not enough to stop it.

They first played a few team games, then Harry showed them what Quidditch would look like. This got a few terrified and one or two ecstatic responses. Evidently flying on tiny bits of wood was not for everyone. Harry could relate, Hermione had hated the sport from the get-go, and he had never really had any time for it. Even when his flying skills had been noticed he hadn't actually joined the Ravenclaw team.

That day and the next were almost entirely days off for everyone. Harry spent an hour a day or so going over business related items, then spent most of the rest of his time getting to know the rest of the people in the castle better.

OOOOOOO

"So," Harry said plopping to the ground next to where Danielle Moonstar was sitting in the lotus position on the floor of her room. "Jean says that you are nearly ready to start using your power offensively, what do you think of that?"

Danielle came out of her meditative trance to look up at him, answering him readily. "Worried, jubilant that I got this far, concerned. We understand what my powers do when they're out of control, what can they do when I'm in directing them? How much command can I really exert over it? I don't know yet, but it would not…" she paused. "It wouldn't be right not to learn, if that makes any sense."

Harry nodded. "That's good attitude to have. Your powers are just like any other skill, use it or not that's up to you, but you need to know how to control it regardless. Have you given thoughts about what you would want to do with your life going forward?"

"I want to join your team." Dani said firmly staring up at him, her eyes serious. "I know I'm young for it, but I think the cause you're fighting for, and your ideas going forward from what I know of them, are worth fighting for." She paused for a moment again, looking a little shifty. I was astonished to hear that the spirit of Angwusnasomtaka was training the Stormbringer, but even that is a mark in your favor." Angwusnasomtaka was the name of the goddess that Gaia had assumed in Native American myth.

Raising a hand to hide his smile Harry shook his head mentally. Danielle did not speak like a normal teenager, she was much more serious, and much more self-controlled even before Jean was able to teach her control of her powers. Her eyes told a story of someone who was very driven, and much more worldly than her age would suggest. It was no wonder she and Jean got along so well. "Okay, so tell me what you can bring to my team."

Dani began counting off point on her fingers. "I'm an excellent scout, I also have an excellent eye for shooting, though I prefer a bow. I have a way with animals, and can get most of them to obey me for short amounts of time depending on type. A horse or other semi-domesticated animal for example will follow my orders so long as they're in my presence, but a natural predator such as a cougar or coyote will only follow more subtle suggestions." Dani had actually run into both those predators while out on hunts during her summers with her grandfather, and knew this for a fact. "I'm in excellent shape, and a black belt in judo. Let me start training with Shiang Chi, and I bet I can make up for lost time quickly."

She finished counting on her fingers and looked up at Harry again, her eyes almost challenging now. "And let's face it, while Paige and Amara have a lot of power to them and they might have buried the hatchet, they still have issues working together because they are so different in temperament. You could use someone with a level head who can help ride herd on them without being obvious about it, which you don't have at present."

Harry removed his hand from his mouth, showing his smile openly. "You've been thinking about this for a while haven't you?"

"Ever since Wyatt asked you if he could join you and I found out precisely what your long term goals were." Dani said with a shrug. "Wyatt's right, there are some causes worth fighting for, and both mutant rights and defense of Earth match that criteria, let alone the good you want to do with your potions and other projects."

"Well you convinced me to give you a trial run at least. You'll start training with Shiang Chi later today. He's training Nikolai and Peter at the moment, so you'll join Paige and Amara during their training. If you perform well enough in that, I'll give the okay for you to start training in the team exercises, those which we don't use our powers in. After Jean says you're good to go with using your mutant ability, you can join the rest."

Danielle grinned now, transforming her face from the serious expression that she had been holding to that of a very pretty young girl. "Thank you sir, you won't regret it."

You know what Harry thought to himself, I'm almost positive she's right about that one. That didn't have anything to do with what else he sensed from the girl either, she was simply that driven and composed. But beyond that Harry sensed there was something inside of her, he wasn't certain if it was magical potential yet as he hadn't given her a full physical just yet, nor had she been in the castle long enough for the potential, if she had it , to 'ignite' because the background magic, but there was something there.

Elsewhere, alas, Emma wasn't having as easy a time of it, even if she wasn't facing any sort of crisis.

OOOOOOO

"I know you're up to something." A voice said from behind Emma as she moved from her bedroom down to the first floor of her mansion. She turned raising an eyebrow in query at her sister, who was the one who had spoken.

Cordelia was standing behind her looking a little irritated, as well as inquisitive, but not overly antagonistic. The times they had spent together since she had moved back in after their father had died had done wonders for their relationship. They were almost like a normal family, distant still from one another, but closer than they had ever been before.

"And exactly what am I up to?" Emma asked.

"I don't know but I'm going to find out! You've been acting… weird! First of all, you disappear for hours on end, practically every day. You're keeping really strange hours, your bed hasn't been slept in these past few days, and you've actually been emotive these past few weeks and not in a snarky sarcastic way either. , I'd even say you've been bordering on chipper for the last few weeks, hell I saw you grin the other day! "

"Did you just use the word chipper in a sentence?" Emma asked looking distinctly astonished. "Well done."

As Cordelia fumed at her little joke, Emma went on, waving away her sister's concerns. "Eventually maybe I'll let you in on the secret sister dear, when you prove you have a certain level of maturity." And when you prove I can trust you, she thought. "Suffice it to say it is nothing that will bother you, or hinder my ability to handle the family corporation. Other than that, it is my business, not yours."

"Fine, be that way." The younger girl replied with all a typical teenager's surliness. "But I'll figure it out eventually."

"I'm sure you'll try. Now, your friend is supposed to arrive today, are you ready to see her?"

"I wouldn't actually call us friends exactly." Cordelia replied, now looking a little shifty. "We didn't exactly run in the same social circles if you must know."

"Define social circles, did you bully her? Is this going to cause trouble?" Emma asked, her eyes narrowing.

Cordelia waved that idea away. "No, nothing like that."

Emma smirked internally, knowing that her sister had also become more outgoing and emotional, but her change had nothing to do with finally finding people she could trust. No, it had everything to do with their father no longer being around. His funeral had occurred a few days past, and had been a very private affair. Emma was still debating on going back and pissing on his grave, possibly after drinking a lot and trying to write out Peter's name, but her upbringing argued against it.

She tuned back in to the conversation when her sister went on. "It's just we were part of very different cliques that's all. I was part of the out-crowd I suppose, the rebels, the ones always getting into trouble."

"I know that, I've seen your transcript, and your juvie-record." Emma replied dryly. "Get to the point please. I have a meeting I need to leave for in a few minutes."

The younger girl scowled at her, but went on willingly. "Anyway, she was part of the geek squad, into books and reading and stuff like that. Not computers or programming, just fantasy novels and stuff like that. So we never really interacted outside of bumping into one another a few times in the dorms. We were friendly I guess, just didn't have much to do with one another."

"I see, well in any event, try to get along with her when she and her parents arrive. I might not be back in time to greet them, so you'll have to entertain them. They all might be staying here while we put Firestar through a full physical."

Emma left Cordelia there nodding her head to continue her journey down the stairs, and from there directly into one of the family's heavily armored limos. The four guards assigned to her today had already gone over it and she nodded cordially to them all while they got on the radio with their commander telling him they were off.

He had proven worth his weight in gold since Emma had hired him, even if his changes to the schedule seemed a little paranoid at times. He had already found and stopped two attempts to infiltrate the mansion, and stopped her and the men guarding Emma from running into what might have been an ambush.

Thankfully today his paranoia proved unnecessary, and the ride to Frost Engineering's corporate headquarters didn't take long. By the time they arrived however Emma had undergone a sort of transformation. Gone was the somewhat personable, if rather caustic young woman that had been talking to her sister.

In their place was a businesswoman, who radiated arrogance and self-control when she opened the door and exited the limo. Two bodyguards moved in front of her as they entered the building, peeling off to join the security station in the entranceway, while two more followed up behind continuing on with their charge. A very quick elevator ride later, and Emma walked briskly into a conference room where five middle-aged men rose as one to greet her.

"Gentleman." she said coolly, moving swiftly to the front of the table and staring them down, gesturing slightly with one hand to indicate they could be seated once more. "I'm glad you all seem to appreciate who is in charge here, there have been rumblings among the managerial staff of several of my family's holdings since I took over, including Frost Engineering, that displeases me. Understand me gentlemen, I am not my father, I do not care how long you have worked for the company, how loyal you are, or what secrets you keep, if you cannot do your job to my satisfaction I will fire you. I fired several people throughout my holdings for being unwilling to work with me, or not performing up to my standards. I will not hesitate to do the same here."

She waited a minute for that to sink in before going on, her voice still devoid of any emotion, her eyes cold. "For the past two quarters Frost Engineering has been losing money in comparison to my family's other businesses, all of which have been showing a marked rise in their profits both in America and abroad. I am here to see if any of you have any theories as to why this is, as well as here your plans on how to get us out of this slump. If I do not leave with enough concepts to make me think that you are at least competent, the results will not be pleasant."

One of them made to protest, but Emma stared him down, as cold as a viper about to strike. "Your contracts state implicitly that I can, as hereditary chairman of the board and outright owner of this company, fire any of you for incompetence. Two losing quarters gentlemen, one of which was during the Stark Crisis, is more than sufficient for that. Now, I will open the floor to anyone who has constructive…" she emphasized, her eyes narrowing, "points to open up with to address this."

About six hours later Emma exited the building having fired four of the five men in that room. One of them, strangely enough the oldest in the room, had been flexible enough to actually come up with a few plans that could work. The man, one Nicholas Penske, had also had a few ideas on new products to share which his division managers had passed on to him. The others had all said that they needed more time, or had come up with ideas that were based around laying off workers or other things to streamline the company in order to turn a profit.

That had not been the way Emma wanted to go. Go big or go home, she thought to herself shaking her head. Having gotten used to talking with Jean or at least listening politely while Jean waxed eloquent on engineering issues, she had hoped to find at least one manager who was that enthusiastic about that side of things, but none of the men in that room had ever been engineers really, they were simply managers of said.

Once she was in her armored limo again she opened up a call to her secretary. "I've just fired four of the five district managers for Frost Engineering." she said without preamble. "I left Nicholas Penske in charge, he had some good ideas as to new products that we could put out without too much time necessary creating the templates, and a few good ideas about entering the transportation sector. Keep a close eye on him, I'll want to know if he can turn the company around before promoting him into the president position there."

That position had been vacant since shortly after her father's death, the former president having been one of his more odious, though capable, toadies. His father would never allow someone to work for him if he wasn't competent, but would overlook anything else so long as the man did his job to a high degree and was loyal, thinking that covering up such secrets gave him another lever to control them. Emma did not think like that, to put it mildly.

A word to the police about the bastard's collection of child pornography, including homemade videos of a few of the kids in his neighborhood, and he was now going to serve the rest of his life in prison if Emma had any say of it. There was no hint that the man had crossed the line from watching to touching, but such people bothered her on a visceral level.

"How long are we going to give him to show a profit madam?" Greg asked his fingers flying over his computer even as he talked.

"Let me get back to you on that one. I have copies of the plans for some new products, but I'll want a set of independent eyes to look at them and tell me what she thinks."

The man's eyebrow rose, but he nodded anyway. He had long since come to the conclusion that his employer had several different irons in the fire that he didn't know about, and had rapidly come to the conclusion that he was happy with that said of affairs.

"In case it turns out the items are unlikely to sell, I'll want a study on how much we could sell the company for, and if it is an economically sound maneuver at this time. I personally don't think it would be, but Stark Enterprises is solidifying itself in the private sector far faster than I had expected, even with its mobile computing products." Though if it is, I might sell it to Harry, since eventually he'll need a larger industrial base than his house-elves can provide. "Another idea would be to switch assets from FE to Cold Steel, get with our analyst division and see how much that repurposing would cost as well."

"On that note I will want full dossiers on our top ten programmers, as well as what their opinions are on the programming involved in some of Stark Industries mobile computers. I don't think we'll be able to duplicate it, but we should see if the programming at least is good enough for us to acquire and make use of in our own products to compete with them."

The man nodded, not mentioning anything about the legality or illegality of such a maneuver. Emma went on. "On a similar vein, find out why Steed Industrial's holdings are still being administered by the government. I couldn't find anything out while I was in the UK, but I think it might be a legal issue, so sic our legal analysts on it. Those properties are too valuable" For Harry and I both, "to let them continue to be run by the government if we can find some way to get a hold of them."

Indeed, if Emma added those holdings to her own, she would possibly become the richest woman in the world, able to call on more resources than even Shaw and Buckman.

Her secretary made another note on his computer. "Anything else madam?"

Emma frowned tapping her fingers together thoughtfully. "Yes, how goes getting Sandman out of prison, and is there an update on our data on Peirce's holdings?"

"Our agents have figured out who is blocking your petition to release the Sandman, madam. It seems they're connected to Ozcorp. We haven't discovered the why of it yet, but it is certainly their money being funneled into keeping Sandman behind bars." That they couldn't prove it in an open court without admitting to breaking the law in turn went unsaid.

"The why does not matter, only the how. Besides the warden who else have they bought in the process that is stopping me from getting the Sandman out of jail on a work release program? I've looked at his records in prison, he's been a model citizen and is showing all signs of actually being remorseful for what he's done. But the more time that goes past, the less likely a work release program would be able to truly integrate him successfully back into society."

"I will redirect our inquiries to look into that madam. As to your other query, we've narrowed down a few more sites of Pierce Industrial, his medical holdings are also now almost entirely mapped out. May I ask again what this is about?"

"A precautionary measure." Emma replied blandly. "I have reason to believe that nearly all of the initial assaults against my family's holdings after I took over, both computer based and the sabotage attempts came from Pierce, including the attempts to infiltrate the mansion."

Greg nodded, taking that at face value. "I will warn you however that it is rather a large bite to chew if we make Peirce an open enemy. We compete with him directly in several areas, and he can call on more… extralegal resources than we can."

"I have no intention of doing something so stupid, but forewarned is forearmed. That is all, I'll want to see you at eight this evening with those dossiers." The man nodded and without another world word Emma ended the call.

At home she was met almost immediately by the majordomo, who ushered her into a sitting area where she found Firestar and her two parents being entertained by Cordelia, talking about some kind of scandal or other in Hollywood. When her older sister entered the room, Cordelia bowed out quickly, sending an apologetic glance at Firestar, who returned it with a shrug.

While Emma looked at the trio her thoughts raced looking through the information she had learned about them. Angelica Jones was a B/C average student in most everything except for Language Arts, where she'd scored A's practically going back to kindergarten. She didn't seem to have any passion but reading and writing little short stories, many of whom had been published in various student magazines. For all that however Angelica was a little on the meek side, and was most distinctly a follower in personality. Her powers didn't seem to have changed that, though she had begun to act out a few of her stories, using those powers to solve small crimes near the school and her house.

Her two parents were from a middle-class background. They had enough money to get by but not enough money to squander, much like Kitty's parents only a little worse off. But where Kitty's parents were very loving and understanding about their daughter's mutation, these two were only slightly below outright antagonistic about it.

They looked at their daughter's mutation as if it was some kind of disease that could be cured so long as they kept their distance and could keep their daughter from acting out with her powers. That hadn't stopped Angelica from experimenting with them however, which was part of the problem. That, and their own affairs had taken a turn for the worse at the same time they learned of her mutation, so it made for a convenient target.

As such while dealing with the parents at least Emma would keep her full Ice Bitch mask on, if powered down slightly. "Good afternoon. I apologize for not being here in person to welcome you, but unfortunately I have several companies I need to run which takes up my time. I trust that my sister has told you what this is all about?"

"You want our daughter to use her powers as some kind of bodyguard for you correct?" the father asked roughly.

He was a largish man, though nowhere near Piotr's size, and his weight was more fat than muscles these days, but he hadn't forgotten his roots as a blue-collar worker despite having moved up in the world. His gruffness also lost quite a bit of its impact since Emma knew that he was the manager of a ladies clothing store now rather than the steel mill he had worked at a few months ago.

"We haven't seen any kind of contract or anything like that yet! Your younger sister only said for us to wait to talk to you about that, which makes me think we're wasting our time here!" The woman next to him on the sofa said sharply.

Everything about her was sharp, her face was thin and almost pointed, her nails were pointed, her glare was sharp, and her clothing was quite neat and tidy. The notes that Emma had read about these two indicated that the mother was the power in the relationship, she browbeat the larger man into doing everything she wanted, and looking at the two Emma could well believe it.

"That is because I have no idea what I have to work with at present." Emma replied smiling coldly at the woman. Her sharpness met Emma's self-control, and it was the older woman who flinched away quickly, unable to match Emma stare. "Do you know any martial arts, how adept are you at using your power? Besides flight and energy blasts, which Cordelia told me about, what else can you do?" Emma asked, switching her gaze over to the younger girl.

"W-well I'm pretty good at using my powers, I think." Angelica stammered a little feeling the weight of that gaze herself but she shook it off a little better than her mother did. Firestar went on to describe what she could do with her powers, which was based off the control of microwave energy. As she went she grew more and more animated, while her parents became more and more stone-faced, something Emma noticed.

"I see," Emma said when the girl wound down. "You'll need quite a bit of training in martial arts and tactics at the very least, as well as how to work with others. Payment for that training will be taken out of your pay, but don't worry, it won't be all that much. For now however, I am going to introduce you to our doctor here, who will be giving you a full physical. There have been numerous mutants reported whose powers have detrimental effects to their health, not just their looks or anything of that nature, and full medical is free to all those on my security detail."

Emma had read about a few mutants whose powers basically were different forms of self-mutilation, not accompanied by any kind of healing factor to take away the damage after they were used. Even discounting simple physical 'modifications', some mutations definitely had downsides, and she wanted to make certain anyone working for her had the best medical resources money could buy.

She rang a small bell, and a second later a servant entered. "Please direct Miss Jones here to the medical rooms please, the doctor should be waiting for her. If he isn't I'll ream him a new asshole, Emma thought to herself scowling internally. The man hadn't been one of her father's followers, but he did tend to look down at her, with more reason than most admittedly. After all he had delivered her and Cordelia both right here in this mansion.

After Angelica left, Emma turned back to the parents smiling pleasantly or as pleasantly as a shark could at any rate. "Now, I understand that you have issues with your daughter's mutation. I can understand that but I can assure you that there is nothing unnatural or freakish about mutations. I've seen all of the paperwork and all of the research, I researched this heavily before deciding to employ someone like your daughter to defend me."

"Just because some science book says its natural doesn't mean it's not freakish." The mother muttered then paled a little as Emma speared her with her eyes.

"I am going to offer her a limited employee option now, half of which will be hers and put into an account which she will be able to access when she turns 18. The rest, besides a stipend for daily needs, will be turned over to you as her guardians. However, realize that I will be watching what you do with it very closely, and if I feel that the money is not being used for the long-term benefits of the individual who is actually earning that pay, I will remove it from your control and turn it over to a neutral third party until she turns 18. That too will be part of the contract, and she will be signing it with you two as witnesses, not cosigners."

The mother growled a little, but couldn't fight back against Emma's cold gaze nor could she argue against what Emma had said. Emma was in fact being incredibly generous, at least in her terms. The salary itself would be much more realistic than anything Harry would have offered, but Emma did not have Harry's soft spot, and knew what she was paying for.

"Now," she said standing up. "I have other business to attend to while your daughter is getting her physical. There is a TV here obviously and some magazines I believe, feel free to spend the time however you wish. If you need anything just ask for it at the door and a servant will provide, save for alcoholic beverages." Emma left then, heading up to her office to get some work done.

An hour later however she was called back down to the medical room, where a very worried Dr. was standing. "Her powers of microwaves affect her body." he said quickly. "She's got a small cancer growing already."

"How bad is it?" Emma asked, worriedly.

"Not very bad right now we caught it before could get worse. But if she keeps using her powers obviously it will get worse exponentially as she goes along."

Still sitting on the examination bed Angelica looked both relieved and shocked at what the doctor had discovered. It had never occurred to Angelica that her powers would be harming her own body, and to hear it had begun to do so was scary. Still, they had caught it early enough. Yet if I want to keep using my powers like the doc said…

Emma frowned, looking at the medical reports that the doctor held out to her. "I will have to bring in that specialist I mentioned much quicker than I had expected in that case."

The doctor simply nodded, looking over at one cabinet in the corner of the room surreptitiously. Emma had bought a small supply of ten potions from Harry, one of every potion he made at this point, even those that he wasn't selling on the open marked. The man hadn't been allowed to test them on anything just yet, Emma wasn't about to let him break someone's arm just to see if the bone-knitting potion could work as advertised. Still, he knew she was connected to the new medicines coming out of the UK even though he hadn't realized that Frost Pharmaceuticals was part of the distribution network.

"Still, it's not life-threatening right now?" Emma asked.

"No, not yet, but as I said the more she uses her power the more it will grow. It would've gone unnoticed at this point however if we hadn't given her a full physical, you know that we have a lot more medical equipment here and much better scanners than nearly any hospital."

She nodded at that, then excused herself to go and explain it to the parents. She spent several minutes listening to them rant on and on about how Angelica's powers were evil and obviously harming their daughter so couldn't possibly be a good thing. After they wound down Emma eventually got them and the girl to agree to the contract she had written up.

Emma watched as Angelica signed it, then watched as the two parents signed where she pointed, as cosigners. After that she politely showed the two parents the door. Neither had taken up her offer of hospitality, wanting to rush off the moment they could, leaving their daughter behind. There was an air of finality about that act which made Emma angry, but Angelica didn't seem surprised.

"Now." she said turning back to the younger girl, who looked both relieved and lost now that her parents were out of the picture for a while and still shocked by the doctor's discovery. "Let's get you situated one of the rooms, and then you and my little sister can do something while I go back to work."

OOOOOOO

The next evening Emma had been able to get away, but she had requested a girl's night only for some reason. Harry, having no idea what a girls night implied, stayed away and decided to find out what the hell a 'boy's night' would be like. With that in mind he corralled Nikolai and Piotr, who both had some ideas, though said it was more normally called a bro night or similar. That was why they were now sitting in one of the unused rooms of the castle, which Harry had quickly changed into a den for the evening, watching Die Hard and drinking beer.

Shiang Chi, Dennis and Dr. Druid had been invited, but all three had declined for various reasons. Dennis had an early morning the next day, he was going to go down to London to meet with one of the agents he was recruiting for Harry's espionage service, and wanted a clear head for the interview. The other two were against alcohol for moral and personal reasons.

"So this is what guys do together?" Harry asked, reaching forward to grab a handful of popcorn and scarfing it quickly. The house-elves had, as always done him proud, something he'd been certain to tell the two of them who had created the food for the evening. Pizza, chicken wings, popcorn and other snacks, all made by the house-elves, with several different cases of peers, ranging from American loggers to the German types, which Nikolai had gone out to purchase.

"Pretty much." Nikolai said belching a little. "I don't have much experience with it, but this is what my fellow troopers always did when they could get off base for a time. Or even sneak in liquor into the base, though that was a rather dangerous proposition, considering the penalties for doing so. I understand there should also be a stripper or something, but I figure with your relationship with the fiery one and she-who-throws-lightning that would be a bad idea."

"You show wisdom." Harry laughed, "Much wisdom." So saying he drained his beer, smacking his lips thoughtfully afterwards. He smirked internally, knowing a secret that would irritate his to fellows the next day.

"I understand we are also supposed to talk about girls, but again that doesn't seem to be a necessity." Scott said. He was sitting on another sofa, having been invited by Harry to join them. Sam had also joined them but he stayed away from the beers until Piotr and Nikolai had ganged up on him, forcing him to drink a German lager of some sort. He was now unconscious on a conjured bed at the back of the room. Evidently the Guthrie couldn't hold their liquor.

Scott had tried to bring in Kurt and Evan along as well, but that had been vetoed by Charles, who stated that they were too young to drink, and worse, that the effect of alcohol on someone who could teleport was an unknown variable. Harry actually agreed with that one, considering he had seen a few splinching incidents in his time. Of course Harry also promised both teens that when they did hit 18, which was the drinking age in Britain he would take both of them out for a bender.

"I don't know about that one." Nikolai said smirking evilly at the American Cyclops. They hadn't spent much time together of course but he had liked what he had seen. Seeing the American unwind a bit had been rather amusing too. "What about you and that Rogue girl? And is that her real name?"

"It's going well I suppose." Scott answered a little hesitantly. He had no idea where the line between gossiping and simply talking about his girlfriend was, and had no wish to let even a hint that he was talking about Rogue behind her back get back to her. "We haven't, you know gone further than simply making it official that we're going out or anything, and yes that is her real name as far as you are concerned. Telling you Rogue's birth name would get me banned from further kissing time, so yeah, not going there."

Harry laughed amused at the change from the young man he had first met. "You are looking much more mellow these days, I take it Rogue has finally succeeded in removing the remainder of that stick up your ass?"

"You could say that yes, though the process was started long before this by you and the others." Scott replied drolly then took another swig of the beer in his hand, one of the German lagers. They were a little too strong for his tastes, but seeing as this was only the second time he had a drink, he wasn't about to turn them down.

Wyatt chuckled, sipping at his light beer. He had been to several guy nights before, and had no wish to deal with a hangover the next morning, even if it was part of a team building exercise, which was the way Harry had rather glibly described the evening to Susan.

Next to him Nikolai changed targets to his fellow Russian. "And what about you, Paige and Amara? Is there another ménage-a-trois in the making, or just a catfight? If the second option, I might need to buy my ticket now, despite them being friendlier with one another these days."

Piotr blushed brightly and turned away trying to change the subject. He latched onto the fact the movie had just ended and got up quickly raising over to the player. "So, what should we watch now? I have not heard good things about Die Hard two, so possibly a Bond movie?" Behind him he heard laughter, and Piotr could swear that his ears were burning.

The evening went on, with the boys getting steadily getting more and more drunk, while Harry simply sat there, drinking his beers and laughing at them all. During this time he got to know them all a little better, mostly their childhoods, their dreams for the future and other things. Some of which was surprising. Nikolai for instance had wanted to be a deep sea diver when he was younger. Scott wanted to be a pilot, and was well on his way to getting a private license, thanks to his time with the X-men.

One particular topic was role models, where Harry learned more about Piotr's older brother, who he held up as a personal hero.

It had been Mikhail who had convinced their parents, when they were alive, that Piotr had a real gift for painting and should be allowed to continue it. He had also taught Piotr to stand up for himself, and sent money to the family when he was training as a cosmonaut that kept the family eating in that time between their mother's death and when Piotr was large enough to work the communal farmland. His death had struck Piotr and his grandparents hard. It was an interesting insight into the highly moral young man.

"We knew it was coming long before the government had admitted it of course, but it still hurt when we received the formal notice in the mail." Piotr sighed heavily, looking up at the roof and through it to the sky beyond. "That is part of why I am so interested in your space going endeavors tovarishch. Perhaps I may at the least discover his body up there someday, and return it to rest in consecrated ground." He didn't make a big deal of it, but Piotr had been brought up in the Russian Orthodox Church. So saying, Piotr had grabbed up another bottle of beer, turning to laugh at one of Sean Connery's one-liners.

Nikolai on the other hand had held up the original Red Guardian as a role model, none in his family being worth it. He had been, in his words, sold to the state by his parents, both of whom worked for the government. "Mind you," he said reflectively, "It turned out to be a good thing, especially that I excelled so much to get into the Super-Soldier program. I hate to imagine what my sister would have gone through without someone there to watch her back."

Scott opened up about his own past, how his parents had died in a plane crash and how he had only recently found out that his brother was still alive. He had tried to contact Alex occasionally, but the other young man didn't want to have anything to do with the X-men right now, being too busy enjoying life as a surfer boy down south to take anything seriously at time.

In turn Harry had opened up further about his own time in Durzkaban, and how he came to be conscripted to fight the good fight because no one else in the magical kingdom had wanted to do the dirty work. That segued into a halfway serious, halfway amusing discussion on the proper punishment for Dumbledore and the other adults who hadn't helped Harry in trying to combat Voldemort and his forces.

Eventually Wyatt left to head home, and the others fell into the sleep of the exceedingly drunk, leaving only Harry and Piotr awake. The large Russian was helped by his size and the fact he had been drinking locally brewed bears for several years back in his village. Still, Piotr was just on that edge between where he was lucid enough to be called sober but not quite enough to actually do anything.

"So Piotr," Harry said pushing aside the last of his beers and not showing any sign of actually having drunk more than any two of the others combined. "What do you think of life in the castle so far?"

"It is good." Piotr said smiling faintly but enunciating his words with the carefulness of the very drunk. "I like spending so much time with my sestrenka and my grandparents, I like learning, and the team is excellent, I have made friends here."

"No regrets in joining up then?"

"Not a one." Piotr said firmly. "We might not be fighting just for mutant rights as I thought it would be, but we are fighting the good fight, and that is enough for me."

Harry looked at him thoughtfully. Piotr had impressed him. Above and beyond his powers and his willingness to learn it was his mentality that Harry liked. He was empathic, gentle, very insightful when called upon, and intelligent. Nikolai had some of the same qualities, but he actually wasn't that good of a leader despite having been trained as a possible candidate for that position on the Russian Super-Soldier team. He didn't put himself forward, while Piotr did when he felt the need. Harry had been told that had been Piotr who made the decision to go in and rescue Paige when Father Garnoff had seen her name change colors.

"Starting tomorrow I'm going to take the time to start training you in squad tactics." He said abruptly. "It's not set in stone yet, but you're the one that has stepped up the plate when leadership is needed when myself or my ladies aren't around. I think it's time to get you some learning to go with that attitude."

Piotr looked at him, then looked down at the beer and then up at Harry's serious face before setting it aside. Even through his buzz he could understand what was being asked of him, and he thought about it seriously then he nodded slowly. "Yes sir, I think I'd like that. I promise I won't let you down."

"Good." Harry said. "Now, tell me about your latest art project, it looked magnificent with what I could see of it the other day."

OOOOOOO

The conversation among the three women was much more serious, at least in part, though the rest of their evening did bear a resemblance to the boys. They had good food, much more highbrow food in their case, and wine rather than beer, but they had also watched a few movies, romantic ones in their case. Now they were all on the bed up in the Headmaster's tower. Jean and Emma were taking turns coloring their toenails in different colors using a magical color changing spell stuck on a tiny paint brush, while Ororo laid next to them brushing slowly at her hair.

At first the discussion had of course centered on their relationship with one another and with Harry. Storm was happy to see that Emma was moving forward in their relationship, though she hadn't yet voiced the words it was obvious now what she felt for Harry.

And Emma's growing feelings toward Jean and Ororo were evident even now. She was constantly touching them, smiling faintly whenever they looked at her. Even their present activity showed a level of trust that Emma had never shown anyone before. For her part, Emma was still reluctant to say the words, but her affection towards both other women, and Harry when he was around, made it obvious what she felt.

Jean was happy with how things were going as well, though she would have liked to push her and Harry's (and the others after) physical relationship to the next level. But the time had just never been right, and like Harry, she wanted her first time to be perfect. Emma on the other hand wanted to, in her own deliberately crude words 'lose her V card' at the earliest opportunity.

In many ways she was actually more experienced than Ororo, let alone Jean. Or at least she was more experienced now than Ororo had been before she and Harry got together. She had done practically everything that didn't involve actual intercourse, and had a few 'lovers', including a teacher at her high school, that had shown her many things. She had never been able to take that final step due to her family however, and was looking forward to it with relish.

Now however their conversation had shifted to family matters, specifically, Emma's.

"I think you should just tell Cordelia eventually, but first get Harry to give you something to use on her that will make certain she can't tell anyone else. From what you've said of your younger sister, I think you can trust her to not push or get in your way, or stick a knife in your back I guess, which given your family's history I can see you being worried about. But she also doesn't seem to watch her mouth as well as I would have expected from Frost going by what by your example." Jean said, looking across at Emma.

"She was always the youngest one, and somewhat spoiled because of it. Also protected from our father's interest by myself and my older sister." Emma replied shaking her head. "He never really had much time for her one way or the other. When he did, he would come down on Cordelia much harder because of it. The dichotomy there probably has something to do with her overall attitude, I'm just…" She cut off abruptly shaking your head, hissing a little as she messed up on the color that she was painting Jean's toenails.

After correcting for error she went on, while the two other women waited patiently. "I guess part of it is the fact that Cordelia is family, and I've spent so much time equating that word to 'enemy'. I never even considered my brother family, he was just a different category altogether. Yes I know Cordelia's not a threat, and I've slowly moved away from that thought, but there's a difference between 'not an enemy' and 'trusted friend'. I've tried to treat her like family, or at least as I think family should be treated, but trusting her, with what I've been up to? That's a major leap."

"You are facing the spy dilemma." Ororo said, leaning back slightly against the wall behind the bed. "Spies have to think very hard about what they tell their families of their occupation, those who have come clean about being spies at all. It's a quandary that you will have to deal with. I can't advise you either way, it's a decision you need to make entirely on your own."

That mature response and lack of input made Emma scowl at the older woman but after a moment she shook her head. "I understand, it's just irritating that's all."

"I will however help you with Firestar and her medical issue." Ororo said, very firmly. "I think she would much prefer to be treated by a female doctor, and my magical abilities can deal with that issue easily enough."

Indeed about a fourth of what she was learning from the mother goddess was the utilization and control necessary for a healing spell. It was not one designed to heal a specific ailment but rather a denial of anything that was not healthy. It basically boiled down to having an image in your head of what the individual or object being healed should be like, then imposing that reality on the reality in front of you, rejecting what had been there before. They were much more power intensive spells than Harry's various medical ones, not having the shape as it were of those spells. But she could also heal literally anything with a single spell while Harry had to use different ones.

Unfortunately there were also some limitations. First the power requirement was intense, the larger the wound the more power needed, and Ororo was nowhere near the level where she could regrow limbs yet, hence why she hadn't offered to heal Dr. Druid. Healing internal injuries was also bad since they had no visual component, but a scanner could help with that, along with images of what the area should look like healed.

"Enough about that," Jean said slapping her hands together. "We've had our serious discussions for the evening, now what should we do with Ororo's hair?"

OOOOOOO

The next day, Piotr and the others woke up late the next day with pounding headaches and blurry vision to Harry's whistling as he moved about the room, cleaning up the DVD's. "Morning all, you can go back to sleep, just grabbing up the DVDs."

"H-how are you… why don't you have a hangover!?" Nikolai began, almost shouting before he winced in pain at the sound of his own voice. This didn't stop him glaring at his leader/friend however. "You drank more than me, hell more than all of us!"

On the floor Scott nodded in agreement, holding his head as if afraid the movement would cause his head to fall off. Piotr just kept on sleeping, and Sam curled up with a moan, hiding his head under his arms.

"Oh that?" Harry smirked. "Magic old boy. My body's got magic always flowing through it, and an upshot is it keeps me from getting drunk. Now, normally I would provide hangover potions for you all, but seeing this is the first time many of you have gotten drunk, I have decided you all need to see the negative side to alcohol, or at least one of them. See you all later." With that he walked out of the room, still whistling cheerfully, ignoring the two glares trying to set his back on fire.

"You realize we've got to get him back for this, right?" Said Nikolai, looking over at the others.

Scott shook his head gingerly, wishing Harry haven't decided to turn this into a learning experience. A valuable experience, he thought to himself sardonically, but one I could have cheerfully done without. "I think I'm going to bow out of that. Trying to prank Harry is a losing proposition, he's got experience and magic on his side, a deadly combination that kind of conflict."

His tone of voice was so deadly serious that all of the others looked at him blankly for a few moments before cracking up a little then wincing, holding their heads. Sam groaned, falling back onto the sofa turned bed. "Ah'm just hopin' that I can get out of here without my mother figurin' out what I did last night. Mama holds views about drinking. She had many an argument about it with my old man, and with a lot of my neighbors who own their own stills."

"I feel your pain." Nikolai said dryly. "And I don't care." Despite his desire to get back at Harry, he looked the least irritated by his hangover, having felt it several times before. But there was the principle of the thing to consider. "There has to be some way of pranking him back."

Piotr had been silent, simply rubbing his forehead. Like Nicolai he had been introduced to alcohol well before this, though unlike Nicolai he had never been drunk before. His grandparents would not have looked favorably upon that idea, and life on the farming commune was hard enough without having to deal with addiction of any sort.

He spoke up now, a smile lurking on his lips. "I think I have an idea, but we would have to find a sympathetic house-elf…"

OOOOOOO

Harry watched Jean and Ororo talking with Melody on the other side of the dining table, filling her in on some storybook or other that they had bought her. His daughter was literally jumping up and down in her seat a wide beaming smile on her face. Beside her, Sergei also had a smile on his face. The two adults had generously included him in their discussion considering that this was about an audiobook they had bought for Melody, a story about talking mice and others and their battles against 'vermin'. It sounded interesting, and Harry made a mental note to look up the series.

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt a small tug on his shirt. Illyana had moved from her seat by her grandparents and now stood next to his chair. Harry had gotten rid of the long benches, replacing them with comfortable chairs.
"Yes?" he said smiling down at her before ruffling her hair, smirking as she shook her head trying to get it back to normal. "What can I do for you, Illyana?"

The young girl looked a little concerned about something, but her words were clear when she spoke. "Can, can I ask a question, about Melody?"

Harry's eyebrows rose. He had expected this question to come from one of the other teenagers, but Illyana was a very bright young girl, not even considering her magical potential, which he had already begun to formulate plans to train. Unfortunately, unlike with Kitty who Jean had introduced occlumency to, you could not start with mental disciplines like that with young children.

What occlumency did was organize your mind, solidifying that organization into the image the user thought up. But the mind changed so often from ages 7 to 18, that kind of organization actually hampered their ability to grow, which was why it wasn't routinely taught at Hogwarts. This could be overcome if you understood the problem, and knew how to control it enough to slide any new ideas or learning/growth into place, or even just simply redo your entire defense, but children couldn't do that.

But that didn't mean Illyana couldn't start learning control, something she needed to do since one of the house-elves had reported that she had changed the colors on one of Melody's pillows the last night the girls had a sleep over. "Sure, I wanted to show you something anyway." He reached down and took Illyana's hand nodding over at her grandparents who nodded back.

The two of elderly Rasputins had been enjoying their time in Hogwarts. It was a much simpler life than on the farm, and both of them had loved simply having days of nothing to do but sit around and interact with children. They listened to the problems of the older teenagers, and were there to talk to the youngsters as well, not just Illyana. They had been a godsend in particular to Rahne since she arrived. The young werewolf mutant had a very rough upbringing, and she found solace in their attitudes towards life.

Harry led Illyana up the stairs to the sixth floor, then into the room containing the hearthstone. The young girl's gasp was all he could wish for. "This is the hearthstone…" He said softly, moving over to it touching the surface of the massive slab of granite almost tenderly. "From here all the magic of the castle begins, and all of it ends. Every defensive ward, every spell on Hogwarts has to be tied into this hearthstone, and from thence be powered by me and the ley lines laying in the ground below us."

At a gesture, Illyana came over to touch it gingerly, gasping in delight. "It feels, it feels like it's alive! Like it's a giant heart beating or something!" She exclaimed happily, giggling a little. "And it likes me!"

"This place was built to be a school, and you are among its first students. And yes, it is alive in a way. Not sentient as we would understand the term, though that will probably come in time. Let that be a lesson to you, spells and magic in general can sometimes have effects far beyond what the person using it might think."

He left the hearthstone then, conjuring up a pair of padded chairs, one smaller than the other, before sitting down in the larger one. "Now, you had some questions about Melody?"

Illyana sat down, still staring back at the Hearthstone, so much so that she almost missed when she tried to sit down without looking where she was going. But she corrected herself quickly. She frowned a little then began hesitantly. "I asked her age, she said she's nearly 13, but she acts sometimes like she is younger than me, it is… strange. Not that she isn't nice or anything," she added hurriedly. "It is just odd."

Harry smiled sadly. "You know how she sees songs?"

Illyana nodded. "Yes, but that doesn't bother me! She's nice, friendly, the song she sees are really interesting! I don't… I don't understand why someone would want to lock her up like she said she was before you rescued her!"

"While I still have issues with the nature of her incarceration, the fact of the matter is that Melody could not live on her own, not in the outside world." Harry growled a little. If he ever found Melody's parents they would be having words, and a lot of them would be along the lines of the 'please don't turn me into anything unnatural variety'' variety.

He stopped himself from saying more, not wanting to scare the girl. He went on in a normal tone of voice. "For one thing, she can't deal with crowds, there are too many songs, they crowd her senses and she can't deal with it. For another, they take her attention. She can't drive, she could never learn to concentrate on something that much, indeed even walking in a busy place like a city would be dangerous for her if she didn't have me or Ororo around to block them out."

"And…" he said sighing faintly. "The music in her head has affected how she can think, and how she can grow mentally. Do you understand how that could be a problem?"

Illyana had to ponder that for a moment then she frowned. "Do you mean like the difference between a kid thought and a teenage thought?"

"Very good." Harry replied, nodding approvingly. "You have the right idea, just not the right words. Illyana, Melody will never be able to think like an adult, will never be able to take care of herself, will never be able to grow up, to put it simply. We're not certain if that will affect her body or not, you've certainly noticed her ears, they have something to do with her powers, some kind of physical manifestation of it, but if her age will always be stuck where it is I can't say, not yet. But mentally, some areas of her personality will mature, while others simply won't.

"That's really sad." Illyana said shaking her head.

"It might be to us, but Melody doesn't see it that way, she's been like this all her life, and doesn't understand what she would be missing. It does not matter to me and never has, I will love her as my own for her entire life regardless."

"Now." Harry said clapping his hands causing Illyana to start for a moment. "Let's leave this topic for now, I know I can trust you to keep what we talked about to yourself, and that it won't affect how you treat Melody?" Illyana nodded her head rapidly and Harry smiled. "Good, then let us go onto a little… experiment."

He conjured up a small marble, then a table which he sat between them before placing the marble in the center of it. "What did I just do?"

"Conjuration." Illyana answered promptly. She had been utterly fascinated by magic well before Harry had walked into her life, and constantly asked Kitty, Ororo and harry questions about it. She had first been confused by the difference between several magical spells and the telekinesis that Jean used, but with Harry's help had come to understand the difference.

She went, on reciting from memory some of the information she had read in a few of the books Harry had pointed her to. The magic of the library tower had allowed her to read them as if they had been written in her native Russian. "It is a magical discipline where you conjure or create things out of the very air. It is different from transfiguration because it isn't changing one physical thing to another but creating something from your mind. But much like Transfiguration, it is about what you imagine, what you can picture as you cast the spell will affect what appears. While conjuration of some objects is harder than others, transfiguration comes slightly easier and all training in the first must come after the second."

"Enough, enough!" Harry laughed reaching across the table to pat Illyana's head fondly. "Very good, more of an answer than I had expected. Now, if I move this," he tapped the marble, "what discipline would I be using?"

Illyana nibbled on her bottom lip as she thought for a moment. "You're not fundamentally changing the object, but you are affecting it, which means you are casting a charm on it. What does 'fundamentally' mean? I read it, but I don't know what it means."

"Again a good answer, and the word fundamental means that something of central importance or the essential structure of something. But for future reference, I would be leery of using that word when it comes to magical disciplines, because at the edges they tend to blend. For instance." He tapped the marble changing its color. "The book your read would say that is not a fundamental change, but it changed the marble didn't it? But this would be a charm, not a transfiguration, because the marble is still a marble, still made of the same material."

He tapped the marble gently intoning, "Wingardium Leviosa." The marble rose up about a foot off the table. Harry smiled faintly watching Illyana's eyes follow the marble. "This wasn't the first term charm I ever learned, but it turned out to be one of the most useful."

"Now, most books that I brought for my old dimension would say that you have to intone the spell, as if the magic were all in the words themselves." Harry scoffed his face twisted in such a way that Illyana actually laughed a little. Internally though she was beginning to wonder why Harry was teaching her this, but deep inside a wild hope was beginning to boil away in her mind.

"The words however help you concentrate, which is a necessary crutch at first. The words for this one Wingaardium Leviosaaa, make the 'aaa' sounds nice and long." He held up his finger and traced the actions that a wand user would have to make to cast the spell, explaining each movement carefully. "You understand?" Illyana nodded and he went on softly. "Good, now you try it."

Illyana's eyes widened in shock, the hope in her bubbling over but for a moment all she could do was stare at Harry and he smiled. "Try it." he said, his voice still soft, a gentle smile on his face.

Illyana took a deep shuddering breath, then raised her hand and moved it through the same motions that Harry did. Harry corrected her, and she nodded then said "Wingardium Leviosa!" while she moved made the motions with her finger. Nothing happened, and she almost cried.

"Remember what you said about transfiguration? You need an image in your mind of what you want to see happen, even with charms. Imagine in your mind what you want the spell to do. Remember what I said, the words are not the power, the powers already in you." Harry said, smiling still.

Illyana looked up at him again, and saw nothing there but kindness, not a single hint that he was making fun of her. Again she took a deep breath, and then imagined what she wanted the marble to do in her mind before opening them and concentrating on it. Her fingers waved again in the motion, as she intoned softly "Wingardium Leviosa."

The marble lifted off the table, hovering 3 feet in the air before seemingly doing a little dance there as Illyana almost dropped her hand entirely away from pointing at it before catching it again. Her eyes were now almost as wide as Melody could make hers as she stared at Harry.

"Well done!" Harry said reaching out to grab the marble out of the air placing it back down on the table. He reached across the table to rub the top of her head fondly. "When we first met, I could sense something in you, Illyana Rasputin. Do you remember my astonishment that Hedwig liked you? That was first clue. You had magical potential in you, and being in this castle with all its ambient magic has awakened it. You have it in you to be a sorceress Illyana, possibly a very powerful one."

"I, I can be a Volshebnitsa?" she said slipping into Russian despite all the practice she had been doing speaking in English as often as she could. "Truly?"

"Yes!" Harry said laughing. "This was not a joke, that wasn't me levitating the marble just now, that was you casting a spell. Oh," he waved his hand. "I'll admit that it was easier to do in this room with all the background magic in the air, but you do have it in you to be a magic user."

For a moment Illyana simply sat there as if stupefied, then she hurled herself across the small table hugging Harry for all she was worth. Harry laughed again, gathering her into his lap and hugging her back gently. Through her sobs Harry got out that she wasn't happy about being a magic user simply because it was every child's dream to use magic. No, she wanted to use her powers to help people, most particularly her brother, who she was very worried about despite knowing he could handle himself and had the rest of the team to back him up.

Hearing that Harry smiled, glad his chosen apprentice was approaching magic with such an attitude. As the sniffles lessoned he pushed Illyana away from him softly looking down at her seriously. "I want to make certain that you understand that magic is not a toy. The fact you can use magic does not make you better than the people who do not have it, magic should not be used to simply give you everything you want or to control other people. I will not teach someone who will use her magic for purely selfish reasons, do you understand?"

Illyana nodded seriously and he smiled. "Good, now, realize that your true magical education will need to wait for a few years, we want your core to build up enough so that when you cast spells you don't tire yourself out." Indeed, Illyana was yawning even as Harry spoke. "But we will be starting little exercises like this." Harry gestured back down at the marble. "Once a week, to teach you control."

Again Illyana nodded. Harry laughed sitting up and pushing her to her feet gently. "Good, now let's go find the others."

By the time they made it back to the dining hall however everyone had vacated it for their various activities, and he frowned, unable to remember for a moment where Ms. Brown had set up her lessons for the day. "Was it an outside day, or an inside day, should've looked on the map before we came down here." He muttered shaking his head. "Dilly?"

"Yes master?" Harry looked down with a smile which froze we looked at the majordomo. Beside him, Illyana began to giggle.

The elderly house-elf was wearing a uniform, though it looked more like the uniform of someone working at a discotheque whose employees had to be high on LSD. It had a normal Butler's overcoat to it, but underneath it was what looked like something that wouldn't have been out of place on an Elvis impersonator. Its leggings were tight, almost like those ballerinas used but not quite, and there were sparkly sequins at the joints.

That alone could have been born, but it was colors that made Harry's eyebrows begin to twitch. Because each piece wasn't a single color no, they were all the colors of the rainbow. It was fuchsia, it was red it was orange, it was white, silver, violet. The ensemble was a true riot of colors, all of them clashing horribly with their neighbors.

Harry closed his eyes, wishing desperately that this image would be gone when he opened them. Yet when he hesitantly opened one eye it was still there! He sighed shaking his head. Good god even house-elves, at least the female house-elves, have to look at that and be appalled, don't they?

Alas this was not the case. Despite the books that Harry had bought them even Nessy, the house-elf who served as Ororo's maid, didn't really have much of an idea of fashion in relation to themselves. To the house-elves' minds the equation was simple: more colors were better. This uniform was their idea of an excellent piece of clothing.

Hearing some quiet snickering Harry groaned, realizing what had happened. "Can I ask, did you think that uniform up yourselves or did someone help you?"

"Yes master" the elderly house-elf said him bowing creakily. "Metal boy helped us, and so did the others."

"I see." Harry said to the background of Illyana now laughing, smacking her hands on her knees as she bent over.

He looked towards the doorway leading into the main hall and from there down to the dungeon, where he spotted Nikolai looking around one of the doorways. Scott had evidently left for New York, but the others were all there as well. "Of course you know," he said in a loud voice. "This means war."

That was just the start of a nice, calm few days, interspersed with pranks of all sorts, while the team continued to jell and Harry and the adults got back to work.

OOOOOOO

Nikolai was not smiling the next day as he gaped at the targets at the other side of the shooting range in the castle's basement. The room had been prepared long since, but it was only in the past week where they had enough guns to make it useful. What he was gaping at were two targets in particular, ranged at the limits of his gauss rifle's range. His shot had hit the targets shoulder. His opponent's shot had taken her target in the head.

"H-how…" he stammered looking over at Dani. "How did you…? You never, you said you had never shot a rifle before!"

"I said I never shot a sniper rifle before." Dani said, standing up and blowing ostentatiously over the barrel of the gun for a moment. "I've shot rifles before. I used to go every summer with my grandfather out into the desert and we would routinely hunt for our food. The idea of going hungry every night unless you make your shot tends to hone your abilities quite nicely."

Nikolai glared at her little then smirked tilting his head back towards the targets. "Best two out of three?"

Several hours later, they had ended up having twenty rounds, each round denoted by a target slightly further away than the previous one. Dani lost the last two rounds by a matter of centimeters. They would still have been kill shots, but they weren't quite good enough to beat Nikolai in this contest. His smile of triumph however disappeared when he returned to the tower to grab a change of clothing. Once he passed the doorway, there was a sudden tingling sensation, which caused him to frown. He didn't realize what happened however, until he showed up for the evening meal.

The rest of the castle's denizens took one look at him and broke into various degrees of laughter. "Donald Duck!" Shouted Anechka, her hair standing on end in shock then springing every which way as she began to laugh.

Harry had set up a small trap to transform anyone who entered the room Nikolai shared with Piotr and the other older teen males for now. The spell was designed to coat the person with an illusion they themselves would not be able to see for a few hours of random Disney characters. It had been hard to adjust the randomization effect, but well worth it, Harry thought as he smiled behind a glass of orange juice.

Piotr and Sam were also laughing at their friend's plight, but stopped abruptly when Harry addressed them. "I don't know what you two are laughing about, you were both in on getting the house elves to adopt that uniform of theirs after all. No one pranks a marauder without getting the same in return. Look forward to it."

Both teens gulped, looking at one another as they wondered what sort of humiliation Harry had in store for them. Nikolai however wasn't about to just cave in and let Harry do this to him, and was already planning his own prank in return.

OOOOOOO

Jean split her time over the following days working with her new projects and working with Danielle in the afternoons. After a few days she made significant headway, and had what she called a hover boot design ready to be built. Flight was impossible with this technology. The hover boards simply could not get that high into the air for that to be a viable option. But hover boots could raise the maneuverability of the wearer tremendously. They were also not as power intensive as the teleporter on Wyatt's suit. Danielle had opted to volunteer to try them out, and Jean was happy to oblige her.

OOOOOOO

Danielle and Jean stood in the RoR, with Jean using a small clipboard to take notes. "Okay Dani, try to move from side to side. Think of it like, like rollerblading or something."

The young Cheyenne girl nodded her head, then moved her legs in a way which, in a set of skates, would have sent her forward. It worked somewhat, the force between her and the ground pushing her forward, but it was hard to keep her feet at first. After a moment, she fell forward, falling on her face. She pushed herself to her feet gamely however, practicing until she got a handle on it.

To one side, Paige and Amara watched, impressed with the tenacity the other girl was showing. Also amused of course.

After about ten minutes Dani shook her head. "I don't know how viable an option for combat this is, I mean, I don't like not feeling the ground underneath me, and I have no idea what it would do with any sort of recoil from hitting something, being hit or firing a weapon."

"Maybe not having them on all the time, just being able to flip them on at will when you need to move quickly?" Jean responded, jotting down some notes as she watched the young girl move around.

"Even so, control will be an issue, I'm a decent skater, and I'm having a lot of trouble with this." Dani said, gritting her teeth while she again pushed herself upright. "I'm going to see what happens if I try to 'skate' fast from side to side and then forward and back."

That actually worked better, though that might be because Dani was getting used to the odd feeling. Still, it definitely allowed her to move faster than she could have and in different ways than she normally would have been able to, something all of them could see the point of.

Finally Dani nodded. "Okay, that wasn't so bad, why don't we see what it looks like if I'm dodging something."

Jean nodded, then called up her telekinetic powers, trying to attack the other girl as she dodged around. It was a decent show actually, though it was obvious that anyone who used the boots would need training in how to move and more importantly how to keep their centers of gravity balanced. You couldn't actually lunge from one side to another, and the control wasn't intuitive.

The two watchers laughed as Dani, in an effort to jump aside from one of her attacks, lost control and skidded into a cliff face set into the room as an obstacle. Jean shook her head, a wry smile on her lips "Okay, so controls need work, not certain what to do there."

Dani groaned, feeling her nose for a moment, thankfully it wasn't broken, she knew that feeling all too well from fights she had gotten into with both other girls and boys in her old school. Being a Cherokee girl in a school dominated by whites and blacks hadn't been pleasant, but it had at least taught her self-reliance and the need to stick up for herself. "Maybe something set to respond to twitches in the legs? They are really fast to react to small movements now, why not take advantage of it?"

"Not a bad idea, though that might be tough to program if I can't find an actual engineering solution, damn it, that is becoming a bigger bottle neck every time I turn around." Jean groused. "Alright, let's go through some more movements, then Paige, Amara, it's your turn." Both girls blanched, while Dani smirked at them evilly.

OOOOOOO

While Jean was busy with her projects, the business side of things was picking up. Even without the potions actually able to be sold yet to the civilian sector, hundreds of hospitals across the UK had called in to pre-order them, and his ad campaign was up and running as well. Emma and he had a plan to push that even harder in the future, but were waiting until the potions actually hit the civilian side to launch it.

Harry himself was working on various magical projects, above and beyond a major one he was working on with Steven Strange. He created a room that was dedicated to protecting the gem they had gotten from Selene's last cache, and added some new defenses he had taken from that little adventure to the Hogwarts array. The one that was the most difficult yet best in terms of potential in his opinion was the one that basically bounced any physical attacks against the walls of the castle away like it was made of rubber. Melody had a lot of fun helping Harry test that one after he was certain it worked, testing out different walls to make certain the array had covered the entire castle.

He had also moved the Big Book of Students out of the library tower to the room next to the hearthstone. The names of the students in Hogwarts had been removed from the Book, and were now designated on the magical image of the castle Harry had created months ago, with each student having their own label, with the same danger-dependent color label.

The Big Book of Students itself had been connected to a wall on the other side of the room, in front of which were several chairs. As names were added to the book, they were placed up onto the wall in categories of their country of origin. Harry hadn't figured out a way just yet to change that spell enough to let the color also chain from the book onto the wall, but it would come in time, and until then the book still allowed them to see who was in immediate danger.

During this time Ororo was working with Father Garnoff compiling a list of students that were in danger not because of their names listing such, but because of their countries of origin. There were five names in particular that Ororo was worried about despite them being in the green, because all of them were in the Middle East. That area wasn't known for its compassion towards those that were different. So even if they were in the green or yellow now, she was concerned they it would swiftly change, too swiftly for them to act. Other areas of concern were segments of Asia and Africa.

This work was tied into the elephant in the room for all of the adults who had really thought about what the Big Book of Students was doing: Eventually a name would appear in the book then would go black before they could respond to it. What they would do then none of them knew, but it was a sobering thought.

The Big Book of Students had also been connected to a warning system, which would sound a gong if a name suddenly changed from green into the more dangerous colors. Yellow was okay, but anything worse than that was flagged by the spell, with differing level of volume to denote rising levels of danger. That had taken Harry some time to get right, but they were all pleased with the result.

This proved its worth on Wednesday that week, not even two days after Harry had finished with it. Ororo looked up from where she and Father Garnoff had been going over a list of names in Northern Africa to note in particular when a name in the book went from green to orange and now was flickering between orange and red.

"That is what happened with Paige's name." Alexi said, frowning. "But that name is one I would never have thought would be in danger."

Ororo nodded as she read from the book. The address for it was' US Embassy, Yerevan, Armenia'. The name was 'Ramsey, Douglas.' She flipped through some notes that they had made up on the different names in the book, frowning as she saw what she had thought she had remembered. "He's the son of the ambassador! Is this a direct attack on him, or something like a terrorist threat on the embassy itself?"

"No way to know but to go over there." Alexi said, shaking his head.

"I can teleport there now. Nessy." Her handmaiden house-elf popped in. "Could you find Harry and the others and informed of what's going on, I don't know if we'll need the full team for this, but it's better to be prepared in any event."

"Yes mistress." The little creature said popping out quickly while Ororo raced up into the headmaster's tower, summoning her clothing to her with a burst of magic. While she wasn't quite ready to use her spells in combat yet, some of them at least she could use outside of it.

Fully clothed she cast an illusion over herself, not a transfiguration as that would have negated many of the protective entrenchments on her clothing, they wouldn't have been there when she changed them back. The illusion was one of the spells she had learned from Gaia, and was as good as any Harry or Dr. Strange could come up with. It looked and felt real until she dispelled the image. She now looked like a normal businesswoman, like any of a thousand she would find on the streets of New York or London, but everything underneath was untouched.

Then she began to intone a teleportation spell she had learned from Gaia. Unlike Harry's apparition Ororo's teleportation did not require her to be intimately familiar with the area she was going to teleport to, but it was limited to only working in or around the earth. Essentially what the spell did was ask the Earth Goddess to fill Ororo's head with the knowledge of where she wanted to go, and then Ororo's power transported herself and anyone she was in contact to that point.

Harry had reported that it felt more like a port key, being pulled along rather than simply appearing from one place to another. Ororo had tried it several times, and found it didn't bother her as much as his apparition had at first. Now, she spent a few minutes finding a place near the embassy, it wouldn't do to appear on embassy grounds after all, not if the guards were tense at present, to teleport too, then she disappeared from Hogwarts.

She alighted down near the embassy in a small alcove hidden from the main streets by a massive overhanging tree. Looking out from her hiding place, she almost immediately saw what was going on. A huge crowd had gathered in the street leading up to the embassies entrance, which was set into a high wall that had barb wire or something similar on top of it.

Ororo frowned as she moved through a rowdy crowd shouting about mutants, plural, in Armenian, not a language she was familiar with, but it shared certain words with others, and she could get the gist easily enough. Something had stirred them up, and the plural of the word mutants surprised her.

Trusting in her magical defenses to make certain that no one noticed her passing, Ororo moved through the crowd towards the embassy, stopping near the gates. She looked at the four uniformed marines who were standing on the other side of the gate. They looked nervous, but resolute.

With a brief wave of her arm, Ororo was once more visible to normal people and she stood there waiting for a moment.

The four of them started as did a few people in the crowd a few blocks away. But seeing as this woman wasn't shouting or had any kind of weapon and was actually dressed like someone going in to meet the ambassador despite being on foot the marines didn't react just yet. The sergeant in charge of the guards moved towards her. "Ma'am for your own safety I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the area. We are in lock down at present, as you can see from all the hullabaloo behind you." Despite his clipped words his worry came through, along with a slight Californian accent.

"I can see that." Ororo said smiling and nodding her head. "However, can I ask what caused this?"

Talking about it like this as the crowd was working itself into a frenzy was rather strange, but something about this woman told the sergeant to be very polite, and it wasn't just the fact that she was possibly the most beautiful woman he had seen. "A few mutants were discovered here in the city about two months or so ago. They reached the embassy last night and asked for asylum from the ambassador. He granted it, and we've been housing them since. But the two of them have been dodging this lot since their powers came out, and the mob somehow figured out they were here. We managed to scare them off at first but as you can see…" he shrugged.

"I see." Ororo said frowning thoughtfully. So it wasn't a specific danger to Douglas Ramsey that changed his name color, but a danger to him and other mutants in his presence whose powers had activated before the Big Book of Students had been completed. I wonder if my presence in the room at just the right time to catch it is an example of what Kurt has taken to call the spandex affect. Still, that just means that I am in the right place at the right time to do some good.

Across from her the sergeant looked nervously behind her at the crowd, which were now waving weapons, both makeshift and non around in the air as they raced toward the embassy. "Ma'am, Get out of here please!"

"A moment please, then we shall see." So saying Ororo calmed moved over to stand in front of the gate, ignoring the man who was now frantically trying to urge her away from the building, since the mob had finally worked up enough courage to charge their positions. "In the name of the holy mother goddess, the spirit of earth and all its children, be this place defended." Suddenly a wall of force went up, magical power shaped and formed by her will moving from her position in either direction to surround the embassy.

Ororo's spells were all spoken in the tongue of her ancestors, a dead language now. She had imagined a rampart of force, a story tall wall of pure energy, and that was what she got. The closest mob members slammed into it and were suddenly forced back, screaming not in pain but in shock as the magical shield acted like a gentle hand pushing them backwards.

With that done Ororo closed her eyes briefly then opened them. Gone were the blue eyes that had been there, now they were white from one end to the other as she summoned her powers. "And now to clear the streets."

Quicker than most would think possible storm clouds began to appear in the sky above the city. Raindrops began to patter down in ever increasing fervor and soon enough a torrential downpour was falling on the city. Ororo felt there was nothing to put out ardor of a crowd of faster than being rained upon. Mobs were fun and interesting to be a part of on a clear bright day. When it was pouring cats and dogs, and now with wind added to the mix, that was a different matter entirely.

The most ardent of the crowd shouted at her angrily, calling her all sorts of names which Ororo could follow but ignored. Many threw a few bottles that smashed impotently against the shield of magic that she had just thrown up, shouting epithets of mutants, mutant bitch and freak, but she ignored them all. Instead she turned to the guards, who are now looking at her as warily as they had been at the crowd. When Ororo turned to step towards the gate one even raised his weapon, but the sergeant barked "Put it down Martinez! Christ you dumb fuck, the lady just saved us from a mob and you want to shoot her!?"

Ororo smiled. "Now that issue has been taken care of, might I come in to speak with the ambassador and his guests?" After a very hurried conference on the phone, during which Ororo called Harry telling him that she wouldn't need the team's help on this one, she was escorted into the ambassador's office.

The ambassador was a fit man, who looked as if he had military background, and retained the same level of toughness that had been a part of him in his early life. Next to him stood a rail thin young man with blond hair, a worried expression, but quick, intelligent eyes. On the sofa across from the two of them were two young men, both of whom had physical mutations. One had hands that were shaped like a lizards claws, the other had, hidden among numerous bruises around his neck and face, what looked like gills.

"I understand we have you to thank for driving off that mob out there? Fantastic job, though I have to wonder about the nature of your own powers madam. I was getting ready to call in air support, but there was no way they would've reached us in time if the mob attacked." The ambassador said, moving forward with his hand outstretched. "Philip Ramsey at your service miss."

"Philip." The African woman bowed her head slightly, and Philip was not the only one in the room to notice that she did not call him 'Mr. Ambassador'. Yet there was something about the woman, something of the way she stood that showed an almost regal bearing, which stopped Douglas from saying anything. "Thank you for standing up for mutant rights as you did allowing these two to ask for asylum. Such an act was in keeping with what I believe is part of the true American spirit and you have my sincere thanks."

Philip waved her off, asking intently. "Can I ask what brought you here just in the nick of time like this?"

"I represent a school for mutants, though eventually we hope to open our doors to normal humans as well, the better to integrate into normal society. Unfortunately at the moment we don't have enough people to really make that a viable option. We have the ability to monitor those mutants who activated their powers within a certain timeframe, and your son Douglas was one of them, Philip. His name came up on our datanet as being in danger."

Rather than trying to explain magic they had made the decision to simply say that it was an advanced computer that monitored all communication frequencies and other things that could tell them if a mutant was in danger worldwide. Though Ororo and Harry were both of the opinion that eventually their use of magic would come out.

Philip blanched a little but then laughed, shaking his head. "Well there goes that secret I suppose." he said placing a light hand on his son shoulder and smiling at the boy. "Yes Douglas is a mutant, though since his powers activated we've kept the secret as well as we could, for fear of idiots reacting as the locals did to these two."

"Can I ask what your power is Douglas?" Ororo asked, looking at the boy.

"I'm good with languages Ms. I mean excellent…" he stuttered, a little tongue-tied in front of this lovely older woman. "Um, I can understand anything I hear or, or even see so long as it is used to communicate information and I, I can speak any language instantly after hearing it just once."

"Fascinating." Ororo said smiling slightly at the boy's nervousness. "We will have to test that, as well as see how wide the definition of 'communicate information' goes. My offer for schooling is for all three of you however, an alternative to seeking asylum in America since America, despite what Philip has done for you here, has not as yet formed a consensus on what to do about mutants and their rights."

"I'll join up." the battered young man said in heavily accented English, touching the bandages on his face. He would have several scars there for the rest of his life, but he had got off lightly in comparison to his brother who was also mutant. He had been torn apart by the crowd consisting of their neighbors and even family members when they tried to flee. They had been eager to expunge the dishonor of having a freak born into the family.

"I'll take it too." The other young man said shaking in place for a moment. His English was far better than the young man's, and he showed marked signs of being of mixed dissent. "My father told me a lot of stories about America, but I've been watching the news too, and if this school of yours can offer protection well, that's what I want."

"I'm not so sanguine about you just taking my son away," Philip interjected, looking a little irritated at the very idea. "However, I'll have to say that getting him some extra training might be good. Could we arrange for him to simply go there rather than board with you?"

"That is a question I'll have to ask my… the headmaster, he's the one that handles the security element. But I can't off the top of my head see why that would be a problem, so long as we take certain precautions. The change in time zones might be it an issue, but…"

She stopped seeing Philip shaking his head. "I'm going to resign if I'm not reassigned elsewhere, I've had enough of these idiots, and besides, nearly being attacked by a mob is grounds for reassignment anyway. I'll see if I can finagle to be moved to someplace in Europe, if not back home. Will that do?"

"That will much better, we already have a few students who come in from America on a daily basis. Here she was speaking about Sam and Kitty, who weren't exactly students, but the point was a good one anyway.

"In that case, I will tentatively agree to send my son to your school, though obviously I'll have to talk to his mother before giving it a final okay."

Ororo laughed nodding her head. "A brave man then, and a wise one too. Would it be all right however if I take these two with me now? If we can call in a helicopter, seeing it come and go after my rain stops may make the mob think that their targets have moved on and lessen the pressure on the embassy here."

Philip agreed to that readily, and Ororo once again shook his hand, before giving him contact information both for herself, Harry and their Duggan, their contact with SHIELD.

After that she moved up to the helicopter pad on the embassy's rooftop, which was clear for now, though she took a moment to cast a spell on the camera that was covering the area. The camera shorted out, though it would only last a few moments. "Nessy." She asked the air.

A second later a small creature popped in, startling the two younger mutants. "Yes mistress?"

"Can you pop us all back to Hogwarts, or will you need to take the two of them first?"

The house-elf wrung her hands. "I can only take them one at a time mistress, and that with taking rests in between. I'm not the best popper." she added shamefacedly. Ororo smiled rubbing her head affectionately for a moment and saying that that was all right before calling in Cory, who easily took all three of them plus helped Nessy along.

The two young mutants had barely gotten over the shock of the little creature's arrival before they were faced with the second one, and then suddenly not being where they had been a second ago. Where before they had been standing on a flat concrete roof, the sign of a helicopter landing pad underneath their feet with the view of a city all around them, now they found themselves in what looked like some kind of European castle.

Harry had sent off the rest of the team to go back to their daily routines, but he had waited in the entrance hall of the castle, knowing this would be where Cory would pop in. He nodded cordially to the two young interns. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

Despite their worry and confusion the two snickered at the name, and he laughed quietly. "Don't worry, we're going to set up a bit of a raffle to see what the new name is once we have enough students to actually have a full class. For now, Cory will show you to your rooms, you'll be bunking in the student tower, but you'll have rooms to yourselves right now. I take it by the way that I won't have to think of bringing your family's here?"

Despite the light tone that Harry had hoped to inject into his words, both of the youngsters grimaced nodding their heads. Happy Families was not a game that most mutants played for one reason or another. He nodded grimly at that then waved them off before turning to Ororo. "So you had an interesting day?"

OOOOOOO

Back in Yerevan, a nondescript man on a rooftop with a clear, if distant, view of the US embassy set down his magnifying glasses, frowning faintly as he reached up to touch the red diamond mark in the middle of his forehead. Interesting. I had hoped this might rouse out Jean Grey from wherever she has sequestered herself with this, but the outcome isn't one I am altogether displeased with. That was obviously Ororo Munroe, her powers tell me that much even if she seems to have some kind of cloaking magic or device that blanks her features from my mind. But that wall of force was certainly magical in origin.

Sinister had decided to rile up tensions between humans and mutants both in an effort to draw out this Guardian and his faction, and to weed out the weak among mutantkind. There were far too many mutants whose mutations were evolutionary dead ends, they needed to be culled quickly for the good of the species. His cybernetic agents had incited riots worldwide in the past few days in a random pattern no one would be able to link to any central organization. Much to his frustration, they had been stymied in America almost entirely however by the efforts of the X-men.

Still, Sinister had come here because his spies in the American government had told him the ambassador's son had a most interesting power, one that, while not combat applicable, was of immense strategic value. He had hoped to either see Jean Grey in action or abscond with the boy during the chaos of the riot, but Storm's swift arrival and the way she dealt with the crowd had put paid to that idea.

"I do not have as good a knowledge of magic as I need, that much is obvious." Sinister mused aloud, leaning back in his patio chair on the porch of the hotel room he had booked for this operation. Unless I wish to put all my eggs in one basket, IE the clone I have begun to cultivate from a strand of Grey's hair I was able to recover from her a brush in her room in her parent's house….

He spoke aloud again, his thin lips twisted in distaste. "I… might be forced to… call in outside experts to aid me in this."

OOOOOOO

Odin sat alone in his bedchambers, staring out over the nighttime sky of Asgard through a window by his side as he quietly sipped a stein of ale. Odin was a general, a king, used to making decisions quickly and with as much certainty as he could, the better to lead his people, because there was no surer way to lose your people's confidence then to appear as if you were uncertain about something. And to be fair most of the time he wasn't uncertain about anything, he had not lived this long, had not reigned as king of Asgard for as long or as well as he had without being confident in his own abilities.

Yet when it came to thinking of longer term issues, sometimes he did take the time to contemplate them before making a decision, most particularly when it came to humans, Midgard, and unknown magic. What he was contemplating now had to do with all three, hence why he was sitting here alone in his room. The news that Balder had brought him from his meeting with the power rising on Midgard, a human named Harry Potter (one individual!) was in some ways merely interesting, yet in others disquieting.

Despite using magic himself, Odin was an expert on using runes and glyphs, he was suspicious of magic users. This had nothing to do with his people's disdain for said, which was why his second son his adopted son had been a sort of outcast here and Asgard. The use of runes and magical items was all right, but to actually wield sorcerous powers, that was seen as dangerous and rather cowardly by most. Yet Odin was slightly more open about such matters than most, he was suspicious of magic users because the use of it tended to corrupt those who could. Especially those who gained power in it quickly, as this Potter had done.

In his opinion powers like that should never be in the hands of mortals, he had a big enough problem with beings like the Sorceress and others from Asgard having it. But Harry Potter was still visibly mortal, or close enough to still fall under that label at any rate. How much that was true was beyond Odin unless he saw Potter for himself, then he would be able to discern more. But for now, his distrust of magic users especially mortal ones, and his desire to keep Asgard separate from mortal affairs was warring with his desires to create a new ally that could aid his people.

His musings were interrupted by Frigg's voice coming from behind him speaking in her normal low tones. "You are troubled my husband. A trouble shared is a problem often solved, I am here to listen if needed."

Frigg came to stand before him, before sitting down in a chair opposite him staring into Odin's one remaining intensely. The king of Asgard huffed amusingly. For all that she never put herself forward, Frigg was one of his closest advisers, and not just because they were married and he had to live with her in the same chambers. What he had said when he had made a decision to send Balder instead of Thor to Midgard had been true, as far as it went: Frigg often gave him very good advice. But that wasn't the totality, for Frigg was as close to a real seer as could be found in Asgard.

Indeed, that had been why Odin had married her in the first place, not because Frigg was one of the fairest maidens of Asgard when they were young, but because she could read the weft and womb of the threads of fate better than even that little whore in the making Skuld of the Fates could. Yet they downplayed it, always keeping it a secret, never even mentioning the fact that she could almost literally see certain possibilities in the future unfolding. A weapon such as that was best used when no one knew about it.

Frigg had tried to steer Loki away from his self-destructive curse. She had also done all she could to protect their son Balder, to keep Ragnarock from happening. She had discerned numerous threats both internal and external many times, though the outcome of her attempting to change the visions she saw was not always effective.

"I am troubled." he said at last, sighing faintly through his beard. "Balder tried to hide it, but the fact he came to respect this human male Potter so quickly says much about him. Yet I am troubled by the power this human can wield, and the fact that it is almost all magic base, which does not make me happy. The enchantress notwithstanding, and even there we have had issues in the past, her mistress has often been as often an enemy as well as an ally, and magic in the hands of our enemies has always been a dangerous weapon against us.

"So keep them at arms-length but yet as an ally. Simply opening up a dialogue with him and a small trade of items and goods means nothing, it would not let them close enough to harm us if they turn out to be untrustworthy. You won't even have to have him here for a state dinner or other some such, I know you hate those." Frigg said calmly.

Yet her eyes were intense as they were locked on his face. "I can see this being very good for us indeed in the long run, not just because we will be able to share goods with the humans yet not be contaminated by their society, or their power struggles. I can see it opening up several different avenues of expansion for us." She emphasized certain words as she spoke, her entire body seemingly relaxed save for her stare.

He leaned back thoughtfully, not looking away as he thought of the various meanings behind her words. "How long term are we thinking?"

"Very long, it would not surprise me at all to find that this Potter is immortal, or at least as close as humans could come to it. I also seem to recall that Balder mentioned something of this Potter mentioning something that sounded very like someone the power of the Phoenix allied with him, and you know what that could represent." Balder hadn't actually mentioned anything of the sort, but it made for a good cover.

That jolted Odin out of his seat a little and he stared at his wife in shock. The Phoenix Force was well known to Skyfathers such as himself, even to that horrible adulterer Zeus. Odin hadn't been married to Frigg when he had lain with Gaia to beget Thor, and he had given over laying with the Valkyries at that point as well, he took his vows seriously regardless of their immortality. Still, the Phoenix Force was one of the primordial forces out of the universe, older and more powerful than any Asgardian could hope to be.

He made a few motions in the air, and a brief glyph appeared in the air. A brief thrum filled the air, as an array went off. It could hide their conversation from anything for a time. "An avatar?"

"Yes." Frigg said simply. "A young woman of fiery hair and disposition. Bonds of love is our between them, as well as the Stormcaller, chosen of Gaia."

There were others, humans and not around Harry Potter, but to what end even he was leading them Frigg couldn't see. But she could see a path, a path that led further then the Asgardians were being allowed to go at present. "As I said, I think in the long term this will be very good for us and for all involved."

Odin's eye narrowed in thought at that, and what else she had said while the spell around them cut out abruptly, its power expended in those brief moments. When he spoke he didn't directly address what his wife had said. "It is true that we could use another mercantile ally. With the trolls and the dark elves still allied, even though we won the recent campaign against him we were forced to retreat from much of our farmland. Very well, I will get with my advisors, and we will write up a formal letters of a nonaggression pact and a trade treaty. Not a full alliance, but enough to serve our purposes." He looked at her to make certain.

After a moment she nodded equitably. "I think that will do very well."

OOOOOOO

Odin and Frigg were not the only ones in Midgard who was contemplating Harry Potter, but Hela wasn't thinking about the future so much as the now. While in her perusal of the people around Harry had cropped up a person she could use as a go between, without the need to use any normal method to get to Midgard (and thus avoid anyone else knowing she had gone there) she had been stymied since. Those damn wards, she thought, not for the first time.

The wards of the castle that was so oddly named Hogwarts were simply scary. It wasn't just that they were among the most powerful, or the most complete, though they were both of those. No, they were almost, well almost alive, not quite, but far too close to it for her to want to attempt to get through. She had watched as the wards reacted blotting out some kind of small demon or other that had been loitering around the edge of the area it was supposed to cover. About two leagues away.

No, she had to wait until young Danielle was no longer covered by them, or in that other area that even her scrying couldn't see that Harry spent time in. Still it was frustrating, and she still hadn't decided what she wanted to do about her interest in the 'mortal' wizard. Hela sighed faintly, wondering again about that as she looked at the gift Lady Death had given her to pass on, before shaking her head and turning back to her real work.

OOOOOOO

Over the next few days the two newcomers fit in somewhat well with the rest of the teens. Neither of them was at all interested in joining the team unlike Dani. This was both because their powers didn't loan themselves to combat and their natural temperament. They were simply happy to be someplace where they didn't have to hide like animals.

Both teens had a significant amount of mental trauma from their time before they could get to the US Embassy, and Harry had put them both in their own rooms in the tower at Dr. Druid's behest. Despite not being a psychologist, he was the closest thing to one that they had on hand at the moment.

Harry contacted Charles about it and he agreed very firmly with Dr. Druid then went on to thank Harry for aiding the two of them. Unfortunately neither of them would be able to transfer to Charles's mansion, since the mansion was going to be getting an influx of new students at the end of the month, along with Sam moving in fulltime, which would fill the mansion up.

Charles himself was also very busy in helping Xian, who had pulled out of her coma. The poor girls mind was once more her own, but she was still dealing with the effects of her monstrous ordeal, as was her mother. No boy was allowed in her room save Xavier, and even around him she still acted skittish at times. There was also something else that was bothering Charles about Xian, something that he couldn't quite put his mental finger on.

Then too, neither of the teens had enough education to enter the high school level schooling of Bayville. Still, Charles was more than willing to have them over for a few days so that he could check their mental health, and did so during this period of calm. He found both were recovering as well as could be expected, and saw no need to assign any medication other than very weak sleeping pills to help keep the nightmares away.

Their fitting in with the castle denizens was surprisingly helped by the ongoing prank war of Harry vs. everyone else. Piotr had actually brought in the girls and his sister, who brought in all the other kids, and all of them had taken to pranking Harry whenever they could, or even the other adults at times save for Ms. Brown, who stamped on such activities hard in her classroom, believing them to degrade her authority there. The two newcomers thought this was a lot of fun, and it got them used to magic in the most amusing way possible, so they joined in.

When he wasn't planning pranks or protecting himself from said Harry finished up several more magical projects. He again updated the parameters of the Big Book of Student's but there wasn't any noticeable effect. There was frankly a limit to what magic could do to detect mutants, much like technology. Every new 'type' of mutant they found it got better, but it still couldn't detect mutants whose powers activated prior to the book being created, or those who had been born with a physical defect, and thus did not differ from their own baseline.

The house-elves under Hessy finished up fully modernizing the Castle, with every room now having hard light projectors and electrical appliances, with Piotr and Nikolai moving out of the students' tower into their own rooms, along with the girls. The projectors had hit their funds worse than anything but Jean's equipment, yet not nearly enough to put a dent in them now. Harry had also bought enough supplies to create greenhouses, and gone it over with Hessy and his team of construction specialist house-elves to create several of them.

One greenhouse would be magically enlarged in the inside so as to augment the potion ingredient farms in High Note, giving them a second source for that, though not nearly as large. The others however would grow food for the castle. Harry had thought about it, and didn't like the fact that they were buying food from outside sources. Yes, they had covered their bases pretty well there, but the connection between their purchases and the school could still possibly be discovered, and that meant that their food supply was vulnerable to attack.

Orders were still coming in from all over Britain, France and Italy as well as Ireland now, and even a few progressive hospitals in other European countries for Harry's potions. American hospitals were suspiciously lacking so far, given Harry knew their embassy's doctor had been among the ones looking over the Gurkhas after the battle with Selene's forces, but Harry knew that would come shortly.

The orders were going to literally bring in trillions, and Harry had doubled the house-elves assigned the task of creating the potions. For now he would be able to match the initial call for them in the UK and France when he was finally allowed to sell to the public, but the rest would need to wait for the second harvest to come in.

To combat this, Harry had been forced to change the runic arrays controlling the flow of time in the farms, to force the plants to grow faster. He'd been a little worried that this would have an adverse effect on the plants, they were magical plants after all and there was a reason potion making was so precise an art, but it hadn't done so yet. Luckily Harry had thought ahead about the need to modify the speed of the arrays, and modifying them had been relatively easy if not very quick.

Jean had finished her next round of upgrades, and was busy modifying the team's uniforms, including her own, to take advantage of the new health sensor, which was loaded with a modified program from one of Pym's medical beds. Unfortunately this meant that her own suit could no longer be simply transfigured from normal clothing into unstable molecules as she had done a time or two, the health sensors built into it were simply too intricate for that to work. But the upshot was that the next time the team went into combat they would be able to coordinate to a much higher degree if needed.

She had also finished Dani's suit.

Flashback:

"So what you think?" Jean asked, looking over where Dani was standing.

Danielle looked at the image in front of her, cocking her head to one side thoughtfully. The image Jean was showing Dani was the design for a suit for her. The two of them had been working on it for the past few hours and it was almost complete.

On the feet of the image was the final version of the hover boots. They were more like skimmer boots then hover really, when activated they only hovered about an inch off the ground, and they could be turned off easily with a twitch button set into the gloves of the uniform.

On the back of them were small ventral thrusters, taken from what had been some kind of large-scale delivery truck of some sort in Mojoworld, then scaled down. They couldn't push out much thrust, but they were extremely energy-efficient, and they worked on principles very much like the hover technology, simply pushing one way then another. They again had been connected to twitch sensors, though both systems took a lot of getting used to if the user wanted to move smoothly. Luckily the team had begun to train in it already, though only Dani had opted to have the boots incorporated into their combat suits.

The rest of the design was comprised of a skintight bodysuit made of green and brown streaks, with dark red here and there the color of fresh clay. On the backs of both gloves were etched the summoning array that Harry had shown Jean and Kitty. On the belt was the small bag of holding, which Dani would have to fill up beyond the base model. Over the skintight uniform was a piece of shaped body armor that left the shoulders bare.

On the back of the image was a folded down bow. That had been Harry's contribution. Dani had asked to if it was possible for her to use a bow in combat rather than a rifle, being more at home with them despite her ability to beat Nikolai three out of five times with them.

Harry had risen to the challenge, remembering how deadly bows in the hands of centaurs back home had proven a time or two. He had taken a modern bow, reinforced the steel magically, and then etched runes into it, using several arrays he had learned from Dr. Strange's library. The end result was the bow could fire arrows at nearly the speed of the sniper rifle if the user willed it.

The design was finished by a half mask, which left Dani's mouth, nose and ears free but covered her eyes and the rest of her head, finishing with a mane going down the back to protect her hair, the outside of which was etched to look like a cascade of feathers. The eyepieces were slanted and made of some kind of yellow crystal, giving the image an almost bird of prey appearance. All of the suit was done in dark green and brown, with the only flash of lighter colors being the eyes and the feathers, which were enameled dark red interspersed with a few yellow feathers here and there.

"I like it." Danielle said, smiling widely. "I like it a lot."

End flashback

The team was coming along very well, with Danielle integrating smoothly into their ranks and surprisingly taking up a position of leadership. Piotr, to Harry's surprise had no issues with that, but was not shy with his own suggestions, and sat on her hard when Dani's enthusiasm got ahead of her in tactical combat scenarios. Dani also didn't have an issue that Harry had noticed in the others, one that he addressed in no uncertain terms after one team session.

He made that session particularly brutal, hoping to drive home the message in no uncertain terms. After which, Harry squatted down in front of the younger team members, all of whom were bruised, battered and charred around the edges. This session had pitted the rest of the team, minus Ororo who was still training with Gaia against him and Jean, and Harry had specifically told her to not be gentle. To compensate, he had allowed the team to set up traps in advance, something that allowed them to come up with a decent plan.

A row of sudden explosions set into the ground separated the two of them, isolating Harry using Paige and Piotr from Jean while they concentrated their long range fire on Jean. But her telekinesis had been up to the task, rendering their sniper abilities useless even when Nikolai attempted to use the emergency heavy shot array on his sniper rifle. That had almost worked, it had knocked Jean out of the sky anyway, but her telekinetic shield and taken the brunt of it allowing her to keep going.

When she landed Jean and Amara began a ferocious duel, with Nikolai and Dani both relegated to trying to snipe at flame-haired telekinetic from afar. This ended when they were slammed to the ground by the thrown bodies of Paige and Piotr.

The two of them had fought very well, keeping in close and targeting Harry's hands with sharp stinging slaps. Piotr had noticed Harry tended to use his hands to aim his spells, and knocking them away forced his spells to go wide or simply fizzle out. But Harry's Magia Erebea allowed him to fight both of the metal clad mutants on an even footing, and when he poured more power into it he was able to knock them both out in short order.

Now with Shiang Chi standing to one side, waiting for Harry to delve out healing potions, but Harry didn't seem in any tearing rush to do so. When he spoke his voice was soft, yet it grabbed all of their attention easily as he stared hard into their eyes, one after that another. "I noticed something in these past few exercises that worried me a little, something that was there in the memories of our fight in Mojoworld. You all seem to have begun falling into problem based on ego and false confidence: none of you are dodging enough."

At their quizzical expressions Harry elaborated. "All of you assumed at several different yet distinct points during the last few exercises that your armor will stop anything that hits you when you could have instead dodged the various attacks, despite evidence to the contrary. You also all seem to be taking magical healing for granted. Those… Suits… Do… Not… Make… You… Invulnerable… And… Healing… Cannot… Bring… You… Back… From… Death." Each word in that sentence came out like hammered steel.

Harry let those word filter in, watching the faces in front of him closely until he knew they all understood his message before going on. "Understand me, I have buried friends far too often in the past. I have held the bodies of my friends as they died, breathing out their last after fighting what we all considered the good fight. I will not have the same happen here due to overconfidence. Do you all understand? This is not a game, there is no do over, an intelligent opponent allow you time to retreat so you can be healed, and we already have ample proof that even Orihalcum armor can be bypassed."

All of the teams nodded soberly, understanding his point. "Good." Harry said clapping his hands together harshly. "So from now on, we're going to have two team exercises a day that doesn't include you wearing body armor. We'll still train with it in small groups, but for this and for hand-to-hand combat I want all of you to start remembering that you are still vulnerable."

He looked over at Jean. "That goes for you too, and me. I'm going to step up my martial arts training, because it is an area where I am severely lacking, and I won't use my Magia Erebea. You'll have to do the same, without your telekinetic powers."

"Just in case we run into someone who can negate them." Jean said nodding her head seriously. "I understand, and I agree. I nearly fell into the pit of overconfidence once, I'm not going to do it again. What about Ororo?"

Harry waved one hand and ambivalently before looking over at Shiang Chi and shrugged. "She's better with a knife than I am." He admitted, "And she's taken to further martial arts instruction like a duck to water. She doesn't seem to have fallen into the same mental issue as all of you, and I assume that her battle with the six armed woman she mentioned from your last little adventure will have helped her retain her sense of mortality."

"Still, I'll inform her of the change in training regimen, and see what she thinks. For now though, all of you take off your armor, and then I'll start healing you but I won't be doing this after our out next exercises, so get that through your heads now."

OOOOOOO

The next day after that 'intervention' Harry was floating in midair across from the windows of Tony Stark's mansion in Honolulu. The man inside was apparently working on something, a design for a building of some sort from what Harry could see. Tony evidently had the same hard light systems that Jean had installed in the castle, since he was doing so while sitting on a rather nice-looking sofa and manipulating the image with his hands.

Harry waited until Tony set the glass he was drinking from down before knocking on the window. That slight sound made the man start in surprise, as he looked over to where the sound had come from. His eyes widened in surprise to see someone outside. The man outside waved. Tony automatically waved back a little uncertainly, then shook himself and stood up.

After checking with his security on one wall Tony moved towards the man, opening the nearest door to his patio. "Since you're knocking I assume you're not some kind of assassin, though I would pay good money to know how you got this close without my security spotting you."

"Trade secret Mr. Stark." Harry replied blandly, lifting up his hands to push back the hood that had been covering his head, part of his invisibility cloak, with had worn thrown over his shoulders and back. "And you should've been expecting me in any event. Our mutual acquaintance Mr. Weatherby told you to expect me. He told me you have a medical issue you need some input on? I'm Guardian by the way. May I come in?"

"Damn, is it that time already?" Tony muttered looking over at the clock and seeing that yes it was indeed two in the afternoon local time. Damn, er, well come in anyway." He closed the door after Harry entered, rubbing his hands together as he smirked. "So, is this going to be really high level technology, or something like magic?"

Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise, and he smirked at the other man. "Magic, I would assume that someone with your background would scoff at such."

"Well." Tony said slowly, as if he speaking to a simpleton. "You did pass on a little message written on normal seeming paper that couldn't be destroyed, and somehow made noises until I began to read it. By the way, I will get you back for that clang, clang crap."

"It could have been much worse, Tony." Harry replied blandly though his eyes glinted in in humor. "I could have made that last all day rather than a few minutes until you actually looked at the paper. But it's a major jump from that to believing in magic."

"Hah, but you're not denying it are you?" Tony smirked back. "But no, I had a bit of an adventure over in Asia a few weeks ago. I fought a man named the Mandarin there. He used these rings of power, each of them had a different spell on them that created a different effect. It was a tough fight, and it convinced me that this magic stuff existed, which neatly gave me a reason behind that piece of paper of yours, though I doubt the Mandarin could've done something like that."

"If he gets his power from rings or magical items, no, he wouldn't." Harry frowned wondering if he should make time to look up the man, or at the very least tell Steven about it. It wasn't the Sorcerer Supreme's job to monitor other magic users so long as they didn't threaten the earth (or the universe) as a whole, but still, Steven could know something about the times and how to shut them down if they really were magic. "Were you able to take him into custody, or at least turn him over to the local authorities?"

"No." Tony said snarled crossly. "Turns out he was the authority in the area. I was there to retrieve a few Stark Enterprise employees. The Chinese government is in the process of shutting down my holdings in their country, trying to nationalize them in a blatant power grab. Frankly I had simply decided to let them get on with it. It wasn't as if they were making much of a profit in any event, I was never so idiotic to let Stark weapons be built anywhere but in America. But I wanted to get my workers out of there, the American ones at least."

He shook his head irritably. "Of course a lot of the local workers are simply going to stay on, but that's their prerogative. What I objected to was the Mandarin taking hostages, and demanding I turn over some of our weapons designs to him. But when I beat him, well it turned out the Chinese government was working with him and vice versa. He apparently helps them deal with the Tongs and other criminal elements in return for ruling the area like his personal fiefdom."

Harry made a note of that, then sat down across from Tony. "I almost certainly will have to look him up at some point then, unless he's content to simply stay home. I have more than enough on my plate as is."

"So how do we do this?" Tony asked clapping his hands together.

"You haven't told me what your problem is yet." Harry replied with a laugh.

Tony frowned, almost pouting, though the amused light in his eyes gave that the lie. "Can't you just wave your hands and make me be cured?"

"No magic doesn't work like that, I need to know the specifics to know how to tailor my spells." Ororo didn't he knew, but she was busy, and Harry wanted to keep her healing powers a secret as long as possible. Ororo was a literal miracle worker, something Harry refused to let get out into the open.

"Now hold on now, I know George vouched for you, but I don't know you from a hole in the ground, Mister. You're going to have to tell me something about you before I trust you." Tony protested.

"I'd remind you you're the one who needs my help, Stark." Harry said, though there was no bite to his voice. Indeed, he was smiling faintly.

"And you were the one who needed that stockpile of weapons I passed on to you. So, spill." Tony grinned back.

Harry sighed dramatically, then shrugged. "I won't tell you everything, but my own history goes like this…" So saying, Harry went into his background a bit, how he had come from another dimension which had a somewhat different brand of magic, how he had met the Fantastic Four and come to this dimension. He gave an account of the war against Voldemort, and his role in it, never touching on Charles, the X-men, or his current dreams and resources.

During this recitation, Tony studied Guardian intensely, searching for lies or tells. Tony was an expert in reading faces and body language, but even he could not see any connection between Weatherby and Guardian.

Other than hair color there was nothing whatsoever to connect Harry to George Frederick Weatherby. For some reason Harry's hair refused to be cut or change its color no matter what spells or other means he tried to use on it. Still, enough people had similar hair that it wasn't important. Their accents were different, their voices were noticeably different and there was no condescension or snarky attitude in Guardian's expression.

George's eyes were blue, and he was at least ten, possibly twenty years older than 'Guardian' seemed to be. Furthermore George had a few scars on his hands, and one small one right below the right eye that eyes it Guardian did not. Indeed the only scar that Tony could see at present was the one on his guest's forehead, which looked more like a tattoo than anything else, while Guardian's eyes were bright emerald green.

George was also a heavier and taller than Guardian wider in the shoulders and about a foot taller and height than Harry. Harry was somewhat tall, but George was taller by at least a few inches, and had wider shoulders, seemingly built for strength rather than speed like Guardian.

And while George seemed able to blend into the background, his whole presence able to become unassuming, Tony doubted Guardian could do the same. Those emerald eyes for one stood out, and the man had a presence somehow, even sitting there, which matched his story. George could be a spy or soldier, Guardian was a leader plain and simple.

While Tony could tell the man was holding a lot back, he could detect no lie in the man, and he decided to trust this man. If Reed and the rest of his team were willing to vouch for him, that, coupled with what Tony could see himself made Tony decide to confide in him. Whatever their professional rivalry or their differing personalities, Tony respected Reed.

Eventually Harry finished, looking over at him shrewdly. "So, have I satisfied your curiosity enough to get you to trust me Stark, or should I just say that information was enough payment for the guns and go on my merry way?

"Not on your life." Tony said, then sighed. "When I was captured in Afghanistan, I took pieces of shrapnel to the chest, they didn't have the medical technology to remove them, but a man there was able to come up with a magnetic reactor that he installed in my chest that could keep them away from my heart."

At Guardian's shocked expression he shrugged. "Ho Yinsen removed the ones he could, but there are others to deep and too small to get to with modern tech, so he did what he had to keep me alive. The fact that it kept himself alive was of course also a point, but he did his best." Tony shook his head, remembering those final moments with Yinsen, a man who had become a friend in those few days, and something of a moral example to live up to as well.

He paused again, wondering what more he could tell the man, but then shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose it won't hurt to ask, but I also am dealing with palladium radiation, which effects the blood stream first before shutting down your organs. The device I have in my chest now works much better than the old version, and it also is my armors power source, but it is powered in turn by palladium."

Harry leaned back shaking his head. "Never easy is it." He sat silently for a moment, thinking hard before nodding. "All right, here's what I can do offhand, any more will have to wait check your condition for myself. I can put you in stasis, that will keep you alive and your body literally unchanged, your heart won't even have to beat, while I remove the original shrapnel. How far advanced is the Palladium poisoning?"

"Pretty damn far." Tony said grimly. He wouldn't tell anyone, but he had basically known that he was going to die within the next few weeks, the faint hope of Guardian's aid the only thing that he could see able to save him. "I'd say I have a good two weeks if I have to keep using it as a power source, if I don't, maybe seven or eight months."

"And does this power source have to be inside you? Can I remove that and heal the, well, the hole in your chest, if what I'm imagining is close to the reality?" Internally, Harry also noted the need to have Jean push the arc reactor design forward quickly. If tony had figured out how to miniaturize it to the level he could actually have one in his chest, it wouldn't be long before he started to use it to push into the energy sector.

"Can you actually do that?" Tony retorted.

"Yes." Harry said simply. "It won't be easy, and it won't be fast, but yes I can regrow the missing flesh and bone. I would estimate at least two possibly three hours depending on the size of the hole." Harry winced now, understanding some of the PTSD issues that Tony had been dealing with above and beyond having had his little brush with mortality. It wasn't exactly a brush, more like an ongoing paintjob!

Tony looked at him in disbelief, then barked a laugh. "All right, I'm game. Let's do this! I'd love to actually go shirtless again."

"Do you have a medical bed here, or should I just conjure one up?"

"Oh conjure definitely." Tony laughed again. "I have to see this."

Harry shrugged, and did so waving his hand. A second later a medical bed stood there in front of him beside the sofa, and Tony leaned forward tapping it. "Jarvis." he said softly. "You might want to go off-line for a bit."

"Thank you sir," said an artificial yet faintly British sounding voice from numerous speakers all around them. "My algorithms are unable to process what just occurred… I will have to deal with them slowly, possibly with the help of the data taken from your fight with the Mandarin." After a moment a low hum that Harry had only been subconsciously aware of ceased in the background, as the mansion's computer system shut down for a moment, going into hibernation mode.

"Hop on and remove your shirt." Harry instructed.

"Wait." Tony said standing up but not removing his shirt. "Is there any way I can remain awake during this procedure?"

Harry's eyes widened, and he thought for a moment. "….I suppose, but that would heighten the difficulty quite a bit. Originally I was simply going to feed you a potion that would put your body in stasis, but if you wish for your mind and eyes to keep working, I'm going to have to use a spell to deaden your body from the neck down as well as a stasis spell. I'll warn you though, it will probably be disgusting."

Tony winced, but he was paranoid about doctors at the best of times these days so he nodded grimly. "Do it."

"All right…" Harry said dubiously before seemingly addressing the empty air. "Cory." A second later a small bald creature with long ears wearing a stoner's dream of a butler's uniform popped in next to him. "I'm going to need two possibly, no… better make it four blood replenishing potions, a lot of clean sterilized wraps, a potion of skelegrow, and a nerve repairing potion. And I'll want you to remain visible after you get them just in case I need anything else."

"Yes master." The little creature said bowing before disappearing with a very faint pop.

Tony gaped at the spot where strange being had been then, making a note to find out a way to stop people from teleporting into his mansion, he turned to Guardian. "What was that?"

"That was a house-elf, a magical creature that willingly indentures himself to a wizard because they take their powers from the wizard though a sort of symbiotic bond. Now, shirt off!"

Harry watched as Tony removed his shirt, wincing a little at the size of the arc reactor, he could tell that much from having interacted with Jean's prototype, stuck in his chest as well as the veins of sickly looking blue/green that were going everywhere from that source. "Yeah, I can definitely see you need some help there, above and beyond the original issue. The cure seems as bad as the disease."

"Slower, but just as certain." Tony nodded grimly.

A second later Cory popped back in, and Harry motioned Tony to lay down. "All right, since you're so damn paranoid I'm going to walk you through what I'm going to do. First, I'm going to put your body from the neck down into stasis, then deaden it so you won't actually feel it. If I was putting your entire body into stasis that wouldn't be necessary but…"

Harry shrugged. "You could liken it I think to when you get your teeth cleaned or something, only total, you won't feel a thing." Despite having had a girl who had dentists as parents for a girlfriend, Harry didn't actually know a lot about the profession. "Then I'll remove the initial shrapnel.

He conjured up a pillow and stuck it under Tony's head, so that the man could see his own chest. "At that point, I'll probably have to take you into whatever workspace you have here and get your Jarvis to do a full body scan of you using your own system. My spells for that kind of thing are good, but I'll want to make certain." And you, you paranoid ass, would probably like the reassurance of hearing your clean bill of health from your own system. Harry thought.

Tony nodded. "In that case, why don't we just head there now?"

"Good idea." Harry replied sarcastically having already begun to push him in that direction. As he was being pushed down the stairs and then carried when they came to the stairs, floating in midair before Harry while he walked, Tony still had the wherewithal to ask. "And what next?"

"After that, you'll walk me through removing the actual generator from that cavity in your chest, then I will remove the actual cavity. Then I'll start to magically regenerate the missing chunk of flesh." He grimaced a little. "Needless to say that is going to be disgusting as all hell."

"But fascinating to watch…" Tony said looking a little green a lot around the gills despite his interest.

"After that, a full check up again to make certain neither of us have missed anything, and then I'm going to remove the palladium poison from your system, while also replacing the blood you'll lose during that process. After which I'll go home and have a drink and try to forget this ever happened. No offense but this is going to be horribly disgusting."

"But fascinating to watch…" Tony said again, sounding as if he was trying to encourage himself.

Soon enough they were in Tony's basement work area, with Tony on his bed situated over one of the 3-D image scanners that could double as an x-ray machine. It acted like one of Dr. Pym's beds only larger and actually a little better. Also much more expensive, there were few hospitals they could afford Dr. Pym's beds, and you could count the ones on one hand throughout the world that would've been able to afford this one.

Harry pulled off his cloak, placing it over one of the robotic drones that were around the room, before turning back to Tony. "Okay, let's do this."

"Wait a minute." Tony said suddenly. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Remove shrapnel, yes, heal a hole that was that large and central to someone's chest, no. I've healed worse, and I've dealt with worse myself however." Harry grimaced at the memory. He had actually nearly lost his leg at one point in the Negative Zone, and it was only his magical ability to heal that had allowed him to regenerate the giant chunk of flesh missing from his leg.

Tony blanched, but having come so far reluctantly nodded. "Do it."

Harry nodded, and began to cast spells, his hands moving over Tony's body. After a moment he looked up at Tony's face. "Right now you shouldn't be able to feel anything."

Tony's eyes had widened a little, and he nodded ever so slightly, the only movement he could do other than blinking his eyes. For a moment he felt an intense urge to scratch his nose, but he ignored it. "Yeah, I can't feel anything. This is a really fucking odd feeling, get on with it."

"I told you it would've been easier to just knock you out, but no you had to be a paranoid bastard." Harry muttered, casting more spells. "All right," he said then placed one hand over Tony's heart on his chest, sending a spell into his body to find anything foreign in there, though he had to cancel out the returns he was getting from the arc reactor in Tony's chest.

After several moments he located the shrapnel bits, whistling as he saw how close they were to Tony's heart, and how small too. Modern medicine would not have been able to remove them without doing damage to his heart, but Harry could. Slowly he took them one by one in his magical grip, pulling them away from the heart through the rest of the body, doing more damage to said body but he would heal it all later.

Tony watched as one after another tiny slivers of shrapnel were removed from his body, bursting out of his skin yet not accompanied by any kind of pain. It reminded him all to easily of the Alien movie, if on a much smaller scale. "All right." he said gulping. "Maybe I should have taken you up on being knocked out."

"Too late now you daft bugger." Harry muttered, while he removed the last of the shrapnel. "All right, time for Jarvis to wake up."

Tony nodded, then gave the command for Jarvis to come out of hibernation while Harry healed the wounds that had been caused on the surface from his spells, before casting other spells to heal the rest of the internal damage.

"Drink this." Harry ordered, holding out one of the blood replenishing potions. "You'll need it in a moment."

Tony gulped it down then asked Jarvis to scan him quickly, looking for more shrapnel.

"S-sir, I can no longer detect any pieces of metal in your words chest beyond that of the arc reactor or the magnetic array around it. The initial problem has been solved. But sir, it, you… are… speaking ….yet your heart is not moving it is, I am having difficulties equating what seems to be reality to what I know to be fact… Humans cannot live without their hearts beating… it… I am having blue screen of death moments Sir, even knowing that magic might theoretically be possible it is… my algorithms are literally fighting one another!"

"Go back off-line Jarvis!" Tony ordered quickly. "I'm not going to let you go crazy on me."

"Thank you sir." Jarvis said and immediately shut himself down.

"You just gave an AI a brain aneurysm Guardian. I hope you're proud." Tony quipped, now feeling slightly better about his own reaction to what'd been going on.

"So Jarvis is an AI!" Harry said as he placed an empty potion bottle over Tony's chest, letting it hang in midair for a moment sustained by a simple leviosa. "I might have to talk to you about him later on."

One of Tony's eyebrows went up, but he pushed his curiosity to the side when Harry tapped the metal casing of his arc reactor. "Now, how do I remove this thing?"

Tony walked him through the process of removing the palladium chip, then disconnecting the arc reactor, his eyes widening as he didn't feel anything, though normally he would have felt something when the reactor itself was removed. That feeling of disconnect got worse when Harry began to methodically remove the outer shell of the magnetic coil, and both men gagged at the squelching sounds it made coming loose from Tony's chest.

"I don't know if your friend was a genius or a madman." Harry said setting it aside on a nearby table. Behind him Cory looked a little sick as well but handed Harry another potion which he once more force-fed to Tony with one hand while his other hand was already pulsing magic into the gaping opening in Tony's chest, trying to regenerate the skin there.

These spells were not anything from his own dimension, regeneration on that level was beyond magic users there, and even most magic users in this dimension though Steven could've done it. No this was pure magic, Harry was simply pushing his magic into Tony's sinew and flesh, ordering it to repair itself, to close the gap and re-create itself regenerate itself. At the same time he gave Tony the skelegrow potion, which began the process, aided by his magic.

The task was made much more difficult because of the previous spells Harry had cast an Tony to keep his body in stasis, in fact these spells basically were fighting against the new changes, since they were made to keep the body in stasis, unchanging. Still Harry persevered, and slowly over the course of the next hour and a half the flesh began to push out from the edges of the hole, slowly filling it up.

It was a disgusting process to watch, but slowly ever so slowly the hole was rejuvenated. At last Harry stood back, wiping his brow. That had been tough, not in terms of power usage, but in concentration. Luckily Harry's control of his magic was high enough that he had succeeded, but still it wasn't something he would like to have to do again.

A few final spells to help the skin recover, and Tony's chest looked as good as new save for the veins of green, though even that had been lessened. "Now to remove the poison." Harry cut a small incision, opening up a vein, while directing Cory to feed Tony the last blood replenishing potion. Harry drew the poisoned blood out of Tony's body, filling up first one, then two and finally a third empty bottle with the greenish blood cells that had been so poisoned.

After that he scanned Tony again, then nodded, wiping his forehead again. "I'm going to bring you out of the stasis spells slowly. You may feel phantom pains, so we'll have to wait every time you feel one to make certain it is just a phantom pain. But my readings are telling me that you're all right. Your liver could do with a little work but I'm not about to help you with that one."

"Thank you ever so much." Tony said drolly, looking down at his now normal chest with a look of awe despite his tone. "Seriously though, that was amazing. Actual God damn cellular regeneration! Do you have any idea what that could be worth, how much good that could do for the world?"

"If I knew a way to do it without me personally being involved, I would." Or Ororo or other magic users he thought to himself as he went on I would do in a second. "I have plans, ideas there going forward, but it will take a while for them to come into fruition. My potions can do some of the same thing, one of the potions I gave you was skelegrow which helped regrow the bones there, and of course the blood replenishing potions helped immensely, but deep tissue, that's a different story."

The next ten minutes was spent with Harry slowly bringing Tony out of stasis. To his surprise there were only a few twinges of phantom pain, which amounted to nothing, though his heart began to beat much more rapidly than it should have. Harry cast another spell on it calming him down but as they looked at it they had power Jarvis up again.

Now that Tony's heart was indeed beating once more the AI did not have another 'blue screen moment'. "I would suggest it is simply a reaction to what has occurred Sir." The AI said after a moment. "Despite your self-control parts of your mind was no doubt panicking, and those messages were being sent to the rest of your body even if you didn't feel it."

Harry nodded that made sense to him anyway though he didn't have an actual medical background of course. Tony simply nodded, patting his chest with a look of delight on his face. "There are no words for this Guardian. This is fucking astonishing. For this, for this I owe you a hell of a lot more than all those old weapons I passed onto you before."

"Well, if were talking about you owing me, let's go have a drink shall we, and a talk." If he programmed one AI, can he program another?

The two men made their way up the stairs into the sitting area, only to find that Pepper was there, having just entered the premises. Her eyes widened at the sight of Tony walking around shirtless and no reactor in his chest! She looked at the man beside him, and immediately discerned that this was the connection that George had passed on. Heedless of whoever the hell he was, she raced over, pulling him into a hug. "Thank you." she whispered "Thank you!"

Harry glanced at Tony who grinned and patted the woman's head. "You're welcome, I'm just glad you arrived now rather than a few minutes ago. It was not a pretty process."

Tony shuddered again, and then blinked in shock when Pepper rounded on him and pulled him into a hug as well. That one went on for decidedly longer, and Harry smirked a little at Tony who was looking both content and more than a little scared, which was why Harry was smirking. He saw that reaction as Tony's bachelor response to the sudden realization that his time is such might well be over.

I hope they do get together he thought to himself keeping the thought off his face. Pepper could be good for him, and vice versa. He needs stability, she needs some excitement, and it's obvious that they like one another.

However Harry wasn't there to play matchmaker. He moved past the two of them into the kitchen at the far end of the open sitting area, pulling out a bottle of bourbon and pouring two cups, one for himself and one for Tony before looking over at Pepper. "Do you want anything to drink?"

Pepper nodded, ordering a dry martini, with extra olives. Harry smirked and asked Cory to make that one. The little house-elf had been waiting wherever it was house-elves waited nearby, and popped in quickly while Harry made a few finger sandwiches and waited for the two to finish hugging and talking about what had happened. Just as he finished the two of them joined him at the table, and he pushed the plate between them, grabbing one for himself as he downed half the glass of bourbon in one shot. It wouldn't do anything to him, but it made him feel a little better.

Tony did the same, causing pepper to look at him in surprise. Tony was never one to drink that quickly. But he shook his head. "Trust me you don't want to know."

"Medical things are disgusting, let's just leave it at that." Harry said. "Now, Tony, you said you owed me, and well, not to sound too mercenary, but I do have a way you can pay me back."

Harry explained briefly what he had and Reed were working on, the near-space array, though he made no mention at all about High Note. That information not only was covered by a Fidelius, but it was of such importance that Harry would be loath to share it with Tony in any event.

"The problem is." He finished. "That with each successive scanner we add to the system, the difficulty of reading them and interpreting what is coming through goes up. Reed's basically stated we might need in AI sooner than rather than later to run it all, and I agree with him. A system like your Jarvis would be perfect."

Tony frowned a little. "Okay for one thing, the fact that Jarvis is an AI is a major secret, the only people that know about his full AI status is myself and Pepper here. So if you could keep that to yourself I'd be grateful."

"IN that case, I'll tell you that a lot of people have suspicions in that area, including SHIELD and other spy agencies I don't doubt. Still, I'll agree not to mention it. Can you program another AI?"

"It'll take me weeks, maybe months." Tony said shaking his head. "But yeah I can figure it out. What I'll produce is an AI core, the core of the programming, the kernel or the baby at it were, what all else occurs is up to you. I will warn you however, that they have some odd questions at first, and you should probably talk to it before actually installing it."

He smirked a little. "Reed's good, but he's more of a scientific pioneer than a programmer, he can't seem to stay on one project long enough to program." Tony laughed. "AutoCAD and other programs like that are slow, and I believe there was a story a few years back about him crashing several of them by going too fast for them to keep up. Of course he could program a program to create more programs, but that in the in and of itself would require him to actually concentrate on it."

Harry smiled blandly, but he also made a note to have Reed go over the encoding for the AI. While he respected Tony, the man was still an egotist. His grandstanding with his Iron Man costume proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, judging by the news clips that Harry had seen of the man. Whereas Reed, for all that he had other things concentrate on, as well as the absent-minded professor attitude was someone Harry trusted. At heart Reed was a humble scientist and family man, as well as a man simply trying to do good who didn't require recognition for doing so. A marked difference from Tony.

That and his attitude towards Congress worried Harry. He wasn't about to nose in however, just make certain that Tony kept his own nose out of Harry's business.

Across from Harry, Tony's thoughts were thus: No one else was doing anything about the threats that could come from outer space, despite there being numerous accounts of the Fantastic Four dealing with such threats since they had been active. If no one else was going to do it, then Tony was damn well going to help the people that were willing to step up to the plate.

Tony had seen the video recordings of several of the Fantastic Four's adventures that had occurred in public. Many of them dealt with threats from space, and Galactus in particular had given Tony nightmares for a few weeks after the giant alien had appeared. He had no more clue than anyone else how the Fantastic Four had convinced it/him to leave, Tony was simply thankful they had.

If he could help Reed and Guardian to figure out a way to see such threats coming, he would happily do it. "What about power?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. " We have connections already that will provide power for us." he replied blandly. He didn't want to give Tony a hint about what was going to be occurring as soon as possible, if he could swing it, with their own arc reactor designs. Emma would have been very proud of him for that thought.

"All right." Tony said standing up and shrugging his shoulders. "For some reason, I feel the desire to go out and get some sun. I'll be in contact through Weatherby when the AI core is finished so if you don't mind…" He shrugged then held out his hand and Guardian shook it, then shook Pepper's.

After that Harry left, while Tony went to get a bathing suit laughing softly to himself as Pepper raced off to find one of the ones she kept here for that purpose. Yet while Tony was preparing to go out into the sun, others were making more serous plans.

OOOOOOO

"Report."

"Our cyborg agents have been unable to come up with anything conclusive yet to tell us where the new medicines are being manufactured. We have been unable to procure a sample of the new medicines, but it is conclusively proven that they work. Neither of our agents however have anything to do with shipping or distribution, only taking and filling out new orders. That doesn't give them any reason that will pass muster to explore the computer network of Magical Minds, and its security is such that any attempt to get in will be found almost immediately. We could do it, but we would lose our agents for certain. Physically, they cannot access the holding areas for the potions, security of some sort keeps them and the other office workers away.

"What about getting one of our agents into Frost Shipping? Surely that way we could get something."

"I'll look into it Sir, but we do not already have agents in place."

"Do so, but be circumspect. Thanks to SHIELD we have lost several of our agents and more than a dozen holdings worldwide. We can ill afford to make another enemy, especially one of unknown ability. Infiltrate several more agents into the British government as well, we need to pursue that angle. We must secure these new medicines for AIM!"

OOOOOOO

The small Tuk-Tuk zoomed down the road, driven by a young looking man of Indian descent with such bland features and clothing he could disappear into the crowd of the smallest, most insular village with nary a ripple. Well he looked like a young man at present, and the Tuk-Tuk didn't really zoom so much as scoot. Behind him on the passenger's seat of the small, poorly designed and manufactured three-wheeler was an elderly woman, who could again fit easily into the crowd of any farming community. They were both so bland they barely even registered on the minds of the other people on the road.

Covered by the noise of the damn Tuk-Tuk and the surrounding traffic, the young man spoke to his companion without worrying about being overheard for the first time since they had left the luxury cruise liner that had deposited them Mumbai. "Are you certain you know where we're going?"

"I know where we need to be, how we get there is up to you." The old woman grumbled as they hit a rut in the road. "And I must say this mode of travel leaves much to be desired."

"Welcome to the life of a field agent, my dear. And some more information would be nice." The younger man muttered. If anyone was able to hear over all the other noise all around them, they would have wondered why he sounded strangely feminine.

Mystique and Irene had been moving through India for several weeks now, using public transportation when they could. But now they were deep into Naga-land, an area that had only in the past ten years seen a cessation of hostilities between tribes, and warring religions along with insurgents who wanted the region to become independent. It didn't have the infrastructure to allow many trains, or even paved roads, a fact Irene's back was presently lamenting. Though both travelers had enjoyed some of the local cuisine, farming was a large part of the economy around here, and the dishes were incredible.

"We will be facing a vampire of some kind, I cannot see how old or powerful. He has something in his possession, a book of darkest magic, or he will when he discovers it hidden in the statue he recently purchased." Irene frowned. " We must not allow him to discover it, or he will use it and damn himself and much of India, somewhat literally in his case."

"Great." Mystique grunted angrily, twisting the wheel so hard to avoid a large pothole in the dirt road they were on the Tuk-Tuk nearly fell onto its side. Behind her Irene squawked in horror, but Mystique righted them expertly, and the two lovers continued down the road. "Just great. I hate vampires. I don't suppose the man who will offer us a choice has disappeared has he?"

"I am afraid not. He will still find us before the wings of the owl do."

"Great…" Mystique muttered, repeating herself for a third time. The Tuk-Tuk carried on silently for a time after that.

OOOOOOO

Harry smiled slightly as he, Melody and Illyana walked around the gigantic room. Every single segment of the walls around was covered with different art works, which spread to several displays set into the floor. Emma had been correct, The Vatican museum was quite an amazing place, with all the different types of architecture, artwork, and extravagance that had been laid out over centuries of worship to the Christian god, but also to art itself.

Today had been the first day where Harry didn't have anything important to do. There was nothing going on that needed his attention on the business end. He and Steven were both stuck on a portion of the array they were working on, but Steven had volunteered to figure out the issue, and he had finished most of his smaller magical projects, though many of them didn't yet have an actual application, such as his new magic based spy devices, based off some of the toys Jean had collected from Selene's second cache.

So, Harry had decided to visit Rome with Emma, since she too was in a holding pattern with many of her own ongoing projects (read investigations) and had the day free of normal business. He wanted Emma to see what the telepath could glean from sampling the pope's feelings from a distance. That problem was one that was looming large in the future, and he wanted to know now if he had to plan for it.

Jean and Ororo had bowed out, being too deep into their own projects, so he had instead brought Amara and Piotr due to understanding their artistic leanings. They were currently standing near a huge fresco of some kind going gaga over the artwork. Emma had been with them originally, but had moved to join Harry and the two girls when the discussion became too technical.

In contrast, Melody and Illyana had spent most of their time simply flitting from one random piece of art to another, making up stories about people they passed by or those in the different paintings. Neither of them were into the arts, so didn't much see the point. They had however enjoyed the Coliseum a lot, as had Harry. The crowds had been a problem for Melody at first, but Harry had solved it the same way that he had done when she joined him and Ororo on their date. Over this he had layered a few spells on all of them that had subtly directed the crowd to keep from bumping into them when at all possible. It had definitely helped his daughter, and Melody had loved her day out.

He frowned slightly, getting a feeling of being watched, something he had felt since he and the others had arrived in Rome. He knew someone was spying on them via magical means, some kind of familiar spell or something that allowed the user to watch them through some kind of medium, a conjured creature or something. It wasn't an ability he had run into personally before, but Steven's predecessor had, and his library had given Harry several ideas on how to deal with it.

Harry could keep their words from being overheard of course, but that hadn't stopped whoever was following them from doing so, which was what Harry wanted. He wanted them to continue to follow them until he got a feel for the magic being used, enough to trace it back to its source.

With that thought in mind he casually flicked his fingers lightly, casting a spell on Emma and himself to make it look as if they were having a normal conversation. "So, is this close enough for you to get a lock on the pope?"

Emma looked at him sharply for speaking like that in pubic, then when no one around them reacted, she shook her head, murmuring. "Never going to get used to that. And yes, I was able to find him easily enough." She sighed. "Benedict is a surprisingly open man on many issues I thought he would have been close-minded on, but he hasn't actually formulated his response on the mutant issue. He wants to wait at least another year, and let the council of cardinals come to an agreement."

She frowned taking his arm and leading him along in the wake of the two youngsters, who were now eagerly pointing toward the exit, eager to get back outside and see more of the city. "However, one thing is clear in his mind, he will not allow the church to split over this issue. What steps he might take or what he might be willing to do to make certain that doesn't happen is too unformed for me to get a good impression of. Benedict also knows about magic."

That startled Harry so much he stopped walking for a moment to stare at her. Emma smirked. "Oh yes, apparently the existence of magic is a closely kept secret, but the pope and at least some of the most senior cardinals know about it. In fact, he already has suspicions about your potions. Again however, he is wishful to take a wait and see attitude."

"I can work with that," Harry said, a small smile on his face after his initial start of surprise. "I can work with that very well, though I don't think I'll try the same trick I used to meet with William."

Emma blanched. "No, that would be bad. For one thing, the pope's older and in much less shape than Britain's king, and you might give him a heart attack, not exactly the best start to a conversation. And two, just no. Benedict is very much aware of his dignity as the pope. A formal visit is the only way to go there, and even that might not be the best way to go, possibly extending an overture toward him to come and visit you some point in the future to see the school or Magical Minds, might be a better idea."

"Ugh, I hate being formal," Harry whined, smirking at her a little before lifting the spell. Amara and Piotr joined them and he carried on speaking smoothly changing the subject. "Are you sure the food at this place you got us a reservation at tonight is worth getting dressed up for?"

The blonde rolled her eyes, inwardly impressed as she again took his arm, while across from her Melody did the same while Illyana found herself perched on her brother's broad shoulders. "I assure you Aroma comes highly recommended, not every restaurant is able to win a Michelin star."

"I suppose, but it will have to really try to beat the food we can get back home." Harry winked at Melody, causing her to giggle, holding onto his hand eagerly as they walked down the street.

Later Harry was suitably impressed with the level of cooking skill shown, but not the food. Nor was he the only one. Piotr too thought it was overdone bits of nothing, while Emma and Amara had a lot of fun. How much that had to do with the food and the ambiance, or how many heads the two of them were turning was debatable.

Emma was dressed to the nines, with a slinky white dress and the necklace Harry had created for her so many months ago. She was also covered by a modified Notice-me-Not spell that would keep anyone from connecting the 'blonde beauty' with Emma Frost. Amara wore a black and dark brown number of similar cut, and was reveling in Piotr's dumfounded look when he caught sight of her. The other diners noticing her was just a bonus.

"I do pity you peons, truly I do, if you cannot understand what fine cuisine really is." Emma said a laugh in her voice. Despite the reason behind their visit, this trip to Rome definitely beat out the three times she had been here before.

The company makes all the difference. This has been a lot of fun, even with the others here spoiling my wish to have a romantic day out. Amara is a surprisingly interesting conversationalist, and Piotr actually has a mind behind that farm boy exterior. He and Harry were quite amusing when they made fun of that group of irritating tourists, and his discussion about the difference between period pieces was good enough to make that one tour guide notice. The two little girls are okay I suppose, and Harry is quite good with them. Emma didn't really like children. Oh, she saw the reason for them, but she didn't like being around them.

"I know what I like my dear. The food's nice, the view is great, the ambience etc., it just is a little overpriced for the portions, and overdone for my tastes."

"Barbarian." Emma scoffed. Melody and Illyana both raised a hand, asking if they could go with her. Emma scowled, but nodded, leaving Harry behind to talk quietly to Amara and Piotr about what they had seen today. Mid-conversation Harry frowned, and Piotr cocked an eyebrow at his friend/teacher/team leader. "What's wrong tovarishch?"

"Hmm… nothing major, just… Remember that feeling I told you about, half of its gone now…" Harry trailed off, trying to find where one of his watchers had gone. He had discovered that there were two of them after he sat down, being able to concentrate enough to localize the magical feeling in the air. One of them was definitely connected to a small cat, though Harry sincerely doubted it really was a cat, which was perched on a nearby window ledge, well within sight of their table on the balcony of the restaurant.

The other though, that one was tougher to localize, and it had disappeared a second ago. Or so Harry thought, until he felt it return, just as Emma and the children did… That made Harry's eyes narrow dangerously, and he focused his magical senses harder on finding the second watcher. When Emma stopped to talk to a waiter, the two children continued on toward Harry, and he realized then who the targets of the second watcher were.

Rage, pure primal fury ripping away his conscious thoughts, his plan to follow the magical lines gone now, burned away by the rage that someone would dare to spy on his daughter. Harry's control snapped, his magic rippling around him, it was all he could do to stop it from affecting the physical plane around him. He bore down on his control, knowing he couldn't lose it entirely, not here, not with so many people around.

Swiftly Harry cast a spell, making everyone around him not able to notice anything unusual, a powerful spell he would have to cancel after, since it badly impaired the crowd's ability to think clearly, let alone react in an emergency. With that done he grimly reached out with his own magic to grasp the imp that was suddenly visible high up in one corner of the room, and the cat. Both of the targets of his ire noticed his anger and the spells he cast, but couldn't get away from Harry's senses.

Harry would later wish he had tried to make a verbal threat or something, but at the time his self-control was hanging by a bare thread, and he could only form a single word before his magic lashed out, slamming into their very beings and through the connection between the two creatures to their masters. "BEGONE!" With that word reality shifted and the two familiars simply ceased to exist.

Watching the two creatures disappear without even the chance to howl in pain, Harry slowly calmed down. Melody touched his hand, her wide eyes staring up at him in concern. "Father, your songs suddenly went all angry and disjointed, are you alright?"

Emma had immediately noticed what had happened, the suddenly blank, unseeing eyes of the people Harry's overpowered spell had effected was obvious. Even she felt it, though Harry hadn't included her or the others in the spell, the power of it had nearly made that attempt to exclude them fail. "What was that about?"

"Sending a message." Harry growled, then forced a smile on his face, cursing himself inwardly at not keeping control enough to follow the spells connecting his watchers to their creatures, but the idea of someone magical being interested in either his daughter or apprentice had so infuriated him he had almost lost it entirely. "I'll tell you about it later. I'm fine Melody, truly."

Emma smirked a little, reaching down between them to grab Harry's hand drawing it across to lay on her thigh, leaving it there before her hand went to his own thigh. "I think you need to get your mind off whatever just happened before you bust a blood vessel. I think there are some clubs around here, and I haven't been dancing since I first met Jean."

Music from the street below caused them all to peer over the side of the balcony to see a large group of street performers had set up shop nearby. Six women dressed in knee length frilly skirts and tight blouses were dancing around, with random people from the crowd joining in. To one side was a small band playing a Greek dancing song. "Ask and you shall receive my dear."

Illyana and Melody both clapped their hands in delight while Harry signaled the waiter for their bill. Piotr looked resigned while Emma looked amused but game. Amara however was shaking her head. "You know those are Roma right? They could be a band of thieves, there were a few of them near the Coliseum."

"Oh, but they were nice." Melody interjected, swaying her head gently to the many different songs that had taken up residence in her mind right now. "It wasn't anything personal, they just needed the money, like Aladdin and the bread."

"Well with that ringing endorsement we have nothing to fear." Harry laughed, shaking his head, though he wondered how Melody had been able to discern that through the filtering spell he had put on her. Still it wasn't the first time.

"Besides, Emma and I are the only ones who have money on us at present, and…" Harry waved his hands in series of small scale, somewhat complex spells on his wallet and Emma's purse. "Those who steal from a wizard will get more than they bargained for."

With that the six of them left the restaurant to join the small party occurring in the street. There were indeed several teens working the crowd, filching pockets. Emma took a moment to find out that they were stealing more because it was fun than because they needed the money, unlike the ones near the city.

While Piotr and Amara were dancing with the two youngsters, Emma put her arms around Harry's waist, drawing him in to a grinding sort of dance with her. "You know this doesn't match the music at all right?" Harry said with a smirk, though he still ground back, causing a gasp from her and several parents to turn their children away from the sight. "I've been told that sort of matters for some reason."

"Hmmpf, well if you had listened to me and sent the children back to the castle we could have gone to an actual club. So you're damn well going to put up with it Harry Potter."

"Putting up with things has never been my forte, escalation now…" Harry smirked, then leaned in quickly kissing her hard on the lips. His tongue darted in between Emma's surprised lips, seeking out her tongue and wrestling with it in her mouth as they continued to grind their bodies against one another. Eventually he pulled back, ignoring the amused chuckles and scandalized muttering of the crowd around them.

Emma opened her eyes slowly, gasping a little for air as she stared at Harry through lust-filled eyes. "Mmmm… damn are you certain I can't convince you to send the children back and find a hotel somewhere so I can have my wicked way with you?"

"I don't think so, besides Jean would be very annoyed with you for jumping ahead like that." Harry replied dryly. Emma laughed, and they went back to dancing, occasionally sharing kisses, but for the most part just having fun.

Later that evening the six of them left Rome, teleporting back to the castle without further incident. Later that evening, at the same time that Harry was explaining what had happened to Jean and Ororo, the thieves who had worked the crowd were going through their ill-gotten gains. When they came to the wallet Harry had allowed them to steal off him however, not only did they find it empty, but when they opened it, the wallet exploded in sparkles, filling their hideout with smoke. When the smoke dissipated, all of the thieves were covered head to in sparkles, the kind used in art projects the world over, oh, and super glue as well. Pain was momentary, humiliation lasted far longer, in Harry's opinion.

When Harry shared his memories (literally via the pensieve) with his three ladies of what he had sensed in the restaurant, they were all concerned about it, and determined that for a while at least they would err on the side of caution, and not allow either Illyana or Melody out from under the wards without at least one of the heavy hitters with them.

Harry also said he would prepare a set of protective enchantments for both girls. That was all they could do now, not having any idea how to hunt the watcher down. It was irritating, but just this once they would have to simply wait on the defense.

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Harry had lashed out with his magic, elsewhere on Earth a woman of indeterminate age yet great physical beauty reared back in shock. She had pale white skin, dark green eyes, which seemed to shimmer like water in the light of several candles set around the room, and straight dark magenta colored hair falling straight down her shoulders. At present she wore a sheer black nightgown, open down the front to reveal, though no one was there to see, much of her chest and stomach.

After a moment she recovered from her shock, shaking her head. I cut my connection at just the right time. My familiar is simply gone as if it never existed, and with it the magic that had bound us together. If my consciousness was still connected to it… She shuddered, turning away. One thing is clear, the destroyer of my phylactery has only grown stronger since. Curse it, I might need to… look for allies.

OOOOOOO

This was another place entirely, one that was decidedly not on Earth, or even in the same dimension. This was a Hell Dimension, much like Mephisto's, though without that beings… flare. That didn't mean it was pleasant, it was simply much more like the normal image of hell seen in so many paintings without his additions. But much like Mephisto, the lord of this particular hell had a castle, and a throne, in which he was sitting now.

The magician known as Belasco sighed faintly as he watched on of his minions screaming in agony as it literally dissolved in front of his eyes, the very fabric of its being erasing. Whatever had happened to its paired imp had reverberated along their link, and the greater demon was now dying, no worse than dying, simply ceasing to be a horrible thought. "So, it appears as if my chosen apprentice has found a most powerful guardian, one who is both powerful and vigilant. One that is also paired with the Life-giver's avatar, I recognized him from my servant N'astirh's description of that debacle."

"I, I will need to think on this further." He stood up then, ignoring the still screaming demon as he walked out, thinking hard, weighing possibilities and odds in his head, not liking any of the conclusions he was reaching, unwilling to give up the prize, yet terrified of what he had just seen.

OOOOOOO

Two days after his visit to Rome, Harry sat with Reed next to him in the observation deck, gazing out into space as they sipped at a few semi-alcoholic drinks. All right, they were incredibly alcoholic, but they were also small, thus would not be able to impair their mental functions. The two men had just finished discussing Betsy, who Reed had medically cleared to return to Britain with her brother that morning.

She was fine physically better than fine actually she was at the peak of physical condition. She seemed alright mentally, which was possibly due to her telepathic powers given the fact she had thrown off Mojo's mental dominance several times, not letting it build up. Her mechanical eyes however did indeed have several malware programs in them. One was designed to make them explode if a signal on a certain frequency was received, while the other was to send video out to a station in Mojoworld. Needless to say Reed had removed both.

Ororo had already heard from her. Betsy told her friend she had been called in immediately upon her return by the UK government on some job. Apparently Emma Steed was still comatose, and they wanted a telepath's aid in breaking her out of it, or determining if she was never going to break out of it at all. This was why her company was still in legal limbo, as Emma put it.

First, the government couldn't find anything indicating Ms. Steed's company had anything to do with Selene's activities. Her money, yes, but not the company's assets. Yet on the other hand, Steed was the only survivor of the Inner Circle, so they wanted to prosecute her. Yet in her current state, having lost her mind to Selene's mental domination, not only was she mentally unfit to stand trial, but she was an object of sympathy. So Betsy had been called in to see what she could do.

Now however, the two men were simply enjoying a moment of quiet contemplation. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of this view." Reed said slowly, setting down his glass on a small table set between the two of them, his eyes locked on the image of space before them.

The older man smiled faintly when his eyes caught movement on the monitor set into one wall, the wall still retaining its transparency despite the computer screen stuck on it, which showed an image from the interior of the asteroid. At present it showed the jungle, where his son Franklin was playing with young Paige, Dani, and Melody, some kind of hide and seek game, with Melody and Franklin working as a team to stay away from the teens.

Piotr and Ben were somewhere else installing some of Reed's equipment in his lab, the first of many such deliveries. Jean, Susan and Ororo were elsewhere, talking about something or other that Reed didn't want to think about, putting the heading of any fully female conversation under the heading 'troublesome' in his mind. Paige and Dani come along today having heard about Harry's space borne projects from Piotr and Nikolai. Harry had struggled with the decision but in the end he had decided to trust all the teens and read them all into it the secret. Amara however had opted out, feeling uneasy about being so far from terra firma. Johnny and Wyatt were not there either, having a day out at the race track near the Baxter Building.

However, Harry had yet to bring up any of the other younger children to the asteroid. He might have to do it eventually, but for right now he felt it was something special for Melody and Franklin.

The site of his son around with a happy grin on his face made Reed's smile widen, but he turned back to Harry when the wizard spoke. "True, it really is majestic isn't it? You say you're ready to install the next round of sensors?"

"I have them up and running yes, some final tests still need to be done, and I'm more than a little worried about the computational needs, but other than that…" Reed shrugged.

"We'll wait to install them then," Harry said shaking his head. "I think I've come up with a solution for the computational needs, but it will take a while before we see anything." He told Reed what had occurred between him and Tony, ending with Tony's offer of help and Harry's asking for an AI core.

Read nodded emphatically when Harry asked him if he would be willing to check out the programming on it. "Most definitely, I am not going to question Tony about his programming of Jarvis, but Jarvis is a personal AI, it was made merely to interact with Tony and facilitate his work it doesn't control his entire company only his house. That doesn't even mention the fact that Tony is used to being the center of things, and rather nosy too."

Behind his glass Harry smirked. "I think Tony's getting better, and I actually think he's doing very good work as Ironman, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a grandstander, and used to being the one in charge. I don't want any kind of bugs or shadow programs that bite us in the ass later." That he trusted Reed not to add his own was not said, the two men were friends and allies, and trusted one another to a degree that reminded Harry somewhat of him and Blaise for some reason.

Blaise had never been a combatant except on very rare occasions, but he was a firm ally of Harry's, funneling information and cash when necessary to Harry's efforts. Harry hoped he was happy back in his old dimension, having finally married his childhood fiancée and moved back to Italy before the battle of Hogsmeade. Reed was sort of the same, not quite on the same team with Harry, but certainly on the same side, and someone Harry trusted and was trusted and turned by. After all you did not ask a person you did not trust to train your child as Reed had Harry.

"I had a thought about a scanner myself actually." Harry went on. "I was wondering if you could prove or disprove it?" Read made a go-ahead gesture, still staring out into space. Harry went on. "You said that your defenses against magical teleportation had to do you do with sensing and redirecting the bow shock of the teleportee as it were through the air? I've read that planets and even solar systems create similar bow shocks when moving through space, and I would imagine it's true for any astral body. But would it be true that you could detect something similar moving through hyperspace?"

"It would be yes." Reed nodded. "However the power consumption needed to run that kind of the system even on a small scale would be monstrous." He paused calculated his mind, going over figures and information faster in his head then an entire team of normal scientists could've done with computers in front of them. I'd estimate you'd need the output of an entire city's worth of generators to cover barely twenty miles or so of space."

Harry frowned a little. "Damn, I thought it was a good idea."

"It might be, if we can solve the power problem. Again though, we'd need to use satellites to mount the scanners themselves, and some kind of way to beam in the power to those satellites or the satellites with their own inner power sources. Perhaps rather than having it on all the time, which would be as I said power intensive, you could pulse them out at different times during the day like sonar. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would work."

Reed went on thoughtfully. "I can see if I can finagle that technology a bit more. Make it more economic power-wise, and possibly enlarge it or shrink it, but it would take a while."

"Something to think about anyway." Harry shrugged, and the two leaders of their respective teams went back to gazing out at the stars quietly.

That calm did not last. Moments after they had finished talking a warning tone sounded throughout the asteroid. "Warning, high-energy pulse detected, gravitic anomaly detected, light wave distortion sensor activated." Harry sat bolt upright and raced over to a set of controls, slapping his hand down on it and quickly punching in the code to show the sensor's readouts on the large screen which had previously been showing Melody and Franklin. That view disappeared, and Harry and Reed looked at the sensors had picked up.

A ship had jumped out of hyperspace at the far edge of their scanning equipment. While the team assembled around them Harry and Reed waited for the ping from the light refraction array to get back to them. Twenty minutes later they watched as the ship appeared on the screen. It was largish, possibly a half a mile from one end to another and half that across at its widest point judging from the LRA. It seemed to consist of differing sized block shaped areas, with the smallest at the front, facing down toward the Earth. Weapons or anything else could not be discerned by this system, but it could detect what looked like engines at the back, and several small blisters on its surface.

"Somehow I don't think they're friendly." Harry muttered shaking his head as the 'real-time' (actually several minutes old) video of the LRA showed something small being shot out from under the front of the ship heading towards the Earth far below. "What are the odds that we would be up here at precisely the right time to spot a ship coming out of hyperspace? Attack of the spandex dilemma indeed."

Reed cocked an eyebrow while around them the other adults on the asteroid gathered. "Spandex dilemma?"

"Oh it's something Nightcrawler came up with a while back. The moment you put on a skintight suit and call yourself a hero your luck is changed for good or bad. You'll always be right where you need to either cause a crisis or prevent one."

"I had noticed something similar during our own time as adventurers I suppose, though I haven't thought it had anything to do with our uniform. Could be an interesting experiment to see if our luck did indeed change if we wear baggier suits." Reed laughed.

"Will NASA pick that up?" Harry asked, gesturing to the video.

"Even NASA won't miss something like that if one of their telescopes are pointed in the right direction." Reed said caustically. He had absolutely no respect for NASA whatsoever. The National Air and Space Administration was more a bureaucracy based more on keeping itself going these days than an organization actually devoted to space travel. They still were arguing about putting another space station up in orbit, and had ignored all the evidence of alien life forms that had been developed in the course of the Fantastic Four's career thus far because it argued against much of their own data. That 'head in the sand' attitude infuriated Reed.

Worse was the fact that they were still the biggest and best in the game on Earth, though thanks to Harry that was going to change dramatically. The two men had plans for the future, oh yes.

Right now however Reed enlarged the image of the thing that had been shot out of the ship frowning. "That… looks familiar... I think it might be a Kree Sentry android. We dealt with one of them about a year ago I believe. They are heavily armored and armed robotic troubleshooters/scouts for the Kree Empire."

"What would it be here for?" Jean asked from behind him, while the others, minus Dani who was changing into her combat gear, muttered.

"I don't know, but I think we need to take action in the event. I don't think even SHIELD has anything that could really stand up to one of those things, even if they were in the right place at the right time, without it causing a lot of damage to the surrounding area."

Harry nodded looking around at the others. Ben was frowning angrily, clenching and unclenching his rocky hands. "The Kree!" He spat out shaking his head. "Fascist bastards. If you're not Kree you're not nothing in their world, I'd hoped we'd seen the last those assholes."

"I think I need to reread your mission logs, I knew you'd run into a race called the Kree, but I didn't know your opinions about them." Harry shook his head. "However now is not the time think about that. Two teams," he said looking around at them all earnestly, taking command with the ease of long practice. "One to go after the Kree Sentry, we can't allow it to roam free down there, and we can't trust SHIELD to be able to get to it before it can do a lot of damage or carry out whatever its mission is. The other team will board and take that ship. It has entered Earth airspace without permission or declaration of intent, so I'm calling it either an act of aggression or piracy, and as such, we are fully justified in taking them out."

"Oh Harry." Jean laughed smiling widely as she saw the ship, eager to start taking it apart. "You take me to the most lovely places." Everyone laughed at that, even Reed was amused and interested. If the ship had simply stayed in orbit doing nothing however he probably would have argued against attacking it. But the moment that the ship shot out the Sentry towards Earth, without radioing its intent or doing anything to show that it respected human sovereignty of their planet, it became an attacker, and therefore fair game.

"I wish I could contact that wayward brother of mine." Susan grunted irritably. "Of all the times for him to forget his communicator, we could use the extra firepower."

"We'll have to make do without him or the others, there's no time to find them and get them here. Reed, I might need you on the ship to deal with any technical things we run into, same with Jean, so that's you two, me, Susan for scouting, Paige as strongman, and Ororo for additional firepower. Thing, Colossus, Valkyrie, Paige, you'll head down to deal with the Kree Sentry." Harry looked over at Reed. "Do those things have any kind of self-destruct device?"

Read shook his head. "No, or at least I doubt it. I examined the one we dealt with before, and it didn't seem to have any such capacity."

"Take it down hard then. I don't think we'll be able to learn anything from it that we can't learn from their ship, and going by where it's going to land, there's going to be too many civilians nearby for me to want you to faffle about."

Ben nodded grimly but Piotr spoke up. "If we need to start fighting where there are any civilians about we might need to split some of us off to help get them away from the combat area."

All the older adults looked at the younger man in surprise and respect for that idea, then both Reed and Harry nodded emphatically. "Good idea." they said as one, then looked at one another and chuckled.

Dani nodded too, laying a hand on the large Russian's shoulder.

"I will go with the ground force." Ororo said firmly, also looking at Piotr in approval. "My magics can help keep the civilians safe, allowing the rest of you to hammer the invader unimpeded."

Harry nodded, then said simply, "Let's go." Before turning to lead the way to the hangar.

OOOOOOO

When the other team left Piotr transformed into his armored form, while the others readied themselves, with Dani pulling up the hood that was part of her current costume. Ororo gestured for the team to gather around her holding hands, and said warningly. "This will feel a little odd, even to those of you who have apparated with Harry before." She began to intone a spell, glancing down at the monitor as she closed her eyes.

A second later they appeared on a runway of Cape Canaveral Florida. Around Ororo the others all fell to their knees for a moment, gasping. "That was not something I want to do again," Ben said, cleaning up what he really had wanted to say quite well. Being smacked by an invisible shield every time he cursed near Franklin had forced him to clean up his mouth quickly.

"Get over it" Ororo said, her eyes locked on their target. "I don't think we want this thing to find what it's looking for."

The Sentry was a giant robot, standing taller than Piotr, who was the tallest of them, by at least two feet. It was made of blue and purple metal with the purple etched on it in such a way as to look like some kind of clothing, complete with gauntlets and helmet. It had small eyes, and wide, thick 'lips'. It was currently simply standing there, it's arms up and pointing away from them, as if using some kind of scanner embedded in them. Ororo could hear it intoning something in its native dialect, which she couldn't understand.

Ben grunted coming to his feet. "Circle around it." he ordered, being the most experienced of the group. "Ghigau, get its attention, then Colossus and I will close in."

Wanting something that would harken to her heritage yet not be too obvious, Ghigau was the name Dani had chosen for her codename. Ghigau could mean either Beloved (Respected) Woman or War Woman. It was the name given to women among the Cherokee who exhibited great courage on the battlefield. Once named, Ghigau had certain powers in the tribe, serving as negotiating with those outside the clan, and determining the fate of captured prisoners. They were also said to have the power of the Great Spirit filling them, giving them odd powers and great insight.

Around the makeshift team people were running towards them, having first fled from what they thought was some kind of aircraft crash landing, now running back to see what the giant metallic creature was. Seeing that, the Thing cursed. "Damnit Colossus you were right we'll have to do something about the bystanders."

"Leave that to me." Ororo said grimly. "Though you'll have to keep the Sentry away from me. I haven't gotten good enough yet to use these spells and fight personally at the same time."

Most of the spells Gaia had been teaching her above and beyond simply manipulating magic itself in various attacks were area-of-control spells. Essentially Ororo used them and the area around her came under her control allowing her various abilities in that area without further incantation. In that area she could conjure or transfigure objects, teleport herself and others without any build up necessary, even summon up magical attacks to come at her opponents from different directions. The size of the area effected depended on her control and power. It would be extremely useful in a fight once she was able to use them and keep moving, but for now, this would help in keeping the people around them safe.

This proved its worth not a second later as the Kree Sentry finished whatever it had been doing and began to stride forward, one hand almost negligently rising to try and vaporize a human, some kind of airport worker, that had gotten too close to it. A vibrant purple beam of power shot out from the palm of the robots hands straight at the man, whose eyes widened in dawning terror.

Ororo had barely finished her first spell, and she reached out quickly with her power. The man found himself suddenly teleported away, landing on top of an airplane nearby with a queasy stomach but still alive.

The beam impacted the ground behind where the man had been, cutting a deep furrow in the asphalt of the runway. The Sentry paused for a moment, then after intoning something in its language once more moved forward again. At that point it's progress was halted when Ghigau's magic arrow impacted its head with the force of a cannon round. "Over here ugly!" she yelled, racing forward, taking an angle on her hover boots that took her away from the majority of civilians that were around, most of whom had the sense to scatter after seeing their fellow attacked a second ago.

Behind her Thing nodded in approval while he and Colossus rumbled forward. The Kree Sentry saw them coming and began to fire at the Thing, which was in its database as an enemy. It ignored Colossus until the Russian slammed into it, barreling the Sentry down to the earth and pummeling it heavily with his armored fists before being blasted away by a blast of that purple beam from the robot's chest.

His blows had however dented the Sentry's hull slightly, and before it could right itself Thing was on it too, pounding away. "Keep driving it away from the civilians!" Ghigau shouted, gesturing behind her to force several men wearing flight suits to back away. She could see a few security vehicles racing towards them, but for now it seemed as if the civilians were not in any immediate danger.

Ororo had hidden herself behind a large wheel of an airplane, her hands pressed together as she concentrated on the area of control spells that she had cast. Magic bolts appeared out of nowhere around the robot, smashing into it and doing more damage than Ben or Piotr's fists had so far, causing it to look around to see where the attacks were coming from. It spoke in its language again, but Ororo, not having run into the Kree before, couldn't figure it out.

She continued her attack, ice forming swiftly around the Sentry's feet, holding it in place as Colossus and Thing closed in from both sides having been thrown away by the robot for a moment. Their fists hammered into it from either side, but it fought back as well as it could, and Colossus staggered away, shaking his head groggily from one particularly strong blow to his head that he hadn't been able to dodge.

The robot then grabbed Ben's arm, hurling him away with a twist of its arms to smash into an airplane sitting halfway down the runway. The plane exploded around the Thing, and Ororo winced hoping that there were no people inside. There were several people however outside of the plane, who had apparently been fueling the plane and going over it or whatever it was airport workers did to planes.

They would have been caught in the explosion if she hadn't grabbed them all and teleported them away. They landed in a jumble, banged and bruised, but it was still better than being caught in an explosion.

By this time the guards had arrived, and were shouting at everyone to raise their hands, not seeing the Thing for the moment, hidden as he was by the explosion. If they had they would have immediately begun to evacuate the area. The Fantastic Four were well known and their adventures had won a tremendous amount of respect from the American people.

When the Sentry ignored them and began to fire blasts at Colossus they opened fire on it with handguns, and Ororo shook her head from where she was hiding. Idiots, she thought caustically, even as she directed more magical bolts at the alien robot. If metal fists like Piotr's can barely dent the thing, why in the world do they think that their little pop guns could?

The Sentry barely glanced in their direction, and from one eye came a beam of laser fire that would've incinerated one of the security guards. Again Ororo used her power to teleport him away, then hammered the alien construct with her pure magic attacks again causing it to look around wildly speaking again its native language while trying to find the threat. Hidden as she was behind the wheel of an airplane however, it could not find Storm, or connect her to the assault on it.

The other security guard retreated quickly, rushing back to his car and swiftly driving away from the conflict. On the way he saw Thing coming out of the smoke and fire from a downed plane, rumbling back into the battle.

By this point Ororo's magic attacks had damaged the Sentry it was badly dented now and had lost several fingers, but it was still fighting Colossus hard, hammering the Russian badly in turn, and Ororo could see that it was slowly healing itself as well.

It looked up, sending another purple beam of power at the charging Thing, but he took it, slamming his fist forward into the beam and charging on. "Hafta do better'n that Blue Boy!"

Jumping up from where she had been hiding Ghigau took careful aim, and letting fly with her arrow. It slammed into the Sentry's head right into one of the android's eyes with all the power of a gauss rifle round. The eye and more than a bit of its face was destroyed in the explosion, but the robot was still on its feet, still fighting, and they could see it begin to repair even that level of damage.

It took a second to try and fire back at Dani, but she was already gone, skating backwards then forwards once more, dodging its attacks easily while Ben finished closing the distance slamming a powerful punch into the Sentry's body. "It's Clobberin' Time!"

The Sentry however emitted some kind of energy field that blocked Ben's punch then flashed over into another attack, this one white in color that sent him flying backwards with a howl of or rage and pain.

Storm frowned, beads of sweat making their way down her face as she teleported Ben away from his landing position several feet to avoid a follow up beam of the same color. At the same time the Sentry turned, slamming a punch into Colossus' side, sending the metal-clad Russian to the ground.

It was about to follow up when Ghigau zoomed in suddenly, having sent her bow back into her bag of holding. She grabbed the construct's arm where it was pointed a palm toward Colossus, flipping herself into the air right in front of the robot's head, shouting, "KNIFE!" The array on her glove activated, porting in an Orihalcum knife. Swiftly she stabbed into the thing's just repaired eye, destroying it further.

Before she could get away, the robot's other hand was in front of her face, about to fire its beam. Suddenly Ghigau found herself elsewhere, falling on her rear for a moment, before she pushed herself shakily to her feet. Her intervention however had worked.

Colossus was once more on his feet, using his greater mobility to stay away from the beams and punches of his opponent, knowing now that he couldn't take much more damage to his head. Several more magic blasts also hammered the Sentry, and the robot was now unable to repair all of its damage.

Still hiding Ororo was now sweating in earnest, pulling back from her latest assault. The alien constructs defenses seemed to hamper her magical attacks better than terrestrial metals would, and she had been unable to she get a grip on it to simply transfigure it. Whether Harry could've done that or not was beyond her, but her attacks did seem to worry it, and she smiled as an idea came to her. When Colossus was once more thrown away from the robot, she took her chance, halting Thing in his attack for just a moment.

Under her will all around the Sentry the temperature dropped dramatically. Storm had conjured up some liquid nitrogen, encasing the Sentry in it for a moment. It didn't last long of course, nor did it, as Ororo had hoped, freeze the robot's armor to the point of brittleness, but it did make it move slower, as if some of its movement actuators hadn't been able to deal with the cold as well as its hull. The repair work on its mangled head also stopped and Ororo grinned triumphantly. Now she released The Thing from the momentary stasis she had struck him with, who rushed forward with Colossus to double team the alien construct.

The battle continued, but it was clear now the Sentry was slowly becoming overmatched. Dents and gouges covered it from Ororo's magical attacks and the fists of Ben and Colossus, it was also moving much less fluidly.

Ororo and the others pressed their advantage. Thing soaked up its desperate attacks returning his own with a fury that was startling to see. After one punch he grabbed the robot's arm and nearly ripped it out of its socket.

Ororo quickly capitalized, aiming her next round of magical attacks at that point. The arm sheared off with a squeal of tortured metal. At the same time, Ghigau, who had recalled her bow, lined up her next shot, slamming another arrow into the robot's already ruptured eye, blowing the armor out along that side of its head. The Sentry tried to fire back, but Colossus slammed his fist into the android's already heavily damaged face, destroying many of its remaining sensors.

Then Storm struck again, conjuring a fireball into the Sentry's sputtering shoulder socket, blowing the arm off. The sentry seemed to pause, its one remaining eye flashing as something inside its chest failed, then Thing hoisted it up by one leg. "Make a wish!" He shouted at Colossus, who got the idea at once. He grabbed the Sentry's one remaining arm, then the two powerful heroes began to pull.

The Sentry's structural integrity had been badly hammered by this point, and it's repair functions were gone now. It still tried to fire it's palm and chest beams, destroying several planes around them, but not hitting its targets. After several minutes of straining, the two superpowered heroes tore the alien construct in two at its waist.

Then Dani rushed forward, her boots sending her flying over the ground, to stop right over the robot's head, firing her last three arrows all at once into the head. When the smoke from the explosion cleared the thing's head had been reduced to bits of twisted and mangled metal.

Ben looked at the half of the Sentry that he was holding up and threw it to the ground. "Well that was fun, though that white beam it hit me with hurt worse than one o' the Hulk's punches. Wonder what that was about, well whatever, the Big Brain'll figure it out I bet."

Dani shook her head looking admiration at Ororo who had just stepped out of cover. She rushed over to the other woman as she gasped falling forward onto her hands and knees after letting go of the spells. "Are you all right Storm?"

"I'm fine." Ororo said shaking her head wearily. "That however took a lot of me."

"Well worth it though." Dani said nodding her head over at the pile of people who had been around the aircraft Thing had slammed into and the dozens of others scattered around who might have died without Ororo's interventions. "Most of them would have died in that explosion, or been horribly burned at the very least, without you here, let alone the others and I."

"True." Ororo said reaching up to Dani's hand and allowing the younger woman to pull her to her feet. "What should we do now?"

Ben scowled a little. "You lot should get out of here, I'll explain you all bein' here as allies of ours, but I don't think you're ready for the spotlight are ya? I'll tell 'em that we were sent because we were we detected somethin' coming through the atmosphere, which even SHIELD won't have an issue with considering they might have detected it too. Then I'll tell them that I have to hurry back just in case there're more."

Ororo nodded wearily. Then she looped one arm over Danny's shoulder as the other woman helped her along. "Cory, could you teleport us back up to High Note please, I'm afraid a little be too exhausted to trust myself to do it."

The popper specialist appeared in 'Mistress Ororo's' shadow, and the second later Dani, Piotr and Ororo had disappeared, along with nearly every bit of the Sentry, save for the arm that Ororo had shorn off earlier with Ben's help.

Shaking his head at how helpful the house-elves were Ben turned with a sigh as he noticed the security men rushing toward him. He sighed, but trudged over to meet them, a grim smile on his craggy face.

OOOOOOO

While the battle was going on in Florida, Harry and the others had moved out from the asteroid, held in a bubble of air that Jean directed and that Harry had filled with air, covered with a series of spells designed to hide them from detection as they closed. Even with Jean telekinetically pushing them along it took them several minutes to close from High Note's former position over California, but they latched onto the outer hull without anyone detecting them.

"All right." Harry said. "I'm going to cut us an opening, we'll rush in and then I'll transfigure it behind us. I don't know if they'll be able to detected or anything, but I would assume they do, so everyone should be ready for combat the moment we get in there.

Paige nodded eagerly, literally hopping up and down the hull for a moment while Jean simply smirked her eyes crackling with kinetic fire. She was going to enjoy this, and then she was going to pull this ship apart to find all of its secrets and how to re-create them. A good day.

Harry however was angry that he hadn't thought of asking one of the house-elves to bring up the newest version of their teams command helmet. With the admittedly mediocre HUD system it would've allowed to him at least monitor Paige and Jean if they got separated. He had never had to take a ship before, but he knew these fights were supposed to be nasty in the extreme, made even worse if you didn't have any idea of the ship's layout. "Do we have any idea of the layout of this thing?"

Reed shook his head. "We've never boarded a Kree warship, so no. I do however know how to read and understand their spoken language, and I bet they have signs inside."

"All right, if we can get in without any combat we'll split into two teams, one to take at the bridge the other to find and take out engineering. I'll lead the ones take at the bridge, Reed will lead the ones to find the engineering room. They'll be Susan, Reed and Paige on one team, with me and Jean on the other."

They all nodded, and Harry knelt to touch the hull with one hand, then began to use his magic to cut into the metal conjuring up a flame almost as hot as Fiendfyre but without the magical component. Soon he had a hole big enough for them all to fit through, and he leapt down, followed quickly by the others. With a wave of his hand Harry then grabbed the chunk of hull and slammed it back in into place before the metal around the edge could cool. He concentrated a bit, welding it shut again.

Alarms however had begun to blare all around the ship which Reed translated. "'Alert decompression, possible boarders detected.' Even if they can't see us, they know something entered the ship."

Then I think the time for disguises past for at least a few of us, Reed, Susan, Paige, take out engineering, I'll leave the spells in place covering you for now, so long as you don't…"

That was as far as the he got before several blue skinned men in body armor appeared at the end of the corridor they were standing in. The men immediately opened fire, causing Harry to wonder if the aliens could see them somehow, or if these people were just that aggressive.

He and the others dodged wildly, not even having enough time to summon up shields in Susan or Harry's case. The blasts from the Kree rifles were a light purple color and didn't seem very powerful judging from the fact they only scorched the walls where they hit, but no one was willing to take hits when they could avoid it, especially after Harry's little speech a few days back.

Paige however simply barreled forward, ignoring the fact that the men were now shouting something into their intercoms, aiming at her now that the spells on her had dissipated under the impact of so many laser beams. She slammed into the four Kree sailors, hurling one into the corridor wall and punching one in the face so hard his body went flying backward, his neck broken.

The last two tried to grapple with her, and she found despite their being the same general body type they were stronger than the human norm, stronger than Piotr was in his normal body. Still they were no match for her metal body's strength or durability, which seemed much closer to human norm than their strength. Within seconds she got them both into head locks, slamming their heads together before dropping their unconscious bodies to the ground. "I think they know we're here boss!"

Reed shook his head. "Agreed, we're going to be able to sneak around, they might be able to detect us in some way that your magic can't hide, or they simply could be too paranoid. We'll have to force our way our through."

OOOOOOO

Captain Yon-Rogg of the Kree Empire was a pure-born Kree, his skin the deep blue tone that denoted him as superior to the baseborn half-bloods with their pink or purple skin, whatever the Supreme Intelligence that ruled the Kree said of the need for new genetic material. He was a veteran of many battles against the lizard scum who called themselves the Skrull, and even the Shi'ar, for all that the Kree only shared a few border systems with that power. He was also ambitious and driven both by his ambitions and his ego, as well as his desires, which centered around one baseborn woman at present.

The mission he and his shipHelion, which was the Kree equivalent of a frigate, had been sent on at the moment was simple. Head to Earth, a planet the Kree were intimately familiar with from both experiments done here long ago and recent setbacks to one of their heroes, Ronan the Accuser. There he was to remain in orbit in support of the Sentry whose task was to find the target, the deserter Captain Mar-vell then if necessary land troops to assist in arresting him.

Yon-rogg and his ship had actually dropped off Mar-vell half a year ago, where he had been sent to spy on the humans, to see how fast they were advancing technologically, and to make certain they did not grow into a threat to the Kree.

The orders said Mar-vell had gone native, ignoring a recall order from the last time, and that he might be plotting to make the humans exactly that sort of a menace. Such an offense was punishable by death, but he would have to be tried first for a full tribunal, then made an example of by Ronan himself.

Yon-Rogg was more than happy to carry this mission out for very personal reasons. Firstly he hated Mar-vell, who was a half-blood male, with a fiery passion. He was named a hero a year ago after running into a new extra-spatial race called the Brood, saving Yon-rogg and a few others who had run into them first. That was not a kindness a man such as Yon-rogg could bare. Moreover, Mar-vell was in a relationship with a woman Yon-rogg had desired for himself for longer than the two had known one another, the medic Una.

Now he scowled angrily as readouts informed him they were being boarded. Despite the knowledge that the Fantastic Four could fight his people on an even footing, Yon-Rogg had not expected to run into any issue while in orbit over the Earth. The ground forces running into trouble, that he could understand, and judging from the Sentry's radio signals had indeed occurred.

The captain could recognize Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman from the sensors before she disappeared into her invisibility, which still baffled Kree scientists. "It appears that our intelligence was correct, Mar-vell has indeed allied with the humans, it is the only explanation for them being ready for us both on the ground and in orbit."

He glanced over to where Una stood, leaning against one of the walls. She was a beautiful woman with an hourglass figure whose features shone through despite her half-blood coloring, with short light brown hair down to her shoulders, wearing one of the Kree military's uniform, which was white in her case to denote her status as a medic. Her eyes were sharp when they met his, sharp with distrust.

Yet his next words were such Una could find no way to disagree with them. "I suggest you get back to the med bay, we will undoubtedly have need of your services soon."

Una nodded, turning to exit the bridge at a run, putting aside her worries at what was really going on for now.

Behind her Yon-Rogg spent a moment looking after her, until that delectable rear of hers disappeared from view when the security doors closed. Then he turned and began to bark orders through the ship's intercom. "All security to their stations, all internal weapons are activated, I went these invaders dead!"

OOOOOOO

"Someone doesn't sound happy to see us?" Harry quipped, after the speech over the intercom finished. "Do you know what that man just said?" After asking that Harry hit them all with a translation spell, kicking himself for not having done so earlier.

"He said he was ordering security to repel us, and that their internal weapons had been activated." Reed said, not looking away from the placard on the wall that they were standing in front of. "This however says something much more helpful. Engineering is aft from here, down that way, I assume then we'd have to take an elevator down or up, I doubt we're lucky enough to be on the correct level for it already. And the…"

He broke off as they came under fire from several guns which had suddenly popped out of the ceiling of the hallway, though this time they were ready for it. Susan and Harry quickly raised shields, and Jean reached out with her telekinetic power. Grabbing the guns she ripped them out of their stations then hurled them at several security guards that had appeared at either side of the corridor so fast there was a small crack of sound in the air from their passage. The man all shouted and went down in broken heaps.

Harry nodded grim approval before looking over at Reed. "All right, if you get into engineering, can you stop the captain from blowing the ship or anything like that?"

"Yes." Reed said seriously. "I won't be able to override all of his controls, but I can cut them off entirely from engineering. Without control of reactor, whatever they use, which I will be interested to see, he won't be able to blow the ship or hyper-drive out."

That idea made Harry wince while they all turned and raced in the direction Reed had indicated. He hadn't considered that the captain could decide to just turn around and head for home with them still aboard. "All right, engineering it is. Jean, use your telepathy to find the largest concentrations of people, I assume that engineering would be more manpower intensive than the bridge or any other section of the ship. That will tell us if we need to go down or up. We can't afford to slow down and double back like that."

Jean nodded as they raced along, sending out her telepathy. She absently warned the others of any upcoming ambush, then watched unseeing as Paige and Harry barreled forwards to deal with it while she kept on concentrating on what her telepathy was telling her, with Susan and Reed watching her back. "I've got four concentrations of manpower, give me a second…"

With a thought she delved into a person's mind in the first such area. Normally she wouldn't have done that, she didn't particularly enjoy going through other people's thoughts, but during a combat op she wasn't about to quibble about it. "The first one's the armory, we might want to take that out on our way it's about two floors down and to the right."

She frowned a little. "At first I was getting a lot of feelings of shock from most of the minds around, but the ones in the armory are confident, ready to fight. I think they might have a few weapons designed to fight the FF, if they knew about you all."

"The other concentration is about five floors down and much further toward the back of the ship. Then there is a third concentration forward." Again Jean delved into a mind this time in that area, riding the other being's senses for a moment then nodded. "That's the hangar Bay, they had a company of ground force, they wear different uniforms, ready to embark for some reason."

Jean scowled, her lips twisting, which for some reason made Harry want to kiss them for some reason. "I wish your translation spell worked on their minds rather than our senses Harry, I can't get anything but emotions from any of them. The fourth is definitely the bridge, I can feel the captain's mind, or at least I would guess it's the captain, feelings of dominance and control, along with a lot of anger."

She shuddered a little, while Harry and Paige came back. Also a bit of dissipating lust, ugh, so wrong and foul feeling, strange. "That's all I can get for now."

They ran into three more ambushes before they reached an elevator, all of them hasty attempts, with sailors armed with light weapons backed by security guns placed in the ceilings. The security guns in the ceiling were a threat to Reed and Susan, but the others could take what the guns could dish out easily. The men were not as well trained as that first security team either.

The elevator however wasn't there, forcing them to scale down. Reed used his powers to create a slide down the shaft, allowing them a speedy passage even so.

The instant they emerged from the shaft however they ran into much more serious defenses, ten security guns in the ceiling already opening fire as well as much more heavily armed security forces bunkered down in places. It's interesting to see that the ship seems designed to repel boarders Jean noted while she raised a telekinetic shield to block the incoming fire. She winced occasionally as a blast got through, but she dodged most of them, and what she didn't, couldn't get through her body armor. . Little protective shields had been flipped up from the floor here and there, giving the defenders foxholes to shoot from.

Harry came out of the shaft after her, his magic flaring. "Bombarda!" Two such spells cleared out the foxholes on either end of the corridor, and Jean ripped apart the ceiling guns. Susan shot out small invisible shields shaped like knives at the few remaining guards who had escaped Harry's attack, while behind her Paige and Reed came out of the shaft. They raced on, taking the cameras out as they saw them to further confuse the defender's responses.

Two minutes running brought them to the armory, where they ran into their stiffest resistance yet. Heavy weapons had been pulled out and dug in everywhere, as well as about a hundred Kree soldiers. They all opened fire the instant the metal clad woman appeared at the end of the hallway which led to the armory. Paige grunted upon the impacts, and one in particular through her backwards to land in a heap cursing yet somewhat undamaged, minus a few blisters, while the others scattered behind her.

Harry teleported, suddenly appearing among the troops and began to lay about him with different spells. A Lacero in one hand and a Protego over his other arm, intermixing more long range spells as he could, Harry forced the defenders to device their attention.

With the defense now in chaos, Reed quickly stretched his arms out to grab a gun emplacement. Pulling himself forward he slammed like a ballistic missile into the troops just rushing out of the armory, throwing them every which way. Then he began to wrap several of them up in his rubber body, suffocating a few while slamming others to the ground and hammering others with giant fists that threw them around despite their enhanced strength.

Jean concentrated her attack on the heaviest guns, ripping them apart or burning them where they stood in telekinetic fire whilst protecting herself and Paige as the other young woman got to her feet groggily. "Whatever that throws hurts like a bitch!"

"It looks like more fusion-based tech to me, a controlled pinch bottle reaction of some kind. Other than that, it looks as if they use similar weapons to what we ran into on Mojo's world. I had hoped for better though obviously I haven't been able to look at the ship weapons yet."

Jean seemed to brighten up with that, and the two of them raced on following after Susan, who had raised a shield to protect herself after the initial outpouring of fire, letting the menfolk get on with it. By this time they had done so, though her husband was looking a little battered around the edges, and was favoring one shoulder before Harry smeared some kind of salve on it. After that they all entered the armory, leaving Paige at the door to look out for reinforcements.

Looking around Harry saw that the armory had more than enough weapons to arm the entire crew. Harry thought for a moment before deciding to simply collect them all in Jean's bag of holding for later. They couldn't afford to let the crewmen arm themselves further, not if they kept running into resistance like they had here. His and Susan's shields could take a lot of pounding, but they might eventually go down or they could run into a weapon that could penetrate them. Besides, Jean might learn something from them, or they could prove useful later.

With that done, Harry concentrated, conjuring up fifty golems out of thin air, which filled the room from one end to the other. With the Kree aware of them and no doubt understanding ship boarding tactics as well as Harry and the others, they needed to sow some chaos to keep them from consolidating. "You lot, seek and destroy. Anyone with blue skin wearing armor like this, is a target." He said, holding up a corpse from the ground.

The golems all nodded their rocky heads and moved off while Harry turned to Jean. "We can't afford to keep to the corridors any longer. Where's the engine room from here?"

She pointed down on a diagonal from where they stood. "Down that way, about… I want to say five decks or so."

Harry nodded. "I'm going to burn us a path straight there, that'll cut down on the amount of ambush points they can prepare."

"It will also severely damage the structural integrity of the ship." Reed said sardonically. "But that doesn't matter to us does it?"

"Not a bit." Harry smirked as he knelt down. "Jean, guide me for this, I want to try to put us down right outside of engineering, just in case we run into something that might explode if I cut into it."

"This is good thinking." Paige said shaking her head. For the next several minutes she and Susan stood guard by the door while Reed tried to look through the corpses of the security team wincing occasionally as he helped those he could.

Reed had been careful to take a few prisoners for later questioning and then repatriation, hoping to use them as messengers to warn the Kree to stay away from Earth, if such a thing could work which alas he was doubtful of. Earth wasn't strong enough to make the Kree respect it, but he had to make the attempt in any event.

By the time he was finished Harry had carved his way through to the deck below them and through that to a third.

OOOOOOO

The captains stared aghast at the cameras showing giant rock creatures moving among his crew smashing into and through defensive positions. Yet they weren't having it all their own way, his crew was armed with weapons that could damage or even destroy them, and they were stronger than humans, able to stand up to the golems in close combat. Indeed, after twenty minutes or so, his crew had demolished all the rock creatures, though their losses had been heavy. But while that was going on the cameras had lost sight of the actual boarders.

Even so Yon-rogg knew their target. Now that the armory was no longer a viable defensive point, he redirected all of the ships internal guards to the bridge and engineering, then ordered the landing party to head to the engineering room as well, hoping to catch them in a crossfire.

OOOOOOO

Yon-rogg's plan worked, but even so he just didn't have enough firepower. The moment Harry dropped from the final hole the defenders attacked him, but none could break through his armor or Magia Erebea given durability. The others landed behind him, attacking or covering themselves, the defenders weapons unable to overwhelm their opponents or at least not entirely.

When the company of ground forces came up behind them, Harry and Jean concentrated on them while the others moved forward to engage the defenders around engineering. They hammered out attacks swiftly, throwing the men there backwards even as Jean winced having taking up a shot to the shoulder. Still, the Orihalcum scales armor protected the two of them even when the shots got through their shields, nothing that the crew could safely use aboard ship could that through it.

But these, the Kree equivalent of marines, were much better trained, and much better led than the navy security teams they had faced up to this point. They didn't break, instead falling back in an organized manner, forcing Harry and Jean to chase after them. The corridor split, making the two attackers have to split up in turn.

Harry demolished a gun team with a series of devastating spells, only to find himself suddenly tackled into a wall. If he had the time to, he would've been amused, but finding himself suddenly slammed head first into the wall behind him knocked that thought out of his head.

To his surprise the man backed off after that, making a come on gesture with one hand before some sort of martial arts stance. "Come at me like this human, let's see how good you are without your powers! Or are you afraid?" He was a blue-skinned Kree, like the majority of the crew, though Harry had seen pale-skinned troopers too. He didn't know the significance of that, what he did know right now was that the man in front of him was daring him to fight him on an even footing.

Given the seriousness of the battle, the very idea should have been ludicrous. But call it a male need to prove himself, but Harry found himself agreeing to it. It had been so long, literally years, since he had last had to fight someone without the aid of his magic, that the idea was refreshing. So Harry actually grinned before kicking out, catching the other Kree man in the side, sending him stumbling backwards.

Harry leapt to his feet, meeting the man's furious punch with a blocking forearm, returning with a chop to the throat which was caught. The man brought him into a head-butt of all things, and Harry saw stars for a moment from the impact of their foreheads. But he recovered quickly enough to dodge the other man's follow up punch, ducking underneath his outstretched arm to hammer him with two body blows.

He couldn't however dodge the raised knee that caught him in the chest, then the double hammer blow that slammed into his back. Harry rolled away from a stomp, flipping himself up and grabbing a kicking leg before hurling the man away. The man landed on his feet, charging forward to body check Harry through the wall behind him this time, and several others before Harry could smash him away.

Harry grasped him around the center, lifting himself off his feet and halting the Kree's furious charge, hammering him with two knee lifts before kicking him away. Still the man came on grimly. Harry shook his head, getting into one of the stances Shiang-Chi had taught him as he contacted Jean through their communicators, which he had emplaced in his crysis suit's mask. "Jean, you and the others keep up the attack, I'm going to be busy here for a bit."

OOOOOOO

Back at the entrance to the engine room, Reed had simply barreled through the defenders like a rubber bullet shot form a cannon. Entering the engineering room he swiftly moved towards a control station while Susan covered him, using her invisibility and invisible shield knives on several engineering crew members who had been in the room, and then throwing several others around, while others were simply pushed against walls and held there by invisible shields. Paige stayed near the door, clearing out the defenders there, wincing occasionally when she got hit by a few of their weapons, favoring one leg, where her knee looked rather molten and her shoulder.

Susan wiped sweat out of her eyes, feeling the exhaustion hitting her now. Using her powers like this in so many different forms and for so long was taking a toll. Reed too was looking a little crispy around the edges, having taken a few blasts from that last battle. Luckily none of them had been direct fire, only incidental, which had allowed him to get through without further injury.

Jean joined them after finishing off the company of ground troops save for the one that Harry, rather idiotically (yet oh so predictably) in her opinion had chosen to fight on an even foot. She looked positively pristine in comparison to the other three, thanks to her armor and telekinetic defenses. "Harry's been unavoidably detained by his male ego, but the ground troops out there are gone."

"I'm not even going to ask." Reed said from where he had spent the last five minutes furiously typing at one of the consoles. "I've cut off engineering from the con, the computers think that the engineering room is the last bastion of the defenders. But I can't control everything from here. I can't shut down the defenses, nor can I shut down the internal cameras."

"That's fine, you, Susan and Paige stay here and I'll continue on and take the bridge. I haven't run into anything that can get through my telekinetic shields so I should be fine."

"Not gonna bitch." Paige said shaking her sore shoulder, deliberately not looking down at her knee, cursing her overconfidence. She was looking forward to changing back to her human form.

Paige had discovered that so long as the damage wasn't heavy, like missing a limb or similar, she could simply shed one skin for another to get rid of most of her injuries. But she wasn't about to do that in a combat zone. I've already screwed up once already, that was more than enough, thank you. And next time, I by god am going to wear some actual armor, no matter my metal form's durability! Maybe I should ask Harry to look into getting me a sample of other metals? Orihalcum didn't work but what about, what was the name, adamittum or something?

"Good, stay here and help defend this place, I'll be back. If Harry shows up send him after me." Jean said, nodding her head at the younger girl's change of attitude. It seemed as if the Guthrie matron had been correct that her daughter would mature quickly if thrown into the deep end.

The fight for the bridge was the hardest Jean had run into yet on the ship. The defenders were ready, and had learned that they had to manage their fire carefully to get through their attacker's shield. But they hadn't realized how heavily armored Jean was beyond her power-based defenses. Jean took hits, but was able to plow through, though Jean took a shot to her side that made her wince. Still, with her phoenix aura flaring around her, there was nothing the attackers could truly do to stop her.

Jean gripped the door of the bridge in two talons of phoenix flame, ripping it open with a scream of tortured metal. Almost as soon as she did, Jean's head cracked backwards hit by a blast of something from the inside. She shook her head woozily but continued opening the door, her aura and mask having taken the brunt of whatever that had been, though her aura actually wavered a moment around her head before restoring itself. Half her mask was also blown off, the protective enchantments on it having been expended blocking whatever that had been. .

There was a startled yell of outrage from inside, and then another blast hit Jean's shoulder making her wince a little, but this time the Orihalcum in her suit stopped the blow from doing much. Whatever that was, it was definitely a higher grade weapon than most of the ones aboard, or at least more powerful. Later Jean would determine that it was indeed very different than the other weapons they had seen, something only a few prized officers could use for some reason. . It only had power for two blasts, but each was capable of taking out most combat armor the Kree had run into before this.

Now however his last weapon had availed Yon-Rogg not at all. Desperately he and the rest of the bridge crew opened fire, trying to overwhelm whatever armor the human female was wearing to no avail. Her aura blocked all their blasts, and she returned fire literally, claws of flame smashing them this way and that.

Yon-rogg knew then that the battle was lost. Angrily he shouted, "You may have my ship, but no mere human will ever take me or mine alive!" He slammed a hand down on two buttons and suddenly warning tones went off through the entire ship.

Every hatch in ship opened, along with the hanger bay and several other, smaller hatches along the outer hull, opening the ship to space. At the same time, a charge of explosives, set into the floor to take out the bridge to keep it from being captured, went off.

Jean hastily strengthened her telekinetic shield but it was all she could do for a second to protect herself. The explosion killed everyone else in the bridge, and opened it up to space. Recovering, Jean fell back to the doorway, pulling it shut behind her before welding it in place with Phoenix fire. For a moment she simply shook her head at the captain's actions, but then she noticed a nearly transparent bubble pushing toward her from deep in the ship. As it washed over her, she smiled, feeling air around her once more.

OOOOOOO

Harry and the Kree soldier he was battling had fought their way down several corridors and through several walls. The Kree had the advantage in experience and strength and seemed to have some kind of healing factor as well. Harry had the edge in speed and endurance, but neither had taken a crippling blow just yet.

The wizard nearly bit his tongue as his head rocked back from a punch but retaliated with a kick that send his opponent skittering back. Before he could recover, a roundhouse kick slammed into the Kree soldiers head, plowing him through the wall of the corridor once more, hopefully breaking his jaw and possibly his neck this time.

This gave Harry a breather to look around and he frowned as he noticed that a female soldier standing at the entrance to a room at the far end of the hall. The woman, one of the Caucasian looking Kree troopers he had seen mixed in with the blue, had short brown hair and a very good figure, wearing a uniform he hadn't seen so far. She held a rifle in one hand, and she was staring hard at him, even though her hands were shaking. Over her shoulder he could see dozens of beds laid out in neat rows with injured sailors on them.

Before harry could try to reassure the woman that he wasn't about to attack her or the infirmary, all around them alarms began. Air began to rush out of the area, and the woman gasped, dropping her rifle and turning, slamming her hand on a button by the doorway. Nothing happened though, and she gasped this time in pain as the air left the area, only remaining where she was by grabbing the hatchway. Harry looked around wildly, then concentrated, pushing his magic out as he summoned up a huge Bubblehead charm, pushing it out and down the corridors, expanding it as he reached every intersection. The woman, at the entrance to the med bay gasped when the bubble reached her, looking over at where Harry had gone to his knees, his eyes closed as he concentrated. The bubble of air had saved her life, Kree being much more susceptible to the loss of air and depressurization than humans. "Thank you human!"

Harry looked over at her, sparing her a nod before going back to his spell. Using a bubblehead charm over your head or your body was relatively easy. Doing it while the 'void' of space was trying to tear it apart wasn't that hard in a small space. Doing it while pushing out outward through a ship, that was much harder.

He looked up as two booted feet appeared in front of him. It was the trooper he had been fighting, back for more. His jaw was broken, he seemed to be favoring his side, and his shoulder seemed broken as well, but he had a gun in his hand. If Jean had been there, she would've recognized the largish carbine as the same type the captain had used on her.

"Stop it commander!" The woman yelled from behind Harry. "He's somehow keeping the air from rushing out of the ship! I have dozens of injured in here, if the area depressurizes again!"

"Silence half-breed!" The man ground out, his jaw really paining him. "No Kree will ever need an over evolved to aid him, better to die instead!"

He raised his rifle to Harry's forehead, and Harry grimaced, stopping the bubble where it was, unfortunately probably consigning many of the first groups of sailors they had run into to death. Looking down at the ground of the corridor, he transfigured it into a spike that slammed up into the Kree man's chest, impaling him straight through, killing him instantly

"So much for fighting fair." Harry said with a shrug, then pushed the spike carrying the dead commander away through the floor of the corridor. He looked over his shoulder at the 'half breed' woman, whatever that meant, as he resumed pushing the bubble charm outward. "Not that I think it after what you said, but just for the record, you're not going to try anything similar are you?"

"No sir." The woman muttered, looking at the dead man's body in shock. "I'm a medic, not a fighter, and I'm not a fanatic either. I surrender."

Harry nodded wearily, this was taking a lot out of him for some reason, but eventually he reached the outer hull of the ship and was able to tie the spell off, allowing it to feed off his magical core without further input from him. He then turned to the woman and nodded his head. "Well then, let's get your patients locked down, just in case they aren't as pragmatic as you, then I'll call in my friends and we can go from there." The ship was theirs, now it only remained to clean up after.

End Chapter

---

For those of you who don't know, the Asgardians in the Marvel universe have a bit of a problem. The problem being that they are stuck in an endless cycle of death and rebirth controlled by Those Who Watch From Above, or some such. Not the kind of rebirth that the Phoenix represents, decay being burned away and replaced by new growth, the Asgardians are simply forced to repeat everything they've done again and again. Of course this only pertains to what goes on in Asgard itself, the pocket dimension not the city, and only a few of them are actually aware of what is going on, but those few have made attempts in the past to try and break them out of it. That was Odin approached Gaia in her guise of and had a son with her, Thor. He wanted to have a child that would have enough power to break the cycle eventually.

I might change who put them into that cycle, the description of those who watch is a little too vague for my tastes but the cycle itself exists and could possibly be broken. That and the fact that I wanted to emphasize how important his wife is to Odin was why I included that scene, as well as stating that Odin and Harry would be distant allies, nothing more. Harry won't have much to do with Asgardian politics or anything that goes on there. But if trouble from there comes calling on Earth he will get involved or he might act as a mercenary in the future, something along those lines.

In this chapter we saw some more personality building, more minor characters introduced, the next crisis arriving and being sort of solved, and shadows continuing to build. I have to apologize though, while I said he would appear in this chapter, I am having issues wondering where along his personal timeline Peter Parker should be inserted. Specifically, trying to figure out which of his villains he's already fought and which he has yet to fight, and what his personal relationships should be like. Obviously he will show up, I've hinted he's around, but not in this chapter.

Let me warn you now the action picks up big time in the next two chapters, which is hinted at in this chapter in some ways, in others it will hopefully come at you all out of the blue.

Oh and if any of you are interested/knowledgeable about One Piece, check out my latest story idea on my profile and tell me what you think. I am always happy to banter ideas around, even if I don't have time to take up any new works full time.

Till next time, thank you for reading and as always please review.