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.

31. Welcome!

ATP31

I don't own Harry Potter or Marvel. I firmly believe villains should be executed rather than keep coming back like rashes and that the good-guys should not try so hard to keep the moral high ground that it kills them.

For those of you looking out for Semblance of Hope chapter 9, I should have it out tomorrow night at the latest - I have two more scenes to write and three to edit, but I only started on the chapter after sending off ATP to Mordreek for his help with the Asgardian portions, and I thought Fate Touched in Middle Earth had own until the final two days the poll was up.

Summary of the Last chapter: Following some post battle cleanup the Custodes deal with AIM trying to make a nuisance of itself. Despite it coming almost as a surprise due to a lack of communication between Sage and Harry they put this down hard via physical violence against one of their bases and a computer virus Sage had thought up, reaping an intelligence windfall. At the same time, Harry's space based industry continues to grow while he receives the gravitic trap device from Dr. Doom, and starts to build it on Mars, throwing a large percentage of his Mystique, Morph and Destiny start a long term undercover operation to try and find out who is still stirring up mutant/norm tensions, while Emily, or Stinger, and a few other former New Mutants and Acolytes are slowly inducted into Harry's retrieval teams, though only Emily and two other youngsters, Scanner and Neophyte, are allowed to join just yet. During their down time Harry and Ororo take the children and all of the teachers to an Althing, both to have fun and see what the Kindred are really like, enjoying the experience immensely and finding out a lot about hoe the man on the street thinks about Thor and the whole mutant question.

While at the Althing Dani is approached by the Wanderer aspect of Odin, which has been let loose on Earth in order to pass on a message and some aid to find Hela. The message worries and infuriates Harry, but also gives him the means to use magic to reach Yggdrasil, the World Tree, in whose branches the nine realms of the Asatru faith reside. Later, while working on a ritual do to that Emma and Harry have a date in which they meet new acquaintances and deal with Norman Osborn attempting to make trouble for Emma (hint, it doesn't work). Eventually Harry uses the ritual which overloads the magic of the communication mirrors only to learn that neither Hela or her Dread Wolf Garm have memories of him or anyone else on Earth. Following that, Harry organizes a mission to Yggrdasil, to try and find Jormungundar, the overgrown eel Sigyn mentioned who was watching her body and to see Hela. The mission to rescue Sigyn's body prevailed, while Hela turned a message from Harry via Hedwig away, despite being intrigued by the messenger. But Harry, along with Emma were not going to take no for an answer…

I would like to thank Mordreek for his help on the Asgardian portions of this chapter. Even when dealing with computer issues, he helped out as much as he was able, and I think the collaboration of our work on those sections has made the final product far better, and more realistic, than I could alone. I would also like to thank Kathryn518 for her help in finding a lot of odd missing/too many spaces issues a large issue with a section dealing with a certain chalky faced villain and general help in making certain bits and pieces flowed as they should.

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Chapter 31: Welcome!

Hela whirled from where she had been about to enter her private living quarters as the defenses around Niflheim rang like a tocsin. Yet what appeared were not invaders, nor did people appear elsewhere in her realm intent on searching out a soul to rescue or some hidden secret from her. Instead two mortals appeared, immediately falling to their faces as the male groaned in agony, and the female, a blonde of some beauty as mortals reckoned things, began to throw up on the ground.

She was still going to curse them when the owl, Hedwig Garm had called her, appeared in midair above them. The snowy owl flew around them making precking noises before landing on Garm's head once more. "She's saying 'I told you so' mistress," Garm supplied sitting back on his haunches from where he too had leaped to his feet. "Also, 'silly humans and their weak stomachs.'"

"Yes Garm I did not need that translated either," Hela said dryly, checking her realm's defenses in an effort to figure out how these two had gotten through them. Feeling them out, she realized it was due to two causes. One was the power of the teleporter, in this case the mortal human male. Second was the fact that his teleportation spell was unlike any she had initially seen. It had used the owl's senses of her realm to paint a picture, rather than to find her or her realm and then teleport to one or the other.

The difference was slight, but profound, and it had allowed them to travel through her defenses. Not easily, and it would still have taken more powerful than any normal seidr user would ever have been able to call upon, but they were still able to travel through them rather than splatter themselves against Niflheim's defenses like they should have. Something they could not have known when they tried it. Even if they knew the area Hedwig had been to it was a true leap into the unknown.

Shaking her head Hela looked back at the two mortals, wondering what could have driven them to try that, especially considering what it had obviously done to them. "You know, I was simply going to attack you, but now I think I will simply sit back and laugh. It is rare for such…eager jesters to grace my hall, even more so while they are still alive." Hela said, her voice rich with amusement as she casually walked back towards them, her dark green dress flowing around her like pooling shadows. At the same time however she brought her realm's physical defenses up with a mere thought. If they were truly here to attack her, they would find that they chose poorly.

Harry was the first to recover, and he groaned as he pushed himself to his knees where he looked up at Hela. Seeing her he couldn't help the warm smile which appeared on his face, his emerald eyes lighting up with happiness. She had become a friend through their various dealings with the possibility of even more in the future prevalent in a lot of their interactions and Hela's silence had disturbed him greatly even before he learned her memories had been erased. "Greetings Lady Hela, I apologize profusely about appearing before you unannounced, but you weren't taking my calls," he said impishly.

As those emerald eyes locked on her own Hela found her pulse was racing, and a slight heat coming to her cheeks hidden behind her half-mask. What, what was that!? "Perhaps then you should have stopped trying to contact me," she said tartly, pushing that feeling away as she broke their locked gazes.

"I would have, if what we had to say was not of such import, and frankly not even so much to us as it is to you," Harry said with a bow of his head though internally he was now even more worried. If this had been a simple Obliviation, actually looking at me should have helped to break it, but it hasn't, and that is bad on many levels.

Taking a person's memories like that, even to Harry that was simply a different type of rape. To a goddess, who of course would normally be inviolate in her own mind, and indeed in this case her own realm, that would be a violation of horrific proportions.

Hela opened her mouth to reply to that, her eyes flashing at the idea of a mere mortal thinking he knew what was best for her, when Emma came out of her own stupor, reaching over to grab they Harry's shoulder and glare at him. "You didn't tell me it would be that bad! If you ever, and I mean ever take me on something like that again, I swear to God Harry Potter I will freaking kill you!"

The blond mortal's body reminded Hela nothing so much of one of Freya's cats when one of her chosen dead had the ill-fortune of stepping on one of their tails. Her teeth were bared in an outraged hiss and her disheveled hair had a poufy look like an arched cat.

"If you're going to kill him, could you at least leave my realm before you do? He is not a believer, and he's not a child, so his soul would have no place here, nor of course will yours," Hela said dryly, smiling thinly as she reminded the bickering couple. Goddess of the dead she may be but Hela knew a lover's spat when she saw one. Then she turned her attention back to 'Harry', as the woman slowly got to her feet glaring at both of them, though why she was glaring at her Hela didn't know, and didn't appreciate in the least either considering the mortal was an intruder.

"The transportation seems to take have taken it out of your companion," She said mildly to the seidr man, her lips curling slightly at the idea of such a one in her hall, even if he seemed to have a semblance of both humor and manners.

"This companion has a name, Emma Frost," Emma snipped back, causing Hela's lips to form a scowl from her previous sneer, becoming irritated at the rudeness now being directed at her in her own hall. Emma however either missed this or dismissed it as she took stock of their surroundings. She looked around, and promptly did a double take at how huge Garm was. It was one thing to see the massive wolf in the memory, but it was quite another thing entirely to see his scarred frame in real life.

Then she looked around at the hall before turning back to Hela. The goddess was very good looking, and had a feel to her that went beyond the physical, but Emma had become used to such and ignored it now. Instead she looked down at the mess she had made and nudged Harry. "Get rid of that."

Harry nodded slightly, turning back to Hela before doing so. "With your permission, Lady Hela?"

That actually caused Hela to smile. The man might be a seidr user, which was an improper and inappropriate thing for any man to be, but at least he had some manners. If one ignores his breaking and entering that is. And his presence! It made Hela wonder about her initial assessment of him as a mere mortal frankly, with the amount of power there he could have ascended to godhood but he had not for some reason. Not that the lack of divinity makes his power any less alluring…she mentally purred, her obsession with Balder fading the longer she stared at the bold mortal before her.

Shaking that thought off Hela nodded and watched as Harry cleaned up the refuse from Emma's stomach, a single spell doing all the work. It was an interesting little charm Hela noted curiously, making a point of trying to memorize the shape of the magic as it left Harry's fingers.

But then Hela turned her back on her unwanted guests for a brief second. Striding to the end of her throne room her dress swirled around Hela once more as she sat gracefully on her throne, leaning back on it with her hands steepled in front of her. "So you have come, and judging from your arrival at great expense to yourself. You have made no effort to trick me or run away from my dread guard Garm, and you did at least have the courtesy to call ahead even if you would not take no for an answer. I can therefore at least hear you out before ousting you from my realm."

Hela smiled thinly as she continued, her eyes cold as she gazed at them. . "I pray that you make your presentation very convincing, or that expulsion will be make your trip into my realm seem pleasant." Regardless of the strange stirrings of emotion Harry's eyes had worked on her, Hela was very wary about these two. No one had breached her realm before and for it to happen now, even if it was through what amounted to being a magical loophole, put Hela on her guard despite her earlier amusement at her erstwhile guest's expense.

"Oh yes, because we're only hear on our own account, not to help you," Emma snarkily replied, once more looking around. "If I was in the mood to go someplace gloomy and dark, I'd go to a haunted house. I wouldn't come to a nether world full of ghosts and dread creatures, and an overbearing goddess with delusions of stripper-hood."

Harry gaped at Emma, disbelievingly Bloody hell, Emma do suddenly you have a death wish?! He mentally shouted at her in incredulity, only for his telepathic expression of shock to be overtaken by Hela's verbal response.

"What did you just say?"

"Oh I'm sorry, is that armor supposed to actually be protective? I thought it was a marital aid," Emma replied dryly, giving no indication that as far as Harry was concerned, she was basically committing suicide via insulted goddess.

Listening to her you would have thought that Emma was either insane, or still mad about the trip in and just taking it out on everyone in the reach of her voice. But after a moment Harry realized this was much the same way Emma had started to interact with Jean when they first met. Initially a man would have been hard-pressed to say they were the best of friends or the best of enemies. The fact she had known for some time that Hela was possibly going to joining their relationship was also no doubt playing a factor.

There was also another factor too, though Harry was slower to realize it. Emma had seen the arrogance, the cold, biting humor which Hela held herself with and found it impossibly arrogant, far too arrogant to be allowed even in a so-called goddess. Of course most other people would have said the same thing of Emma, though of course, not where she could hear them if they enjoyed a life without their brains having been turned to mush.

"What would a weak human wench know of armor in any event?" Hela growled back, looking somewhat affronted, before thrusting out her chest and causing Harry's jaw to drop as Hela seemed to be willing to match Emma barb for barb rather than just smack her down or outright expel them. Certainly his jaw dropping had nothing to do with way Hela's chest strained her armor just then. "Or was that purest envy I hear? Don't worry I understand there are potions to enhance such things."

"I am quite happy with what I have thank you. With the added bonus of it coming from both superior genes and healthy exercise. I have no need of being a goddess to enhance my natural gifts in that area," Emma replied calmly, her lips twitching into a condescending sneer. "Or are you going to say you came up with that complexion naturally? When it just so happens to set your hair color and eyes to such good effect? Here's a hint, you poor dear, trying too hard is as bad as not trying at all."

At this point Harry decided it was time to intervene before his blonde lover got them both expelled before they had a chance to speak to Hela on more serious matters, and gathering his courage he stepped forward to do just that. "As…. interesting …as it is to listen to you two snipe at one another, this was not actually what we came here for. "

Both women blinked, then turned to him then back to one another and finally Hela nodded. "Yes, I suppose we did get a little sidetracked there," she said, certain that she had won the flyting there for a moment. It had been somehow enjoyable, the experience so rare for Hela that the sheer novelty stayed the part of her that kept urging her to kick them out or kill them outright for the slights against her.

"So, back to the original topic, why are you here? Your missive to me said we have met before, but I do not know you, nor do I have the items you mentioned in it as proof of your words. The rest of your message sounded more like that of a love-struck fool," she said clinically, almost sneering the words. Though love letters were known among her people they were not normally well-received being seen as tools of enticement rather than a true means of conveying feelings. "But I am not so easily taken in as that bitch Aphrodite or that useless slab of granite Hades."

"I did mention that we had met in the pursuit of your duty Lady Hela," Harry said, wincing slightly at her tone and the warning therein. Where before Hela's tone had been somewhat angry but also drolly playful with Emma, her voice was now noticeably colder and more forbidding. Girls are soooo weird.

"As a gift for dealing with those who had attempted to remove themselves from the machinery of rebirth you passed on to me a device from Death," Harry stated formally, knowing that decorum would help them here rather than trying to presume on their past interactions, since Hela had no memory of them. "The device was a large globe which showed Earth or Midgard as you call it. Upon it were marks to show where people who had dealings with demons or devils could be found."

"Hmm…I remember that globe," Hela said after a moment's thought, bringing one finger up to tap her chin thoughtfully. "It was indeed a gift for mortal that had pleased my mistress. An odd thing I will admit," she said, frowning at how the memory was disjointed somewhat. Odd, but that could still be happenstance, although it is very strange indeed that I have no recollection of anything beyond the gift itself.

"And later on, my allies ran into an issue on Earth dealing with undead." Harry went on, deciding to skip to the highlights. Hela's patience with the two of them given the way they had arrived didn't seem up to the full story of the back and forth. And somehow my male intuition is telling me not to mention her attempts to court with me. Odd, I never thought male intuition was actually a thing outside of combat. "You and a specialist working for me called the undead Draugr, and you said they were somehow created in a way that you said was abnormal for the breed, since they included children and those without malevolent hearts or deaths."

Hela reared back, her eyes sparking with anger at the very mention of those creatures and a way to create Draugr not only without her knowledge but in an abnormal manner. As if the 'natural manner' weren't bad enough! "Impossible! I would know of such a thing!" she shouted furiously standing up with purple and red lightning cascading around her and from her eyes as her hall shook, her realm reacted instinctively to her ire and outrage. "That is my purview you are speaking of mortal, how dare you make such claims in my own hall!"

"Er, Mistress…" Garm really didn't want to interrupt, but he had to. Having sniffed Harry and Emma Garm knew the human male smelled like an ally, and he had smelled his mistress too when their eyes had locked. There was a distinct sense of attraction there, and his mistress was never one to become attracted to anyone in so quick a manner. The blonde female was another matter, but she not only had the smell of the seidr man upon her in the way of mates, but also 2 other scents that screamed 'familiar allies' to the grizzled guardian so he was willing to let her live despite her breaking the laws of hospitality.

Gathering his courage he went on quickly. "Mistress, if that is the case, it would explain how I had felt as if I had eaten twice cooked, er, that is twice-dead souls. And it would explain the number of children souls on Eylandəvbarnœska."

Hela turned to look at Garm, her brows furrowing behind her half-mask, then she nodded slowly. "I have often thought that it was odd that that there were so many children souls are there of late," she said hesitantly, her attitude noticeably thawing as that thought hit her, her ire disappearing as quickly as it came.

"And how many souls have ever in all the time you've ruled here arrived on eylandəvbarnœska without you having a distinct memory of it?" Harry asked, capitalizing quickly. "Further is it usual for you to not remember those moments, and how those souls came to be under your charge? Specifically those souls of children not raised in the Asatru faith?"

"No," Hela said frowning even more heavily as she returned to her throne, a headache forming as she thought more on the matter. . "No, it is not."

"How are those souls doing by the way?" Harry asked, more to put her at ease than anything else, seeing that she was displaying the same symptoms as after the battle against the Draugr before except in more extreme measures, warily scanning the area around them just in case whoever had implanted the memories could strike at them physically now that they were once more running up against evidence of their work. "You told us after that battle that you would take them to 'eylandəvbarnœska' as you call it, though I've heard such called the Sunset Realm. Something that all gods and goddesses who work for Death have?"

"We do, though I've never seen any of the others. It is not as if we are all one big happy family after all whatever those might actually be," Hela said, snorting derisively. She then looked at Harry quizzically. "Would you like to check on them? Were they your vassals or charges in some way?"

"No," Harry said quietly, remembering that battle all too vividly and the bloated horribly disfigured children among the Draugr. "But they were human, and they died far too soon. You might say I have experience in that area."

Looking at his expression, Hela was struck by how weary the seidr man seemed to be for a moment, his eyes resembling those of some old warriors that had lived too long and seen too much loss. Memories of past friends and acquaintances passed on perhaps? After a second Hela nodded then rose from her throne. She stepped within a few paces of the two of them, and with barely a flicker of her will all three or rather five counting the two nominal animals, found themselves elsewhere.

Emma gasped, clutching automatically at her stomach as words which might well have pushed Hela to evict them came to her mind. But there was no disjointed feeling of unease or turmoil caused by that smooth the transition and she sighed in relief, banishing those words unsaid. "You could learn something from Hela about teleporting Harry…" Emma said before her words trailed off as she stared around them.

Beside her Harry simply smiled, taking in the sights. The island was indeed a paradise, with trees of all sorts and shapes growing everywhere, slides scattered here and there, along with jungle gyms, swings, and little caverns here and there, with tiny running streams flowing across the landscape. It was the kind of children's paradise Peter Pan would have loved. And everywhere he looked he saw the small multi-colored lights of children's souls rushing around. Laughter and shouts of glee filled the air, and both humans were struck by how amazingly peaceful and friendly it all was. It was a sharp contrast to the greys and faded mist of the rest of Hela's realm, further reinforcing that this was a special place though Harry and Emma had no way of knowing that.

listening to the laughter on the wind and watching the little dust mots fly around one after the other or up and down some of the slides Emma could only shake her head. She had somewhat believed the soul before this, but seeing it in person like this was something else entirely. And seeing the souls of children displayed like this was a revelation. "Was I ever that innocent?" she asked softly, fearing to dispel the spell of this place.

Hela smiled, her own eyes tenderly gazing upon the area around them. "All souls start off so innocent mortal. It is life that changes you, not the essence you begin with."

Emma looked at her, and then bowed her head in acknowledgment of Hela's words before turning back to their view as beside her Harry's smile widened.

Huh, so they can get along, that's a good sign long term whatever happens between Hela and us. Especially now, he thought grimly, looking at Hela out of the corner of her eye as she stared around them, before turning back to her two guests. She was no longer touching her head or indicating she was in pain, which he supposed was a good sign, but a sign of what beyond that was a question.

"Come," Hela said softly. A second later they disappeared from Niflheim's Sunset Realm to reappear in Hela's markedly gloomier hall. Sitting back down on her throne Hela leaned back, regarding the two mortals as Harry immediately launched into a description of the battle against the Draugr.

The sheer number of those foul abominations he described was beyond worrisome, and the battle sounded worthy of an epic. The little ceremony to induct the children's souls afterward also seemed on the mark. Harry even described what she wore accurately, though the attention to that detail was somewhat off-putting to hear from a man she had no recollection of meeting. Further Hela found herself somewhat intrigued by this other woman, this Ororo that Harry described. To face her fears so boldly in addition to the tainted dead was no mean feat to say the least.

Yet even so Hela was still wary of them and distrustful of mortals being in her realm at all. It had not been an exaggeration that mortals and giants of all sorts had continually tried to cheat those of her calling out of their duty, and frankly Hela could all too easily remember the number of suitors that had been after her hand when she was younger. Many of them had gone about it in exceeding odd ways, but a few had been far more direct in their suit, and Harry and Emma's arrival had put her mind and memory of a few such times, albeit still standing out for the uniqueness of their arrival and the use of Hedwig.

Yes, there was some proof to what they were saying, that she could not remember the battle Harry described at least and that her memories of eylandəvbarnœska were vague at best. But there was a far cry between acknowledging those points and being open to the idea that someone had interfered with her own mind, had stolen her memories, her very self, from her so thoroughly that she could not recall any inkling of the event.

And Harry's letter to her had hinted that above and beyond running into him in the line of duty like that, they had become something approaching intimates. Hela could not deny that something there was saying that she had interacted with this Harry Potter before positively. Very positively. Yet in turn that made Hela even more paranoid as she recalled some of the legends of those who courted out of turn or used love letters to act as love spells of a sort on the women they coveted.

"We are our deeds," was the phrase that sprang to mind, a central concept to how the Asgardians viewed themselves and the world around them. The deeds of one individual were what defined that individual along with how he though and his belief system, how that individual affected the world and were shaped in turn by the Orlog of their line. Each deed an individual did defined their sense of self and worth going forward, every moment of experience another piece of the tapestry of the individual's life. So memories and being remembered were immensely important to her people.

To not remember a deed of such import, to not remember meeting this Harry Potter before, that was beyond what Hela, as a goddess was willing to accept or believe possible without there being more concrete evidence beyond simple feelings and impressions. After all, what manner of magic could corrupt her mind, here in her own realm? No, such a thing was patently impossible, Hela reassured herself.

"If you don't believe me, I can offer to share my own memories with you." Harry said, finishing his tale, "There is a magic spell that would allow you to view my memories as if they were your own."

Hela nearly lashed out in shock at the very idea, seeing it as almost as much a violation as the idea that her memories had been altered, and a further sign to be wary of these two. "You expect me to trust your memory like that in lieu of my own, to trust you to implant something in my mind under such short an acquaintance!?" She looked at Harry angrily but seeing his sudden contrition and mellowed her response slightly, realizing he had spoken in ignorance rather than malice. "I think the offer is made sincerely, but I must decline. Fine words on a silver tongue sound sweet, yet in the end matter not against the iron of certainty." She said, shaking her head.

"You have given me supposition, you have given me some type of evidence that a battle occurred that at least is true. But you have not shown me anything that links the two of us in any more positive a manner than allies of happenstance nor any evidence of this greater enemy at work that your letter seemed determined to warn me of. I will not view your memories thus, not until you give me some more solid proofs of our acquaintance." Hela finished sternly.

"There is wariness and there is gross stupidity brought on by too much paranoia," Emma broke in coldly, a haughty look on her aristocratic face as she ignored the warning look Harry was already turning to give her. "So is it arrogance or fear that your so vaunted 'goddess powers' are not worth the moss on this crumbling hovel you call a hall?"

As many of her friends and acquaintances could attest to, Emma was one of those individuals who, when feeling rattled lashed out. She was torn, though Harry hadn't picked up on it, about the idea of souls. Emma had after all done a lot of 'bad' things to secure her freedom from her father and to further her own interests and indeed the interests of their faction. Added to that, she was seeing a lot of herself in Hela, or rather herself as she was when she met with Harry for the first time, Except not only does Hela not know she is in trouble but she is also arrogant enough to turn Harry away!

Compounding this was the fact that Emma has made no effort to learn more about the Asatru faith/society. She had no interest in religion of any stripe, and had only heard about it in context to her discussions with Harry and the others about Hela and the possible problems the Asgardians were running into. She had walked into this expecting to be able to treat it as any business meeting or the like from back home.

Hela surged up out of her throne like a striking snake and a blast of pure force reached out, slamming into Emma and sending her skidding backwards several feet. A sneer appeared on her face as she placed her hands on her hips in outraged fury. "Mind your tone with me churl, lest I pluck it from your skull! These are my halls, and I will have the respect due any host no matter how you came to be here!"

Before Harry could intervene Emma righted herself and lashed out with a telepathic pain bolt that thundered in turn into Hela's mind like a bolt of lightning, causing her head to fly back in pain. "It is only the unintelligent which resort to violence to prove their position. As for respect, I'll accord you that when you start thinking instead of taking council with your arrogance! Or does that mask of yours hide some lobotomy scars? Should we be speaking slower to let the words sink in?"

Beside Emma Harry gave a wordless sound of horror at the way two women seemed determined to tear each other apart. This hesitation allowed Hela to get the next blow in, thankfully a verbal one only.

"I have ruled my realm longer than your race was created from pieces of driftwood," Hela growled, though she did not lash out again magically. She and Emma stood glaring at one another separated by a good five feet now, neither moving but neither giving any indication they would back down either. "How dare you presume to know what is best for me? When it is clear you know nothing about the customs or laws of the one you claim to help! And I could have sworn there were jokes among humans about blondes being the truly foolish ones. Or was that the easy ones, I can never remember and even if I could slatterns all look alike to me."

Twitching as Hela's words smashed two of her personal buttons Emma responded in kind. "Wow, you really must be old then mustn't you? Is this body I see before me a glamor then? Don't worry dear, it's quite effective, I can't see any wrinkles or anything, and given what your illusion is wearing that's saying something. As for my being a slattern I'm astonished you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a high born lady like myself and one of those unfortunates. Though perhaps I shouldn't be surprised considering what you dress that you would more willingly associate their kind than with mine?"

Harry made to speak up and diffuse the situation as he had earlier, only to have himself very firmly shown his place with a simultaneous "Be Silent!"/"Butt out!" Once he was certain that neither woman seemed ready to go back to actual violence Harry chose the better part of valor and decided not to get involved in this whatever it was, retreating quickly out of the ladies' line of sight as the insults started to fly fast and furious with increasing vitriol and creativity. Right, anyone who thought a cat fight is the beautiful thing to see is bloody stupid jackass, though both of them … are they smiling? Is this one of those, what are they called again, flyting?

Deciding he had nothing to contribute to this, Harry turned to Garm, who had also quickly slunk out of the way of the two women, and was currently curled up along one wall watching avidly with Hedwig once again riding on his back. Garm had snorted with amusement at the way Harry's attempt to mediate had been met with failure, as the old wolf had seen what was going on right off and despite being a veteran of battles and years, knew full well when to step away from pissing contest alpha females. Garm had grunted idly to Hedwig that for one mated to so many impressive mates, Harry seemed rather thick as to how to handle dominance displays like this, to which the owl gave a put upon sigh about how slow her human was in some matters. The two animals at the very least were able to push past the fact that they didn't have anything most sentients would call memory of one another. Scent was far more important in the animal kingdom than memory, even in such enhanced animals as these two.

"So you weren't able to find any hint of the items I mentioned in our conversation?" Harry asked in a low tone, crouching down next to the beast even though he didn't really need to. The Jotun wolf was larger than he was without that.

"Nay. There be a few odd scents around, but naught that I could use to find anything out of place." Garm had been annoyed because he could smell something that had the seidr man's scent but couldn't find it. It was almost as if the scent was just coming out of thin air, and that offended the wolf's sensibilities on several levels aside from the whole 'someone possibly ripping out the memories of his mistress problem it represented.

"Hmm…" Harry mused then held up his hand. "Well, the simplest things often work the best, so let's try this. Accio blue leather bound book!"

At his words a patch of darkness in the hall shifted, and suddenly a bit of blackness shot into Harry's hand. Harry could tell at once the blackness covering it was an illusion, and as he held the thing in his hands it tried to turn his attention away, to make him drop and forget about it. But Harry was able to ignore the compulsion before banishing the blackness over the book easily. This revealed the blue leather bound book he had given Hela during his and Jean's conversation with her.

Hela had turned quickly from her ongoing 'discussion' with Emma and had been about to rip Harry a new one rather literally for using magic in her realm without her permission when she saw what he had done. She of course felt that shape in touch of the magic cast. No one could work magic in Niflheim and not have Hela be aware of it to a depth only the caster himself could match. Yet right there in Harry's hand was a blue leather wrapped book of the kind his message had mentioned and which he had further described. He had not conjured or created the book right now, but fetched from her own hall, where it had been heretofore hidden from her senses.

Further, now that the darkness around it had been removed she could feel the touch of her mistress on it. Unlike the pouch of chocolates which Death had never touched, Death had been the first one to actually use the book Harry Potter had given them. That marked it as being a gift for both herself and for her servant. Because of that, the Shadows had been unwilling to simply destroy it as they had the pouch of never-ending chocolate.

They knew that Death was looking for an excuse to act against them. Their agreement with the Asgardians had neatly encapsulated Hela in their orbit, but Death was a most demanding mistress, and she had never liked the fact that said agreement had allowed them to mess with one of her servants at all, above and beyond what it did to the Asgardians and their place in the great Wheel.

Thus she was, despite being constrained, calmly waiting for any opportunity to strike against them. Destroying a gift meant for her could well have given her that excuse, and Those Who Watch Above in Shadow had decided to not take the chance. This choice, made by their hubris and deepest fear, would prove their undoing now.

Reaching out a hand Hela waited as Harry pressed the book into her hand, still wary of any trick but sensing none and seeing no effort of subterfuge in his body language. She opened the magical book as Harry explained its usage, and began to read the words, smiling slightly at the author's clever word play and imagery. After a few minutes Hela closed the book gently and sat it in her lap, lifting her eyes to stare at Harry then Emma, sending the blonde girl a slight nod of her head.

Emma had been beyond rude and out of bounds by the measure, of her people, though perhaps Hela could make an allowance this once since she and this seidr man had truly come to aid her despite the headache now pounding through her skull. "I will not apologize for my caution considering the nature of the enemies you say we face or the means you claim they have used to sunder our 'former' connection so cleanly," she said, straightening her back and resting her arms upon the sides of her throne regally as she spoke her, more to keep her hands from rising to her head once more than anything else. "But proof you have offered me freely in earnest of your honesty. I am satisfied enough to believe that we might have been friends at some point, and I will allow you to show me these memories of yours, provided that viewing of them will have no effect upon my mind or self beyond the thoughts of the revelations you claim are within are sure to evoke."

"I will project the memories rather than bring you into them," Harry said nodding his head in acknowledgment. "It will take a little longer to cast the spell but it will be as if you were viewing an illusion displayed over a portion of the hall in front of your face rather than actually experiencing it. Will that suffice?"

"I dislike the word Illusion, but very well, proceed with the viewing Seidr man." Hela said, shifting forward in her throne as she wandered how this was going to go.

Her teasing nickname, the exact same that been explained to him at the feast, made Harry's heart ache a bit that those moments were lost to her and he smiled wanly at her before raising his hand to start the spell.

And that was when the TWWAIS decided to strike.

Harry didn't know and would never learn why they chose that moment to do so, or even if it was a conscious choice rather than instinctual response to shift from subtly attempting to guide Hela to trying to assault him and Emma. Indeed, it had rather been both. Initially the TWWAIS had been concentrating on trying to find out how someone had been able to get into Jormungundar and then retrieve Sigyn's body, plus as always keeping much of their attention on Odin. Such was the complexity of the God of cunning's mind that it was not only a full-time task but a difficult one. So they had only come to realize Hela was once more acting out when they felt her surge of anger at Emma when they returned from the Isle of Children.

Yet the reasons behind their sudden change of tactic didn't truly matter. One moment all is well the next: Hela, Harry and Emma all stiffened as they came under massive mental assaults. There however the similarity between the assaults faded.

For Hela there was nothing subtle about the Shadow-watcher's assault. The headache she had been feeling for a while became a full on mental battering ram, coming at her not from an external source but from her very blood. This allowed the Shadow-Watchers to bypass much of Hela's natural mental defenses in the same manner as they had before, though of course Hela did not know that.

Hela had a brief moment to be oddly happy that this attack had not come from Harry, and to realize from whence the direction this attack had truly come from before almost immediately being subsumed by the TWWAIS's assault unable to fight back and only surviving with her mind and will intact because of her heritage. That and because the Shadow-Watchers had split their attention instead of concentrating solely on her allowed Hela time to defend herself.

Even so the assault slammed into her mind like a ravening tsunami trying to take her over, trying to erase the past few moments of her life and to instill anger and hatred in her this time towards all mortals. The last time the Shadows had not been willing to go that far, again fearing Death as only those to which Death is not a normal fact of existence could.

But now they realized that they would have to take this next step. Even if they could kill the two mortals present in Niflheim who was to say that more would not try to come after them? No, it was best to instill mental dominance over Hela right now to the point where she would be as much a puppet as they could make her rather than free to act at all. So long as their mental control did not interfere in the running of Niflheim, Death would be unable to take action against them without breaking THE LAWS and that in the collective minds of TWWAIS, was enough of a loophole for their attack to fit through.

OOOOOOO

For Harry, it was like no other assault he had ever dealt with. It had no physical form, no physical warning or visible assault for him to sense and prepare for. There was so little warning that he was caught mid-step and fell forward with his body no longer under his control, It was even unlike any of the telepathic assaults he had previously dealt with from Charles or other telepaths in either combat or in practice. Instead, they attackers somehow simply invaded his mind as if his invisibility cloak just wasn't there at all. It was almost Harry would think later, as if they had somehow been able to teleport their willpower directly into his mind much like he had been able to teleport into Hela's realm, save in their case they used the very shadows prevalent in his memories.

Nor was it a brute force assault like that which Hela was dealing with. That Harry could have dealt with, if with great difficulty. Instead, the Shadows attempted to turn his mind against itself. Instead of moving toward a wall to try and start the memory-viewing spell, Harry now suddenly found himself…somewhere else.

He stood in some kind of illusion or other of a long dank hallway leading off into darkness. Harry looked down at himself, finding he was a young child of only ten or so he thought, thin but not quite malnourished. Scowling he tried to ignite a light in his hand only for it to fade, the shadows the light cast turning on it somehow, slicing the light into small fragments so quickly it looked as if they were alive. But that couldn't be, could it? Shadows can't be alive. Where am I? What was I doing? For that matter, who am I?

It was with a supreme amount of effort that Harry remembered where he had just been, and indeed who he was at all. First he found his memories of his lovers, using them and the strength of the love they shared for each other as an anchor to who he was. Then for some reason he didn't analyze at the time he remembered Yggdrasil, and that moment where he'd almost connected to the tree via the branch of it he had infused into his body. That moment too helped him where he was giving him a frame of reference for what he was doing.

With an effort Harry brought that sense of self to bear, and his body changed from that of the little boy his self-image had just been, to the man he now was. Something fought him every step of the way, but it could not overcome Harry's willpower here in his own mind. He was still trapped in the maze however, and scowled angrily He started trying to bring up a few defensive spells, or at least the idea of them rather than the actuality, including a few that he had prepared for this mission light and fire spells for the most part which the books said could be used in the 'immaterial plane' as well as the material.

The first attempt was a column of fire that bore the shape of a flaming griffin bounding forward snarling, lighting up the area. But there was no foes for it to rend and so it faded away ineffectually. A lightning spell rippled out, disappearing into the dark surrounding him without doing anything. Unable to reassert total control of his mind from the invaders Harry couldn't break out of the illusion. "Dammit!"

Nonetheless, Harry refused to play this game. He walked to the nearest wall, raising his hands and imagining himself as strong as the Hulk when he was angry. And since this was his mind, Harry, or rather his mental image of himself, suddenly felt that strong. "I'm not doing this! This is my mind, and you will not control me!"

With that he brought his fist forward, slamming into the wall The hallway shattered around him and hundreds of thousands of pieces of what looked now like glass were sent flickering and fading around Harry's mental representation for several minutes. But before Harry could do more than try to push out past them, they swiftly reformed into a hall of mirrors, or perhaps a maze of them. As he looked at them, Harry saw his own reflection staring back at him.

"Oh Hel no!" With that Harry smashed forward at the illusion once more around him. But Harry was astonished to find his fist stopping in midair as the image in front of him suddenly reared up out of the mirror. His fingers flickering green as a bolt of energy slammed into Harry. "How can you control your own mind when you don't even know what you yourself are?!" The doppelgänger shouted, before fading back into the mirror.

Harry grunted, rolling with the energy blast, which hadn't been so much a spell as simply a bolt of pure magic energy, the kind that he had been using experimentally lately. They didn't have much stopping power in comparison to formed spells, but they were easy to use, at least when you the trick.

Getting to his feet Harry was forced to dodge another mirror image, this one swinging an axe of all things. "You can't understand yourself if you deny yourself, if you deny what you want!"

"You can't understand yourself if you deny what you desire!" said another, this time a sword coming down.

Each image was slightly different, but tellingly so. The first had looked most like Harry, but even as he attacked seemed almost indecisive. The second one looked like some kind of barbarian, the clothing entirely different than what Harry's mental self was wearing. The third had what could only be some kind of leer on his face. Harry realized these were supposed to be versions of his Id, or hidden, subconscious self.

Yet even so, he rejected their words out of hand. "I don't deny myself, and as for my wants and desires, letting your desires or wants define you makes you less than human!" Harry said, shaking his head. "We humans define ourselves by our deeds and what we love, not what we lust after."

With that Harry pressed outwards with both of his hands, a light and wind element spell slamming into the walls all around him. "Drill of Light!"

It didn't work to shatter the mirror maze again, but it pressed his doubles back into their mirrors and Harry marched on, looking for a weakness in this, illusion looking for a way out. My magic is barely useful here! It's only enough to keep my sense of self corporeal if that's the right word if I'm stuck in my own mind. How the hell did they do it, getting underneath my Invisibility Cloak as they did? Harry thought grimly as he moved through the maze. I suppose I have to beat them at their own game then, either find a way to turn their illusions back on themselves or try and find out where to hit it to break it.

As he walked Harry's mirror images tried to attack him again and again both with physical force and words. As he moved through the maze Harry couldn't detect which mirror image the next attack would come, and had to deal with them only after they were attacking. Worse, for some reason unless he stopped to concentrate on them, his wounds did not heal as they should have. But if he stopped moving, Harry found himself back to where he began and had to restart his progress through the mirror maze. Grimly he continued his journey, his mind working furiously as he tried to think about how to break whatever spell or attack had been put on him.

OOOOOOO

While Hela and Harry were dealing with their own assaults Emma too was dealing with her own. But the Shadow-Watchers had never dealt with a telepath before, someone whose powers and ability resided solely on her own mind. Emma's mind was not just the inviolate diamond the exterior appeared to other telepaths. It was the same image on the interior too, hundreds of thousands of tiny fragments of her mind, all organized into diamonds held within larger diamonds. There was no shadow in her mind that Emma did not know intimately.

Not knowing this they tried to attack her the same way they were Harry and like her lover Emma found herself in one illusion or memory after another in swift succession. But her sense of self and mental power was enough to not only see through the illusion, but to see the Shadow-Watcher's center of influence within each illusion, the point from whence the Shadow-Watchers control of the memory or illusion originated. "This is my mind fools, mine!" A flare of light, a whisper of telepathic power, and the attacks broke.

The second prong of their assault fared little better, breaking on the exterior of Emma's mind, unable to find a weakness in her diamond form. Emma had trained against other telepaths. She had trained against Charles a time or two. She had fought Jean Grey in several exercises. And she had fought Mastermind and Exodus for real, shattering the first's mind and holding off the other. The Shadow-Watchers for all their vaunted ability with Illusion, deception and the mental domain could not overcome someone like her and Emma snarled as she threw their attack off her, hurling their influence out of her mind and away within one second and the next.

The Shadow-watchers immediately regrouped, throwing their assault forward, but could no longer get within Emma's mind now that she was on guard. Instead they pressed against her outer defenses alone with all the force they could muster, but they could not get through no matter how much they assailed her. Realizing this, the attackers decided to double up on their attacks on the mortal wizard who was the source of much of their current irritation, and the attack on Hela trying to reset her mind, confident they could deal with the third intruder in time.

Emma shook herself, stepping back once before regaining her balance as she stared around at the halls of the dead. Then she glared at Hela, at first thinking that the attack had come from her for some reason. But she saw that Hela was twitching in place, her eyes rolled up in the back of her head visibly through the mask as she writhed on her throne. Then Emma turned her head to Harry, only to find him insensible on the ground, his own eyes rolled back in his head a mirror image to the physical symptoms of Hela's.

"What is going on human!?"Garm growled from directly in front of her, his lips pulled back to bare his fangs directly above her head, his voice angry and challenging, Emma could also detect worry and some kind of guilt in it too. The guard of Niflheim was not pleased to know his mistress was under an assault he could not defend her from. "Hedwig says that her Harry is also under attack, else I would've already ripped the pair of you to shreds! But I cannot see what is happening I cannot…"

"Oh shut up and let the expert deal with this!" Emma snapped, pushing his head to one side and moving toward Harry.

She ignored how the wolf's muscles bunched up in an effort to keep from biting her. Instead Garm backed up, his muscles tensed and his eyes watching her like she was an enemy he was waiting for an opening to kill.

Just as Emma was about to go to her knees next to Harry, Hela began to scream, her eyes wide behind her half-mask yet still rolled up in the back of her head. Below her half-mask Hela's mouth was wide and gaping as a sound of pure frustration, fear and bottomless fury ripped out of her.

"GRAHHH!" And pain, there was a lot of pain in that sound, so much so that Emma hesitated staring between first Harry and then Hela before racing over to her.

If she had been asked why Emma would have calmly said that this decision was a strategic one. After all, they were still physically within Niflheim. Whatever was going on wasn't from Hela, but Emma estimated that the attackers were attempting to erase or perhaps just replace the last few moments of Hela's memories. If they succeeded, she and Harry would be attacked on two fronts. Which, given Harry's current state and Emma's own limited attack power, could not be allowed.

That was all perfectly logical, but it really wasn't the reason she chose to aid Hela over Harry. No, that was because she understood what was going on, and a mental assault like this to her was as bad as a physical rape. Emma for all her coldness toward Hela and standoffish arrogance would not allow another woman to go through something like that if she could help it. And Emma also understood that if it was a choice between the two of them, Harry would've wanted her to save Hela too.

Before she could reach Hela however Garm was in her way. "What do you think you are doing mortal!?" If the wolf had been tense before, Emma could see he was now ready to rend her to pieces,

But she didn't give a damn. "The names Emma Frost you giant puppy!" Emma ground out, actually pushing at Garm's nose with her hand in a show of courage or perhaps frustrated anger, it was hard to tell, that took Garm aback for a moment. "Your mistress and Harry are under some kind of psychic assault. I can help her but it would be easier to do if I am touching her." Physical contact wasn't really necessary for telepathic assaults of course, but it helped a little to concentrate her powers and freed more of her mind for the fight that would otherwise be focused on projecting her power, especially given Hela's own internal defenses.

"Can you truly protect her from whatever is going on?" Garm growled again wanting to eat this mortal bitch more than ever now. She had done nothing but cause trouble since she'd broken into the hall and unlike the seidr man, her scent only evoked positive impressions from the other scents on her, not her own.

But she was telling the truth, and Garm, for all his physical prowess was next to useless in this kind of battle, which left the guardian of Hel desperate for anything to save his mistress. So when Emma nodded her head firmly, the giant wolf moved reluctantly aside, while Hedwig continued to fly over all of their heads. "Very well but I am watching you! Harm my mistress and it will be the last thing you ever do!"

"Watch all you want, in fact that makes me feel better right now," Emma said hurrying forward to get it over with. At Garm's questioning growl behind her she shrugged. "If we're able to deal with this mental assault, they might try for physical one. Whoever is doing this is obviously desperate if they are being this blatant."

That made Garm blink, then he nod slowly. "Very well. Do what you must…but, please aid my mistress," he said, the words coming hard through gritted teeth in a lupine grimace of shame. He was the guardian of Niflheim, the keeper of the gates of the dead! It should've fallen to him to protect his mistress in her time of need, but he could not defend her from this, and that galled him to the bone to admit.

"I'll do my best I can't promise better than that." Emma said solemnly, before reaching out with her hand towards the incapacitated goddess. One moment her telepathic probe was flaring into Hela's body, the next she found Hela's mind, or rather her astral projection under what like a whirlwind maelstrom given form. The darkness was all around Hela swirling and snarling closing in shattering defensive shield after shield as Hela's astral form shrank even as her defenses did, a representation of the way she was losing control of her own mind.

Without hesitation Emma threw her own power into the defense of Hela's mind, finding to her shock that it wasn't an exterior assault at all. It's coming from Hela's own body! Her own body was assaulting her mind, which should've been impossible, unless Hela had multiple personality disorder or something similar. Or, or is it something inside her body, some kind of, of possession? Didn't Dani say something about having a bit of this Sigyn woman's soul inside her? If so, then maybe whoever is doing this could influence Hela's body in a similar manner? But if that's the case how can we free her from whatever it is?

Emma's body grit her teeth so hard she drew blood as Emma defended not only her own mind, but began to defend Hela's. An image of a diamond wall slowly extended from her own astral form which had alighted nearby Hela's own to cover her. Hela's astral form looked up as she felt Emma joining in, but neither of them had enough time to waste on words or even gestures beyond a slight nod to the other woman, which tried to convey Hela's gratefulness and Emma's apology for how the two of them had been butting heads moments before this began. "It's in my own body!" She's shouted, even her astral form wavering under the assault. "I cannot…"

"I know, I've got an idea, but…" It was hard, incredibly hard, but Emma began to slowly enlarge her mental defenses to cover Hela's astral projection. She did have an idea though, on how to turn this around. It was far-fetched, but possible. If we can somehow separate her mind entirely from her physical form, like this Sigyn woman was able to, then maybe we can start fighting back!

Outside in the physical plane Garm and Hedwig were both watching on in concern. Garm's teeth were bared his ear flat to his skull as he glared between Emma and Hela then back to Harry. Whatever was going on hadn't come from the humans obviously. If he had thought that they would already be dead, his threats on that topic had not been hyperbole or the least bit exaggerated. But their presence had instigated it, so he wasn't exactly feeling all that generous to them either.

Suddenly Garm felt something, a stirring in the hall around him. With a quickness that belied his size or his maimed leg Garm suddenly turned. At the same time Hedwig left his back once more, flying into the air of the Hall precking in sudden alarm.

From the deepest shadows of the hall came Fire Jotun. They were like other giants, seemingly human in shape if on a larger scale, only with ruddy faces and black bristly hair and beards. Their skin was stained with soot and ash where it wasn't covered by crude, jagged armor. Their expressions, what could be seen of them, held sneers of cruelty that marred their already rough and coarse visages. The weapons and shields they held seemed to be made of some kind of black metal with sharp and vicious looking edges, the air around them simmering with the heat radiating off them as if they were still fresh from the forge fires.

Garm took one breath as the Fire Jotun appeared and snarled low in his throat as the scent of something corrupt almost vile to his senses reached his nose. If their sudden appearance hadn't been enough to tell him they were on the side of whoever had launched this mental assault on his mistress that would've been enough. There were only five of them but if not for Garm that would've been more than enough to see off the two humans, the owl and Hela. Fire Jotun after all were the most destructive of that breed, the almost natural enemy of the gods of Asgard in their penchant for chaos and violence.

But Garm was there and five Jotun of any kind would not be enough against him in his rage and fury. Bounding forward the dread wolf let loose a howl. "AROOOOOOOO!!" The sound of his howl was so loud and so staggeringly powerful it was as if it was a sonic boom, and the Fire Jotun stopped their progress, two of them even backing up as they seemed to shake in place as the cry rattled them.

One of those two screamed as Hedwig suddenly dove, some kind of force field or yellow energy surrounding the owl as she attacked. Her claws raked at the Jotun's eyes causing it to stumble back further, crying out in pain.

Behind Hedwig, Garm bounded forward slamming into one of the Jotun's throwing him off of his feet even as the thing tried to bring its spear forward. But Garm was underneath its reach. The Jotun's shielded got in the way of his charge, but that did nothing to lessen his momentum, and that Fire Jotun flew backwards to land heavily on the ground behind him. An instant later Garm's fang's found his throat, cracking the outer skin and sinking deep into the hot magma beneath.

The Jotun screamed a wet sobbing sort of sound but Garm retreated quickly, leaping as one of his nearby fellows raised an ancient sword, trying to hack at Garm's side. But Garm turned as quick as a cat (though of course he wouldn't've put it that way) dodging the sword which slammed into the stone of the floor.

An axe glanced off Garm shoulder as if his fur was the finest armor, and his forepaw lashed out, ripping deeply into the third Fire Jotun's leg. That Jotun bellowed and fell backwards but the other one had quickly repositioned his sword coming up in a sweep which caught Garm in the forearm biting an inch deep. Garm yowled in pain the wound bleeding freely into his thick fur. Yet even so Garm lunged forward, slamming his snout into that beast, bearing that Jotun down to earth before ripping out his throat in turn.

The Jotuns were strong, but Garm was the protector of Niflheim and mighty in his own right. His own prodigious strength could match them, and when fighting in these halls, the power of the realm itself filled him through his connection to his mistress, making him immune to their fiery touch. "AROOOOOO!"He howled again, and again the Jotun's stumbled. Yet they still came on, and behind them came others many of them uttering challenges and jeers in guttural languages. Garm snarled charging forward to meet them.

OOOOOOO

Odin once again felt the pressure the Shadow-Watchers held on him dissipate slightly. It was always there at the back of his mind, bearing down on him so when it faded, even for a moment, the God of Wisdom and cunning was able to perceive it immediately. Glancing around the Hall he knew that no one else there had felt anything, even his own wife. Of all his people only Odin could always feel the pressure on his mind. The Shadow-Watchers of course afraid he would break free of their influence and so were always having to keep the pressure on him lest he do so.

His halls were warm and merry at the moment. His son Thor had returned from another mission against the Night Elves, having harried and then broken a large force which had dared to cross their borders into Asgardian lands. As was appropriate for such deeds, they had thrown him a feast and gathered all who would join to partake of the Eternal Boar's ever succulent flesh as well as Odin's own personal stores of mead. Now he sat surrounded by his friends, the glorious Sif, the Warriors Three, Tyr, Balder and others.

But that was not important. What was, was that the TWWAIS had removed themselves from his mind once again. The mortal Potter's presence in Midgard is causing more and more ripples to their plans, and they cannot deal with these disruptions well. I can only barely sense whatever they are doing, but again it has something to do with Hela, poor lass. Still, her sacrifice can again be used, and this time in a far more direct manner.

Holding up his jeweled horn, Odin stood up from his throne and shouted over the celebration. "Warriors all, it pleases me greatly to see you gathered here this eve, not only to celebrate Thor's victory over our foes, but also because I wish to make an announcement." Odin waited until all eyes were on him and silence had spread as much as it ever would at a feast like this before continuing.

"Word has reached me of the lair of a beast that we have long sought to slay, one that has cost many lives over the centuries among our people. Therefore, I announce the start of a Great Hunt! Thor, you my son will choose six warriors to come with you on a hunt, a hunt for the most dreaded wyrm of them all, Níðhöggr!"

His son or rather half-son looked at him in shock, then he smiled widely jumping to his feet and holding forth his hammer. "Skol! Odin All-Father, I swear to you on mighty Mjolnir that I and my companions will see the wyrm dead!"

Odin had long known of the location of the Níðhöggr of course, he was not the god of cunning and wisdom for nothing. Furthermore, he also knew the wyrm was one of the Shadow-Watchers anchors, a willing thrall to them which gave their control a physical presence in the realms of Yggdrasil. Such anchors were double edged swords, and this was one that he had been unable to act upon up till now. But with the Shadow-Watchers attention if not their touch almost entirely elsewhere, it would take them time to learn of what he had just set in motion.

And there was not much they could do about it once the great hunters were on their way, especially after Odin erased his own mind of what he had just done, as well as all the minds of those around him. It would seem as if Thor and his fellows had simply stumbled upon news of Níðhöggr's hiding place after coming back from the battles against the Night Elves, and decided to act upon it themselves. After all, it was not the first time someone had tried to hunt the dread wyrm.

Odin's mouth twisted in distaste for what he had to do to give the hunting party enough time to face the root gnawer, but it was either pillage their minds now and restore them later, or let his people and those in the other 8 realms of the World tree languish in slavery even longer. No, Odin would take the dishonor on himself like so many others rather than allow that, such was his burden as king.

But what made this hunt different was that this was the first one though that Thor would be part of, and Thor had come back from Midgard more powerful than he had left in several ways. Being a son of Gaea he had taken energy from being in Midgard which allowed more of the thunder god's natural strength to shine through as it were. With that, and with the number of warriors and gods sent, Níðhöggr's days were numbered.

Odin glanced at Volstaag as he and the other Warriors Three slapped Thor on the shoulders and exclaimed about the joy of going out once more with him, as Tyr and Sif and Skadi, the white maned goddess of the hunt had also volunteered. Balder did not, having already agreed to lead out a force to attack the Night Elves in reprisal for their attempts to invade Asgardian lands, though he looked irritated at missing the opportunity. To partake in such a hunt was a great chance for glory and renown, and although Balder was a dutiful son, he was nevertheless a warrior still and so chafed at duty calling him away. But it was Volstaag, and what he held that most interested Odin. Perhaps I will even get luckier than simply slaying Níðhöggr, if that is at all possible.

OOOOOOO

By this point Harry had broken out of the mirror maze at last. Only to find himself somewhere else rather than back to where he should've been. "Dammit!" Sighing Harry looked around, only then realizing he wasn't in another maze or an illusion, but in one of his memories.

It was the sitting room of Grimmauld Place, a sign of many of his better memories in his old dimension. A fire was crackling in the hearth to one side, and across from Harry's nice plush chair was a sofa, on which Sirius lay sprawled. Harry remembered this memory, Sirius had just been trying to explain the do's and don'ts of dating, Sirius style, and Harry had been body bound in his chair, unable to get away or even cover his ears as Sirius went into one long rambling tale of his own dating days after another. It had been a painful, humiliating but all in all amusing memory, made better after Hermione and Tonks came back from a shopping trip and took turns hexing the old dog.

But instead of the words he remembered Sirius's voice was sad as he asked, "Why Harry, why did you let me die?"

"Excuse me?" Harry said, blinking at that before his eyes narrowed angrily. "Oh Hell no!"

"You let me into that fight Harry, then let me die, after all I had done for you! You should have ordered the retreat the moment Voldemort ordered the retreat."

"Point one, if I had done that, everyone in Hogsmeade would have died. Two, you would never have agreed to that. And three, I am bloody well not doing this!" Snarling angrily Harry tried to force himself out of his seat, only finding himself trapped in his memory-self, and as such unable to move. Snarling once more Harry lashed out with his magic, smashing into and over the memory, but doing nothing as Sirius began to speak again, now denouncing Harry as a horrible leader, who did as much or more to get his friends killed as the enemies did.

Frowning Harry analyzed what was going on, trying to figure out something in this strange memory-linked illusion that he could use to break it as he had the stone hallway or the mirror maze, the false dog-father's words ignored as they followed yet another rote pattern of attempted guilt and shaming. He saw the anomaly almost at once, a picture of him and Sirius over the mantelpiece. But Harry knew Sirius and he had never had a picture taken, Sirius having gotten into the habit of hating his picture being taken after the rigmarole following his being cleared of all charges.

With a condensed aimed blast of magic power, much like the mana bolts his doppelgangers had used earlier, Harry lashed out at the picture. An instant later it hit and the memory around Harry exploded, releasing him. But before Harry could lash out or try anything else, he found himself caught in another memory-based illusion. This time it was Daphne Greengrass for some reason Harry could not fathom, but then he had no idea how whoever was doing this to him thought.

This was the memory of the time she and Harry had a rather embarrassing discussion about her and Tracy's relationship. But again, the words did not match the totality of the memory. "Why did you leave Harry? We died to make a difference in our world, and you just turn your back on that, on how you could have made a difference there?"

Scowling angrily, Harry spotted what was out of place and shattered that memory illusion too, then began to put more effort into a spell he had just come up with. Several more such memories later, a shield erupted from Harry's mental representation. But this was not just a magical or mental shield this one had been built around the same kind of energies as which made up a Patronus, destroying the shadow it touched as it pushed out from his 'body'. When it reached the images of his friends, they disappeared one after another, leaving the original memory in place and pushing on.

A second later Harry found himself in another memory, and he shuddered as something tried to tear at his willpower, tried to make his spell dissipate. They failed though, and the spell retained its defensive position. The illusions around him now of his friends and even old enemies instead of trying to egg him on with words tried to attacking physically at the same time but Harry shook his head. "You are not my friends! You were not a part of me, you are not a memory, you are nothing but shadow here! And shadows can be banished!"

Harry used those words again and again a mantra almost like an original spell allowing him to concentrate on what he was doing. It was hard, incredibly hard. The original casting of the spell was relatively easy, but to power it continually like this inside his own mind while dealing with the emotional and psychological attacks? That was a far greater task. He had to go through each of his memories in a second, one after another all the ones that he remembered well and all the ones that he didn't remember. All of them required the same struggle to banish and break. Especially tough were the ones he wished he could forget.

Every time he had to keep powering his spell, pushing whatever influence the Shadow-Watchers had somehow teleported into his mind away from his core self while also destroying the illusion if he could. The worst was of course his memory of Hermione, how he found her and her family as Dumbledore tried to stop him from looking at them. The sight of Hermione staring up at him, her bloody lips forming words now that they never had in real life. "Where were you Harry? Why didn't you protect me?"

That memory nearly was the end of Harry. His astral form, once more trapped in his memory-self felt to his knees, and present Harry and past Harry both howled in agonized loss, the memories of that moment and the emotion of the real memory overcoming him. But Harry didn't give up. The memory of his lovers, his children both adopted and soon to be born gave him strength. The idea of what Hela must've gone through the first time this must've happened to her gave him rage, added to the anger of seeing this memory turned to someone else's purpose. "How dare you!"

And with that Harry thrust all of his power into the spell, pushing through and somehow regaining some of the control of his mind. The memories around him now fueled his resolve. Ororo, Jean, Emma, Little Melody, Illyana and his friends. Every time he said 'I love you', every time he heard 'I love you' back, aided his strength, and finally he pushed the Shadow-Watchers out of his mind. For a moment Harry imagined he heard voices wailing in pain and outrage as he did so, fading the more Harry regained control of his mind until they were silenced.

And just like that Harry found himself back in his own body, lying on the stones of Hela's hall. His mind was now protected not just by his invisibility cloak but by a dome of Patronus-infused defensive shield.

Despite being back in control of his physical body however, Harry was utterly exhausted. Still, whatever that had been, and Harry still wasn't certain what exactly that had been but he was aware of his surroundings once more, and able to get his bearings. On one side he heard the sound of battle, real physical battle this time, and that made Harry smile a dark, bloodthirsty uptick of his lips as he really felt the need to hit something right now. On the other he saw Hela screaming as Emma gripped her hand hard, staring at the other woman's face as a kaleidoscope of expressions flashed across her face.

Understanding what was going on, Harry rolled over and pushed himself up staggering to his feet, feeling almost as weak as a-day-old kitten. But even so, he gathered himself and muttered "Magia Erebea 70%." That helped immensely and strength and vitality thundered through him thanks to the spell, giving Harry a second wind. A twist of one hand brought the sword of Gryffindor into his grip, and he shouted a wordless roaring battle cry as he hurled himself towards the fight, not even caring who or what was attacking Garm and Hedwig, just knowing they were here and trying to hurt those he cared about.

He was fast, faster than the Fire Jotun facing them, and stronger too, thanks to his Magia Erebea. But there were over a dozen of them in the hall now, and they were working together, showing intelligence that Harry had not seen in the fight with the Draugr. This was organization and training rather than instinct, and so was much worse to deal with adding to their daunting durability and strength. While one attacked with a large sword or axe, the others on his side would use spear and overlarge shields to protect themselves and their fellows, presenting a deadly wall of blades and shields that threatened to cut any who approached it.

Smashing his sword into one shield he knocked its wielder off balance while at the same time ducking under his opponent's spear. "Latinium Malleus!" The hammer of green and gold lightning left the sword wielder of the trio currently facing him falling back, his face smoking as he screamed in agony. But another spear came at Harry at the same time as he struck with his own sword, the wielder's arm elongating hugely for a second so as to strike at Harry.

Harry grabbed the spear right behind the pointy bit, stopping its momentum only to hiss as it really was as hot as it looked! It wasn't as painful as some of the things he'd been dealing with in the last few, seconds, minutes, hours? Harry had no idea how long he been trapped in his own mind, but it was still bloody hot!

"Garm watch out!" he shouted, rolling under a third spear and slamming his free hand down onto the ground. "Shi Jundai!" Dozens then hundreds of stone golems reared up out of the ground and immediately began to attack the Fire Jotun. But any fire Jotun was worth nine of the golems, and they hacked them down ruthlessly, their prodigious strength mocking the normally immense durability of the golems.

"Regroup!" Harry shouted, pulling back away from the fight now that his constructs had the Fire Jotun invaders occupied for the moment. "Garm get over here!"

Garm snarled leaping away from his latest victim as one of the others try to spear his former position. He was dripping blood from several wounds now, and his back leg, the same leg that had been marred by old wounds, was now near to lame thanks to a hammer blow. But despite that Garm was still giving a good account of himself and was not happy about taking orders from a human. "What?" he growled.

"Pull back," Harry said quickly, as Hedwig alighted on his forearm. Harry looked at the blood on her talons and beak and nodded, covering Hedwig with as many spells as he could even as he backed away. After she leaped off his arm, Harry again knelt down slamming his hand back onto the stone floor and creating a still more golems, who joined the fray just in time to keep the Fire Jotun pinned in position.

"The Jotun might be coming at us from one direction now, but it's only a matter of time before more come to flank us from the shadows. We have to retreat," Harry stated simply, gesturing over his shoulder for a moment. "We can't let them encircle us, not when we have to protect Emma and Hela."

"They're between us and the interior of the Hall," Garm said calming down slightly. He twitched as he watched his mistress and the mortal woman suddenly float into the air, moving towards them and away from the fight.

"Then we get out of the hall and out into the plains of Niflheim. Are there any other allies out there?"

"My mistress could rally the realm, make every tree, branch or even the grasses attack them, become deadly to intruders. Every soul of the dead here barring the children on the isle are capable of rising to battle at her behest in the largest army of all the nine realms. But I cannot do so without her permission, only she is able to do so. How long can you keep them up like that?" Garm asked, backing away from the fight towards the heavy doors leading into the hall.

"That's not going to be the issue," Harry said grimly, as they cross the threshold of the Hall and Garm pushed open the doors leading out into the rest of the plane. Already though the Jotuns had finished off the golems he'd left in their wake and were proceeding steadily closer forward in close formation, their discipline holding despite the fury which with they hurled insults at Garm and Harry. "The problem is keeping them away from the fight until Emma and Hela deal with their own angle of this battle."

While they retreated Harry turned and began to cast spell after spell at the Jotun trying to come out after them. Lightning and air spells worked alright, but water and ice spells worked better. Yet even with spells charged with the opposite of their own element, the Jotun had massive amounts of magical resistance and it took all of Harry's effort with each spell to do more than glancing damage to the oncoming foes unless he struck their heads. Illusions didn't seem to work on them, and transfiguration seemed to fail or in the case of golems slow down and lose power when they came close to the Jotun. Conjurations worked better, but purely physical assaults were tough as hell to get through the Fire Jotun's armor and the natural thickness of their skin.

Even so, he held the door as Garm and Hedwig rested for more than five minutes, piling up a dozen bodies before being forced to retreat as more Fire Jotun came out of the shadows of nearby seemingly dead trees. "Fall back," he said grimly. "We keep falling back, and hope Hela and Emma work quickly."

OOOOOOO

Unaware of what was going on in the physical plane Emma and Hela's astral projection were still locked in combat with their attackers. Emma's body was utterly boneless hanging in the air from Harry's magic while Hela's was spasming and shaking in response to the internal battle.

By this point the fight had segued into a thing of angles of attack and brute force. Hela's mind and memories had been purged of any influence of it, but the brute force assault the Shadows were launching from was still going on, and would because the Shadow's influence was in her very blood. As long as her body and mind were still connected, the fight would continue. The shadows had also begun a new type of attack. The main assault was like a pressure attack, squeezing in with darkness and shadow on every side. But from within that attack other, more subtle assault were launched in an effort to once more gain a foothold in Hela's mind

Emma winced as her defenses came under attack once more, a lance of black lightning and orange smoke crashing into the diamond wall she was still trying to construct around herself and Hela. The black lightning attempted to shatter her defense but failed, while the orange smoke tried to seep around her defenses, looking for weakness.

Beside her Hela lashed out in turn, grabbing the orange probe and shattering it with a hand of blood red magical energy, only to grit her teeth, her astral form shaking its own hand and wincing. "By Death, this is interminable!"

Hela's astral form showed the exhaustion both women were feeling. Her black mane of hair was now plastered to her head and down her back, her armor was cracked, her mask scored in several places, and her hands looked caked with scar tissue, as did one of her knees. If it were possible for an astral form to bleed, Hela no doubt would be from those and several dozen wounds scattered around her body.

"Do not fall asleep on me you stupid bitch!" Emma growled, though she herself was feeling it too. While her telepathy gave her a home field advantage as it were against the Shadows, they had power to spare and were relentless. . The closest analogy the beleaguered blonde could come up with was that it was like how an expert swordsman with a longsword could only redirect the energy of a giant swinging a hammer so often, despite the difference in skill before they were worn down. Her own astral form, diamond of course, was chipped and cracked here and there, and Emma could feel her strength draining away with each assault she repulsed. She was coming to the end of her strength, but her plan was almost in place.

"I would turn you into some kind of horrific small item of a mysterious feminine nature for that under other circumstances you arrogant blonde slattern!" Hela ground out before both of them had no time to talk as several dozen of the subtle assaults came in. Hela's astral form moved even closer to Emma's, pressing her back against the telepath's own. And when she spoke what heat that had been in her voice was long gone, replaced by bone deep weariness and stubborn determination. "We can't hold out for much longer can we?"

"No." Emma replied bluntly, having no time or energy to sugar coat things or start another verbal sparring match. "But I knew that coming in. I do have a plan that might let us win this however. It's risky, but I felt it was the only way."

Hela grunted, lashing out with more of her own power to shatter a strange construct of green that looked like some kind of animal before she destroyed it, gazing fearlessly out into the encroaching darkness. Whatever else occurred, she would face this enemy as she had all others, on her feet and with bared steel in her hands. "Humans have a saying, 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', yes? What is it?"

"You Asgardians, your mental selves can live separate, or can be separated from your bodies right?" Emma asked, but moved on quickly, since she knew that was true given what Sigyn had gone through to hide her spirit. "But can you then effect your body magically?"

Her lip's twitching into a parody of a smile, Hela nodded. "Aye, and I know even the spells to use, though I am not looking forward to the ordeal, since even unconnected physically we still are connected by mine own magic - 'tis part of my connection to my realm and my place as servant to my mistress. Still, better to face the pain now than be controlled! Do it!"

Gritting her teeth Emma nodded and threw all her remaining strength and concentration into finishing the work she was doing. The diamond globe around them hadn't just been a physical sign of her defense of the two of them, it had also been a mental representation of Emma's power. And as it completed, all connection between Hela's physical form and her mental self were separated.

The assault from her own body, the pressure and darkness bearing down on them faded instantly though the subtle attacks kept on coming, now more and more frantic in the desperation of the Shadow-Watchers' desperation to reestablish control over what they considered their minion. Emma grimaced, and despite being diamond, her astral projection began to crack along the eyes and face. "Do it, do it now! I can't keep this up forever!"

Hela raised her hands crackling with power, then her eyes closed and she began.

OOOOOOO

Back in Niflheim, though she could not see it, Hela's body began to develop a multitude of cuts. Garm and Harry had pushed the two women up a rocky ravine leading up a steep hill to the top and had put their backs against the ravine, while other denizens of Niflheim, the souls of the un-honored or unknown dead, those who fell to sickness or old age in a quiet life, attacked the intruders from around them, wielding warped or broken weapons with grim determination that only those with nothing to lose could muster. They were less to nothing against the might of the Fire Jotun however, and the two knew they were in dire straits as the horde of Fire Jotun mowed through the nearby dead inhabitants of the realm, pressing them both back.

Garm smelled his mistress's blood on the wind and turned in panic only to stop and stare at what was going on. Between one moment and the next her physical form, which had shown little sign of the mental battle save the twitching, had developed dozens of tiny cuts. No more than paper cuts really for an Asgardian, yet they bled like each had hit a major artery. The blood should have been red like a human's. But to Garm the blood looked almost black, not the black of drying blood but black like oil almost, with an off-putting sheen to it. "What, what foul sorcery is this!?"

"Keep your mind in the game Garm!" Harry growled, summoning up a shield to defend Garm's chest from a spear-point. The attack bounced off, and Harry smiled grimly. The Jotun had odd powers of their own, shape shifting their hands and arms occasionally, transmuting the ground underneath their feet to a limited degree, but they couldn't break defensive spells without a lot of effort.

From what Dr. Vorlus had told him that made sense as Loki was originally one of their kind and only his blood brother had matched the Foolsbane in his ability to change his form. But Harry was thankful that these Fire Jotun had not a fraction of Loki's reported mastery of magic and shape-changing else the battle would be over already, given how tired Harry was going into it. As it was, Harry's versatility granted him an edge over the more limited abilities and imaginations of his opponents.

"Fulgur Plumbum!" the next second a spear of lightning and light slammed into the giant that had attempted to blindside Garm, sending him backwards with a scorching hole in his chest. Two more attacking Harry intersected some of the protective orbs from his Orbis fulgur scutum, which more closely resembled plasma than lightning, and fell back, badly wounded. They had absorbed the magical orbs however so the next group was able to close with Harry, pushing him back even as one fell to the water spear of an Aqua hasta, theirsacrifice used effectively by their fellows. A hammer blow nearly caved in his side but Harry ducked under it just in time, the air of the hammer's passage ruffling his hair.

The next second two more attacks came in from hammer wielders, and Garm had to leap back as the shield defending his side failed. Even as his front paw lashed out, shattering a Fire Jotun's shoulder, his mind was still on his mistress however. "What is happening Seidr man, what is happening to my mistress!?"

Harry chanced a quick glance backward and nearly paid for it with a sword through his chest. The blow sliced across his side and Harry grunted in pain, the searing heat of the Fire Jotun's blade somehow transmitting itself through his crysis suit despite its defenses. It stung, but it wasn't enough to put him down and his riposte nearly sliced the attacker's arm off at the elbow. The Jotun bellowed and fell away, shrinking somewhat as he somehow transmuted his body to repair the damage, but Harry let a grim smile appear on his face as it failed to do the job and the giant bled even more thanks to the botched magic. "I think she's trying to purge herself of whatever is influencing her, that's probably a good thing I suppose."

OOOOOOO

Pain ripped through Hela's mental self, but she ignored it. Like she had told Emma, unlike the other more powerful Asgardians she could not completely separate her mental-self from her physical-self due to her body's connection to her realm. It was part of the relationship she had with it as queen, 'The king is the land' is often said, but most mortals never realized how literal this was when old magic was involved. Luckily that connection was one the Shadows could not touch because it was her places as queen of Niflheim which made Hela Death's servant, thus trying to do something to that connection would put the Shadows in direct competition with the most final of realities.

Hela's mental self grimly bore down on the spells she was using, a form of exclusion style blessing coupled with a recursive cutting curse to force her blood out of her body, purging the corruption from her body. The pain of the cutting spell was intense, possibly the most painful thing Hela could remember, but she bore down, pouring more of her energy into the spells. The cuts continued to form, and the exclusion spell did the rest, pushing out the tainted blood.

She stared past the dome of diamond to the maelstrom of energies slamming into it, vile green, orange, purple and black, shadows, smoke, lightning, fire all trying to batter through Emma's mental shields. Beside Hela's mental self, Emma's astral-self had gone to her knees her hands now thrust out in front of her as if to physically hold up the diamond globe.

They knew they were being beaten, and were frantically trying to overcome Emma and resume their assault on Hela before she could free herself of their influence. "I am not afraid to bleed abominations. Even if it cost me every dram of blood in my body, I will have yougone from me!"

With that, the final bit of corruption in Hela's body was ejected, long streamers of first black then deep red blood flowing down her form, a stark, horrifying contrast to her white skin. And as Emma's defenses shattered around them, Hela ejected Emma from her mental area of control before hurling herself back into her physical body.

Hela found herself hovering in the air splayed out over the ground of an outcropping of her realm. Before she could wonder where she was or why she was hovering in the air like this the sounds of battle reached her ears and she snarled, dispelling the magic over her and falling to her knees.

Next to her Emma also held aloft by a spell, blinked bleary eyes at her. Like Hela, she too was bleeding, though from her telepathic exertions rather than her own hand. Her eyes were blood shot and bleeding, she had bitten through her lips, and her ears were dripping blood as well, though not as much as her eyes. "Heh, guess we won then," the mortal woman slurred. "It, it's your turn to take the lead now."

"Tsk, now isn't that just like a mortal, always demanding." Hela replied mockingly then smiled down at her with sincere gratitude. "But despite that, I suppose I have to thank you, Emma Frost. You're not so bad, for an uppity blonde bitch."

"You, you're not so bad either, for an undead vampire-wannabe…" Emma murmured, then her spirit finally gave out and her head slumped back as she fell into oblivion.

Hela smiled wanly, shaking her head before turning her attention to the realm around her. Blood was still pouring through her cuts though her Asgardian constitution was now at work to heal several of the wounds, if far slower than it should. She could feel exhaustion, both mental from the battle and physical from the blood loss creeping up on her which showed in the shakiness of her footing as she pushed herself to her feet.

None of that mattered however as she saw more than forty Fire Jotun trying to assail the tiny pass up which Hela and Emma had been stowed. In front of them were Harry and Garm, holding the line while Hedwig dived in and out of the attacker's formation, causing havoc with each pass the owl made with eyes gouged and brows cut to cause blood to drip into the eyes below.

Her realm, Niflheim had been invaded. Whatever power had attacked Hela's very being had taken it a step further to attack her realm. This will not be borne! In an instant Hela grabbed her connection to her realm fueling her own powers through that connection much in the same way that Mephisto had been able to, though her connection to her realm was a far more even rapport than that. Not that her victims would have cared either way.

All battle down below ceased as Hela hovered in the air, her form crackling with purple lights as her eyes blazed with all the colors of the sun, the blood stuck to her body in streaks not taking anything away from her sense of majesty. Her presence roared out from her in a way that Harry had only seen a few times before, not incidentally from his lovers. And when she spoke, her voice was like thunder on the wind, a roar of literal divine fury. "I will forgive no trespass!"

What followed wasn't a spell, and it was barely magic as Harry understood the term. It was simply brute willpower slamming out into the Fire Jotun in a massive assault. They might have had a high resistance to magic, so much so that Harry had to use only his high end spells on them. But no race's magical resistance would have been enough to stop this. One moment the fire Jotun had been charging forward, wearing down the beleaguered pair of defenders, the next they were turned into so many tons of unidentifiable slurry.

Hela landed next to Harry, her aura diminishing around her as she landed. She smiled briefly at him and he bowed his head to her. "Now that is the way to make an entrance my lady."

Still smiling Hela made to nod back only to fall forward as her own reserves failed her. Harry caught her quickly, holding Hela against his chest as he stared around. Garm snuffled at his mistress, breathing a sigh of relief. "The taint I smelled in her blood is no longer within her I think, though I would prefer to be certain, given how it had hidden itself to my senses before this."

Harry was about to reply when he suddenly turned, staring at a nearby shadow. From within the shadow another Fire Jotun appeared, followed by more, and still more. "Shiiit…"

While Garm turned to stare in shock and horror, Harry quickly summoned Emma's comatose body down the ravine grabbing it in his arm after passing Hela off to Garm. Tying her to his back with a bit of conjured rope, he held up his arm and Hedwig swooped down, landing on it swiftly. "Time to retreat Garm!"

"What, we cannot…" Garm protested only to stare as dozens, and then hundreds of Fire Jotun appeared out of the shadows of the plain around them. Yet even so Garm knew his duty. "But our realm…"

"Hela can set it right I think once she's rested, but for now we are out of here!" With that he grabbed some of the fur around Garm's neck and activated the emergency portkey back to Camelot.

OOOOOOO

Those Who Watch Above In Shadow could only watch in impotent fury as their physical thralls failed them after their own attempts to regain control were shattered. They then tried to cut Niflheim's connection to its mistress off. They thought that if they did so they could then possibly put a copy in her place, not to take over her duties, as that would be impossible, and again could draw Death's attention. Instead the copy would have been there to simply interact with the rest of the Asgardian realms, playing the part Hela was supposed to play in Ragnarok.

But this proved to be impossible. The connection between Hela and Niflheim was too strong. Her power was in every rock and stone within her realm, in every soul that wandered it plains and barren forests. The connection could not be cut nor any changes made to Niflheim without her permission. And worse yet, without Hela present in her realm, said realm had no connection to them. They watched in something approaching horror as Niflheim simply disappeared from the Yggdrasil's branches to their senses.

After screaming in impotent anger and trying to place blame, an impossible task since TWWAIS had no truly independent personalities or duties, the TWWAIS turned their attention to trying to mitigate the damage of what had just occurred. First they renewed the pressure on Odin, relieved to find that their most dangerous opponent had not been able to act out in their moments of inattention.

Then they pressured Odin to close the borders of Asgard, citing the ongoing war with Karnilla of Nornheim and Malekith and his Night Elves. Purely TWWAIS constructs they could kill Asgardians and thus empower the Shadows further. Indeed, the Nornheimians were all such constructs, and among the TWWAIS's better servants. And the other beasts, the wyrms, animals and Jotun tribes under their thrall were also placed on alert.

That this forced Odin to halt all access to the Rainbow Bridge, stopping all interaction with Asgard, was the main point of this thrust, but none save perhaps Odin who was powerless to stop it, would know. It also would set the stage for Ragnarok as soon as they could create it thus erasing this current debacle from existence and removing the taint coming from Midgard entirely.

OOOOOOO

Dani, Ororo and the rest of the team were waiting in the main hall for Harry and Emma to return, having been joined by Jean. Of them all, Dani and Harry's lovers were the most nervous, while the others were still somewhat punch drunk by the idea of what they had just done: fought through the body of a monstrously huge sea serpent in order to save the sleeping Snow White, I.E. Sigyn. Dani, oddly enough had gotten over that quickly, though she was idly wondering how to contact the Sigyn's soul within her to see if she could help them connect her body to said soul. Perhaps a trip out of the system and away from these asshole puppet masters is in order?

Her thoughts broke off as the awaited duo popped in, accompanied by the giant form of Garm and the bloody, far too pale form of Hela. Harry looked around him for a moment, then with a sigh fell forward insentient, joining the three human shaped individuals among the newcomers. Hela and Emma too fell as the spell holding them in the air failed with Harry's consciousness, but they were already comatose.

Before they could hit the ground however Jean had grabbed them all in separate telekinetic bands of power, gently lifting them back into the air. She moved to grab Garm in a similar manner but he growled shaking his head. Again the scents of these people told him they were allies at least, and the one with the odd skin tone had a scent that told him she was a fellow hunter. Despite that however he would move under his own power or not at all, his pride had taken enough damage already this day for him to deal with that added indignity. "I will walk on my own thought-witch. See to my mistress."

"Garm follow us. Jean, move them to the infirmary, Una and Amelia should be waiting there," Ororo ordered, immediately taking charge of the situation. Even as she did so she was already bringing up her magical powers, trying to heal the damage she saw. But her spell could not heal brain damage, the brain was far too delicate an instrument for her single all-encompassing healing spell to work on without repercussions, so she limited her efforts while hoping that there was no long term damage there.

The rest of the team watched on in worry as the two of them and Dani raced off behind the floating bodies of Harry, Emma and Hela. Dani's face was as pale as it could get given her natural coloring, horrified at their state and imagining what they could have run into to push them to these straits.

In the infirmary Ororo worked on Hela, forcing several dozen blood replenishing potions down her throat while healing the scattered wounds marring her body. That went quickly, but the medical scan kept on telling her Hela was dangerously low on blood through five full bottles of blood replenishing potions. If she weren't a goddess Ororo knew Hela wouldn't have survived whatever had done this to her. She had lost enough blood to kill any mortal man or woman three times over.

As Ororo was working on that Amelia was working with Jean on Emma. Using their powers and the medical gear they quickly found signs of damage to her brain coming close to a near-instant death type of brain hemorrhage. There were also signs of wounds on her lips and damage to her eardrums and actual skull, but Ororo's initial healing spell had healed those. The hemorrhage had also lessened somewhat, but Jean and Amelia had to work to lessen the damage slowly so as to not cause more damage from straining the brainbox. Once they were done, Ororo took over quickly, her spell now up to the task of finishing the work they had begun. The mental exhaustion however could only be solved through sleep.

Harry was actually the best off of all three, his life never being in danger whereas Emma would have died within an hour without treatment, and Hela who was already close to death given how little blood she had in her upon her arrival. In contrast Harry wasn't even magically exhausted, he was somewhat physically battered, but he was mentally exhausted to a degree that was astonishing. His mental exhaustion reminded Amelia of people who hadn't slept for more than a week. So he was the easiest to see to, his few wounds were healed by Ororo's spell and Jean took him and Emma up to bed after dealing with the others.

Garm had a major cut along one side which had sliced into his ribs, and his back leg, the same leg which had previously been scarred, had been injured further. Worse he had massive magical resistance to any kind of spell, so he had to be healed the old fashioned way, with poultice and potions. Even so, he was ready to bed down within a bare half hour of their arrival, something that he was impressed by. These humans had an interestingly deep bag of tricks from what he could recall of their race before this.

"Garm, what in the nine realms did you run into?" Dani asked, leading the massive wolf out of the infirmary. Ororo had taken charge of Hela, ensconcing her in a spare bedroom up on the top floor of the castle, while Dani had volunteered to show Garm around if he wanted or to a room next to hers if he wanted.

Garm had agreed to that wanting to walk off a bit of his adrenaline while Ororo, after tucking in Hela like a child in her bed, went to contact Cordelia, telling the younger Frost not to expect her sister home for a few days. Luckily nothing major on the business side of things would require her presence for the next several days and Cordelia seemed reassured that her sister was well, if a little too eager to get up into mischief in their mansion without Emma there to stop her. But Ororo knew that Emma had safeguards in place, including Sandman and Firstar, to prevent the teenager from getting into too much trouble.

For a moment the large wolf looked at the woman, the hunter walking beside him. She smelled of woodlands, fur, sweat and grass, a nice scent to his nose, and familiar, even more familiar than the others, hence his ease with her. "Tragedy and treachery, or rather treachery which has led to tragedy. My mistress turned away Potter and Frost, but they did not take that for an answer. After a rocky start, I thought Potter was gaining some ground in earning her regard, but then…"

As old wolf once more told the young woman a tale, albeit for the first time in his mind, Dani smiled to herself. Whatever else had changed, despite his memories being taken, at least the two of them somehow could still rely on their shared interests and the telling of tales to bind them.

OOOOOOO

Having only suffered physical injuries and not having exhausted himself like the mortals or his mistress, Garm was the first to wake up the next morning. He stood up from the massive futon the black-skinned woman had created magically for him the night before and was about to nose his way out of his room to check on his mistress when the door opened and several small children poked their heads around the doorframe, eyes alight with curiosity. He smirked in a lupine manner, his tongue lolling out from his open mouth. "What is this, little children come to see the dread Garm? Run away little ones, lest I decide to feast on you. You're all just the right to be bite size to me."

A few of the kids raced off squealing happily as he stalked toward the doorway, but a young blonde girl and a girl with rainbow colored hair stayed put staring up at him with the bravery of youth. And the fact that Hedwig was perched on the blonde girl's shoulder helped matters. "Are you hungry mister Garm?" The girl with the rainbow colored hair asked innocently. "We can show you the way to the main hall. One of the little helpers will be happy to get you some food."

"Or you could go outside I suppose." The other one cut in, reaching up to stroke Hedwig's chest feathers. "Though if you do that, you'll have to hide the remains afterward just like Hedwig. There are a few deer out there."

'Are there any bears or large cats?" Garm asked, amused by being called 'mister' by a human, no matter her age. He normally didn't need to eat much physical food, he subsisted on souls of the dishonored and his connection to his mistress on a day to day basis. Physical food was nice, a treat he indulged in once a week or so but that hadn't hurt his hunting skills any, and at his size without a pack hunting deer down was a rather pointless exercise. Other predators though wouldn't know he was a real threat to them alone until he revealed his form, and even then many were stupid enough to not run away.

"I'm afraid not," the girl replied, as Hedwig shook her head, her entire head twisting entirely around. "There aren't any dangerous animals anywhere within Camelot's grounds, and I don't think you'd want to leave them. If you go beyond the boundary you might be seen by other people, and not everyone can see just how good a wolf you are."

For some reason Garm almost felt offended by the way the child said that but for now, he did feel rather hungry after yesterday's exertions. "Very well, show me to this dining hall of yours."

Later, after the children had been corralled by their minder and he had supped on an excellently made hunk of beef, Garm checked on his mistress. She was still sleeping, peacefully from what he could tell, so he turned around and made his way back toward the hall and the castle's entrance beyond. There he found several teens he had not yet met coming up from the dungeons, which he had been told held a training area.

Stopping in place he sniffed the air thoughtfully as a young beanpole of a woman, just past girlhood if he had to guess, came up the stairs. But her scent, there is something more to this girl than meets the eye.

Rahne looked up, letting out a little squeak as the giant wolf who Piotr and the others had told them about moved toward her, sniffing the air. Ach, no…

"Bah, you have the scent of a wolf in you girl, yet you make the noise of a rabbit?" Garm backed away slightly, scowling in something like indignation. "That is simply wrong."

"Er, I might have a wolf within me, but I'm not the werewolf, I don't give into it if that's what you mean." Rahne said warily, not sure what to make of the giant sentient wolf before her.

Garm's eyes narrowed and let his mouth drop open, letting the girl see his fangs even as he laughed. "Bah! Do you hear yourself child? You have the wolf within you, but you're not the wolf? That just means you're not at home in your own skin! I can smell the fear on you girl, and it is not of me," Garm paused then let loose a barking laugh. "Well not just me. You smell scared beyond that, as if that was your natural state. Is that how you want to live?"

"I don't want to live with the wolf at all! I hate it, I hate my other form, I hate the loss of control, and I hate the instincts beating in my head!" Rahne said, looking away in shame, the scars of her abuse still present even now.

"So the way you try to deal with it is by what? Running away? Letting it out to play only once in a while? That's a coward's response, and no one worthy of having the blood gift of a were-form should ever be a coward."

Garm looked at her contemplatively, he could see the instinctive flinches in her posture whenever he got gruff or chided her, and that did not bode well…it would take time to fix that. "You remind me of Fenrir when he was younger and more biddable, when he was just coming into his size and had yet to gain the arrogant edge that made him so irritating to be around. You have yet to truly be comfortable in your own body, to get used to no longer being a puppy but an adult with an adult's strength. In you it goes deeper, because you run not only from your physical strengths, but your instincts as you say. And the only way to overcome that kind of fear is experience and education."

With that he nudged the girl backward, then to the side. "Come, out with you! Let us go on a mock hunt, and I will show you there are positives to a wolf's senses, and not just the negatives you see. Fear is no way for one to live pup."

Rahne made to protest, to try to get away, but Garm blocked her at every turn, corralling her and pushing her out the door with ease. She kept on protesting verbally too, but it didn't do any good. She even tried to transform and hop over the large wolf.

But Garm twisted in place and grabbed Rahne by the scruff of the neck and turned to walk outside hauling her off like an errant cub. Around his mouthful of neck fur he growled low when she tried to struggle free, and Rahne found herself stilling instantly. With the 'errant pup' properly settled, Garm left the castle and headed out into the woods, his tail twitching with amusement.

OOOOOOO

Cracking her eyes blearily Hela didn't recognize the roof over her bed. It was a nice ceiling admittedly but it wasn't hers and feeling of uncertainty that was almost foreign to Hela filled her. Hela bolted upright, before falling back, holding her head in agony, and stiffening immediately as she felt the bare skin of her face. Where is my mask? She tried to turn and look at where she thought the side of the bed might be but before she could panic further a young girl's voice interrupted her.

"Are you looking for this, miss?" said a small voice.

Looking around, Hela found she was in a bedroom of some kind, or possibly a hospital. She'd seen such things of course in the course of her duties, though she'd always felt the white of hospitals was rather drab and far too clinical. This place in contrast was light and airy, with sunlight streaming through a series of windows opposite her bed, and the room done in woodsy tones coupled with a very light blue color of paint here and there, which almost matched the color of the book that Harry had given her.

At that moment the memories of what had happened to her flooded back to Hela, and she glared at nothing for a moment, balefire appearing abound her fingers. I was attacked, attacked in my own hall! Attacked by something in my own blood! Hela felt used, abused and betrayed in a way she thought would equate to what rape victims felt.

A startled squeak however brought her back to the here and now and she turned her head lightly to see a few children standing around an older looking young woman, staring warily at her hands until the balefire dissipated. Or no, humans call them teenagers now. She'd never understood that term. You were either an adult or you were not, the idea of some sort of in between state was simply a human affectation of the times in Hela's opinion.

One of the young ones, a girl with bright multicolored hair had just grabbed her mask out of the air and was now holding it out to her. Hela hesitantly reached forward, taking it with a small murmur of thanks. "I don't know why you need it," the girl said cheerfully. "You look so pretty so why do you hide your face?"

"Call it in affectation of my position child," Hela replied, her voice a mixture of kindness and droll humor. While she wouldn't say she was very good with children, she had dealt with the souls of children often enough, and enjoyed their innocent, carefree way of looking at the world. Frowning she felt at her mask, then cocked her head at the girl standing next to the girl with the multi-colored hair, having felt a trace of odd magic on it. "And exactly what were you doing with my mask?"

"Practicing my hovering charm," the girl said, smiling back at her despite Hela's frown. "Melody and I were hoping you would wake up soon, but Dani wouldn't let us try to wake you up and I got bored."

"Boredom is no excuse for poor manners. You should always ask permission before casting any spell on someone's personal property. Who is your master child?"

"My name's Illyana and my master is Mr. Harry though he told me never to call him anything but Mr. Harry or teacher." Illyana replied promptly, looking somewhat abashed. Dani had said the same thing, but also hadn't stopped her when she began to make the mask hover in the air to one side of the bed.

"Really, the seidr man has an apprentice? Interesting," Hela mused, looking at the girl with the godly equivalent of mage sight. The girl was powerful, but unformed, with only the beginning of control over her own core. Still, that was quite a bit of power for a merely mortal girl, and it spoke well of Potter that he had taken her under his wing. "And what else can you do?"

"Oh, not much, mostly hovering charms, color changing and a bit of summoning stuff. Mr. Harry teaches me when he can, but that isn't as often as either of us would like." Illyana pouted.

"Don't pout about that, it is beneath you," Hela ordered, reaching out to rap the young girl gently on the top of the head. "A jarl such as I assume Potter to be will always have many demands on his time. You will have to accept that and use what moments you have of his teaching to their best effect."

Illyana began to scowl, her fingers twitching at her side as a mischievous spark came to her eyes. But before she could try anything Hela raised a finger. "And I am not one of your minders child, nor am I a soft touch. Do not try anything with me less I give it back three fold." This did nothing to dim the mischievous look in the girl's eyes, but that was alright with Hela. Young ones should have such spirit, after all and her people prized such if they were clever in their efforts.

At that point Hela looked over the youngster's heads towards the older girl, who had a skin tone she had not seen before, like that to a tan but with a reddish tint to it. The young woman bowed formally, her hands pressed together in some foreign manner. "Lady Hela, I am Dani Moonstar, though most call me Dani and this is Melody. I do not know if you remember me, in fact I rather doubt you do given what he had discovered before Emma and Harry tried to talk to you, but you used me as a messenger to speak to Harry at first to pass on your mistress' gift."

Hela narrowed her eyes. There was something about the girl, a spark of… not magic, but similarity perhaps? Still Hela had no memory of the girl, and Hela once again felt a momentary surge of fury that her memories were stolen from her before she nodded in acknowledgement of Dani's courtesy.

"I do not remember you no," she said simply, one hand rising to touch the side of her head before she leaned back in bed. "This does not alas surprise me. How are the others?" she went on, unwilling to continue that train of thought for a moment.

"Harry is still asleep, though Ororo thinks that he will wake up sometime today. Emma on the other hand is still very much out of it. According to Jean, another telepath," she said by way of explanation knowing now that Hela had no memories of any of them, "she really overextended herself in the battle that you four went through. The physical damage is healed, the exhaustion and psychic side of things just need time to heal. I imagine Harry's going to be kicking himself for a while about that."

"Why?" Hela asked incredulously, blinking in surprise behind her mask. "We survived did we not? Yes we retreated but better to do so when it will mean victory later than hold an untenable position out of stubbornness or pride."

"Yes, but Harry went into that fight rather overconfident, or so he said before he collapsed. I don't know if I'd put it that way though, I think we were prepared as much as possible, but bringing more dakka-er that is more firepower might have been a good idea. But Emma was the one that paid rather than Harry, so he'll be kicking himself for it for a while."

Hela nearly bristled at that, but she couldn't argue. Without Emma's help, Hela would still be under the thrall of whoever had been controlling her actions, erasing her memories as they pleased, possibly even going so far as to control her very actions, a horrifying thought for any woman or goddess, let alone a Asgardian. It was infuriating, but Hela owed a lot to the mortal woman, and to Harry.

And Hela had to admit that she had rather thawed towards the woman after the battle in any event. Mouthy and disrespectful she might be, aye and with no knowledge of my culture either, but Emma is no coward for certain.

"GRGRGRG." Hela flushed slightly as a loud gurgling sound suddenly reverberated from her stomach, and Dani and the children laughed. "I'll have one of the house elves stop by for with a late lunch for you."

"How long was I out?" Hela asked quickly as the girl moved towards the doorway, shooing the two younger girls in front of her. She wondered idly what they had been doing here. If she had brought in some ally even a comatose one she would not have set children to watching him or her.

Of course she didn't know how it worked in Camelot. Most of the time when the kids were out of classes they could pretty much do whatever they liked, so long as they weren't getting in the way or hurting anyone. Dani and Ororo had both been fielding questions about Hela and what had happened to Harry and Emma for most of the day, but Ororo had decided that the kids might actually help put Hela at her ease. After all how could anyone feel threatened if they woke up around children?

"You were out for about a day and a half," Dani said wincing. "Ororo had a very busy time trying to heal you."

Hela winced as well, remembering the agony of purging her blood, and shook her head to drive away the memory. "I can understand that. How did you do so though?"

"Blood replenishing potions, a lot of them, and some magical healing to close the wounds you apparently opened up on your body," Dani replied shrugging her shoulders, her knowledge of magic was limited so she kept the explanation simple. "After that your body took over thankfully, since it allowed Ororo to switch to Harry and help our medical experts with Emma."

"It seems I owe Potter more than I would have even before my collapse then," Hela mused, a small smile spreading across her lips as she did so.

"Talking of payment between friends is rather discourteous," Dani said, flashing a grin and Hela had to laugh too. That sounded precisely like something one of the worshipers of old would say, and she leaned back with a more lighthearted air than she had felt. "A final question," she asked as Dani finally reached the doorway. "Where is my loyal wolf, Garm?"

Dani laughed again shaking her head. "He's seemingly taking one of our other teenagers under his wing since waking up this morning. You know of blood gifts as Thor called them? Mutations?"

"Somewhat…"Hela said after a moment. A lot of that information was seemingly tied up with her memories of Harry, so was spotty at best, and trying to concentrate on it only made her angry at a time when she was trying to calm down.

"One of the other teens here has the blood gift of changing into a werewolf if you understand the term, I think there are stories about your old followers sometimes having the ability to do so." Hela nodded quickly, indicating the girl should get the point. "Well, she's never been really at home with her powers thanks to her upbringing in a Catholic church, but Garm is trying to teach her how to welcome the wolf into her mind without letting it control her? It's hard to explain."

"He says she reminds him of a young puppy who needs to get more at home in her own body." Illyana said quickly.

"As long as he is fine that is adequate for now," Hela said with a nod, trusting her guardian to know what was best to occupy his time with at present.

Hela closed her eyes at that point indicating that she was done asking questions, and listened to the door close behind Dani and the others who left without further word. Once she was alone she quickly reached out to the ever present connection between her and Niflheim, and found it there, bright and present in her mind. Giving Niflheim a quick once over from a literal God's eye view, she saw no sign of the Fire Jotun, or any other sign of the corruption that had filled her.

But then again, that corruption had hidden itself from me for so long, would I be able to spot it even now? Still, Niflheim was with her now she could sense that, rather than connected primarily to the other realms of Asgard, via Yggdrasil. Interesting, I had not known that would happen if I removed myself physically from my halls like this, but I cannot say I'm unhappy about it

At a slight cough from the side of the bed Hela opened her eyes to find a small creature poised there with a platter of foodstuffs hovering over its head. "Is mistress hungry for something in particular?" It asked chirpily.

"Just food and lots of it thank you," Hela said politely, and the little creature moved the hovering bit of plate over her stomach. Two little stands came out from the bottom to either side of her body. "A table made to be used in bed, such a simple yet ingenious device," she mused, reaching for the glass of, orange juice wasn't it?

How odd that I can remember what this drink is, when so much of the rest of my memories of Midgard are gone. With that Hela thanked a little creature, then tucked in with a will, thinking as she did.

There was no doubting any longer that Potter was an ally, not after all that he had done for her, not after what happened in the realm. It is a far cry from being so, so close as my emotions and his looks at me seemed to imply a time or two and I cannot say that I like Emma much. But what Emma did in my defense that I cannot forget either, however much I might be inclined to hold a grudge over her initial behavior. I will have to move past first impressions there I suppose, her deeds have earned her that much at least.

Soon after finishing her meal, Hela fell back asleep, waking up a few hours later feeling much more refreshed. Hesitantly, she rolled out of bed, looking down at her body for a moment and finding herself covered in a dark red shift of some kind. Waving her hands, she transformed it into a dress as she normally wore armor and dress in one, and moved toward the door. It opened before she reached it, and a tall, extremely well-formed African woman came in. She had startlingly white hair, and light blue eyes framed in an attractive face, with a body that Hela recognized as being quite beautiful.

She also moved like a regal queen in her own realm, a stance that Hela recognized. The two women stared at one another for a moment then Ororo smiled at Hela, "Greetings. I been informed you have no memory of me or of practically anyone here, but you and I have met before. I am Ororo Munroe, and I bid you welcome to Camelot."

"You're welcome is appreciated Ororo Munroe," said Hela slowly, staring at the other woman. Hela's senses told her this woman was mortal, and yet more. She couldn't discern what that more was, though it was bundled up in her apparent poise and control. "And as to not remembering you, that is a refrain I have heard far too often of late."

"I am sorry about that. Would I could help you regain your memories, but from what Harry said before he collapsed, they seem to have been excised, wiped out rather than blocked?"

"That was the impression I got from the battle yes," Hela said wearily, moving towards the door as Ororo opened it. "Certainly I did not regain any memories after cleansing my body of the taint within it. Is the seidr man awake as yet?"

"No, though I think he will awaken soon. But waiting for him to wake up gives me time to show you around if you wish it?"

Hela stepped out of her room beside Ororo, staring down the hallway she found herself in. It was a stone and wooden hallway with banners here and there, tapestries and a feeling of life to it that Hela was unused to, with nothing of the wild bawdiness of Valhalla or Sessrúmnir to it, which was a blessing really. "I think I would like that thank you. And perhaps you can tell me more about how you and I have met before?"

Ororo nodded, and walked with Hela beside her, explaining what Camelot was, pointing out the various rooms on this floor most of which were devoted to the Custodes Mundi's personal rooms, and in the case of Piotr his family. She also told Hela how they had first met in person: as Hela was going about her business collecting souls and Ororo had been involved on the other end of things.

From there she went on to explain how Ororo had sort of given the okay for her and Harry to get to know one another further, not courting so much as pre-courtship really, then the night against the twice-dead. That nearly made Hela stumble, that she had been interested in a mortal human, and that the man in question was already involved with not one, but three women!

By the One Above All, what was I thinking? Hela flushed slightly, thankfully unseen behind her half-mask. I'll admit the man is handsome and powerful, his presence even somewhat intoxicating, but even so… to be as forward as this woman claims I was? Yet at the same time Hela could not help but think that there was something right about the idea, and that something told her it hadn't just been Harry who had impressed her enough to possibly win her interest.

Soon they descended a series of stairs, and Hela found herself in the main hall of the castle, which was obviously the center of life too. At present it was bustling with a class of some kind on one side of the room. One the other there was a heated discussion between a few young men going on and two women going over what looked like some kind of conjured illusions or something in the center.

"That is a technological device rather than a magical one," Ororo explained gesturing to it. "It is a hard light projection, which allows us to interact with it and through it the computer that generates the image."

Hela nodded absentmindedly as if she understood what that meant, before turning her attention on a redheaded beauty at the far hall who was busy manipulating something else, some kind of construction or other in midair, talking into the air and being replied to by another woman's voice as well as a man's. "Life goes on I suppose," she said absentmindedly, as she stared at the woman's aura, shock and wary respect filling her.

"It's obvious that you all have a lot more going on than just aiding me or fighting the enemy that was behind my loss of memory. Nevertheless I do tender my thanks for the efforts that you all have put forward on behalf of myself and my realm."

"That was actually a very personal mission for us," Ororo said quietly. "One most of us were involved in one point or another. Your lack of contact with us was only one warning we had that something was going on. I don't suppose Dani told you about the other issues there?"

"She told me we had met, but that is all. Other issues? I have to say she felt rather odd to my senses, nothing I could pinpoint however," Hela said turning to her slightly, though her eyes continue to stray to the redhead.

That aura, she can only be an avatar of the Phoenix! Hela didn't know how she knew that, and put it down to herself being a servant of Death. The other woman seems to be normal physically, but to her senses, the woman's status was exceedingly obvious. As was the fact the woman was pregnant, though the physical changes were only now starting to become evident.

Jean felt eyes on her, and waved away the revamped plans to split the derelict fleet three ways and what to do with each group, signing off and telling Carol and Reed that she would be back soon. Turning she found Ororo and Hela at the entrance to the great hall, and moved towards them, smiling at her friend and lover. She put her arm around Ororo's waist, feeling Ororo's arm around her as she nodded to Hela. "Hela," she said warmly. "I know you don't remember me, and I know that you've probably heard this before, but we have had several discussions, and amusing ones at that."

"I've heard it so often I'm rather getting sick of it," Hela said bluntly in exasperation, staring openly at the woman. "An avatar of the Phoenix and a servant of Death getting to know one another, will wonders never cease?"

As Jean shrugged her shoulder Hela went on. "And I see you are also with child, congratulations I suppose. Would they be this Harry Potter's?" Hela wasn't certain how she felt about that at all honesty.

On the one hand she obviously had no right to feel jealous, but on the other hand that did seem to irritate her somewhat adding to the fact Hela was being told that she had been courting with the man who was so involved with three other women already. Far too much like the things the Grecians used to get up to.

"We can show you those memories you know," Ororo said gently, gesturing over Hela's shoulder. "We haven't finished our tour yet. I think that you'll find the Room of Requirements fascinating especially in the pensieve format."

"The what?" Hela asked, tilting her head slightly at the unfamiliar word.

Ororo smiled, removing her arm from around Jean's waste and taking one of Hela's hands. "Come with us please."

Hela nodded, following the two out, stopping occasionally as other young men and women came and went, bowing politely to her whenever they saw her. The number of people here who seemingly knew her was off-putting, but how happy they were was putting Hela more at her ease with every passing moment.

They went down more stairs into what seemed the former dungeons section of the castle. Walking down Hela blinked staring as the walls seemingly opened up, presenting a window as they walked. "That is an interesting display of quite intricate magic."

Ororo blushed as Jean chuckled, shaking her head. "Harry did that for Ororo here."

"Better than continually using cheering charms all the time," Ororo said sighing sadly. "I wish I could get over my fear of claustrophobia, but I cannot."

For some reason the sight of this normally regal, poised woman being so bothered by something touched Hela and she reached out gently lay a hand on Ororo shoulder supportively, removing it quickly when she realized what she had done. The smile she got from Ororo however made her smile in turn, and Hela realized that perhaps while her memories had been taken, the feelings of them and the friendships she had fostered at one point between these people was still was still somewhere within her. It was odd, and worrisome but at the same time, also very comforting. She didn't really know what to think at this point about all this.

Moments later Hela still didn't know what to think as they began to watch the memory of the fight against the Draugr and the aftermath from Ororo and Jean's perspective. She nodded to Ororo and Ororo did the same when the memory of the ceremony they had conducted came up, and Ororo asked quietly, "The children's souls, are they…?"

"They are happy and slowly being returned to the wheel as they should be," Hela said firmly. "I could show you them if you wish."

"No," Ororo said with sad smile. "Your word is good enough for me. Let them enjoy their rest as they had too short a time to enjoy their life."

That made Hela smile and she turned her attention back to the memory. Hela's earlier horror at that many Draugr gave way to shock as the memory went on. Her pain and sorrow at the motifs on the wall brought a gasp to Hela as she once more went through what the version of her in the memory had which then faded in turn into embarrassed amusement as the party began. Unlike the earlier portions of the memory the memory of the party simply made her feel happy, surrounded by friends and family as they held a wake for the children and those who had been dishonored in death as well as their own survival.

Hela flushed hotly at the site of herself becoming drunk and flirting with Harry in such an outrageous manner or at least what Hela thought of as such. Ororo and Jean's laughter at her expense should have caused Hela to feel some ire towards the two women, but it was rather like sisters commiserating with one of their own, and it made her feel welcome again. It made Hela wish she had a version of this memory of her own with a force that Hela would have never expected. Yet it wasn't, and watching it like this almost made it worse. It was as if it was having to another version of herself have something she could not, to see exactly what had been stolen from her.

Ororo seemed to pick up on her sudden sorrow and paused the memory before it ended. "Are you all right?"

"No," Hela answered sharply. "No I am not, but I…"

She looked at the two women, their concern for her, not love certainly, but certainly friendly affection. "No," she said again in a far more different tone as she made a decision. "But I think perhaps I will be. Where is Harry now?" She asked, using Harry's first name for the first time since waking up.

"Still in bed, along with Emma," Jean supplied after a second having checked through their telepathic link.

"Emma is not a frontline fighter I take it?" Hela asked. Her feelings on that woman were just as confused if in a very different way than towards these two. "I don't suppose I have any memories of her do I?"

"Afraid not," Jean said, shrugging. "Harry and Emma were going to try to meet you a few days after this happened, but then we ran into another crisis. We have enemies of course, beyond these whatever they are that are trying to control you, and we'd found the base of one of them at that moment so our priorities changed, sorry."

"No apologies necessary. Just judging from the sheer number of people here in Camelot it's obvious you have many affairs that require seeing to," Hela replied, shaking her head. "I would like to understand how much else is going on in fact, what all your up to beyond helping me and the rest of the Asgardians."

"We can do that I suppose, though it'll take some time," Jean said with a laugh as Ororo rolled her eyes at that bold an understatement. "Frankly we've got so much on our plates it's not even funny these days, though thankfully Harry has begun to learn the art of delegation."

"A necessary skill for any jarl," Hela replied with an approving nod. "Still, best to start at the beginning."

OOOOOOO

Harry woke up a few hours later, and found Hela sitting by his bedside, reading from a newspaper of some kind. "You have been busy," Hela said admiringly, shaking her head and looking over at him thoughtfully.

"I suppose we have yes," Harry said, pushing himself up in bed, shaking his head at the pain there that told him he had overused his mental faculties with his magic. The shadows had come at him in the direction Harry had never expected, and dealing with them had taken it out of him mentally if not physically.

The two of them stared at one another for a moment, unsure what to say. Harry opened his mouth several times before closing it, thinking before simply saying, "So, I suppose Emma and I at least have earned your trust?"

Hela laughed, shaking her head. "Yes you did that but…" she frowned. "I won't allow you or the others to emplace your versions of our various interactions in my mind. That would be far too much like what I have just been through. And it would also be odd, seeing memories of that nature from a different perspective. However," she went on hesitantly, reaching out to take his hand and squeezing it. "I am willing to remain here and build new ones if you'll have me."

There were several levels of meaning going on there Harry mused, and he nodded his head slowly. "You are welcome in Camelot, Lady Hela, for as long as you wish to stay." he said formally before smiling at her.

Hela smiled at him, her eyes behind her mask actually lighting up for a moment as she squeezed his hand once more.

OOOOOOO

Later that day Dani and Amara, after introducing the second girl to Hela, took her out into the real world beyond Camelot for a time to get her some clothing and acclimatize her more to the world as it was now. Harry and the others had already promised they would compare notes with Hela that evening: what she remembered from her past, what they had learned, and to think about these enemies that were controlling the Asgardians and what they could do as well as the extent of their powers. During this time Hela was introduced to the joys of a pedicure, and found her enthusiasm for staying on Earth rising astronomically.

However, Harry had other things he had to concentrate on. One of them was the daily briefing Dennis and Sage which he had missed the day before. Harry, Ororo, and Jean, sat down with Emma that afternoon hoping she would wake up, but not really expecting it as Dennis and Sage began their daily briefings.

Sage started by filling them in on the business side of things, where nothing had truly changed from the last report, except they had begun to see a sharp return on their investments in various Hellfire Club-connected companies. Not monetarily of course. Harry after all didn't own stock in most of those companies, rather material. "There are going to be some questions soon, about where all of that material is going, just like we questioned where the material sent to Stark Industries went." Sage warned. "At present I'm keeping everyone who could be looking into such things from finding out that all that material is ending up in our hands. The Hellfire Club's own assets are helping hugely there, both the companies' and the club itself."

None of the companies or people involved obviously wanted anyone outside the groups involved figuring out what was going on. The fact that all of them were making large profits and could see more profits in the future was a major part of that.

"Good," Harry said breathing in deeply. He looked at his high command as it were seriously. The only one technically missing at the moment was Reed though Harry wasn't certain if he would actually call him part of the high command or simply allied to said high command. Dr. Doom was most definitely in the 'allied' category. "I'm seriously concerned about the next round of Kree warships and what they might consist of. Remember what Marvel said, the next might well be a full fleet."

"By my estimate we have about two weeks of the next response can arrive, and we're preparing as fast as we can for it Harry, that much hasn't changed in the one day you spent resting," Jean chided, rolling her eyes. "Carol? You want to take it from here or do you have anything you want to say Sage?"

Sage's hologram looked over to where Dennis was sitting on his own chair facing the seats around the bed where Emma lay still comatose. "Sage and I have something to say, it sort of straddles our areas of interest but Carol can go first."

Harry nodded and turned to Carol who like Sage was present via the hard light program and their communication network.

"Works proceeding apace on Fortress Mars and the hyperspace trap device installation," Carol began briskly. "We think we've got another week or so of work before its ready to go. We're working the droids and as many human teams as possible around the clock on that project Harry. We're running into more accidents, nothing deadly yet since that one incident you and the others helped stave off but and in fact Mars is actually a more hospitable environment and zero-G, but if we keep working the teams it's only a matter of time." she finished in a warning tone. Harry understood what she was asking. Should they slow down work, and stave off more accidents, or keep pushing it? Frowning momentarily he asked the air, "Dilly?"

The ancient house-elven majordomo appeared in front of him bowing formally. "Master called?"

"Could Hogwarts survive if we transferred say 10 more house elves up to our projects in space?"

"Easily master, we could do without fifteen or more here. Even with all the kiddies, there still be too little work to go around just yet." The elf replied promptly before going on accusingly. "Yous make everyone clean up after theyselves master, and even cook too occasionally. It not be right!"

"Good," Harry said, ignoring the house-elf's complaints with the ease of long practice. "Pick out the best poppers among those still available here at Hogwarts. "Cory?"

Cory popped in immediately. "Master called Cory?"

"Cory, I'd like to reassign you from being my personal house-elf for a time. You will all be heading up to Mars, go through the runic doorway we've set up rather than trying to pop there ok?" He admonished, and Cory chuckled his ears wiggling in embarrassment. "You'll be assigned there until work on the project my human workers are working on at present is finished.

Both House-elves' ears flicked up in interest, and Harry laughed. "Sorry, it's a little too technical to rely on house elves for most of it. But your jobs will be to watch, and make sure that any humans injured are popped away immediately." Cory nodded seriously looking over at that older house elf. "Cory will do so master, and will find the best poppers among those available. Can," he asked hesitantly "can Cory reassign Clare?"

"It will be up to Clare of course," Ororo said. "But I don't see any problem there. Clare?"

Clare appeared from where she had been watching over Kitty. After being explained she nodded promptly. "I's have no problem leaving fuzzy mistress for that amount of time master," she said looking over at Harry.

"That does it then," Harry said and the three house elves promptly popped away. "That's the best we can do on that. We need the trap device up and running Carol. We've run into three stupid commanders thus far, we're due to be hit by a smarter one and I want an ace in the hole when we do."

"That's a terrifying thought, but an understandable one." Jean said dryly.

Carol nodded at that too, and continued explaining the work going on in space. They'd pulled workers and droids off the other space-based projects, pushing them to finish the anti-ship defenses on the Ravenspires just in case, though transferring the workers to Mars had severely depleted the size of the workforce in orbit.

At that point Sage spoke up, looking over at the spymaster. "And that brings me to the area of intersection with Dennis. Dennis?"

The old English gentleman leaned forward looking at those present physically and the holograms of those who were not. "As you know we've begun hiring from various nations now, both for the expansion of Carol's think tank and the actual workforce in space. We've run into a few problems locally in Asia and other areas, but those are simple ones and as I said local issues. However one of our bases in the hiring posts in Africa has ran into a group from what we assume to be AIM who were trying to grab the scientists for themselves. It seemed to spur of the moment thing, but the local police forces lost several dozen men, and the building housing our hiring office was torched. We didn't lose any workers thankfully, but it was near run thing and several of them are in the hospital."

"If it's not already in place I want those workers to get the best health and medical they need as soon as possible," Harry said promptly. "AIM is beginning to irritate me."

"The feel in the international espionage community is that AIM is getting as desperate as Hydra, but they still have resources enough to lash out rather than go into turtle mode. Hydra also has something going on, and there've been some troop movements in Russia of late that concern me…" Dennis said slowly.

"Troop movements like they're going to move across their borders into other countries?" Harry asked quickly, sitting up as Ororo did the same. Jean didn't, having already heard this before but she was frowning.

"Something of that nature at the very least. Their ambassador to the UN has started to make noises about Dr. Doom's actions there, and well Russia was always felt that area was their own backyard. Alone, Russia is simply a powerful country, add the former USSR countries back into their fold, and they become an empire."

"An empire with a history of intolerance towards not only gays but religions and other minority groups and more recently mutants, not pleasant," Harry muttered. "Still, Dr. Doom can probably handle anything they throw at him militarily. I wouldn't want that to become a serious concern however, so keep an eye on it. I have no doubt he is also aware of this, but if not prepare a packet to share with Dr. Doom at the earliest opportunity."

"As for AIM, has Italy Spain and the other countries we've been in contact with moved on the information forwarded to them on the AIM bases in those countries?"

"No." Dennis said sadly shaking his head. "Most governments are slow to act on foreign-given information but still…"

Harry frowned. "I'll set up another meeting with William, see what he thinks about it. However, if they haven't moved against those bases in a week we will. I'm getting very tired of terrorist groups thinking they can have a go at us, no matter how obliquely."

"Anything positive anyone wants to report?" he asked only half-jokingly.

"Quite a bit actually. A few of our observers down in Rome says the Pope is close to publishing an encyclical letter on how mutants are to be looked at by the church. That will possibly be followed up by a public announcement of some sort, though it's doubtful he will speak ex cathedra when he does."

"About damn time," Jean groused, laying her head against Harry's shoulder for a moment. "I realize that the whole Catholic edifice is huge and slow, but come on people, there's slow and then there is fence sitting!"

"I would be inclined to agree with you except for the fact that the church is more worried about schism then about what people on the outside think." Dennis said simply. "It's a horrifying concept to them, and a religious split on this subject should worry everyone given how much the Friends of Humanity have been able to use freedom of religion to cover their actions in America."

"All right I can agree on that," Jean said as Harry remained silent, thinking. He wasn't any kind of atheist really, he had seen too much to believe there wasn't something out there. But despite that he didn't really have much interest in organized religions have all outside of his somewhat technical interest in the Asatru religion.

"Mystique and her team are in place in Cairo," Dennis went on changing the subject. "There's nothing to report yet, but their background stories seem to have held out to the usual people of interest there and abroad."

"Good," Harry said. "Hopefully they'll be able to find whoever is still trying to stir up trouble between mutants and humans and we can strike at them quickly. It is past time for humanity to become united against the problems facing us rather than continually trying to find new reasons to divide ourselves."

Everyone there nodded firmly at that, and looked at Dennis who smiled faintly. He looked at Sage who smiled as well, gesturing over to the bed. "Emma should be up and awake to tell you this since it was her connections that first made us aware of it. But Canada has come out and begun to put a bill on the works to make certain of mutant human equality through the law, and America's presidential race has started as well."

"Of course a lot of candidates have come out and put their names forward at this point, and we're at least a year away from anyone having much in the way of an actual plan to what they'll do as president, but four of them have come out in favor of mutant human equality." Dennis frowned. "One of the candidates is a major war hawk, but he's also pro-mutant rights, if in a very strange manner. I'd recommend asking Charles to take a look at him, both into his past and telepathically if need be."

"I would not be willing to get involved in any kind of political race," Harry said quickly. "I realize that's supposed to be the thing to do, special interest groups donating to their favored candidate, but I'm not comfortable with it. I'll willingly make speech I suppose," he said with a scowl, "but I won't spend money on it. That's like trying to buy the individual I back his way into office rather than letting him earn it on his own merits. Well, as much as they can in any democracy anyway, ruddy great population contest that it is."

Harry chuckled for an instant before going on thoughtfully. "However, if we find that anti-mutant groups are trying to donate to one or more of the candidates I'll willingly match the amount they spend. Keep it an even playing field, between the actual people trying to win the job."

He chuckled again, as did Jean and Ororo. Dennis and Sage looked on in confusion wondering what was funny not realizing how much planning Harry had begun to put in quietly on the idea of becoming king of his own little, and very well hidden nation.

"Emma also began to make overtures to the Mandarin, I don't know if she told you about that," Sage said slowly, moving on quickly from that topic. "It's going to occur in neutral grounds. Hoi An, in Vietnam, the city where you all apparently met Dennis? He has no assets there, and nor do we yet, so it made sense, and he refuses to leave Asia. I took the liberty of taking over those lines of communication and okaying the meeting for three weeks from now."

"Good," Harry said with a nod. "I'd love to get my hands on his anti-smog machine, and I'm sure we can come up with some form of trade there. And if working with him can open up China to our interests and get them behind our own plans going forward, it'll be a major step in the right direction. They have a monstrously large workforce that I would simply love to start putting to work."

Jean nodded firmly as did Ororo, though she was more hesitant. She looked at Sage and nodded at the woman, and Sage nodded back. "We've also begun to open up hiring centers in various countries of Africa. We're offering more incentives there than elsewhere, in particular educational aspects and medical. Ororo has already agreed to make a few speeches there in the next few weeks."

"Does that have anything to do with T'challa?" Harry asked looking at Ororo.

"Indeed. The strange thing is, I've mentioned him in front of Susan a while ago, and she seemed as if she knew something there but wasn't willing to tell us. Not her secret to tell I think. I hope it's not something that's going to blindside us, but I am rather afraid he didn't seem to get the message that you and I are together. If he flirts with me in a way I find uncomfortable or attempts to establish any other sort of relationship I am going to put him down hard," Ororo said grimly. "I'll apologize now if that gets in the way of our business and social ventures but there are some things I will not condone."

"You expect me to argue love?" Harry said with a smile, putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing. "If he's that pushy, go nuts. Now, anything else?"

OOOOOOO

That evening, Emma woke up still exhausted and unable to move her body out of bed, her head throbbing and her telepathy near useless, like a muscle strained near to the breaking point. Even so she might have tried to use it if not for a cool hand on her forehead and Jean's soothing voice speaking up from beside her.

"Easy Em, you've really strained yourself love, don't try to use your telepathy until that headache you're feeling goes away. We nearly lost you love, I don't want to see you hurt yourself now."

Emma chanced a nod, grateful that the move didn't make her head roll off her shoulders. "That would be rather bad wouldn't it?"

"Oh yes, especially considering how much of an idiot you were being before these puppet masters attacked in force." Jean's soothing tone turned biting at that, and Emma cracked an eye open once more to glance at the redhead incredulously.

"Tell me Emma, would you ever go into a business meeting without researching everything you needed to know about both the subject matter and the individuals you were dealing with?"

When Emma shook on of her hands no, unwilling to chance moving her head again, Jean went on. "So why the hell didn't you ever talk to us about Hela or her people's customs and beliefs? You insulted the lady of the hall, your host, and the Asgardians and the Kindred all take that thing very seriously. If Hela had wanted to she could have expelled both you and Harry, or assaulted you more than just the one push she gave you."

"But she didn't and that tells me a lot about her nature," Emma replied somewhat weakly. "I wanted to know how she'd react to me treating her as I did you when we first met."

Jean sighed. "I understand where you're coming from love, but damn it, don't do that again! Please? What if Hela had somehow rejected your aid later on, then where would you all be hmm?"

She leaned down, laying her forehead against Emma's. "We love you Emma just as you are, you don't have to prove how brave you are to us or anything like that, so please, just don't take chances like that again, okay?"

Tilting her head slightly Emma kissed Jean lightly on the lips. "I promise." Then she smirked. "Although if she starts something…"

Groaning Jean broke into chuckles, sending off a telepathic message to Harry that Emma was awake. Moments later Harry joined them. The three of them spent a few hours together talking quietly about what had happened, as well as the business side of things since he knew she was interested in that, and simply lying in bed cuddling with her as they talked.

Hela came in at one point and formally thanked Emma for her aid, though to Harry it was obvious there were still a bit of tension between the two women. He didn't know why they got off on such a bad foot, though possibly Emma's throwing up on Hela's clean floor and initial taunting had something to do with it.

Nonetheless Emma joined them for dinner that night, the five of them sitting around the dining table in the headmaster's quarters rather than joining the rest of the castle's inhabitants for the meal. Indeed, instead of having one of the house elves work on it, Harry and Ororo decided to make dinner instead.

Jean and Emma, after having been lifted through the air by Jean's telekinesis, took up the loveseat while Hela sat primly alone in one of the other chairs. But despite that physical distance, their discussion was warm and interesting. Decidedly on the light side, as the mortal women, though Hela wondered if that appellation could still be applied to Jean or even Ororo, filled Hela in on what Earth was like. In return she told them in general about Niflheim, telling them of her family as much as she could remember.

Harry frowned from where he was working on their dinner. "And you say that you're still connected to your realm? But there's no taint trying to attack your mind through that connection?"

"No, it was one of the first things I checked when I woke up." Hela frowned pensively, marshaling her thoughts. "I get the impression that the taint couldn't transfer from me to my realm, the taint was all in my physical body, as well as my mind at least at first. I think because in doing so they would corrupt the machinery of rebirth that my realm is part of. That would anger both my mistress and He Who is Above All."

"He Who is Above All?" Jean asked.

Hela waved her hands lightly in a vague all-encompassing gesture. "The original creator I suppose you could say. That is all he does, simply creates and then enforces the natural underlying laws of the universe. He does not care about mortals or anything else. You really don't want to have him involved at all on this level of existence."

"Understood," Emma muttered, shaking her head a little tenderly still. "Frankly I'm much more at home in the idea of god's like you then gods like that. I was never religious, it wasn't exactly encouraged in my family, but gods that are, well, understandable and sort of like humans only written larger is a much more welcoming thought to me than an all-powerful being like that."

"Yet you sit next to the Avatar of the Phoenix, one of the two most powerful existences in all of creation," Hela said dryly. "And over there is a man who could be an immortal, who could create re-create himself as a god, making dinner next to the Chosen of Gaea, the oldest and most powerful goddess of this plane."

Emma shrugged. "I met Jean as Jean Grey long before I understood this whole Phoenix avatar thing, same for the others really. And I've seen them come into their powers and retain what I would call their humanity if that didn't sound as if I was somehow insulting you without meaning to."

"As opposed to insulting me on purpose?" Hela asked archly, but went on before Emma could reply. "I am simply saying that your idea of what constitutes 'just like humans' seems to be a bit flawed."

With that she turned away again to watch Harry prepare dinner. Watching a man prepare a complex meal at all was odd, considering that among her people while a fireside meal would be looked over by a man, something complex like this would be a woman's purview and domain in the hall, with some men and other women perhaps helping her as needed. There was a startling amount of appreciation and some desire too mixed in with what her feelings were when watching him. It pleased her to know he had some domestic skills to him for some odd reason she didn't want to examine at present.

Ororo too was an oddity. The two of them had talked at least half the day away as they moved around Camelot and then after she returned from discovering the marvels of hair salons. Ororo was in form and manner a queen or goddess, Hela should know, she used a mirror everyday after all. But she was also at home in the kitchen, and seemed to take pleasure in that simple act, whereas Hela knew she would probably burn water should she attempt to cook.

"Done," Harry said eventually, turning towards the table as he set out a cooked salmon, along with Ororo's meal of light linguine and some fresh bread and fruit as well.

"It all looks magnificent," Hela said appreciatively, smiling at them both.

"I am so pleased that it meets with your requirements oh mighty Hela," Harry said with a grin and an unctuous bow, his hand scraping the floor.

"It does indeed, you may rise mortal, and partake of the fare yourself," Hela said grandly with a joking tone in her voice. The other two laughed while Ororo simply kissed Harry on the side of the head sitting down on his other side. Hela realized that she was sitting across from Ororo but that the table was round. All of them were equal here, a moment of symbolism that was not lost on Hela.

She watched in amusement as Jean filled up a fork and held it out it to Emma smirking. "Say Ahh…"

"I can at least feed myself Jean," Emma growled, grabbing the fork out of Jean's hand with a blush. She knew that someone had fed her earlier that day and while she was out of it, but she been so exhausted she didn't remember and was frankly happy at that bit of missing memory.

Harry Potter chuckled, and prepared a fork of his own before holding it out to Hela teasingly. "Say ahh?"

Hela glared at him hotly, flushing slightly at the teasing note in his voice, pushing his hand away and preparing her own meal quickly. She'd never had pasta and the sauce was something she'd never tasted, but it was very good, and the fish was excellently prepared.

"I don't suppose you have some of that ale from the party I apparently took part in? From what Ororo and Jean showed me it looks quite tasty."

As soon as she spoke that several steins of beer appeared in front of her, hovering in the air. "Good service," she muttered, reaching for one of them, then saluting them all before taking a drink.

The others did not partake in their own choice of beverage, instead drinking a kind of fruit juice. "A sign of solidarity," Ororo said gesturing to Jean whose pregnancy was showing now. "There is a link between drinking alcohol during pregnancy and a birth defect called Fetal Alcohol syndrome, and since Jean cannot drink we decided that we all would do without."

"I hadn't heard that before. A link between birth defects and drinking while pregnant?" Hela asked with strong interest. "Is this certain? There were many times that the peoples that followed those of my pantheon could not drink pure water and had to resort to thin or watered alcohol for safe drinking."

"The link was found a few decades ago, though of course the issue existed long before that."

From there the conversation segued into other things that was supposedly known now that had been implied or entirely unknown before, interspersed with conversation and light flirting over the meal between the three who were already involved. Nothing large, just a touch here or there, but enough to make it clear they were all involved with one another.

Hela at one point sat back watching as Harry complimented something about Ororo, pulling at her white hair with his fingers lightly as the two of them locked gazes, the love between them so obvious it practically sparkled in the air. To her other side Jean and Emma were engrossed in their own conversation, laughing at something. Hela didn't feel out of place watching them, they had let her in to a certain extent, but not quite all the way, it was hard to describe.

She was letting her hair down as it were and hadn't even realized she'd been doing it until that moment where she could step back from the actual conversation and realize it. That is as telling as the memories were, that I feel that comfortable with them already. I told Harry I would be willing to make new memories like this, but I didn't expect this connection to reform so quickly.

After dinner however, the conversation turned to more serious things as they moved from the dining room table to the sitting room. Hela sat in the one chair again as the three other women sat in the loveseat together, scrunched up somewhat but they seemed to enjoy it which of course Hela was aware of. This wasn't a harem with all the women concentrating solely on Harry. This was a loving multi-relationship, which thankfully set it apart from the Greek goings on she had been comparing it too in her mind.

Harry took the seat opposite Hela putting his feet up on the table in a deliberate attempt to seem casual, though his emerald eyes were hard as he looked off into the distance for a moment. "So, how to begin this discussion... How much do you remember about getting in touch with Dani and how that occurred?"

"I remember the gift itself as I told you in my halls. I remember a conversation about whether or not it was appropriate, though looking back on it my memory of that moment is itself disjointed, as if…" she frowned suddenly looking at Harry "as if half of the conversation's topic had been removed."

"I think that these creatures, whatever they are had gotten frantic at the point where they began to remove my memories, they wanted to be quick and dirty about it, not precise. Whereas I already know, that my long-term memories were a most masterful example of manipulation," Hela said grimly nodding her head thanks to Jean in and Ororo.

Harry hummed grimly. "I'd like to say I'm sorry for that but frankly I'm glad we've begun to worry them, and I hope that your escape worries him even more. Worried enemies sometimes make mistakes."

"Or lashes out and causes trouble," Hela replied tartly. "Still, go on. Start with that memory."

Harry nodded, explaining what Dani had told them about her meeting with Fenris, how her spirit had seemingly gotten lost in transportation, which made Hela start for a moment, wondering about what previous connection Dani had with her realm. Harry also showed the skin Dani had brought back.

When they got to describing Dani's previous connection to the Asgardians however, the fact that Dani held Sigyn's memories inside of her, Hela gaped all of her poise deserting her. "Who's soul is hidden inside Moonstar!?"

"Your mother's, at least from the old tales your adopted mother," Ororo said slowly. "She seems to have fond memories of you. Dani has shared much of her conversations with Sigyn with us, she sounds like a pleasant and formidable woman. Though of course any woman who had to raise someone as willful as you and your siblings and deal with someone like labeled 'the Trickster God' would have to be."

"Are you certain that she is who she says she is?" Hela asked after a moment, her hands clenched around one another as she seemed to do battle with the idea, or rather that her memories had been so abused. "I mean no disrespect, but I have never heard of that, but then I wouldn't would I?" She spat to one side harshly. "Pleasant memories of my family, would somehow have weakened the puppet master's control over me I suppose or interfere with the path they saw fit to put me on."

"And because of your connection to Death, you are already a little too far out of their control as it was," Harry replied with a nod whose grimness could not be understated. "I'm sorry for that," Harry said leaning over and taking hands are handing his squeezing gently.

The warmth of that contact and what she saw her eyes almost made Hela blush like a naïve maiden but she shook her head rapidly, moving on deliberately. "Go on," she said grimly, "Tell me what you found out about these enemies and the differences between what I and my fellow Asgardians believe and what these new 'Kindreds' do."

With Ororo's help Harry outlined what they discovered, up to and including the meeting with the Draugr, with Jean and Ororo then taking up the tale from there. Emma interjected at that point, telling Hela about Amora and what she had been doing on Earth, and the fact that there was no equivalent character in the Asatru myths. "She's gone now, along with Thor, summoned back to Asgard I suppose."

"So they are not just concerned about me, but about anyone being influenced to act in a manner outside of their parts in this grand play they've tried to create." Hela said, and Harry watched interested as her hands began to twist and warp the wood of the seat, not so much shattering it, but treating it is if it was clay for a moment.

Her place in said play had infuriated her, as did the fact that many gods who had been married in ancient times no longer were, their spouses or children erased from life and memory. To rend families apart in such a way offended Hela greatly, family being a very crucial staple of the way her people worked, to say nothing about what they had done to her own.

After a moment Hela nodded slowly, her hands releasing their grip, and finally sighed. "All right, where do we go from here?"

She did not mean personally. She had decided somewhere along the line during this conversation that yes she was definitely still interested in Harry as she had been before her memories were taken. Emma was quite possibly a sticking point despite her amazing abilities, but Hela was willing to see if they could grow closer if that was what she had to do to court these other three. The blonde was not insufferable, merely prickly, which could be said for Hela's own nature, so perhaps time would wear away their edges.

At Harry's questioning glance she said those thoughts aloud. "I said I was willing to build new memories," she said, reaching over to take his hand. "That statement can be reiterated again in this particular area. But where do we go from here against these Shadow manipulators?"

"It's obvious that we need to do a lot more research on their abilities," Harry said wearily shaking his head. "The way they attacked my mind, I hadn't even considered that someone could teleport their power into another individual's mind like that. We need to think of ways to separate their victims from their powers. It's obvious that they are getting power from you, that's why they want you all under their thumb, we need to figure out how to separate them from the feeding trough as it were. How we go about that I don't know, not yet. For now, we'll work on your memories, prepare ourselves going forward, and we'll see."

Hela shook her head, a snarl of rage on her lips below her half-mask. "And do not forget that there are those who serve them, willingly or not. Garm reported that he smelled several different Fire Jotun Clans involved in the assault on us, and then there is Ororo's half of the tale! My own brother, Jormungundr willingly serving this group these Those Who Watch Above in Shadow, and he might not be the only one. Surtur himself might well have sacrificed his people for power, t'would be in keeping with that foul creature."

"Just call them TWATs Hela," Harry said, eliciting laughter from Jean and a thwack to the back of his head From Ororo while Hela looked blank and Emma rolled her eyes. "But I think we might have our own partisans out there too. Or at least Odin himself is aware of what is going on and is trying to strike back as he may." Harry described the amulet what Harry took to be Odin's Wanderer aspect had passed on to him, and how it had helped them find Jormungundar, aiding their saving Sigyn's body.

Later that evening as Jean and Ororo put Emma back to bed, the blonde woman still physically wiped out from her exertions, Harry took Hela down to see her mother. She had been placed into a special room, full of flowers and other things of that nature, but her crystal sarcophagus had yet to be opened.

Harry had examined it briefly before Emma woke up and discovered that the crystal containing Sigyn was made of pure magical power and was tied into her body and feeding off it. The spell had possibly been cast by the woman or someone close to her to protect Sigyn's body from further injury. Removing her would take some time, in fact a full-blown ritual one Harry would have to be very careful of constructing so that her life force didn't fade away with it. And even after that, they had no idea how to separate Sigyn's soul from her hiding place in Dani's blood and shift it back into her body.

Staring at the woman in the coffin Hela murmured. "She's beautiful. She seems strong, beautiful and from what your Moonstar said is kind and loving. Yet I cannot remember her at all. I could wish that at least some of my memories were not tainted!"

"I am sorry," Harry said, shaking his head. "I don't have very many memories of my own about my family, just my mother's final moments. But in know how important family is. I cannot imagine what you are going through Hela, but know we're here for you."

Hela nodded, and Harry, sensing she wanted to be alone with her thoughts left her there, still staring at the crystal sarcophagus holding the body of the woman who might be her mother. Some of her oldest, dimmest memories took on a new cast as she stood there and Hela suddenly wondered, If my long term memories of my mother were twisted to serve the part set out for me in this Ragnarok farce, then what of the memories of my father? Is Loki the evil man I remember or not? How deep does the manipulation, the trickery and deception of these puppet masters go?

She spent several hours there simply staring at Sigyn's body, and when she went to be that evening it was with a mind in turmoil. And rage. Lots of rage.

OOOOOOO

The next day before Harry could set up a meeting with William as he told Dennis he would, Harry was interrupted at breakfast with Jean as Dennis knocked on the door to their room, his knuckles making a staccato noise on the woodwork. So as to not wake up Emma who was still sleeping Harry quickly made his way down to the door as Ororo stuck her head out of the bathroom quizzically.

"Harry, we just got word, our generator complex in Devonshire was just attacked!"

A bare two hours later Harry, in his official capacity as owner of Arc Technologies, stood with Jean, and Emma looking at the wreckage of the outer generator complex listening to the police and SAS officers explain what they had discovered. As a terrorist attack this fell under SAS jurisdiction, but the police had been the first to respond, and their crime scene investigators had been quickly seconded to the SAS specialists.

The man in charge of the police on the scene, an orange-haired inspector in a dark coat began. "The attackers disguised themselves as some of the morning shift workers coming in. Something happened then that set off a security alarm, but by that time too many of them were already inside. One put something on the outer gate's control system frying it. Then two troop transports of some kind rolled in with some even larger truck of unknown type. Later on, as the attack ended they all got into that large truck and seemingly teleported away."

The man shook his head, somewhat bemused by what he was saying but there was no doubt about the event that had occurred or the technology that had to be used. "After that, the truck exploded, so thoroughly it didn't leave any parts larger than a thimble. During the attack the guards in the building gave a good account of themselves, taking out at least seven of the attackers, whose bodies they left behind. But it wasn't enough, and they weren't interested in taking hostages or leaving witnesses. We have over two hundred and fifty people confirmed dead so far."

"Are those bodies being kept separate? Not only for what they might tell us given time but also just in case of any… contagion?" Jean asked quickly at a mental nudge from Emma. Emma was currently invisible, her regular persona having no reason for being here.

While Jean was there to examine the damages to the complex, she was there to examine the minds of any survivors or witnesses. There were several witnesses to the attack from near the complex, since said station was ensconced into the city it served, yet they could tell her nothing they didn't already know. And there were no survivors among the generator station's workers.

"Yes ma'am, it was the first thing we thought about," the SAS man replied.

"Do the dead include the morning shift workers they were impersonating?" Harry asked, while Jean nodded, her face grim.

"Yes sir. We found their bodies, and those of their families in two cases, dead in their houses." the police officer replied, his face a rictus of rage.

"Damn it." Harry turned to a secretary Sage had assigned them when they had passed through Magical Minds HQ. "See any surviving family members get any aid they need. Anything they need, those men and women died in our employ and I will by god make certain their families are looked after. That includes anyone romantically connected to them. I'll also want to see our PR department as soon as we get back. We'll need to make a public announcement about this."

As the secretary nodded, rapidly tapping on his notepad, Harry turned to the SAS officer. "So, AIM?"

"Unless you know some other group that uses yellow hazmat suits as a uniform. Forty bruisers, seventy regular troopers, and one man in a strange purple version of their uniform were spotted taking part in this attack." The SAS man, a middle-aged and almost scarily fit captain, said dryly, if grimly. "We were able to track the main attack force back to a warehouse just outside of town, but there's no trail to follow from there. We don't have an idea yet where the main attack group came from beyond that point, though our techs are going over the entire warehouse with a fine tooth comb."

"Why weren't they spotted before they hit the generator complex? If they had to pass through the city I mean."

"They used a kind of virus loaded into the computer running traffic lights to keep any traffic away from their route, and the large truck releases some kind of EMP blast. We have had at least sixty plus people coming forward saying their phones just stopped working after they spotted 'the bloody mental truck with even more bizarre looking drivers'. As far as we can tell they didn't care if they were seen coming or going so long as their target couldn't be warned in time." The police officer cut in.

"But they had to know those witnesses alone would have told us something. If so, what was the point of killing all of the workers inside?" Harry asked, his face like stone.

"We don't know my lord, though it might have been sheer pique. I realize AIM is supposed to be organized by a cabal of mad scientists or some such, but their foot soldiers are still the kind of murderous fucks that fill any terrorist group." The SAS man added.

"The magical defenses worked and ported out the arc generator to the Forge so I'd wager he's right about that, Harry." The locals had been told about the security measures installed on the arc reactor, so they knew it hadn't been stolen, though most of course were still confused about the nature of those defenses.

"But I'd also say this is a direct retaliation to the attack SAS launched on their local base." Jean sent telepathically, at the same time moving over to one of the security systems, pulling out a small laptop that Reed had supplied her and Sage with the day after the attack on the cybernetics announcement.

She began to type in a few commands, her fingers flying over the computer, trying to pull up what she could of the battle on the complex's interior security cameras only to scowl as all she got was static at first. Leaving the others there she moved into the main building followed quickly by a few police specialists, who understood she had some programs the company could use to get more out of its own systems then they could.

Looking around, Harry realized the damage to the actual facility wasn't as bad as it first appeared. The Security station by the main gates was a total right off, and a lot of the electronics in the building would have to be replaced. But the building itself was relatively intact, and the power system could be repaired within a few days once they restore the arc generator to its rightful place. The city would be without power for those two days, but Harry had already contacted the mayor and had promised aid would be incoming to cover the loss of the generator within a few hours.

In return the mayor had gotten in touch with his king and had already had his agreement to station a company of infantry at the complex going forward to aid in security. The mayor and his people were as furious as Harry was, and thankfully put the blame of the attack on AIM regardless of others trying to say it was Arc Technologies being at fault for lax security or whatever other spurious reasons they had come up with to justify the company.

But despite all this forward planning the dead lost in this attack still infuriated and saddened Harry so he was in a dark mood by the time the locals finished wrapping up their reports. These reports alas amounted to knowing a lot of what had happened, but having no leads as to where the attack came from, which only made his mood worse. Of course we have the information on their bases scattered around in other countries, but the SAS already took both of those out, so where…

Jean's voice broke into his musing coming in over the com. "Harry, Emma, you have to take a look at this, and you might want to bring the locals too."

The group found Jean by a computer port set into the wall near the massive empty space which had before the attack housed the arc reactor. "What have you found Jean?"

Wordlessly Jean hit a button on her computer replaying a bit of camera footage. Whatever EMP device the attackers had been using had initially missed one of the security cameras, not for long, but it had caught something odd. One of the attackers, an AIM scientist of course was carrying a very odd looking device in his hands as he moved through the doorway toward the reactor only to cut off and stumble to a halt. Harry supposed that was the moment the arc reactor's intent based apparition array had activated.

But most of his attention was on the device in the man's hand as Jean enlarged that aspect of the video right at the moment where the camera had the best shot of whatever it was. It looked like a tube of some kind, almost like an overlarge pipe bomb, but the sides of it were clear, glass or something else see through, with something like a timed primer cap on one side and what looked like a needle on the other. The interior of it was filled with some kind of purple substance.

"Okay," Harry said slowly. "I have no idea what I'm looking at here."

"I think this could be a kind of gas or liquid. I don't know what it is, but it might have been designed to cause a chain reaction in the arc reactor." Jean said thoughtfully, staring at the image. "I think that makes a lot more sense than them being after the reactor itself. As high tech as it is, there's no way AIM doesn't' know about arc technology. The metals we use to get the most out of such a small reactor might be more interesting to them, but not enough for this kind of attack."

"They wanted to blow it up. Not so much to blame us, but to cast doubt on the arc reactor and our company then?" Harry said, his teeth clenched. "How big…"

"Enough to take out the entire city and then some." Jean replied grimly. "It the explosion was large enough to break the container itself, the whole city would have been lost."

"And don't think they couldn't have blamed your company for it Mr. Potter." Said the SAS captain. The police inspector seemed stunned, appalled by the disaster they had dodged. "If that had happened, the entire city, and any witnesses to the actual attack, would have been lost as well."

Harry nodded grimly at that before stepping back, letting the locals go over the video as closely as they could, with Jean creating a copy for them on a disk to look at later.

An hour later Harry sat in the limo he and the others had taken from Magical Minds headquarters, Harry feeling that the Huayra was too sporty for the moment. Pulling out his phone, he called Duncan, King William's son. "Duncan I presume you've seen the news? Tell your father that if the SAS want in he has until midday to decide. AIM's just gone from a nuisance to a real enemy, and I refuse to let them strike at us without striking back."

OOOOOOO

Hela made her way through the castle, a small, somewhat bemused smile on her face as she made her way through someone else's halls, though the rest of her was wondering about where everyone was. That they have no one watching me is a sign of trust which I can appreciate, yet I would rather have had Ororo, Harry or Jean around when I woke up to talk to.

Walking through the halls she found several classes going on, each group of as many as fifteen and as little as five being taught by teachers. In one she spotted Illyana sitting next to Melody reading together while Hedwig perched on the young seidr's chair leaning over her shoulder to read from the same text. It was an odd sight to see so many being taught thus, especially mathematics, reading and writing, but there was a rightness to the sight too.

But the only other adults she saw were a few 'teens'. A few of them moved and had a look in their eye of men and women, others did not, but all were hurrying to classes or about their business.

When Hela reached the main hall, she found Garm looming over a young, thin redheaded young girl just on the cusp of womanhood, several other teens and two women who were talking quietly among themselves beside a large crate of some kind which disappeared as she watched. Hela's senses were such that she knew it had been teleported away, though it took her a moment to realize it must have been by one of those little servant creatures that had helped with the dishes after last night's meal. "Garm?"

"Mistress!" Garm turned, lopping over to her side quickly, leaning down to stare at her in the eye. "Are you well, mistress?"

Behind him, Hela could see the girl breathe a sigh of relief before looking at Hela then away, crossing herself.

That act made Hela frown, but since this was not her halls she decided not to take umbrage at it, instead answering Garm's question. "I am well my guardian, as you seem to be. Your wounds from the battle against the tainted Jotun are all healed? And are you comfortable here?"

"Most comfortable mistress, the seidr man is a true Jarl here, with leagues of forest land for me to roam." Garm gestured with twitch of his massive head to the girl he had been talking to. "I have also taken it upon myself to get that young puppy to be more comfortable in her skin. She is what the locals call a werewolf mistress, like unto the skin shifters of old. It is her blood gift, many of the younglings here that have something more to them. Indeed the only one without a blood gift here is a young girl of local royal blood."

Cocking her head Hela examined the girl, nodding. "I see, well we might be here for a while, as long as you are comfortable that is the important thing. We might need to talk in the future about our role going forward with this war the Shadows seem to have launched against the Vanir and Aesir, but that will need to wait until we have a target. Until then, my realm no longer needs its guard at present, so however you wish to spend your time is up to you. But have you seen Harry around, or the others?"

Garm shook his head but an elderly gentlemen working on a huge map of Midgard which was hovering in the air turned to Hela. She idly wondered if that was a magical spell of some sort, or more of this technology that Jean had seemed so enthusiastic about.

"Greetings milady, I am Sir Dennis, the resident spymaster." The older gentleman introduced himself, bowing from the waist. "As to your question, there was an emergency that Harry and the others wanted to check into personally. Harry is still dealing with our response to it, but Ororo should be back here soon."

"Ah, an attack of some kind I presume," Hela chuckled, looking the map over with a critical eye. "I imagine that is all too regular an occurrence with how much Potter has spread himself out. Fighting for the rights of those with blood gifts, trying to put together a merchant empire, trying to devise space-based defenses, and oh yes, aiding me…" She finished, smiling in a way that made Dennis flush, turning away as he muttered under his breath about 'bloody lucky bastards'.

"But you say Ororo will return soon? What of Jean or Emma?" She might not like Emma as much as the others, but trading barbs with her was at least somewhat amusing, and she was eager to continue her education in all things Midgard if she could not continue her discussion about the Shadows and what they could do there. She was not so arrogant as to think that danger could supersede all the other responsibilities Harry and his faction were dealing with.

"Emma has her own business to see to, and Jean is involved in a news conference today, so she won't be returning. Indeed, she'll be gone all day very publicly taking a licensed private jet to make certain that no one questions how she gets from one place to another so quickly." Dennis replied, though Hela was uncertain she understood what he was talking about. Some type of subterfuge certainly, but what type eluded her.

Ororo chose that moment to walk through the halls main doors, nodding politely to the group of teen and the two women there before smiling at Hela. "Hela, are you well? I know that our conversation last night was disturbing on many levels."

"Disturbing indeed, but there is scant I can do about much of it." Hela looked around then leaned in, her voice dropping. She had no desire to air her issues or distress in public. "I spent a quarter of the night trying to figure out if the woman in that strange container is really my mother, and having no success. Then I spent the next quarter trying to think of a way to get Sigyn, if that is truly her name, out of there, again with no success."

Nodding in agreement Ororo decided to not reiterate their position that Sigyn was who she said she was. Hela was having enough problems without them making a point of pointing out that they knew more about her past, at least her family past, than she did. "I take it you are looking for something to do then? We are sort of lacking in any way to follow up against the Shadows."

Harry had been adamant about that, above and beyond the lack of any real target. He had walked in assuming they would fight him like Shadow creatures, larger and more powerful versions of the Dementors. They hadn't, and instead they had attacked him in a way he had not anticipated, and then brought a military force to the party. It had been far too close, and they could not afford to underestimate their abilities or resources again or overestimate their own, which would be just as fatal.

"Indeed. What are you up to might I ask?" Hela asked curiously, seeking to know more about her hosts and…potential interests.

"We are heading over to another one of our holdings. We have quite a bit of work left to do there before it becomes a viable one, but it is ours, through right of conquest as the locals put it." Ororo said, smiling internally as she wondered about how Hela would react to the Savage Land. "You're welcome to come along if you wish. Indeed, as some of the things I am going there to do at present resolve around local judicial and administrative matters, your aid would be most helpful."

Hela nodded equably and joined the larger group, smiling lopsidedly as she noticed how Garm was almost herding the young werewolf. She seemed reluctant to go, but a single growl made her twitch in near-submission, nodding her head and moving forward. Ororo too noticed this and frowned but decided to let Garm see if he could get through to Rahne. Despite her kind nature and friendship with Dani, the young werewolf mutant was very much a loner in many ways in the castle, not fitting in with the teens, not fitting in with the kids and still very leery about magic at all given her upbringing, to say nothing about her feelings toward her own mutation.

The others had all made a lot of progress in becoming more comfortable with themselves, Rahne had not. Ororo knew the reasons for it, and Dr. Druid and Father Garnoff had tried to talk to her. She was over her bad reaction to priests, but when it came to her body, she refused to see it as anything more than a curse. Perhaps Garm's gruff, blunt manner and nonhuman status will be the tool needed to get her to open up.

The group was soon in the Room of Doors, where Hela stopped, looking over the runic work with interest as Ororo activated the doorway she wanted. A moment later they all stepped through into the main hall of the Citadel. "Come with me," Ororo urged, taking Hela's hand in one of her own. "You need to see this."

The two of them moved outside, and Hela almost gaped under her half-mask as she stared at the prehistoric jungle before her beyond a small cleared area. "Welcome to the Savage Land!" Ororo said from behind her, while Hela stared at a giant lizard beast of some kind rearing its long neck out of the jungle canopy.

OOOOOOO

Sinister smiled thinly as he set down the latest report. No one had been able to connect any of the 'spontaneous' clashes between homo sapien and superior, and they continued to go on despite the idea of peace and equality gaining momentum. And all his pawns were in place, the two sides agitating nicely in Genosha, soon he would be able to move openly there to take control of the whole country. His defenses were ready too, both scientific and what little in the way of magic he had been able to devise. Damn Morgana and her cowardice, this would be so much simpler with her aiding me, but still, by the time I am done Potter and his group can do their worst, I will be able to match them.

Looking up when a chime sounded Sinister sighed, turning his attention to the TV set into the wall of his lab. Jean Grey was due to be a part of some kind of press conference from Saab, the car seller. What she was doing with them he didn't know, but there were a lot of rumors going around.

I can respect her desire to use her mind in such a way, but still, it isn't what I would envision for a telepath or telekinetic of such power. Pity none of my assets could be in place to try and capture her at this press conference, but I suppose some chances must be allowed to slip between my fingers. Besides, my own analysis of Potter's growing material base isn't done yet, and I have no wish to show myself until I am ready.

Sinister's calm thoughts skidded to a stop as he saw Jean Grey, wearing a form-fitting business suit walking next to another, slightly older looking young woman with nearly the same hair color. The suit showed off Grey's body to good effect, without being anywhere near overtly sexual. But that was secondary to Sinister in the face of the slight bulge showing in her heretofore flat middle. "Computer, capture image and run analysis on subject Grey's body type!"

The last time I saw an image of Grey was several weeks ago, but far too short a time for her to develop a beer belly or bloat even as lightly as that. Is this what I think it is? An instant later Sinister's computers popped out a response. Sinister stared at it then began to connect the dots. Grey avoids Summers, leaves Xavier's band of do-gooders and joins this Potter's faction, all before he was truly a power in the world, long before he was even on my radar at all. Now she is pregnant, visibly so…

Slowly he sat down, then without warning his hands flashed out smashing into and threw the desk in front of him as he stood up once more, rage suffusing his chalk-white features. For several minutes the sound of smashed glass and furniture abounded as he let loose his rage. Decades of research, entire genetic strains twisted and brought together to try and create the ultimate mutant, two generations of Summers and Greys manipulated to make them both biddable in order to create the ultimate mutant, and what do I have to show for it, nothing!

That dumb bitch got knocked up by a damn mage,? Wizard genetics are utterly unlike that of mutants from what little I know of them given my association with Le Fay, and there is nothing to show if they are at all compatible. Who knows what kind of powers if any will carry over to their offspring? Useless and worse than useless!

He whirled, seemingly looking at the ruins of his lab or rather his current lab, though his mind was a thousand miles away. Even worse this ruins my plans to capture Grey during the Custodes inevitable strike at Genosha once I act there openly. Grey is certainly not going to be allowed to join any combat team, and given how I still have no idea where Potter's real base of operations is there is no way to kidnap Grey while the rest of the Custodes are away. But if she is involved in these public meetings, then perhaps there is a chance. And once fetus and mother are in my hands, who knows what manipulation I could force on the fetus' genes to make things go my way. Perhaps Potter's genes, with the right touch, could be made to be even better than Summers'.

A second later he turned back to his work with more energy than before. He had work to do.

OOOOOOO

To say that William was incensed at this attack on United Kingdom soul was an understatement of apocalyptic proportion. He closed his cell phone after getting off the phone with a damage inspector on sight before leaning back in his chair. Raising one hand to cover his eyes for a moment then held the hand out in front of him, looking at the signs of age and weariness there. But it is still strong hand, and it is still my hand that defends this realm.

"These AIM terrorists have killed citizens of my kingdom," he said sternly looking over at his advisers. "As such, I fully agree with Guardian on his choice of action." Since they were talking about a military operation William decided to use Potter's misnomer rather than his real name. Though considering the action had been centered upon one of Harry's business holdings, it was a somewhat legal gray area.

"General Demontebanks," William went on turning to his military adviser, his voice cool and collected. "I realize we have been holding back attacking the last AIM base in our territory, for fear of giving the game away as to how we knew they were there, but that concern has lost its import. "I want it gone. Indeed, I want every base of this terrorist group we know about destroyed regardless of where they are or what nation they reside in."

"Your Majesty, you cannot," said the Prime Minister, before Williams eyes turned to her and she stilled. William might be old, but he was King and his glare had the power to silence even so doughty a woman as Margaret Thatcher.

"Irrespective of the sovereignty of these nations, they house terrorists, terrorists who have now taken it upon themselves to strike at our nation." After a moment though Williams their lesson. "We will tell the commanders to be discreet as possible and rely on Guardian to clear up any hint of our involvement. His special abilities should be very useful for that. We will also inform the nations we have already sent word to about the bases in their realms that we will be doing so if they do not within the next day."

Now it was the Foreign Secretary's turn to make to speak but William went on implacably. "It has been long enough. If a nation truly has sovereignty, that is the ability to see to both the morale and the defense of said, they will have already made plans to strike at these terrorist bases. If they do not, they cannot then turn around and complain about us doing their jobs for them."

The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary both winced at the dry biting tone in William's voice, but the rest of the cabinet all simply nodded their head. "I'll alert the SAS," said the general, getting to his feet with a smile, still not used to having the full range of movement of his body once again.

William nodded then flipped open his phone again as a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Potter, is there any way you could see your way to figuring out how to cut off communications from the various bases as we attack them? Surprise after all is worth a legion."

It turned out that Harry could indeed do so.

It came as a surprise to no one that GIGN took the strongly worded professional courtesy 'just so you know old boys were going to be doing this' hint very seriously. That very night they launched three operations across France to destroy AIM bases in its territories backed by the French Foreign Legion. They even smashed one base just across their border with Spain. All of these were classic smash and flash assaults, leaving evidence of the terrorist presence but fading before local authorities could figure out what was going on. Later the French government would release official statements about all but the attack in Spain, but the Spaniards would be able to connect the dots easily enough, yet would not care enough to make an official complaint.

Losses among GIGN on these attacks was heavy however. Each attack was led by a platoon from the intervention Force of the GIGN and a team of Force Observation/Recherche, backed by a minimum of two squadrons of Mobile Gendarmerie troops. Despite outnumbering the defenders, they ran into meat grinders in two of the bases, and never had technological superiority.

None of the French however could dispute the need after finding that two of the bases were testing mind control drugs of various types. The third was a training zone for regular infantry, hence the losses the attackers sustained there. And the last was a weapons development site. Most of the weapons there were destroyed in the battle, and the defenders had time to wipe their systems, but the fight had nearly wiped out the four squadrons assigned to that

In Canada the Canadian Special Operation Forces Command went to work. Thankfully they had still had a few homegrown heroes, which helped them out. Still losses among the Canadian special forces was nearly equal the French. Even the SAS, when they went in with out the Custodes, suffered losses. AIM simply had a larger technological base than most Special Forces units could deal with without piling up the bodies. Nonetheless they did do so gleefully.

And it wasn't as if Harry had been less than forthcoming with his own technological innovations to the SAS. At this point small arms development had reached such a pitch that Harry was able to outfit every SAS man who went on these missions with a few weapons, and he even got nearly all of them back afterward too. The four that he didn't destroyed themselves thanks to the security spells on them before anyone could find anything out about them. Harry liked William and his government, that didn't mean he wanted to arm them save against alien enemies.

The Custodes Mundi also took part of course, split into two uneven groups. Nikolai and Wyatt were seconded to the SAS and Captain Britain, who for this operation was dressed as a single SAS operative to be the strong arm against one base. Given its placement the base was possibly one of the more important AIM bases, deep in the Northern Limestone Alps in Austria. The Austrians had not replied to the professional heads up so the base was fair game under Harry and William's orders, though the group would be careful to not leave much evidence behind despite that.

This operation was a full nighttime operation. Even the stars overhead were obscured by cloud cover so it was as black as pitch when Nikolai, Wyatt and the rest of the SAS teams with them were dropped seamlessly into the nighttime forests by flying carpets, something that had made more than one of the SAS men look askance at their new companions. Much of their chagrin went away after they found out how fast, silent and unseen the carpets moved.

The rest went ahead as Vanguard and Coyote took the lead, moving through the forest toward their target with the ease of long practice from one and harsh training in the other. Occasionally Coyote would stop, picking out tracks or marks or people having moved through the forest ahead of them. When that occurred he motioned the SAS around quickly.

Vanguard too was an expert at spotting traps, even a little better than the SAS troops. At one point he found a perimeter alarm, which they couldn't get around except for climbing up into the trees and jumping over it. Since this perimeter alarm consisted of not one but two rows of devices, that was a tall order.

Here Wyatt showed why his team name was Coyote popping out of existence in one place to appear elsewhere, moving forward quickly followed by Captain Britain, who flew through the treetops to avoid the perimeter alarm. They then set up a small zip-wire, which Vanguard and the rest of the SAS troops used to bypass the perimeter alarms while Coyote used his helmet's sensors to make certain there were no traps or alarms nearby. A few minutes of slow movement later they came within sight of the target.

This place was supposedly a prison complex, owned and operated by the Austrian government, but astonishingly there is no prisoner transfers in or out for over a year and a half, and no visitors had ever come here.

From there, Nikolai and two of the SAS specialists took over, clapping hands on cut cocaine Captain Britain and Coyote's backs as they moved forward, disappearing into the dark ahead of the rest of the teams. Reaching the base of the prison's outer wall Nikolai pulled on special climbing gloves which he used to scale the wall. It was slow going, he had to make certain that no one heard his ascent, and more than once he spotted guards moving around on top of the wall. Those guards were dressed like normal prison wardens, but Nikolai noticed that one of them had a high-tech rifle that looked like someone's version of a laser weapon.

Marking that one out as someone he needed to take out even quicker than the rest, Nikolai finished his ascent of the wall, waited a few moments for guard to pass before slipping over the top of it. Moving behind the man quickly, he grabbed him around the mouth and nose with one hand around, pinching the nose quickly while covering the mouth, while he locked in a hold on the man's neck, snapping it quickly and silently.

Elsewhere the other two SAS specialists started their own assault silencing the guards on duty and quickly moving towards the two guard towers from where the lights were flashing. One of them tossed a grenade up into the watchtower, while Nikolai pulled out his own, thumbing the catch and quickly following suit. The two watchtowers exploded bright red and orange in the night as screams abounded and the alarm finally sounded.

Outside the others all saw this and Captain Britain rocketed forward, slamming into the outer door of the prison, slamming it off its hinges to let in the rest of the attackers. Coyote appeared on the wall next to his teammate at the same moment, his rifle on his shoulder.

The first part of his job done, Vanguard equipped his sniper rifle from the runes on his hand which glowed briefly unseen under his gloves. As he felt the rifle come to his hand he noticed the urge to eat something come to him for a moment but it was easily ignorable. Putting the rifle to his shoulder, he began to fire down into the group of troopers that had just come out from the interior of the prison complex in response to the explosions as Coyote did the same.

"There don't seem to be any large bruisers here, which is good," Coyote grunted, watching one of his gauss rounds nail a defender through the head before going on to kill or wound four behind him they defenders being so packed in the doorway to the prison complex. "Though it seems that our gauss rounds is somewhat overkill."

"There is no such thing as overkill, there is simply dead or not dead enough," Vanguard quipped. He turned quickly, his own shot destroying a popup turret of some kind that had just extruded itself from the wall, and Coyote did the same when other snipers joined them on the wall firing down into and through the doorway leading into the building, halting the advancing defenders.

The rest of the SAS troops charged forward, moving across the courtyard using fire and movement, but there was no cover here. Three went down to defenders firing from the few windows facing the courtyard, and several more fell back as they reached the entrance.

Coyote lined up a shot through one of the windows, killing whoever was inside before pushing at Vanguard's shoulder. "Go, we've got this!"

Vanguard nodded, leaping down into the courtyard and racing forward, his mutant power activating. Bullets, energy blasts and even one odd electrical attack of some kind bounced off his shield and he quickly secured the doorway. The energy and bullets that hit him all reflected back the way they came, killing many, and his shield allowed, allowing the SAS to gain the entrance without further loss of life.

Once they were in Coyote popped up to the roof of the building. There he found several antiair guns, which he swiftly destroyed. After that he cut into the roof with a laser torch for a moment before jumping down into its interior. Then he opened a radio communication intoning solemnly "Firefox actual, this is Coyote, exterior is silenced, come on in."

An instant later the same carpets that the initial squad used came in, this time loaded heavily with troops with Shadow Cat leading them, controlling the magic carpets as she had before. Carpets could be given precise directions, but couldn't then move or fly in anything but a relatively straight line unless a magical was around to control them. A second later they touched down the roof, and a second front was opened against the defenders.

The fight continued from there for barely twenty minutes while the AIM of personnel tried to defend themselves but the outcome after that point was never really in doubt. The defenders didn't have any bruisers, and this place didn't even have many actual fighters at all. The reason for this became clear the moment the teams reached the second floor.

"This was an indoctrination center," Vanguard said grimly, still wearing his balaclava and gesturing all around them. The first three levels of the prison complex were still a prison, housing not the original inmates, but various scientists and other academic looking people taken in small raids or well-planned kidnappings the world over.

One of them was walking beside Vanguard now talking with him and the local SAS commander, as his fellows were quickly rounded up, in an organized fashion for an equally quick egress. His English was marked by a thick Greek accent, but understandable. "Yes. This place was used to break us, indoctrinate us, or try to convince us to join willingly. AIM seemed to prefer willing inductees over indoctrinated ones, but willing or no we would leave in yellow or not at all."

He shrugged his heavy shoulders in clothing that now looked at least a size too big for him. "The indoctrination process was slow, as little as five days to more than a month in others. And there were only twenty indoctrination chambers here, though why that might be I do not know, I am a chemist, not an engineer. Once it was done however the indoctrinated soul was completely on AIM's side, as if he always wanted to be."

"Power supplies," one of the SAS specialists supplied. "The base's generator is huge, but still somewhat well covered by the stone and soil of the prison. Anymore and the heat signature would be visible by overhead flyers."

The former prisoner, who had not given his name yet but seemed to be held in some respect by the other prisoners, nodded his head. "I suppose that makes sense."

"How exactly were you kidnapped sir?" Vanguard asked.

"I was coming home after a trip abroad. My car started in the airport parking lot, then some kind of gas filled the interior. The next moment I am here," the man replied, again shrugging magnificently. "I had no chance to escape, no chance to even think."

It turned out that the man's car had been involved in an accident ostensibly the fault of a known alcoholic. His body had been found in the wreckage burned beyond belief, but his dental records had helped to identify him to the next of kin. This of course opened a massive kettle of fish, not just for the people they had rescued, but for the intelligence agencies the world over. After all, if AIM could create such amazingly lifelike body doubles, how many scientists had they kidnapped since they began to operate? Even Harry was disturbed by that idea, though thankfully thanks to Shadow Cat and Sage's work, the number of actual bases, and their physical resources, were being dealt with.

OOOOOOO

That same night the rest of the Custodes under Amara's command assaulted another hidden AIM base, an abbey known for its isolation from the outside world high up in the mountains of Greece. Psylocke had, at Harry's suggestion, gone through the minds of the nearest town to see how they had kept that isolation going. She found nothing untoward, but only that a few of the monks were ever seen at one time. The abbey sold some kind of honey to the locals, but that was all, and the abbey was so remote that it hardly needed to add to its security at all to keep people away.

Covered by various charms Psylocke went in first to disable the outer guards before the others would follow up. Since the abbey was on an outcropping of rock that stuck out form the rest of the mountain it resided on, it only had a single entrance. It also had a lot of anti-air cover, visibly sticking up from the crenellations of the seemingly ancient abbey, hence why Amara had decided to try and sneak in rather than use a brute force approach.

Then again, since Magma could have brought the entire outcropping down, there are various levels of brute force available to us, Psylocke thought ruefully as she scaled the outer gate of the large abbey. It was created like a drawbridge, the wooden bridge up at present separating the mountain from the rocky outcropping holding the abbey. And on the abbey's outer wall were six men walking an obvious patrol, for all that they wore brown habits at present.

With the spells and the darkness covering her Psylocke was easily able to gain the top of the wall. Hiding within the shadow of one of the corner towers, she sent out a message to Magma telepathically. "I'm in position, are you all ready to go?"

"Roger that, we're moving up now." A moment later Psylocke once again heard Magma's thoughts through the temporary bridge she had created between their minds. "We're across from the gate, start the party."

Psylocke did so, first reaching out with her telepathic powers to make certain there was no one nearby. She couldn't shut down a person's mind from a distance as more powerful telepaths did, but she could mask her presence in that manner, aiding the spells Harry had cast on her for that purpose. And her TK blades could. She snuck up on each guard in turn this way, knocking them out as the rest of her team came across the gulf and Reed's little device went to work, isolating the abbey from the rest of the world.

Then things began to go wrong. The earth in the center of the abbey's grounds, which looked from her vantage pint like a meditation garden or something, opened along a seam. Underneath it was revealed a wide stairwell leading down, and coming up were over two dozen of the giant bruisers Mystique and the others had run into in Britain at the first SAS base.

"Oh bloody hell!" Psylocke muttered then watched as the super-strong troopers raised equally large energy guns to their shoulders. Ghigau appeared next to her, her rifle rising, and one of the bruisers fell backwards sans a head, but the others all fired at the abbey's door and through it at the rest of the team. They got off a single volley, then Banshee was falling out of the sky coming out of his own cloaking spells to slam a sonic blast into their midst.

Whatever durability they had did not extend to a sound based assault, and many of them fell. The rest looked up as the door, and the remnants of the drawbridge, erupted back into their faces. Colossus and Husk charged in both in their metal forms, followed by Magma, who crouched down in her energy form, using her powers. The outcrop rumbled and smoke and screams abound from beyond the bruisers still trying to get out of the entranceway, and then the battle became general.

In the end this base's inhabitants held off the attackers long enough to erase most of their computers, but the computers and two prisoners were captured and turned over to the MI6. None of the attackers were even injured beyond a few scuffs on their armor, but it served as a good example of not assuming you had all the advantages. It turned out that the team's presence had been discovered via pressure plates on the small slice of ground directly outside the gate, which went off whenever a weight landed on them. A simple trap, but one none of them had anticipated, which was another lesson for Amara and Dani, both of whom Harry was slowly grooming to take larger leadership roles in the future.

On top of these assault however, Harry and William had decided to share their data with SHIELD via Harry's existing line of communication with Dum Dum Duggan. After all, which self-respecting secret service wouldn't want to join a game of 'whack the terrorist'?

OOOOOOO

Nick Fury was a professional paranoid. This was something anyone who knew the man would tell anyone who asked, so long as the person asking was even cleared to know about Nick Fury in the first place at any rate. As such it didn't surprise Dum-Dum, his oldest friend, that the man looked constipated right now.

For one thing, the information Duggan had just given him was proof, again, that the Custodes Mundi and Harry Potter in particular were doing SHIELD's job better than SHIELD was. This was a blow to Nick's professional pride even if he could salve his ego by saying that SHIELD didn't have any jurisdiction in the United Kingdom. And for another it was obvious that Nick was trying to figure out why the hell Potter had decided to pass this information on.

Lips twitching the Boston-born brawler leaned back in his chair, looking down at his watch as he very obviously counted the seconds, letting Nick get over his initial reaction before leaning forward, smacking one palm lightly on the table to get his friend's attention. "Soooo," he drawled, "What are we going to do with this information?"

Nick glared at him for a moment with his one eye then ran one hand over his bald pate. "I don't think we have any choice but to act on the information. If it's on the level, between the actions of various anti-terrorist groups in the world and SHIELD we can hammer AIM back to the stone age." He scowled angrily.

God damnit how did Potter get this information, who in the hells is this Sage woman his message to Duggan mentioned?! Where the fuck is he getting his resources? I hate the fact that Potter is both a loose cannon and so damned effective, but I could live with that if it wasn't for his destruction of Mars and the fact his visible power base is scary as hell, and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg.

"I wouldn't be so concerned if he wasn't so much an enigma." Nick said aloud. "Potter's got no handles that could be used to control him or predict his actions other than his backing equality and anything that had to deal with space defense, but even there, we know he's got space assets, so that just adds to the danger he represents."

"You always did tend to overthink things boss," Dum-Dum said with a laugh, moving around the table to clap a hand on his friend's shoulder, shaking him gently. "Seriously, Potter's a lot like Rogers if you think about it. The same kind of background going by what Steve's said, and the same kind of upright moral fiber. If there was anyone in this world I'd trust with the power to destroy a planet, it'd be Rogers. Because I'd know that he wouldn't use it."

Duggan looked down at his friend, smirking suddenly. "You know what you need, you need to go out and get dirty. Go out, do some fieldwork, then take a week off, thinking about nothing at all, drink your weight in Mimosa or something. Hell, go out and get laid! But leave your job behind for a few days Nick. You've been stuck with this same old jobs for decades now, and I can't remember the last time you had a vacation. That ain't healthy."

During this tiny diatribe Nick had started out glaring at his friend, almost ready to shake off his hand and snarl at him, but the concern Duggan had for him came through his words, and frankly the idea of time off did sound nice. So instead of becoming angry Nick merely laughed before pushing his friend's hand off his shoulder.

"Alright, I have to admit that sounds like a fine idea. So, we have twelve bases on this list, I'll lead the attacks into the Polynesians and Hawaii, and then remain there for a few days, see the sights, spend time on the beaches."

"Find a girl…" Duggan supplied then laughed as Nick stood up pushing him away.

"Get out of here you lump of gristle!" Nick bellowed then went on more seriously. "Put some names together, we'll want full companies assigned to each base, with overhead combat air patrol when we can get away with it. I'll go over the information Potter shared and decide which base to assign the helacarrier itself to, but don't be surprised if you get the shit assignment."

"The one in Uganda or the one in Siberia?" Duggan asked. "They're both shit assignments."

"We'll leave the Russians to deal with the base in Siberia. No way do I want to irritate the Russians any more than they are already these days. The one in Uganda was the one I was thinking about," Nick replied before waving Duggan to the door.

Duggan didn't see Fury leaning back in his chair, popping up another folder on his computer. He stared at it, then to the door where his friend had disappeared, then down to the project once more, before reaching forward and tapping a confirm message. Hopefully the Ultra Project would never be needed, but better to have the combat drones at the very least if they needed them than not to have them. The AI controlling personality though would be kept on hold for now.

And if Tony goes forward with that without my say so I will rip out his spine and make him eat it! Then again he's never been enthused on the AI issue, only the drones, so that isn't as much a worry as it could be.

Over the next few weeks SHIIELD, the Avengers and other anti-terrorist organizations went to work on the information Harry had passed on. SHIELD hit bases in Canada, coming in to aid the Canadian army, the Polynesians, Some countries scattered around Asia, and in Alaska and Hawaii. Russia dealt with the two bases within its borders, as did China with the five there, rolling over them with numbers the defenders superior firepower and technology could not deal with.

Within a few days thanks to their own assault on the generator complex AIM went from a major if somewhat unknown terrorist organization to a near non-entity, with only a few bases remaining in Africa. SHIELD discovered some information in a few of the bases they hit and something about a Magog which disturbed Fury somewhat, but other than that, the operations were bloody but major successes.

OOOOOOO

After that bit of excitement over two weeks passed without any major issue showing up. With the campaign against the TWATS stalled due to lack of targets, information, and firepower Hela spent this time fitting into the castle life. She surprisingly found that she enjoyed being around the kids, in particular Illyana, who was always attempting to catch her out with some kind of magical prank. Her people had a respect for the prankster and the clever thief, providing they were skilled and didn't get caught, as well leaving their own home alone of course for the most part, and so Hela was willing to hone the skills of Illyana's by providing a difficult target for her to match against. Melody sometimes bothered her with her insight, but after having the child's odd blood gifts (she refused to call them mutations) explained was a pleasant enough child.

She spent much of her time with Dani and Ororo in particular. The two of them often had their heads together, simply talking or working together. While not an experienced magic user, Hela did have innate power and centuries of actually using it to call upon. She didn't know the formal facts of magic, but Ororo did thanks to her education with Gaea and Harry, and it was a mutually beneficial discussion.

Moreover, they were very much alike in temperament, regal, cool to outsiders, but warm to those they knew, and loving toward children. Of them all, Ororo most effectively helped Hela acclimatize to life in Camelot and on Midgard. (nice!) In return, Hela helped Ororo organize the tower in the Savage Land and Harry's 'rulership' of it. She both saw and enjoyed the Savage Land's untamed beauty and that it was Harry's realm as much as Camelot or the castle's lands, but that it needed far more in the way of organization than Harry could devote to it, given all his other responsibilities. While Harry and the others had many theories of ruling and of how to guide an entire people much of it was just that, theories. Hela herself was a queen and aside from the training she'd had to groom herself for the role, plenty of kings and jarls had entered her halls that she was more than willing to pick the brains of, furthering her own knowledge by doing so.

Under Hela and Ororo's hands, the tower became like a true castle over those two weeks, a center for life for the entire land. The medical aid Harry's people offered under Una had made Harry popular, doing away with much of the tower's previous stigma of Magneto's conquest. With Hela's aid (and insistence) Harry and his people soon became respected, and Harry a true ruler of that land.

When it came to the goings on around Camelot however, she had much more trouble. She understood politics and economics, but had never been interested or schooled in them. Hela was queen of Niflheim, everything in it bowed to her will and she in turn looked after the realm and guarded it from outside influence. There was no need for discussion, no need for give and take as there had to be in an economy. On the political side of things while yes 'democracy' had its roots in the Greek work and she was familiar with it, the modern version seemed to make a mockery of the idea of every man having a say in their government: "A battle to see who is most popular via skald and song does not mean the best candidate for the task in question wins!"

The one attempt Emma made to correct that lack ended poorly. Hela was not a good student, and Emma a demanding teacher. Eventually rather than come to more blows they had called off those lessons and Ororo took them up to much better results all around. She taught Hela history instead of modern economics or anything else, giving Hela an effective frame of reference and working through the centuries to basically catch Hela up on the foundations and lead ups to many of the modern institutions and situations. Ororo's method also helped expand Hela's awareness of the rest of the world, having been too used to a strictly European focus. Overall this tied neatly into her ongoing acclimatization to life on Earth.

Yet despite that, she still wasn't certain where she stood in the scheme of Harry's faction, let alone their odd courtship, as she told Harry one evening as they walked along the edge of the lake together. It was now getting colder out, but neither of them noticed. Indeed, after so much time spent in the Savage Land, Hela enjoyed the bite of autumn in the air. She might be part fire giant from her father's side but she preferred the cooler climes by inclination.

Hela looked up into the sky, watching as the sun was sitting the colors amazing even to her. "I do not seem to have a set place here among your court Harry Potter. Emma, for all I dislike admitting it, is apparently a genius in economy and politics, young Jean is not only carrying your heirs but is the head of your, technology corps here on Earth, and an advisor in all others. And dear Ororo is your queen, going where she may do the most good, advising in everything and leading your factions on a societal level, in particular the realm of education."

She turned to look Harry in the eye. "So, where do I fit? I have my own realm to see to of course, and I am certain in my own power, but where do I fit in here?"

Harry chuckled, amused by how Hela spoke, like she was trying to put his faction into the terms she knew. "Hela, you can fit wherever you wish. The work you've already done in the Savage Land is proof of that. I'm uncertain why you would think otherwise."

"It is hard to put into words, and frankly I know myself well enough that I might be speaking from how much my life has been changed of late. Yet I think there is also a bit of truth behind my concerns even so. I, I am fond of you, not anywhere near as I was shown to be in that memory of the party after our victory against the Draugr yet our, let us say our restarted courtship has been a pleasant affair for what it is." Hela replied slowly, flushing slightly under her mask. One normally did not speak of their affections so openly but she hid behind the fact that she was in a different land as an excuse. "But I will not enter into a relationship without knowing that I come into it as an equal and with something to offer beyond my physical abilities."

"Can I make a wild guess and say it is the second thing there that bothers you?" Harry quipped, squeezing her hand where he was holding her arm linked in his, not commenting on the opening talking about Hela's 'physical abilities' gave him. When Hela nodded he went on, "In that case, I think you've already begun to find your place in our little family, and I would call it a family not a court. Courts come with courtiers, and I have no patience for those useless things."

"Oh, that is true," Hela crowed, chuckling, squeezing his arm with her own. "One of the best things of being queen of Niflheim is I've never had to deal with such parasites. Well, save in official capacity more often than not, although Garm still maintains they have a detrimental effect on his stomach. Cowards and oath breakers are his standard fair in souls sadly."

"Indeed, and think on this, yes Emma is a wizard…" He had to stop there as Hela laughed aloud at his word choice, regretting his own earlier moment of weakness even as he smiled at hearing her laught. Given what she had gone through and the time she spent brooding on what had been done to her Hela's good humor was always a good sign.

"As I was saying," he said loftily, as her chuckles slowed, "Emma is a genius when it comes to the economy, and she knows politics. But does that mean she knows how to rule? Or even how to lead? Certainly she can make business decisions, but Emma would be the first to tell you she doesn't like leading in combat, she's never sat in judgement, nor has Jean. Ororo has, but only among a few small tribes. You have."

He sighed, looking away over the forest and the lake for a moment. "At the moment, my faction is half business, half military, half social and half simply leading a small and highly motivated group of people. But it's going to keep growing. Heh, you know, Jean and I talked to you once and you gave me a crucial lesson about putting myself down."

He stopped, turning back to her, a small, yet warm smile on his face. "I know you don't like hearing about those memories from our perspective, but you said at the time that the title of king is given to the individual who creates the kingdom in the first place. The Savage Land is just the start. As my orbital industry grows, so too will the need for more structure, more support, more actual land. How many thousands of workers from around the world would like to move their families someplace else, someplace protected against space-borne threats once they know the threat is real? And even if mutant equality becomes the norm worldwide, having our own version of Israel would probably be a good idea, which has been in my mind for months."

"So my place would be labeled law keeper perhaps? Or perhaps overseer of justice? My task then would be to try to codify the laws of the land, or simply aid you in that direction and point out what you need to be doing." Hela mused, nodding her head with increasing approval for the idea. "Yes, I suppose I can do that, and gladly although that is normally Thor's purview among others, tis not such an extreme difference for me that I cannot do it and do it well. I am uncertain if that is enough, but it will do for now."

"Good, then that's enough serious talk for this evening." Harry pulled Hela back into motion once more and they moved toward the tiny wharf sticking out into the lake. There a small rowboat was waiting for them and Hela nodded her head graciously to Harry as he helped her step onto it.

He joined her quickly and the boat began to move under an unseen current out toward a somewhat large wooden float in the distance. Hela could see Jean, Ororo and Emma waiting for them, along with what looked like tiny bobbing magical lights and one of the tiny house elves dressed like a waiter. As they closed music, classical music the likes of which Emma and Ororo favored, began to reach her ears and she smiled tenderly over at Harry at the romantic gesture.

Even if most courtship wouldn't include three other women, Hela thought ruefully. Despite that however, Hela was startled to realize that, as Harry helped her up out of the rowboat, that she was having a lot of fun, whatever happened in the future. For the first time in a long time, despite never disliking her own hall or realm, Hela felt like she had a real home.

OOOOOOO

During this time the young clone of Magneto was at last woken up from his cryogenic sleep and a certain other issue also reared its head, but was nipped in the bud as quickly as possible, if not quite as diplomatically.

Harry was on hand for the boy's waking, standing beside Jean and Emma. Ororo wasn't there, having headed to Africa to give the speeches she had agreed to give and help organize the new hiring centers and the distribution of Magical Minds potions and medicines. There she would run into that other issue, but at the moment Harry didn't know that.

Emma nodded to Amelia Vought who had agreed to take the lead on this issue. Harry wasn't going to lie to the boy about his origins or his 'father' and Amelia had agreed to help him introduce the boy to his parentage as neutrally as possible. After all in the beginning Eric had done a lot of good for mutant kind. Jean and Emma were there of course to look into the boy's mind once he was awake. In cryo-sleep, his mind too was shut down of course.

They all watched as the boy's eyes slowly opened, showing grey-brown irises looking up to the ceiling than around. They were wide and almost panicking as the boy shivered, but Amelia and Jean on either side of him touched his hands. "Calm down young man," Jean replied soothingly. "You're among friends. Can you understand me?"

"Ye-, yes, I can. Wh-, where am I, who are you?" The boy asked, calming down. Jean had reinforced her words with a bit of a soothing feeling of friendliness into the boy's mind, which worked quickly. His panic disappeared, but his wariness remained even as he looked at the two women standing on either side of his bed, a simple but very comfortable bunk bed from Gryffindor, or the student's tower.

Harry moved forward, laying a hand on Jean's shoulder, smiling over it at the boy. "I'm Harry, this is Jean and over there is Emma. Don't mind her haughty look, she was born with it. On the other side of you is Amelia, a nurse."

He stopped as Emma growled behind him, causing the boy to smile as Jean reached up, touching Harry's hand with her own, showing the ring she wore there. This all helped to set the youth even more at ease, the last of the tension in his body disappearing and the few metal things in the room, which had been vibrating, settling back into place. Seeing this Harry asked, "Do you remember anything?"

"I, I remember some, some images, being taught by this weird device how to speak and other stuff I think, that's about it…" the boy began to get frustrated, and the metal items in the room once more began to vibrate.

"He's telling the truth Harry, the boy is almost an entirely blank slate. I can find memories of him being hypno-taught how to speak, do some basic math that kind of thing, but his mind was nearly shut down even during that. I have no idea if Lensherr was creating an heir or… or something more sinister." Emma said, her voice trailing off as the possibilities of having a young clone body with such an empty personality occurred to her.

"I don't think Eric was that… that evil love," Jean replied slowly, her own telepathy moving into and through the boy's mind in concert with Emma's and then alone. "I think it was rather an attempt to make certain he wasn't corrupted by outside influences than anything else. I also think that Eric might not have devoted as much time to him as he hoped he could, but might have in the future."

"Can you tell me your name at least, or would you like to choose one from a list?" Harry said, holding up his free hand trying to calm the boy while he also signaled to the two telepaths that he had hear them mentally.

With a gesture a giant book labelled 'the Big Book of Baby names' appeared in midair, catching it he winked at the youth then squeezed Jean's shoulder. "I bought this a few weeks back when I found out I was going to be a father but I figure we could use it for you too."

The young boy gaped at the suddenly appearing book then at Jean who was groaning and shaking her head and then to the now chuckling Emma, whose features had become somewhat warmer, then shook his head. "Um, I think I'd like to choose my own name thank you, but, but how did you do that, just making that book appear?"

"Magic young man, just magic. I am a wizard, just like you are what is currently being called a mutant. The name has negative connotations I feel, so I'm thinking of what to change it to, but we haven't figured it out just yet. Did you notice how when you got worried you made metal things shake like that?" The boy nodded, and Harry went on. "Well eventually once we get you some training you might be able to do a lot of things with metal and other things of that nature than you can even think of now."

"But, but where did I come from!?" The boy said, processing what he had heard but with a bit of panic now underneath, the sharpness of it being kept at bay with Jean's more empathic telepathy as Emma continued to look into the boy's mind. There didn't seem to be anything there but better safe than sorry.

Harry sighed. "I think this part you're going to be glad for the fact you're already laying down." With that, Harry, with Amelia's help, told the young man about his origins as much as they could. Harry and the others had talked about this, and he had decided that being upfront and not trying to hide anything from the boy would be a bad idea. It would have caused resentment at best, anger and fury at worst to hide anything about where the young man had come from.

The boy looked confused more than once during this description, but he seemed to understand the gist of it judging from his expression, which was open and very easy to read. Eventually Harry and Amelia fell silent, and the four adults watched the boy. He continued to flip through the book of baby names something which he had begun to do the moment Harry had let the book land on his chest before he and Amelia began to talk.

After a few minutes of this he looked up. "I'm, not, that is, this is really weird and I will have a lot of questions about this when I, when it settles into my mind. But, but thank you for telling me the truth." His lips quirked into a smile that actually had some wry humor in it despite his wan expression. "After all, that story's so weird I just can't see a point to you making it up. But I can't process it all at once, and I will have questions about my father, I mean this Eric person, I don't know if I want to call him my father."

His expression turned fierce. "Whatever else though, I am not him, I am my own person whatever he meant to happen! I don't know all about being a clone, but I am not him, and I will not think of myself like that!"

"Good," Harry said simply. "Because that's how we want to treat you, like a young man trying to find his way in the world. After all, why should you be any different than anyone else?" The young man nodded firmly as Emma and Jean smiled.

OOOOOOO

At the same time Harry and the others were waking up the young clone, Ororo was giving her third speech in as many days. Wakanda had indeed opened its doors to Magical Minds products, and then it had gone further, helping to get two other African nations, its neighbors on two of its nominal borders, to do the same. Distribution centers had opened up in all three, and work had begun on training centers as well. In return those nations had begun to make inroads on mutant equality under the law.

This wasn't to say those two countries at least didn't have issues. Tribal blood feuds, religious persecution, lack of modern education, sexual exploitation and mutilation, the list went on so despite the natural resources those countries had they were barely third world countries, especially in comparison to Wakanda. Ororo's speeches in those places had been designed to call their people's to task, to throw off the shackles of the past and to embrace both Magical Mind's products and stance of understanding and equality as the way forward.

Here in Wakanda it was somewhat easier. Wakanda had little of the blood feuds and few of the old tribal beliefs holding it back, though the lack of education outside of the cities was still an issue. There were two cities, one which served as the formal entrance overland to the rest of the mountain locked nation, and the second was built around the several vibranium mines. Those cities were as high tech and amazingly modern as any city in the world, perhaps more so since they were also new, built on the money from vibranium and the technology it was based on. The rest of the country however was as nearly undeveloped as the rest of Africa.

The distribution center of course was in the capital city, the one built around the only true overland road through the mountains. It was called T'chaanli, after the current king's great grandfather, the man who had purportedly found vibranium and begun to industrialize the country around it. Or perhaps the man's wife, stories were a little disjointed about that.

Ororo walked up to the podium in front of the men and women who would be working at this distribution center. She wore a conservative woman's suit, with a scarf made in South Africa or yellow and black. She walked proudly, her face set into regal lines as she looked out over the Wakandans. Standing behind the podium she stood for a moment, her eyes moving across the crowd of both the workers and the local reporters here to record the event, keeping a frown of concern off her face.

She didn't see T'challa here, nor had he made any appearance since her arrival earlier that day. She did see Psylocke and Coyote however. The two of them had been assigned to her just in case, despite Ororo's protests that she could handle herself. The two of them were hidden from normal sight by a series of spells that hid their presence entirely, and by Psylocke's own power, which redirected anyone's interest away from them if anyone could see through the magic somehow.

It is strange given his… interest in me that T'challa isn't here. Unless of course he really did realize that Harry and I were together and I was uninterested in looking elsewhere. But then why did he keep up his somewhat flirtatious attitude during our meeting? Pride and unwillingness to be seen backing down perhaps?

With an indrawn breath Ororo set that thought aside and began her two hours later Ororo finally retreated from the crowd of reporters and well-wishers, a group of security guards moving in and pushing them all back as she got into the complimentary limo that Wakanda had given her. Coyote was already within, his coyote helmet turned to Ororo as she entered, but still covered by his illusion spell.

Ororo sighed theatrically, leaning back and sticking out her feet, leaning down to pull off the heels that Emma had demanded she wear for these events. "I am going to have to find something horribly embarrassing or painful to do to that woman," She muttered, before reaching forward to the intervening wall separating the driver and her. "Please take me back to the airport now."

"Yes miss, though I was told to ask if you would be willing to stay the night here in the city. King T'challa has invited you to have dinner with him." The man replied, a large, no nonsense sort of individual with the well-built body of a soldier.

Fighting to keep her eyes from narrowing in suspicion Ororo shook her head. "No thank you, I am afraid I have a meeting early tomorrow morning, so I have to head back to England now."

"The king's decided he won't take no for an answer miss," said the man, and suddenly the partition in the wall closed violently, a metal slide coming up to cover it. Then gas appeared from out of the air conditioning nozzles.

Ororo scowled angrily before her fingers twitched, using a mix of a spell and her own powers to keep in some air even as she fell back seemingly overcome by the gas. Her hand twitched out, tapping into Coyote's thigh. He had raised his rifle, a gauss rifle as was his preference, about to shoot through the wall with a shot which would have torn the wall, the driver and the front of the car into pieces. But he stopped at her touch, leaning over, his mask over Ororo's mouth. "What should we do?" He radioed his voice loud in her ear from the small microphone in her ear hidden under a notice-me-not spell.

"Let's see where this is going. I have a feeling this is a personal issue rather than one against either the Custodes or Magical Minds, and I will need to deal with it regardless." She whispered before collapsing into senselessness.

With her eyes closed, Ororo didn't see where they were going of course, but it didn't take long. Indeed by her estimate it was only about fifteen minutes before she heard the car stop, the engine being turned off seconds later. Several boots of feet reached her ears from right outside the car's door, and Ororo, decided enough was enough. "Magia Erebea, 40%" she whispered, devoting some of her magical reserves to strengthening her body then she began to gather her mutant power.

A blast of air that took almost all of the air in the limo slammed into the door, smashing it open and away, taking one man in the gut and hurling him away. The others, large men who had been standing at some kind of parade rest along with T'challa dressed in a panther costume sans his mask, moved away quickly as she came out of the limo. The area they were in looked somewhat like a hidden bunker, or underground parking area, but it was the size of a football stadium, more than large enough so that Ororo didn't have to deal with her claustrophobia.

Ororo's eyes were already disappearing into the lightning bolts they became as she used her powers and she roared, the wind picking up all around them as the temperature dropped. "What is the meaning of this T'challa!? First you greet me as a friend, then welcome me and mine into your country only to attempt to kidnap me against my will? Did you honestly think I would forgive this!?"

The men around T'challa, all of whom for some reason wore outfits that looked more like that tribesman elsewhere in Africa wore all raised their weapons. Those weapons however seemed to be locally made blasters of some kind, clashing with their outfits horribly.

T'challa however was the most surprising. He had recovered from his surprise the fastest, and instead of backing away by the time Ororo was finished speaking he had leaped up into the rafters and the darkness above them.

Noticing this Ororo dodged away automatically, lashing out with a roundhouse kick to hit him when he landed behind where she had originally been standing. T'challa was able to react in midair quickly enough to get his arm between his body and Ororo's foot, but the power of the blow took him aback, and he had not been able to set himself on the ground either. He was smashed aside, hurled away from the confrontation grimacing in pain as the radius in his forearm broke under the impact.

By this point Coyote was out of the car, and Psylocke, who had been riding up top, were also in action. Psylocke closed quickly with the gunmen coming out of cloak, her TK daggers appearing from her forearms as she cut and sliced both weapons and men. A few tried to fight back, but Psylocke was faster than them and could telepathically read their moves before they made them.

For his part, Coyote had put away his gun, unwilling to kill any of these men since it was obvious they were so outmatched. Instead as Psylocke went to town on the men and Ororo used her powers over the wind to hurl them aside, he teleported the short distance to where T'challa had been hurled.

It came as no surprise to Wyatt, who had read the FF's log entries on the Black Panther that the man wasn't there. Staring up into the darkness of the rafters then around he nodded, seeing the man had already moved back over to try and attack not Ororo but Psylocke. "Psylocke, beware above!"

Surprised Psylocke hurled herself backwards into a roll, watching in astonishment as T'challa landed where she had just been standing. His hands flashed out grabbing her hand right behind her TK blade pulling her up and into a punch before she could break his grip. She saw stars despite her mask and magical defenses and was in no position to dodge the follow on strike.

Which never arrived. Instead T'challa released her jumping away as Ororo launched a lightning bolt from her hand forcing T'challa to back away. "My lady please, stop! I only wish to help you!" he shouted, looking almost distraught for a moment.

"You are the one who tried to kidnap me T'challa, if this is your idea of help you can keep it!" Ororo growled, moving forward through the wreckage of his men to pull Psylocke to her feet with one hand. Her other hand glowed red with a stun spell but T'challa closed before she could launch it and she backed away, only her Magia Erebea speed and strength letting her keep him at bay. He was good, well trained, far stronger than a normal man should be, his physical abilities reminding her somewhat of Nikolai or Steve Rogers, though perhaps somewhere in between, better than Nikolai, not as good as Steve Rogers was purported to be.

T'challa took both Ororo and Psylocke on in close for a few minutes, but then Psylocke dodged aside and Coyote appeared where she had been standing, porting in again as he had earlier. The Comanche athlete helped T'challa's attack to one side, with one hand while punching him in the chest with all the strength of his armored suit and his own body. T'challa gasped in surprise, but moved with the blow, lashing out with a kick that took one of Coyote's legs out from under him.

However this was enough for Ororo to once more summon up the concentration necessary to launch a point blank stunning spell. T'challa wavered before collapsing to one side, unconscious.

Psylocke ran one hand down the side of her head, wincing in pain at the bruise she could feel forming there under her mask. "What the bloody heck was all that about, and what is up with this arse!?"

"His name is the Black Panther," Coyote said sadly. "I have seen him before. He is a proud man, sometimes arrogant and very reluctant to ask for help, but he is an honorable man too, and a friend of the FF, or at least an acquaintance. He at first challenged the FF to a battle in order to see if we could help him against a monster called Klaw. We eventually won his respect and helped him, parting as friends."

He looked over at Ororo. "You understand why I did not say anything, he showed us his face in confidence. I could not share his secret with you or with Guardian, it was not my secret to share."

"Guardian and I have both known the FF know secrets about other people they cannot share with us Coyote, and we understand," Ororo speaking calmly now that the battle was over. "Indeed we have both said at times that it speaks well of all of you that you do not."

She shook her head wryly. "That doesn't mean it isn't irritating to run into issues like this, but we can hardly blame you for that."

At that moment a hidden panel in the far wall opened and even more men raced out, only to stop as Ororo hurled them all backwards with massive blasts of wind. Before they could recovered Ororo had closed her eyes, muttering the mantra for one of Gaea's spells. They found themselves frozen to the ground as their weapons and everything else in the area short circuited thanks to another spell.

With that done, Ororo gestured to Coyote. "Get some rope and tie all of these people up, including T'challa. He and I must have a… talk."

When T'challa awoke, he found himself tied to a chair sitting on a patio he recognized as one of his own palaces. His gloves were gone, as were his boots, both of which had retractable vibranium claws. His wounds had also been healed somehow.

Across from him Ororo sat down a small glass of water turning from looking over the view to stare at him. "Once they realized I didn't intend to slit all your throats or even to keep you as a prisoners your servants were most helpful in telling me what this was all about." She leaned forward her face set in a cold glare. "So, you thought I was being, as one man put it, 'ensorcelled' to have forgotten about you?"

T'challa nodded, seeing no point in trying to hide it or prevaricate about his goals now. "Yes, I did. You and I shared a connection when we met on my walkabout, a love. After returning to claim my throne I looked for you, only to discover that you had left behind your place as goddess to your tribesman and returned to America, where I lost your trail until you showed up to help those two young boys in Sudan. I spent some time researching this Harry Potter fellow, and you of course, then set up a meeting to see if you truly were the windrider of my memory."

"I was never your windrider," Ororo replied coldly. "I was then and am now my own woman."

T'challa nodded, acknowledging the point and she leaned back in her chair, sighing faintly. "T'challa, I understand that from your perspective what we might have shared when we were younger was special." To Ororo's mind it hadn't been, simply two young people talking, spending time together and exchanging a chaste kiss or two. They had been nice, but not exactly important, nor a real relationship to her mind.

Still, she supposed it could have seemed more important for a young man far away from home. "And I can even say that it might have seemed romantic, attempting to rebuild on that now. But what possessed you to go from that to assuming that I was under someone else's influence when I did not respond to your flirtations?"

"I, I thought, that is, I had thought that what we shared while younger was special to you too." T'challa stammered, realizing now that he had not only acted like a lovesick fool, but in a horrendous fashion. It caught him flatfooted being in the wrong like this, especially when it was so obvious in hindsight.

He chuckled wanly. "I should have known that you would have too strong a will to be brainwashed like that. I, I formally apologize both as king and as man for this affront on your person windrider."

Ororo continued to look at him for a few moments then nodded slowly. "I will accept your apology I suppose, but I will not forget either T'challa. There could have been some measure of friendship between us before this, but you have a lot of work ahead of you to make up for your actions here."

"And whatever romantic ideas you had toward me, I would ask you to forget them. I am very happily in a relationship, one that is both serious and long term." So saying she held up her hand upon which her Panja ring glimmered and chimed as she moved it.

"Harry and I are together, and that is the end of the matter." She had no wish to share with a near stranger the nature of the rest of their relationship, but also wanted to make certain T'challa knew that even setting aside his actions today she had no interest in him.

The king of Wakanda stared back at her, then at the magnificent Panja ring, before sighing. "I see. In that case, I will simply give you my best wishes. And hope that you can look beyond my blind moment of madness."

OOOOOOO

Harry also had a few social and business meetings during those two weeks. The agreements with the Hellfire Club had begun to bear fruit for all concerned, and Harry's ability to build construction droids had enlarged massively, as had his work on the various gear needed for the interior of the Ravenspire. Work on repairing the various Kree vessels had stopped despite groups still going over them looking at various design points, but that was a small price to pay for the progress on Mars and the gravitic trap device.

Harry had also met with the flag officers who he'd invited to his announcement about the Kree threat. They had begun to create an operational outline to deal with invaders from space, and began to also put together a training manual for spaceship crews. The first covered how Harry could contact them or vice versa, and the distribution of the weapons designed to be used in such an event. America's representatives had gone further, creating a special training program and even seconded a few units to it full time to train against alien threats like the Kree, the Mole men, and others.

On the economic and social side of things, The United Arab Emirates became the first predominantly Islamic nation to be allowed access to Magical Minds goods, and Harry had added several dozen men and women from that nation to Arc Technologies, since the Federal Supreme Council had been concerned about the long term ramifications of that technology. The nation was after all built on money gained through the oil industry. But they were far more interested in getting access to his other products then worried about Arc Technologies, and Sage had reported that there had already been some homegrown backing for equality there as well, and a push recently for equal rights to offset the so-called Sharia laws that made up a lot of the emirates' judicial systems. The nation had a spotty record on human rights, but they were getting better, and Harry had decided to encourage that, especially since their education system was also backing the push for equal rights between women and men.

In America, Charles had begun talks with a few of the presidential candidates. Given how many of them there were at present that didn't mean much, but Charles had started to make inroads on setting up a meeting between Harry and two of the candidates thought to have the best chances to win their primaries.

He'd had to defend Harry's selling policies but the war hawk, despite having thoughts about mutants that were not quite in keeping with his public statements, was in other respects the best candidate they could possibly find, with a major interest in space defense and a decent economic policy too.

At the same time, Emma had begun to put the screw on Ozcorp with a sort of gleeful abandon that was frightening to see. Several secrets Ozcorp had been keeping from the public and the government had come to light, and Norman was now facing a lot of trouble keeping the feds from forcing open all his company's books. Which, given the handful of secret projects and think tanks he was running, was a very bad thing for him.

One meeting however was far more interesting than any other in those two weeks:

Harry nodded his head formally to Dr. Doom as the armor-clad monarch came through his personal teleport device, stepping forth out onto the cavern's floor. Behind Doom came his mother and surprisingly Paris Lourdes. "Your majesty, ladies, welcome to Fortress Mars."

Looking around Doom nodded his head regally, before looking at Harry. "My mother and Paris you already know. Paris wanted to see examples of our space-based interests. Her people are already putting together a documentary on it and the previous Kree attacks for public consumption."

"An excellent idea Paris," Harry nodded, though inside he wasn't as happy about the woman having such access. Still, it was obvious Doom was seriously interested in her, and he noticed a few well-hidden technological devices on her person, which no doubt were defensive in nature. "If you like I can have Sage, my chief organizer and manager, contact you with video footage and other things of that nature. So long as you agree to let us see the product before airing it? We still have enemies on Earth that I have no desire to see know more about our doings than we must."

"Agreed, this will not be the first primarily military based documentary PNN has made. I would be willing to wait on releasing like that, or even sequestering the crews I have working on it at the moment, though for that you'd have to give me a very good reason." The blonde paused, looking around in confusion. "But I thought we were supposed to be in space?"

"We are, but this is the interior of Mars." Jean supplied, nodding her head to the older woman. "We can give you a tour of the surface if you want, but the teleportation center is the main hub of the fortress, the only way back to Earth for most everyone who works here, so we decided to bury it deep as possible."

"The discovery of several buried cave systems underneath Olympus Mons was a major help." Harry replied, turning away and gesturing the others to follow him.

As head of the project Carol took up the explanation when they met up with her in the command room, a large multi-tiered room that was the center of activity at present for over two dozen men and women, electricians and welders who were at work one various consoles and energy runs. Most of them stopped working for a moment to stare at Doom as he entered, before a barked command from Carol sent them back to work.

"We've managed to set up the command runs for the Gravitic trap device, and have even run it up to near to full power, though we haven't yet activated it. All the parts work, but it isn't the kind of thing we can really test out without figuring out what the consequences will be, both if it works and if it doesn't." Carol said, gesturing to the one console which was already in place and working, a green light blinking to one side under a screen showing the crater where the device had been installed onto a series of underground pylons, the power runs leading underground to the stunted remains of Olympus Mons nearby.

"We're currently working on reinforcing the base's interior, and mapping out where we want to install weapons not only around the base, but elsewhere on Mars. Remote controlled weapons for the most part, but eventually we'll be expanding them." Carol went on, moving over to a few dozen other temporary screens set up all along one wall. Each screen was centered on a different view, watching groups of robots or men and women working on various projects.

"We've stripped out a lot of the weapons systems from the most badly damaged Kree ships Jean and company captured, to give us a starting point though none of them are online yet of course. We pushed really hard to finish work on the trap device, it put the rest of our work even here on Mars behind."

Doom nodded, staring from one screen to another, well pleased that his contributions had made such an impact. "When are we estimating the next attack from the Kree will be arriving?"

"Within another week at most. I wish we could be more accurate than that, but we can't. Reed and the FF have agreed to hold off getting involved on anything on their end of things for a few days starting tomorrow, and I've got the Custodes ready to move up here just in case after that. Jean's still grounded thanks to her condition, and Amora isn't really all that dangerous up in space, but the rest of the team will be here. I also have a com connection to Cyclops and the X-men just in case."

Harry looked at Doom. "Do you want to join with one of the teams or take one of the days on watch yourself.

Doom thought for a moment then replied in the affirmative. "I will take two days at the end of every week. I will also bring some of my Doombots and tow squads of Latverian infantry just in case."

He looked at Harry sharply. "You fear as I do that this next force will be a full fleet?"

"Something of that nature. I am also afraid that we can't count on running into a third enemy commander who is willing to come in fat and arrogant." Harry said grimly.

OOOOOOO

Harry's concerns on that score were all too accurate. Commodore Carnit'rika, or Rika to his very few friends was a dangerous, ambitious man who had served as commanding officer of battleship squad, or six two-ship divisions, for five years now. He was of middling height, but wide in the shoulder, and had pure gray hair, cut short to his head, a scar running from the hairline on the left side of his face to the back of his neck. It had been caused by shrapnel from when his command console exploded when his ship was nearly destroyed during a battle against one of the Skrull infiltration ships, the Skrull equivalent of what a human would call a Q-ship.

Rika was due to be promoted sometime in the near future, and he was an expert on solo operations and commerce raiding. This pacification wasn't quite anything he had dealt with before, but the command of a Planet crusher, his new flagship which was named the Devastator, was a sign that promotion was coming, and a sign of the seriousness Ronan the Accuser had assigned to this task, pushing for the ship's inclusion against the logic of the Supreme Intelligence.

He also had access to everything that was known about Earth both from the two previous expeditions and the even earlier meeting between a Skrull Sentry and the group called the Fantastic Four. This gave him enough information to plan out his assault, though he was intelligent and seasoned enough to make certain his commanders bought into it too. He had thus called for a face to face conference before the last hyperspace jump to Earth from the edge of Kree space.

Turning from a screen showing the starry sky of his home planet he looked at the officers of the battleships assigned to this mission. Half of them he had worked with before, indeed two of them had come from his old division, which had been split up before this on various security missions. "I could hope we had more information about Earth's current technological level, but I suppose we will have to be happy with what we know."

One of the other men at the table, a young hard charger named Tab'lekt, grunted. "We have our orders, complete pacification. The planet's inhabitants are to be wiped out or at the very least made to submit by the annihilation of 85% of the planetary population. Even with the Fantastic Four we should have more than enough firepower to do that. But then again, I would have thought We'hnt had enough ships to do that too." he finished slowly, looking at the information Rika had put on another screen in the center of the conference table.

"Exactly. Judging from his last hyperspace drone's report, We'hnt had decided to come out of hyperspace fat and happy right into Earth's orbit. We have to assume he ran into something that took his entire force out before he could get even a single hyperspace drone out. We have no idea what damage he did to the planet, what that something was, or what has been going on in this 'Sol' system since." Rika replied.

"Judging by the information we have on them the Fantastic Four should only be able to disable three, perhaps four ships of battleship class or above." Said another man, an older man than even Rika who had been a battleship captain for longer than Rika had been a commodore.

"Our shields should stop the Thing for a time from getting to our hulls, and while he'll be able to burn through them the Torch should be unable to burn through our ship's armor quickly enough to destroy more than a few of our ships in time to stop the rest from bombarding Earth. In space the other two are no threat. Killing the Four might be tougher, but we can wipe out the home of humanity simply enough."

His eyes narrowed and he locked eyes with Rika. "But if the Fantastic Four have help, then a close range bombardment might not be the best way forward."

"Indeed." Rika nodded, going on decisively. "So here is the plan. First we will be coming out of hyperspace just outside this outermost planet's orbit around the sun, as well as directly above and below the system's aphelion in a similar distance. A long range scan will tell us if they have developed any kind of spaced based defenses to back up the Fantastic Four. We will split up there, jumping to cover the entire system from different angles to make certain that we won't be missing anything."

"From that far out our sensors won't be able to see much, and if we split up that far communication will be an issue." No race had been able to find a scientific way around the light speed limit lag nor had any race been able to figure out how to communicate via hyperspace beyond ship's drones. And the Kree had no telepaths of their own.

"Agreed, but as long as they cannot break our communications net, we should be alright." Rika replied before going on. "From there depending on what we find we will micro-jump into the system, with each division coming in at the angle they have already assumed, including the Devastator. We will come in as one from every direction, pulling the defenders attention every which way. Our objective will be to cleanse the planet, which will be our first target. The defenders, these Fantastic Four or whatever else, can be left to die afterward. I would prefer to leave with more ships intact and the main objective completed rather than go for a clean sweep."

He frowned thinking before nodding decisively. "However, given how little information we are dealing with, we cannot assume we will be victorious, let alone live through the fight. To that end, each ship will keep a hyperspace drone on standby ready to jump with in a moment's notice or the ship's destruction."

There were more than a few scoffs at that, but most of the other commanding officers simply nodded at that. It was actually a relief, knowing that even in death they would serve their empire. Rika nodded back and straightened up decisively. "In that case, let's get this done."

OOOOOOO

The ships came out of hyperspace as Rika had ordered, separated by a distance of several hundred light seconds from their target and from one another. Shields were at full power and enough firepower to annihilate a star system was online, searching for foes. But there was nothing close enough to threaten them, not at this range. The ship's sensors reached out as far as they could with the Planet Crusher's more powerful sensor suite doing so faster and a little better than the battleships' sensors.

Rika sat calmly in his captain's chair, exuding the confidence his men needed to see despite the unknown nature of the threat they faced in this system. At times like this creating that aura of calm was one of the most important things an officer worth his stripe could do.

His sensors techs worked silently as a well-drilled team for several silent minutes before the various ratings had compiled their reports, reporting it to their section officer who moved to Rika's chair, saluting him quickly. "Sir, we have a sensor report but our various sensors do not seem to agree with one another. Or we might be seeing the first sign of what Commodore We'hnt ran into."

"Coms, open a channel with the other ships." The order was redundant of course, his com officer had done so the moment they came out of hyperspace. "Continue Sensors."

"Yes sir." The younger officer replied, his back straightening as he spoke to both his captain and the other officers in the attack force. "Sirs, I imagine your own sensor specialists have reported this, but I will say it aloud. Our gravitic sensors and our planetary rotation database is not reporting the same position for the target planet as the rest of our sensor systems. We have heat traces, light reflection, and every other system in our sensor suite telling us the target planet is here."

With that final word he gestured to the image of the star system on the main screen of the Devastator's bridge, an image that was no doubt being formed on the Battleships' bridges as their own sensors filled in the information. "Our information on the speed of the other planter's rotation around the sun is spot on for every other planet, but not for the target, the third planet out from the sun. We can see where that planet is, and it is at least a planetary rotation behind where it should be. We are also not getting a gravitic return from that planet. Everything else, every other sensor we have, is telling us one thing, the system gravity analyzer is not."

The communications officer popped up a series of screens showing the other commanding officers on their far flung ships and Rika and his men waited the two hoursit took their communications to reach the other ships. Then the officers all reported the same thing, though their ship's sensors didn't have as good a sensors array, and their SGA was nowhere near as powerful, being an extremely power intensive and very expensive system. Indeed, it was nearly as expensive as a superdreadnought.

"Tactical, your thoughts?" Rika asked, looking over at his first officer, who was also his tactical officer in traditional Kree fashion. Despite this latest oddity it was a captain's task to teach his officers, and putting the man on the spot as he had already done with the sensor officer was one way to do that.

The tactical officer nodded slowly. "Sir, I have been wondering and I know I'm not alone in thinking of how We'hnt should at least have done some damage to the planet regardless of whatever defenses the humans have been able to put in place. But am I correct when I say the sensor readings we have of the planet don't show any discrepancy from the earlier readings the Sentry and the Hellion passed on?"

"Yes sir!" The sensor said, standing to attention. "I double-checked that before giving my report. All the heat signatures, the cities on the third planet, are where they should be. The fourth planet seems to have lost its atmosphere in some kind of catastrophic event, but we don't have any information about what kind."

"So, it's some kind of highly advanced decoy, or illusion." Rika mused, nodding his head to the tactical officer and ignoring the unimportant part about the fourth planet.

"That is what I would assume sir. The real planet might itself be covered by a similar illusion field somehow, though the how would be something to discover. A planetary shield of some kind or course yet the type and how of it is well beyond what even our own scientists are capable of putting in place. Judging by the information we have on him however, this Reed Richards might have been able to come up with something, and the last information we received from the Hellion's spy mission says he was not the only genius among the humans." The tactical officer replied calmly even as his eyes gleamed with eagerness at the idea of such a technological marvel, and what it could mean for the Kree if they could figure out the how of it.

"So the real planet would be where the SGA is telling us. Good, that will give us the target then." Turning to the screens the coms officer had opened he ordered formally. "All ships will jump to hyperspace onto the pre-approved coordinates. Shardow, Numalin, Brishtol, and Torvrack will join the Devastator in assaulting the planet, firing plan genocide."

This firing plan assigned each bombarding ship with a sector of the target planet to bombard, so there was no overlap. Cities, mountains, oceans, that didn't matter with the amount of firepower they could unleash. Battleships weren't actually the best for this kind of mission, but their firepower should be enough backing up the Planet Crusher.

"The rest of the ships will hold fire and target any defenders or defensive emplacements that reveal themselves. I acknowledge that the humans might be able to mask their presence somehow by our scanners, and ships, no matter how large would not show up at this distance." Rika finished, nodding his head. "For the Kree Empire!"

Instead of waiting to acknowledge the orders Rika ordered the coms officer to cut the connection. While those orders crossed the intervening distance Rika ordered the hyperspace communication drone loaded with all of their thoughts and sensor readings launched. Then they waited for his orders to reach the other ships and an instant later the Devastator jumped into hyperspace once more.

OOOOOOO

An emergency alarm blared in the headmaster's quarters of Camelot, throughout High Note, the Baxter Building and even in Doom's dual purpose laboratory and castle in Latveria forty minutes after the Kree ships had appeared in the solar system. The distance was such their sensors couldn't make out any details, but the human's own sensors were good enough to spot the hyperspace footprints.

"Emergency, Kree ship's inbound!" Shouted the voice of Pinoptes and the Custodes and their allies responded.

A few seconds later the Custodes minus Magma had joined the Thing and Johnny on High Note, fully kitted out for war, as did Dr. Doom and over two dozen of his Doombots, though these were not the body doubles he routinely used. These were multi-armed gun platforms with only their torsos and heads resembling Doom. Carol too was there, linked in from the command room of Fortress Mars, and she nodded as Guardian turned first to the AI then to her "What do we have Pinoptes, and are you ready Carol?"

"Four distinct hyperspace splashes, situated around the system at the very farthest my current sensor suite can see. I estimate they will jump back to hyperspace for the inward journey soon," the AI reported crisply. It had been teaching Douglas and a few other students at the time its sensors had picked up the readings, but even so he had enough of his attention to spare to analyze them as he raised the alarm. "Unfortunately, our sensors are just not up to telling me more about what made the splashes."

"What they are matter little, if they are here at all, they are here to assault Earth." Doom replied, his voice even more sepulchral than normal coming out of his iron mask.

"Carol?" Harry asked.

"Sir, the gravitic trap array is online and ready." Carol asked formally, her 'Uzume' helmet under one arm.

They hadn't taken the system up to full power just yet, but it had passed all of its physical tests up to this point. What the gravitic trap would do once fully powered up was a question, but it would be interesting to see anyway. "Your um, your little surprise is also still… moving around out there."

"Good. Start it up. Storm, Jean, Torch remain here," Harry ordered. "The rest of the Custodes and the FF with me. Your majesty, if you could split up your forces? Have as many who can move in outer space remain here just in case, the rest should join us."

Jean grimaced angrily at being left behind like this, but couldn't argue with it. And the others being left behind told her that Harry was serious about using them as a final line of defense too.

For his part Doom merely nodded, even though he also raised a sardonic eyebrow under his mask wondering what surprise Harry had put in place. With a few crisp instructions into his communicator the doombots, which had remained in High Note's hanger bay, split up. Half of them flew back into space while the others marched further into the space station to join Doom as he fell into step with Harry.

A moment later they appeared in the receiving bay in Mars. There Reed met them, handing out jet packs. The same variety the FF had used in the Negative Zone, to those who needed them. Reed was already wearing one, as was Thundra. Susan, a week further into her pregnancy than Jean, was not here. She had been relegated to watching Franklin, something she enjoyed, her place on the FF taken by Thundra, who apparently was now in a relationship with the Thing.

From there Harry used his magical powers to pull the rest of the team up into space over the dead, atmosphere-less planet. There they saw the gravitic trap system activate, the spires of the artificial gravity generator flashing and buzzing with energy against the black of space and behind them Doom saw the surprise Harry had emplaced.

Hundreds of tiny asteroids, none of them the larger than a human was tall, were moving through the space in front of them all around the red planet. That space was large, so the effect wasn't nearly as impressive as the asteroid rings in science fiction movies were, but it was still enough to make for a very dangerous area to hyperspace into.

To one side of their current position rested several of the most badly damaged ships from the derelict fleet, their hulls patched roughly in an effort to make them seem like combat worthy craft. Despite that, Doom knew an unshaken enemy would see right through the ruse. Still, with the rest it might prove beneficial.

On top of that Doom, with the senses his mother had begun to train him in the moment they freed her soul from Mephisto, saw the magic that Harry had used to set them into motion. Those objects would keep moving at that same high speed around the area which itself was marked by more magic. "Interesting bit of magic there."

"My godfather was a master prankster, and he also taught me once how to play pool," Harry said, his voice muffled by his mask, though the nostalgic tone still filtered through.

"He taught me how to put down a spell to keep the balls bouncing around as fast as they started out. Certainly kept the game interesting. I have no idea how much damage they'll do to the Kree ships, I suppose that will be decided by how large they are, but they should work to bring down their shields whatever the enemy's size. Now, let's spread out and get ready. I'll be almost literally throwing you all forward just like those asteroids. Be careful, but be ready."

An instant before the teams were in position the gravitic trap array activated. The equivalent of a sun's gravity shadow reached out into hyperspace, covering Earth in its penumbra for just an instant, pulling the ships aimed to Earth towards it. If that power had been allowed to inhabit the material plane, the results would have been catastrophic, but directed into hyperspace the effect was limited. At least on Earth and Mars.

OOOOOOO

Rika gripped the edges of his command chair as alarms warbled around his ship and the Devastator screamed in agony all around him. "Report!" he barked, staring over at first the sensor specialist and then the damage control officer.

"Sir I don't know, it's like we just ran into a gravity well that wasn't there a minute ago!" the damage control officer screamed over the tumult of wrenching metal and the alarms. "Our engines are…Skaza!" the officer cursed suddenly. "We just lost the engine's entirely, coming out of hyperspace now!"

The Devastator came out of hyperspace not like the monstrous shark of space it was but like a drunken sailor staggering in after days of shore leave. The battleships accompanying it were no better. Worse, they came out scattered, even the pairs assigned from each initial jump point were too far from one another to provide any support. Damage reports immediately started to come in, their com systems undamaged, but it was obvious to Rika that none of their ships were going to be jumping home any time soon, not without significant amounts of repair.

Nor were they anywhere near the target planet. If the scanners were right, they were near the fourth planet of the system instead of the third, and…

Rika's thoughts cut off as one of the battleships, marked on his system by the purple of friendlies, went to umber indicating damage. "Sir, we're under attack, some kind of, of asteroid assault? Like someone had loaded a giant gauss cannon with dozens of tiny asteroids!"

The sensor specialist said. "Also incoming ships, they look like captured friendlies!"

"Damage to the port fourteen and nineteen, damage to aft 3," The damage control officer reported, now much calmer that they were back into normal space. "Minimal damage, shields holding for the most part, but we had severe bleed over in the engine rooms, we are down to three shield generators rather than the five we should have, and if the battleships had the same amount of bleed over…"

The damaged battleship, the Procurdo, disappeared, and then the rest were starting to take damage too. Rika's mind raced even as he began to bark out orders. "All ships move into a defensive formation with the nearest consort. Tactical take us to Inheledon's aid, all weapons free on those tiny asteroids, save one battery of rail guns. Those you are to use against the captured vessels coming towards us." The Inheledon was the nearest one to the Devastator' current position.

"Sir we're going to have a hell of a time targeting the asteroids, they don't have any heat signatures and they are damnably fast," his second in command replied. He did so however only after he had relayed Rika's orders to his men. "Suggest we assign at least one weapon out of every three to search out incoming heat signatures of all sorts beyond the ships we can already see. The Human Torch…"

"Excellent suggestion, pass it on to the other commanders Tactical," Rika replied nodding to the man even as his thoughts raced, taking in everything the plot could show him. The computers had now analyzed the number of high speed asteroids that were careening through his scattered formation, and also given him an estimate of the other ships' damages.

With his ships all firing at them they were slowly destroying the asteroids, but even so the things had done a lot of damage, and the bleed over from whatever hyperspace defense system the humans had somehow developed had done a lot of damage to the smaller battleships. Only two of them had their shields fully online, the rest were either down in patches or sputtering entirely. A second battleship, the Numalin, disappeared from his sensors, destroyed with all hands.

The Devastator was of course still combat capable. The damage to the Planet Crusher's engines might have been total, but the rest of the damage was negligible, and as his ship's weapons spoke, they wiped out whole swaths of the incoming asteroids, despite their target's speed. That usage left several dozen weapons systems not currently in use, since they were not designed for even anti-ship defense, but before Rika could decide what to do with them the tactical screen updated with new information. "All ships, see if you can target those incoming groups of heat signatures. All ships are to prepare for boarders."

OOOOOOO

"SHITE! That ship's the same size as the Death Dealer!" Harry bellowed into his communicator, teleporting forward with the Custodes around him. "I'm heading for that ship, that's got to be their flagship!"

Doom's doom-bots and the ships of the scrap fleet had thankfully covered their approach for a time, but as the battleships and the even larger flagship slaughtered them and the billiard ball asteroids, he and his people had begun to take fire too. Doom had taken a blast that halted all his forward momentum, though judging by his roar of affront he was still alive. Piotr had been struck a glancing blow, but his armored form and Juggernaut armor had taken it with surprising ease.

Still, they had come close enough to start boarding the three battleships whose shields had collapsed up to this point. Those shields had healed very well against the asteroid-billiards, but not well enough. Dropping off Paige, Banshee and Nikolai on one and Wyatt, Dani and Piotr on a second however Harry ignored the third, leaving that to The Thing, who smashed into it like one of the asteroids, his shout of 'It's Clobbering Time!" ringing out over the com net.

"Agreed," Doom growled. "I will take out the ship which had the effrontery to assault my person and join you presently Potter." With that Dr. Doom teleported from where he had been flying to directly below the ship which had hit him, flying up to aim his hand towards his enemy. A searing bright spark of energy flew out, and the battleship's shields flickered and died for an instant, allowing Doom to close with the battleship.

Harry grunted in acknowledgement, then shot out his own energy assault, overloading the superdreadnought's shielding in a tiny area. Before the shield's generator could respond he was through and heading inward. He knew that this was sort of grandstanding, going in alone, but the number and size of the ships here made it impossible to do anything else.

This close he was able to dodge the few weapons the giant ship had which could range on him, but it was damned hard, the gunners on the other side of those guns keeping him away for several minutes.

OOOOOOO

Pouring over the data beyond the current battle, Rika closed his eyes, gritting his teeth before opening them and moving over to the weapons stations. Two of the men there had moved over to help their fellows but he called them back quickly. "Do we have enough data here to launch missiles at Earth from here?"

The weapons officer in charge of the Planet Crusher's missile systems had to work at his control for a few frantic seconds, while the others continued to try and keep the human away from the ship's exterior hull. Rika idly wondered who he was, the scanners had spotted someone who could only be the Thing, but decided it really didn't matter. The human was obviously confident enough to think he could take on the Planet Crusher alone, and given what the targets with high metallic content were currently doing to three of Rika's battleships, he wasn't willing to say he couldn't.

"Um… we have a good enough gravitic reading on the planet sir, yes, but it'll take at least twenty minutes for our missiles to reach the third planet from here, and shouldn't we target the planet beneath us? The sensors indicated that whatever it was that dragged us out of hyperspace is based there."

"That is what the stellar cannons are for ensign. Your job is to kill that planet…"

Rika was interrupted as the human reached the Devastator's hull and the damage control officer shouted "Sir, he, he just ripped up a part of the hull! He's inside. The interior security cameras are coming online, blat doors closing. Sector five will be left to space."

Rika moved over in his direction, motioning the missile system's ensign to follow him. His tactical officer met him at the damage control section and the two men looked at the cameras as the human appeared on them.

The reason he had been confident enough to take on a Planet Crusher alone became apparent as they watched, the human slamming his hands down onto the floor of the hallway. A dozen metallic… creatures of some kind pulled themselves out of the twisted remains of the hall's floor and walls, moving forward of the man and into the first security team to respond to the breach.

Rika watched in something approaching shock as the metal creatures, standing about a head taller than most Kree, ripped into the security team tossing them around. Two died in the doing, but they took twenty of Rika's men with them, then the human was there too, lashing out with different colored energy blasts and some kind of invisible assault which exploded a security cannon the moment it dropped down from the ceiling.

The captain and his first officer shared a look and the younger man saluted wordlessly before rushing out the door, intent on taking command of the interior defenses personally. Rika watched him go for a moment before turning back to the ensign who had followed him over from the weapons section. "Ensign, we might well lose this fight, realize this now. But I refuse to not succeed in my mission, and that was to wipe out that planet. Fire all missiles rapid fire, hold nothing back."

The ensign nodded, his pale skin even paler for a moment before he turned to race back to his console. Rika followed him, nodding to one of the other weapon's officers. "You have a lock on the energy signature of that trap?"

"Yes sir," the man replied, moving back to his own station from where he had been helping his fellows finishing off the visible ships. Ships which, Rika now knew, had been nothing more than bait to sucker his ship's attention away from the real threat. "We've lost two of the five main guns, but the others are all reading as operational."

"Good. Fire all the remaining stellar cannons. Destroy that planet."

OOOOOOO

Missiles were not a normal part of Kree or Skrull military doctrine. There were a number of very good reasons for this most of which were centered around computer technology and economic concerns.

For one thing, ship-based computer systems had evolved far beyond what missile based computer systems could deal with. ECCM had far outstripped missile based ECM, so you would have to wait until the opponent's ships were within range of your own computers to do much good. That said nothing about how quickly computers could lock onto and engage missiles with ships weapons. Magnetic pintle mounts such as both races used were hellishly quick able to change from one target to another faster than most sentients could blink, and equally accurate.

So even the human equivalent of a frigate could easily spoof twice its weight in missiles and destroy still more before they ranged on it in turn without true anti-missile systems. On top of this, missiles would cost more than the frigate to actually construct. And they cost more in rare metals and internal systems, their drives being rather fiddly little things. Under most circumstances even the Kree and Skrull felt it was not worth the expense of having them aboard ship.

Planet Crushers were the exception to the rule, and like many such they could prove devastating if used appropriately. Planet Crushers had a hundred and twenty missile launchers scattered around their massive hulls amongst the myriad other weapons the massive ships boasted. Their purpose was to, as the name of the ship class suggested, to destroy planets or targets on planets, in the missile's case beyond the range of their normal weaponry if they could not get within range of the rest of their weapons for whatever reason.

Occasionally groups of Planet Crushers had launched missiles like this against an enemy planet. The Skrull did the same thing in order to destroy said planet despite being unable to actually take the system. It was one of many reasons why the war between the two races was so bloody and drawn out.

The Devastator was the only Planet Crusher in the system. It only had a hundred of its missile launchers remaining, and five missiles per launcher with no way to get the other missiles out of their original tubes. Even going to rapid-fire, the Devastator could only get out a missile per tube every 40 seconds. That gave them only about a maximum of 500 missiles.

But the humans didn't have a fleet between them and the target. They didn't have a fleet with the computers that could so easily detect those missiles even when coasting on momentum. And Earth's defenders were already either inside their ships, or grossly out of position.

About to enter the battleship that he had chosen to be his personal target Doom turned as his armor's computer registered the missile launch from the Planet Crusher. His computer system had belatedly noted the differences between the giant super-dreadnoughts and the Death Dealer that Jean Grey and her group had brought back and had labeled this new ship an example of the second variety of said class.

Seeing the missiles racing off into space away from the red planet he snarled angrily keying in his communicator. "Potter! That ship you're on just launched missiles towards Earth. If they disappear into the dark it's going to be monstrously hard to find them!"

A bare second later he watched the ship fire what had to be its main weapons system. Massive white and silver beams of power flashed out from the ship, so much energy coming off them that Doom realized if they had fired on him or even the Thing and Colossus they could well have been immolated. Luckily they were not the target of those monstrous beams, so large they were almost as large around as an American carrier.

Not so luckily Fortress Mars, or rather the entire planet of Mars, was. The weapons slammed into the planet, tearing through rock and other minerals as if they were not even there. The Hyperspace trap device disappeared, along with dozens of construction droids which had still been working around it. Those beams of energy were also not pulse weapons, they were continuous beams, and they began to literally dig through the crust of the planet, intent on coring the small red world.

"They have also started to open fire on Mars! I estimate they are trying to crack open the planet!" Doom shouted, before turning back to his personal battle as more of his target's weapons tried to range on him.

OOOOOOO

Harry paused as he was about to summon more golems to do his bidding, then finished the incantation, his mind awhirl. Gathering his magical power, he pointed his way out the same way he had come, towards the outer hall he thought though he didn't really care at this point and intoned one of the most powerful assault spells he knew. Fragor unda fortitudine!"

The ravening beam of barely shaped magical energy slammed into the bulkhead of in front of Harry then through it and kept on going, tearing a gaping hole in the powerful ship. But Harry wasn't done. He wrenched his hand to the side, tearing a massive cavern into the ship's side from the inside, trying and failing to keep the beam on a straight line, but after a moment he realized that hardly mattered.

The magical assault hit one of the remaining ship's generators, which exploded, taking out a large portion of the ships side and flinging it sideways. The loss of the generator however was more important than the damage it did, since the ship had already lost two of its generators thanks to catastrophic bleed-over from the damages done to the ship's engines. And two generators were not enough to keep everything on the ship, especially the large main guns, up and running.

The massive beams cut out, and Harry heard Carol shouting thanks from where she had remained inside Fortress Mars, directing the control of the gravitic trap device.

"Carol, quiet down, this battle isn't over yet. Make certain all your people are safe, I bet that attack will have started shock waves through the planet's crust at the very least. But before that tell Phoenix and the others they have incoming!"

OOOOOOO

"This is the apparent route of the incoming missile system before they were too far away from our limited sensor envelope near Mars for us to track. I do not know when along their route they will turn of their thrusters to conserve power for final burn, but I would estimate it would occur somewhere around here." Pinoptes voice was calm as it overlaid a map of the star system between Mars and Earth with over 400 flashing dots.

The A.I. also idly noted the massive coruscation of energy that had dug deep into Mars along one face of it from the Planet Crusher. Jean too noted that out of the corner of her eye as she raced like Storm and the Human Torch out of High Note's command center then through space towards the incoming missiles, moving faster than any Kree or Skrull warship could have over the same amount of space.

Hela was also with them now. She had come up to watch the goings-on having no real interest in fighting aliens, though she was interested in watching Harry's combat tactics. This however was a direct threat to Earth, or Midgard as she thought of it still, and she decided to get involved.

That still left them woefully unprepared for this, and the rest of their forces was just too far out of position to do much good. Individually the attackers could wipe out whole swaths of missiles, but finding them in the depths of space once they cut out their internal power would be next to impossible with their given sensor technology.

They arrived at the area where Pinoptes estimated the missiles would be, and indeed found several dozen there, their internal power still on. These must have been the missiles of the second wave, since they hadn't yet had the time to build up the momentum and slightly divergent flight paths that spelled life for the murderous devices.

Phoenix, Storm, The human Torch and Hela all spread out, swatting the missiles out of space before they could turn off their engines, killing dozens of them. Phoenix was particularly thorough, lashing out, lashing out with blasts of TK power in strength and size fit to wreck cities, while the others were a little more surgical. Despite this differences in style however they were still effective, and all of the third and fourth waves of missiles were destroyed.

After that initial success however, while the main battle raged on, the four of them slowly first ran out of targets. The Torch had gotten lucky and nearly ran into an unpowered missile hurtling through space on momentum, but without power the things were damned hard to find. Ororo too was lucky enough to spot them moving across the blackness of space, subtle differences between them and the background alerting her to their presence.

But as the quartet spread out, they realized with horror that the missiles were just too good at hiding for them to find them all. Ororo's magic availed her not at all here, they had no mind for Phoenix to find, and they were too spread out now to let a saturation attack like that which Jean used to get more than one or two at best. "Damn it Pinoptes make a note, you need more fucking eyes! No offense but this is impossible!"

"None taken Phoenix," the AI replied. "I had not anticipated the usage of missiles like this, none of the prisoners mentioned it, and it was nowhere to be found in any of tactical doctrine we were able to get off the Death bringer's computers of even the computer systems of the rest of the derelict fleet.

"While later it might make me feel better about our failure to not anticipate this sort of assault right, it does not help us now!" Storm said. "Find us a way to find them!"

"Should we fall back and wait for the missiles to engage their engines again?" The Human Torch asked, his voice barely heard over the crackle of the fire of his body, though the fact Reed had come up with a communicator that could survive his body's fire-form was impressive.

"A thought, but your backs would be to the wall at that point. I would recommend that you pull back in jumps of a quarter of the distance between you and Earth, try to find them for a few minutes, then jump again." Pinoptes replied. "Our sensors will find them the instant they power up, but I have no data I can use to anticipate how close they will be when they enter their final burn."

"Let us do that then," Hela said imperiously, her hands crackling with purple and white energies. "You, Human Torch, create the most massive fireballs you can and launch them in every direction. The rest of us will be on the lookout for something that reflects the light."

"Good thinking sexy!" Torch said then shut up quickly as he barely dodged a bolt of something that looked like a cube set on fire. An instant later Storm and Hela teleported them all, with the Human Torch moving with Storm and Hela taking Phoenix.

They got lucky following Hela's tactics, destroying forty more missiles before they came close enough to be seen from Earth.

OOOOOOO

"S, Sir!" stammered a tech from a sensor station on board the helacarrier, his voice rising over the general hubbub in a loud squeak. "Um, you, you better get over here!"

Hearing the fear in the man's voice and recognizing him as one of the techs who watched their Space Watch sensors Nick, fresh from his first vacation in decades, hurried from where he had been doing some computer work of his own at the main command station to the man's side. He and his section had been put in charge of the sensors Tony Stark and Hank Pym had begun to develop to try and monitor anything going on in space, primarily to see what Potter was up to up there. They had had scant success at that, since Potter's magic defeated any planet-based scanners they had, though a few of their older records had shown that several nearby asteroids had disappeared for one reason or another.

Now however, over a hundred red glaring dots seems to be appearing on the edge of the screen heading toward Earth spreading out in every direction.

"Son," Nick said slowly "What are those things, and why they making for Earth?"

"Sir, those are reading like missiles, huge missiles that just lit off their engines! We don't know if they came from cloaked ships or coasted to that point before restarting their engines but they are aimed for Earth. No specific target just, just Earth." The man stammered again.

Nick frowned angrily then watched as a few of the missiles disappeared, and other things started to appear on the screen. One was a massive heat signature, which he easily recognized as the Human Torch. Others were unidentified flying objects though unlike the old Roswell one's these were probably human-shaped.

"The Custodes Mundi," said one of his other specialists. "Holy hell! I have no idea what's going on up there, but I really hope that the Custodes Mundi live up to their name."

"Estimate on their payload?" Nick asked his voice almost detached. This wasn't the first fight he'd ever seen that he wasn't a part of, but there was something dreadful about watching those red dots come closer and closer to the planet he was pledged to defend.

"Unknown sir. Probably… well judging by the size of their engine signature I guess anyone of them is about five times the size of one of our ICBMs. In terms of payload, I have no idea. Even if they're just nukes, we're looking at enough firepower to lay waste to a continent."

"Tony?" he asked looking over the communications officer.

"Already got in touch with the Iron Man, and he's heading up as we speak along with a few of his 'spare suits'. They should be appearing on our screens sometime soon." Nick's second in command replied. The 'spare suits' were actually a term used to describe the first few suits Tony had created that could be remote controlled. They weren't very dangerous since the commands they could recognize were few and far between, but with Jarvis at the helm they could be a decent, if dreadfully linear fighting force.

An instant later Iron Man and his suits appeared rocketing from Washington DC being picked up on the radar first before being passed off to space watch as he broke atmosphere. He immediately rocketed towards two of the lead missiles who were aiming towards that portion of America, or perhaps just above them in Canada, blowing them out of space.

After that everyone fell silent, more and more of the sensors techs and bridge crew coming over to look at the little sparkling red lights of death coming for them and everyone they knew. They all watched as missile after missiles intercepted, sometimes swaths of them disappearing from the screen in a massive unseen explosions of heat and fire, but there were too many missiles.

"Go baby go," said more than one voice, and even a few heads were bowed in prayer around Nick as he stared at the screen.

OOOOOOO

They weren't going to catch them all. Jean had done a magnificent job, clearing out entire sectors of space with her power, but she was flagging now. The TK blast she was using wasn't very powerful normally speaking, but to cover that wide an area was the next best thing to insane, and she was approaching exhaustion. Johnny too was running on literal fumes.

Of them all Hela was the only one who had endurance to spare, but she was also the least able to catch up with the missiles even with Pinoptes' aid in finding them. Not that this seemed to stop her. As that thought hit Storm she saw nearly out of her sight Hela ripping a missile in two with one hand while throwing her sword like a spear well out of Ororo's eyesight. That sword soared for more than several hundred kilometers to impact another missile.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Storm muttered into the communicator even as Iron Man raced through the debris of several of the frontrunners and, though he could not see them the Ravenspire, Forge and High Note in orbit over Earth. Leaving this area of the battlefield to her friends, Storm fell back, getting in front of the missiles using her mutant-based control over solar winds to hurry her along.

She bypassed High Note entirely, zooming down into the upper atmosphere of Earth before halting turning back to stare up out of the gravity well into space towards the incoming missiles. Luckily the missiles were still constrained by the angle of their initial launch, so only one hemisphere of the planet was in danger at this time.

Gathering her mutant power Ororo reached out, taking control of the weather all around her. Then beyond her line of sight, then beyond again. Storm pushed her mutant power to the maximum, wishing that her magical power could somehow bolster her strength when it came to wielding her mutant power. But despite that lack Ororo pushed her mutant power to the breaking point, taking control of the weather of this entire side of the planet.

This wasn't as 'easy' as it would have been on the ground, considering how high into the atmosphere she was, and how much more air per inch that added. But she kept going, gritting her teeth as she felt the power she was daring to try and control beating at her mind, threatening to tear her apart. Is this what Harry felt when he faced the shadows, or when he faced the spirit of Balthakk? I will do no less than my love, I will overcome this!

"I am Ororo Munroe!" she howled to the winds she had gathered, unseen and unheard by any mortal ears. "Goddess of the storm, Chosen of Gaea, love of Harry Potter, and I call forth the lightning!"

Lightning lanced from her fingers, and spread like a web through the atmosphere of Earth. It was a light show to put the Aurora Borealis to shame. So visible was it that even the people on the ground far, far below Storm could see the lightning web, mountain sized streamers of lightning marching in each direction away from Storm's current position.

It was an act of desperation, it was an act of madness. The planet's weather system would be messed up for weeks even with Storm and Gaia later on working together to get it back under control.

But it worked. The last 30 missiles which had evaded everything Jean and the others could throw at them slammed into Storm's impromptu lightning shield, and exploded. Enough power to slaughter a continent went off in the upper atmosphere of Earth, and then faded. Earth was saved again.

Storm smiled widely, her arms falling to her sides as her power faded, failed and broke, and she fell towards Earth.

Before she had fallen more than 100 yards however, Hela was there, grabbing her up into a bear hug that would've been fit cracked people's ribs if she wasn't also being very careful. "That was a magnificent light show my dear, one even the Thunderer himself would have been proud of! You did it!"

OOOOOOO

Cheers erupted all over the helacarrier's bridge, in secret and not so secret federal agencies, military bases, and even hundreds of scattered private and even several million civilian telescope owners the world joined in as everyone who had the eyes to see into space saw that they had been saved. Few knew from what, but the news would spread, no cover up would ever be able to hide what had just happened from the public now.

But Nick, staring at the now cleared screen as the unidentified symbols slowly faded out despite Iron Man's attempt to intercept, or rather communicate, with them, couldn't bring himself to care. The Custodes Mundi has lived up to its name yet again and where does that leave you, Fury? You with your paranoia and your irritation with Potter and his wayward ways. Where does that leave you, when you are unable to do your job and wary of the individual who's stepped up to the plate instead?

OOOOOOO

They had lost, and Rika knew it. He'd known that when he had ordered those missiles launched, but had hoped to salvage something from this. Yet the close in defenders were ready for more missiles now, indeed the entire planet her crusher was surrounded by some kind of energy field, which had intercepted the final missile launch, exploding the missiles almost as soon as they left their ports, doing more damage to the Devastator than anything else had saved that odd energy attack from its own interior.

Indeed, that whatever it was had stripped his ship of exterior defenses, and destroyed much of their remaining weapons. This also included slagging the boat bays, and thus halting the launch of any follow on hyperspace courier drone.

With his ships boarded, with their engines wrecked, and with no weapons remaining to him there was only one more duty available to Rika. He looked over to the communications officer. "Ensign, do we have a translation of, I think it's called English?"

"Yes sir," said the young man softly as the din of battle outside the bridge rose to a crescendo. His tactical officer was doing his best, but the boarder's ability to create more troops out of the very material of the Devastator was possibly insurmountable.

"Put me on," he said simply, hoping that for all their superficial resemblance to his people the humans were more like the Shi'ar in how they dealt with prisoners. "To the humans assaulting my ship, this is Commodore Rika. I hereby ask for the terms under which you will except in good faith the surrender of my ship and its surviving crew."

OOOOOOO

Steve pulled open the small communicator Harry had given at him smiling as Harry's face appeared there, looking rather wan and exhausted. "Harry. You had a damn busy day yesterday. All of those here on Earth thank you."

"Always nice to hear Steve," Harry said quietly leaning his head back in the screen, his eyes closed wearily. "It was close, really close. We didn't see those missiles coming at all, and they nearly caught us with our pants down. We thought we knew their doctrine, which didn't have any place for missiles in it but we didn't have any prisoner who had served on one or had any information about Planet Crushers. We should've figured that those ships might have tricks we didn't know about."

"Still, we survived, Earth survived." Harry went on briskly, his lips twitching in an exhausted parody of a smile. "I'll be getting another soirée about it all, you'll be receiving an invitation for yourself and a plus one. I'd suggest bringing Nick Fury along as yours, unless you have someone better in mind?"

"You're not nearly as funny as you think you are, though I'll see if I can get him into a dress in any event," Steve said with a laugh, before saluting the man on the other side of the magical communication device and turning it off.

End Chapter

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Lots of combat in this chapter, which I honestly did not expect save for the first and last segments. The AIM portion took me by surprise as I wrote out the chapter, but I think it's worked out rather well and the space battle sort of evolved beyond what I thought it would be too. I also hope that everyone likes how Hela's inclusion into the life of the castle and her place with Harry and co.: Not quite one of them but certainly within their orbit. I would like to once again thank Mordreek for his help with the Asgardian segments of this chapter, and as always, please leave a review!

I should have the poll for June up on my P/atron site and profile here tomorrow morning, so be sure to check it out, especially if you are interested in my SW crossovers. Seriously, every time I wasn't working or writing up this story my mind was consumed with the flashes of lightsabers LOL. But if you don't want to wait to see any new writing from me, head over and sign up!