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.

37. A Hot, Cold War

I am not Stan Lee, which is a pity because then he would still be among us, nor am I a British woman with a questionable grasp on world building.

Here is the next chapter of ATP. A brief warning, if you are looking for mega-magical duels or Harry style curbstomping, you're going to have to wait until the next chapter. This chapter is more about the common man and the rest of the Custodes proving that quality beats out quantity, about regular people becoming heroes while the heroes just help as best they possibly can.

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Chapter 37: A Hot, Cold War

One of the things that Harry had found very little time to do since he had begun to create his own faction around Camelot and the Custodes Mundi, let alone everything else was to study history: specifically, the history of this dimension, and how it differed from his own. Of course, he already knew of one difference: that Queen Elizabeth had been born a man in this dimension, the now-extremely elderly gentleman having become Harry's first political ally. But reading through a few history books over the last few days Harry had found that difference was only one of many, though it had a severe impact when multiplied by one other.

That one other being that King William's father had died during World War I through the simple means of falling off his horse when visiting the front, which was quite possibly the most ignominious death of a monarch Harry had ever read about. His horse had spooked at the sound of distant gunfire: not even artillery fire, just regular gunfire. The King had been dumped off his horse and had broken his neck.

This had an immediate impact on the war effort. Not by causing much of the British army to become demoralized, or anything like that of course. The king's death didn't actually impact the men at the front, who couldn't care less about some toff at the back being offed by his own stupidity, and the trenches were still there.

No, the impact came at sea when one William Windsor, Ensign second class, His Majesty's Navy, became the actual His Majesty to which that navy was sworn. And, to the shock of many pundits, William had immediately acted in his new position as overall commander in chief. William's sitting on Winston Churchill was not the only reason why King William was near idolized in the British military. No, that adoration began when he took command of HMS Iron Duke, which he had been assigned to, and then the High Seas Fleet around it, overruling a maneuver being done to turn away from the shores of the Jutland. Instead of breaking back out to sea and accidentally avoiding battle in such a way that, afterwards, Admiral Jellicoe would be accused of cowardice in Harry's world, in this world the British High Seas Fleet brought the main German fleet to battle for a second time, and that decisively, successfully cutting them off from their home ports. The battle of Jutland became, not a costly draw (if that), but an outright, if bloody, victory for the British Navy.

The High Seas Fleet lost six dreadnoughts sunk out of a possible twenty-eight, along with eight battlecruisers out of nine—something which would impact shipbuilding after the war—three armored cruisers, fifteen light cruisers, and fourteen destroyers. But the German fleet had been practically wiped out to a ship: sixteen battleships, five battlecruisers, all their pre-dreadnoughts, and the large majority of their light cruisers and torpedo boats, the remainder of which were mostly captured. The dead had included Scheer and Hipper, the two German admirals, and many of their finest officers. In a battle much like the battle of Tsukishima Straits, in which Japan had beaten Russia, it was decisive and broke the back of the German Fleet, allowing the British to put more destroyers on convoy duty, which also had an impact on the submarine war.

The morale boost this victory caused was tremendous, both within the Armed Forces and in the isles. With the surface navy smashed, the German government, with Ludendorff and the manic Kaiser in charge, pulled a lot of their resources from their navy, and the embargo around the islands soon ceased to matter in any appreciable way, with the British building more anti-sub destroyers to protect their shipping against fewer subs. Those resources and men pulled back from the navy helped the various fronts on the ground for the Germans, it was true, making the war in the east end earlier than it had in Harry's world. But ultimately the British Empire came out of the war in a much better place monetarily than they had in Harry's world.

From there, Harry's reading had skipped to the next world war. He wasn't actually reading this for his own amusement, after all. He needed to get more of a handle on the European picture before the next boot fell.

"Or should that be before the next tank rolls?" Harry mused to himself as he leaned back in his chair, reading his latest history book.

Despite the fact that William was in full control of Britain's military and its logistics, foreign policy was then and remained now under the control of the Prime Minister. Beyond the military William concentrated his social energies on backing women's suffrage in the isles, as well as pushing for more rights for his 'foreign subjects.' "…Who, despite being foreign, are still my subjects and thus equal under the law." Neither of these policies made him any friends among the powerful or even a lot of normal people in the British Isles, especially after he ordered a Colonel Dire executed for ordering a massacre of Egyptian nationals, which led to worse issues later.

Beyond this, William had also been extremely leery of getting into another war, both internally and externally, so had no issues with Chamberlain and his policies when it came to Europe. The losses of World War I would've horrified anyone, even if Britain had come out of it more intact as an empire in this world than in Harry's own.

During the intervening years William had devoted himself to naval matters and, specifically, anti-sub warfare, since, before the battle of Jutland, the German subs had been wreaking havoc on the British maritime fleet and, indeed, would have continued to do so if not for the idiocy of the Kaiser and Ludendorff's obsession with the Eastern Front. William refused to not learn from the mistakes of the past, and, because of that, sonar had been developed much more quickly, as had weapons like depth charges and hedgehogs.

Thus the Germans' attempts to cut Britain off from America and Canada were far bloodier for the first few months on both sides but in the long term the blockade didn't come close to the level it had in Harry's world. Britain had had to deal with a lot more internal terrorists, thanks to the Red Skull and his puppet, Lord Hampshire and other local issues caused by William's policeies. The UK's friendship with America suffered in comparison to Harry's old world, too, because, unlike Churchill, William never created a friendship with Roosevelt. Then-ambassador Kennedy also clandestinely helped the British Nazi party, which he certainly didn't do in Harry's world, despite being anti-Semitic and believing that Britain could never win.

However, their anti-sub warfare was such that there was no raid on Scapa Flow, and no Courageous sunk. They still lost ships, of course, many of them, and the destroyers and Flower class ships paid a deadly toll. On top of that, William, like many others, was slow to realize the efficacy of carrier warfare, which allowed America, both during WW2 and after, to become the preeminent carrier power in the world. And Harry was amused to find that William had made other mistakes. His biggest mistake was in personnel, and it could well have forced the UK out of the war.

In Harry's world, General Montgomery became known as the winner of the battle of El Alamein, defeating Erwin Rommel at that 'set piece' battle. After that the Desert Fox had been in retreat. Eventually, though not easily, he was pushed out of Africa entirely as America joined the war, dipping their toe in, as it were, in Africa to learn how to fight the monstrously efficient German war machine. Rommel would go on to be implicated in a plot to kill Hitler and would commit suicide rather than face that shame.

In this world, however, William had overridden Churchill's recommendation of Montgomery to take command of the British forces in Egypt. Furious at the debacle in Greece which the man had led, Montgomery was pulled back to the home islands, and the original commanders of the British Army in Africa remained there. The Desert Foxe's response to this was predictable, in Harry's opinion. He ran roughshod over them, and much of the rest of Africa, even cutting off Britain from the Suez Canal, which had been the major source of the oil needed to keep the British war machine running. For a time it indeed looked as if Rommel would do what the Luftwaffe had been unable to do: force Britain to stop fighting for lack of gas.

The battle to kick them out was much harder, and Rommel bloodied the Americans' noses several times when they started to enter the war in earnest. Not just the once that he did in Harry's world, at the battle of the Kasserine Pass, but several dozen times, making the wars for Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia far more costly. There was even a belief today that, had Rommel still been able to get the supplies from Germany through the Mediterranean that he needed to keep fighting, he and Kesselring could well have beaten Patton and Eisenhower.

But eventually, through naval legerdemain from the British and the Americans, Malta was reinforced and the Italian navy was ravaged, losing all its capital ships. With Malta a now unsinkable carrier, that supply route was cut off, both by land and by sea, and the Afrika Korps was forced to surrender almost intact in Tunisia when they ran out of gas and bullets. And, unlike in Harry's world, Rommel had never left his army to plea in person that they be pulled back to Europe, which would eventually lead to his suicide.

This proved to be a very good thing for the allies after the war, because Rommel was a hero to the German people, and he was even acceptable to the allies. He had never allowed the Nazi SS to perform their normal function of organized genocide. There had been no internment camps or murder squads in any army that he had commanded.

Harry's opinion was rather jaundiced on that point: after all, while he didn't let any such occur under his command, that was a far cry from actually protesting them, and the man had commanded Hitler's guard detail before the invasion of France. Still, most of Rommel's army was still, technically speaking, intact when the war had ended, and the man was extremely well-respected, being one of the four best known fathers of modern tank warfare, the others being Guderian, Patton, and Zhukov.

Yet that ending was far bloodier than in Harry's universe. The Nazi super weapons in his world were the V2 rockets, jet fighters, and super heavy tanks and guns, none of which were ever created in sufficient quantity or were generally good enough to really turn the tide of the war (and were prone to a lot of mechanical issues even when they worked). In this world, however, the Germans had several mad scientists, among whom was the Red Skull. And the Red Skull and his super soldier program had developed weapons of war that kept the Germans ahead of the allies for a good long while: lasers, explosives of immense power, and heavy armor for their tanks that were practically impossible to penetrate. They ground the Russian advances down into bloody ruin and halted the American and British in their tracks in France for more than a year longer than in Harry's world.

Not until the gas started to run out thanks to Russia's Balkan campaigns and Captain America took the Red Skull down with him (as had been believed at the time) did the war on the continent really turn against the Germans. It turned against them very rapidly at that point, but, even so, they went down swinging.

I could almost respect that if they hadn't been fighting for a madman and his murderous genocidal regime. A regime which spawned the neo-Nazi movement, HYDRA, the Red Skull's resurgent terrorist group, whatever its name was, even AIM and a plethora of other problems that SHIELD, Doom, and I have occasionally had to deal with since.

Because the fact remained that every one of those scientists had believed in the Nazi dogma of their being a super race, with all others, especially the Jews and gypsies, being inferior scum that should be wiped out.I am always horrified at how low humanity can reach…

In Harry's world Poland had lost about six million, something over fifteen percent of its population or so, during the course of the war. In total, more than six million Jews and seven million people of other religions or minorities would die in the Holocaust. In this universe the number killed in the death camps was closer to twenty-eight million, a truly horrifying total. In total, Poland had lost more than seventy percent of its population and had almost become the land of the dead, and, to this day had one of the lowest populations per area of any industrialized nation. The Jewish people had lost around eighty percent of their European population. The Roma had been nearly wiped out. People with genetic diseases or mental issues were executed with impunity. Mutants, who had begun to appear after World War I, were killed wherever they were found in Axis territories.

For a moment, just a moment, Harry let himself sink into despair and raw rage at what Hitler and those who had followed him had done. How Hitler's thoughts and beliefs were still around today. But he couldn't let himself dwell on it and purposefully turned to what occurred after the war, where things became more pertinent to Harry's current issues.

Thanks to a quick move by the Allies, Erwin Rommel and his army had been brought back to Germany before the Russians could push for Berlin, and it had been a force led by Captain America who had killed Hitler instead of his dying by suicide. With Berlin in his power, Rommel had become the second Fuhrer instead of Doenitz and had brokered a peace with the Allies, up to and including helping them hunting down every SS officer from Himmler on down. None of them escaped justice for very long, although Rommel himself was assassinated by a zealous former Hitler Youth several years after the war ended.

Of course Stalin saw this as a betrayal, but since he had reneged on every agreement made about the countries Russia had conquered during the war, no one was willing to bend over backwards for him any more than they already had to ignore his own atrocities. The fact that his forces had killed even more people than Hitler's Nazis in the Ukraine and the Baltic states—and, indeed, even in Russia—was another factor, of course.

The two sides had glared across the Iron Curtain at one another for about fifteen years in this world before the curtain collapsed in far less time than in Harry's world. The reasons for its quicker collapse inundated the books Harry had been reading, but Harry wasn't so interested in them. He was more interested in what he could expect from the Russians in war, which he got a far better idea about reading the books from the two world wars.

The reason for his interest was that things with Russia were coming to a head in a very bad way. There had been a lot of saber-rattling. several pro-Russian groups in Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan had been ostensibly attacked by other locals, and Russia had begun moving troops towards its borders. There was talk of military intervention to protect their fellow Slavs, talk about getting their own back, talk about other nations reneging on deals for oil and other resources. Deals Harry was certain that, if they had ever actually been made, had been made at gunpoint.

"I wish I could figure out if this was all because of the aliens, the Skrull or whoever they are, hiding among them or simply ambition," Harry said with a sigh, leaning back. He wasn't actually talking to anyone else since there was no one else around, but, for a moment, he needed to speak aloud for a few minutes. "The Russian people can't be that belligerent to their neighbors naturally, can they?" As he spoke the words aloud, Harry winced a little, then sighed and nodded to himself. "I suppose that human nature says they can be. Just look at the Americans and how they treated the Native Americans, The Greeks and Turks, or China and its relationship with its neighbors. Whatever the reason, trouble is certainly stirring from that quarter."

The problem was that, while Harry could interfere in matters dealing with mutants and aliens and not be roundly accused of imperialism, expansionism, and all around arseholery, he couldn't turn around and say that this country is being invaded by aliens without take-it-to-the-bank proof. If he didn't have that proof there would be a lot of questions asked, because doing so would set a precedent, a precedent that Harry wasn't certain he wanted to set. He did not want the Earth Defense Force to become a tool to keep the peace on Earth. They would lose the vast majority of their public approval and aid in an instant.

But, to his dismay, NATO was still turning aside all of his offers of aid in terms of intelligence. They didn't like him; they didn't like the fact that the creation of the EDF had pulled resources away from NATO. They didn't like the fact that the US, the United Kingdom, China, and most of the other UN Security council members were taking part in its creation, except for Russia, further excluding and causing tensions to rise with that giant nation. Russia, in turn, was still screaming about weaponizing space against Mother Russia and imprecations about imperialist capitalism once more. Which was quite ironic since they too were supposedly a capitalist country now and often used their economic clout against their smaller neighbors.

You can take the Soviet out of a person but not the country, Harry thought, shaking his head. Thank God Andrew Weber had been a military history buff, though. That had been the SAS man who had, besides forcing him through Hell Week, given Harry a good grounding in history of his own world, which he would not have had had if left to his own devices and magical education.

At that moment another person's voice sounded out inside his head in a manner that, while still somewhat startling, was no longer so jarring. "Yeah, and remember that, at least in this conflict, the countries that are going to get hit not only have NATO forces already in place but Doom nearby, too, at least near to the Ukraine," Jean supplied. "Now stop reading and brooding like a curmudgeon, come down and say hi to the future mother of your children, and then go get something to eat. If you can't tell your body needs some fuel, Harry, I sure can."

Harry chuckled at that, and even more when Jean's astral projection appeared in his mental domain and began to tap her foot impatiently. Jean had just entered the seventh month of her pregnancy and only had two more months or so to go, she hoped. And at this point she was not a very happy camper about being pregnant at all, calling Harry all sorts of nasty names and threatening his boy bits every other day before tearfully apologizing not ten minutes later.

Her telepathic and telekinetic powers continued to be wonky because of the hormonal imbalance within her body, and nothing anyone but Emma could do could help with that. Emma, when she was around the redhead, could use her telepathic powers and inside knowledge on how the female body worked to control Jean's hormone levels for her. This was something she had to concentrate on, however, not change and leave in place, so it only worked when she was around the redhead or linked to her telepathically, which she refused to do 24/7, preferring to be alone in her own head.

That was why Jean was in Harry's head right now. She was using the permanent highway she had created between herself and Harry's mind, pouring as much power as she could into that so that her telepathic powers didn't accidentally reach out and rummage in the minds of everyone else around her. If she hadn't, the only ones who would be able to be near here were her lovers, for various reasons, Dr. Strange, Hela, and Xavier. None of the other magic users or telepaths had mental defenses strong enough to keep Jean's wild, yet still monstrously powerful telepathy, out. This concentration allowed Jean to keep her telepathy at bay. That meant it only went wonky twice a day rather than constantly.

Again Jean felt that thought and the dry, loving amusement behind it, and Harry earned his mental projection another laugh and a kiss. Kissing here wasn't as powerful a feeling as it was physically, but Jean still loved it, so Harry kissed her back just as fervently.

Despite her interruption, however, Harry didn't let Jean's presence take his attention away from what he was contemplating at the moment, though she was right: Doom was most certainly just as ready for trouble from Russia as Harry was.

The now expanded Latveria was located between the borders of Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the now smaller Ukraine, thanks to his taking over those portions of the country between him and the final hiding place of the Red Skull. Doom had a firm grasp of the politics of the area as well as an understanding of how much he did not want Russia as a neighbor. If Russia invaded the Ukraine or even Poland, eventually they would run into Dr. Doom and everything the not-at-all good doctor could do to them.

Elsewhere there were the preexisting alliances to consider too. None of those allowed for full EDF military intervention, but they did allow for material transfers. Harry had a tremendous amount of resources ready to fly down to Finland, Poland, and elsewhere at need. The bits of Ozcorp Emma had taken over, as well as her original resources in Cold Steel, had been very helpful there in creating the weapons and body armor—not very advanced in comparison to those that the Custodes wore, but better than what most soldiers received—as had the growing industrial might of Fortress Mars. Even allocating only three robots and a single cavern to a factory had allowed Harry to turn out artillery pieces of various sizes, both direct energy beams and ballistic projectile types.

So yes, in a way they were prepared, but the Russians' method of modern-day human waves attacks was something you really couldn't prepare for without having already faced it. That was one aspect every book he read about from both world wars agreed on: the Russians had an appalling lack of concern for the lives of their troops; the goal was everything. That was an aspect of warfare that would no doubt be exacerbated by the alien shapeshifters hiding among them. Setting that topic to the side for now, Harry picked up a small report from spymaster, Sir Dennis, and his various spies, sighing as Jean's astral projection actually began to hum off-key inside his head, trying to force him up and out of his chair with all the subtlety of a kick to the head.

It had been two weeks since the attack on Earth from the Badoon, and, while Harry had seen a lot of work being done on the space end of things, Dennis's efforts in finding Mr. Sinister and thus letting Harry turn him into a fine red mist had not succeeded in letting that happy outcome occur just yet. Work was ongoing to integrate with all the pre-existing espionage agencies the world over. Dennis had gotten very good at convincing the spies of other nations to pass on anything they felt pertinent about mutant kind and the Mutant Liberation Front to him, mostly by convincing them or their superiors that it was a good way to win some points with the ever-growing Potter faction.

Harry still had his spies, Mystique and Morph, within the Mutant Liberation Front, but no other spy agency had been able to do the same, which wasn't good. And the Mutant Liberation Front had been quiet of late. No major attacks, no large displays, not even any sanctioned robberies or anything, just quiet recruitment and setting up some kind of transportation network, gathering his forces in a few, larger bases.

It was surprising and very worrying. Sinister being quiet like this meant he was preparing for something big but Harry didn't have any idea where the man was or what that something big could be. Still, despite their knowing where at least one of his now-larger bases were, Harry wasn't willing to act just yet, not until Sinister was sighted, and couldn't get away. If he survived, the bastard could just retreat and start over.

Harry was grimly certain, however, that Sinister was waiting for the party to start from Russia before doing anything. Still, if he thinks that that's going to distract me, he's got another think coming. I haven't seen anything from the Russians which could indicate that NATO and our allies can't halt them on most fronts with the weapons we can provide and at least slow them down enough before Doom can get involved in the Ukraine. And I think Doom would be a little irritated with me if I thought I needed to stick my oar in that area. That means I'll be free to handle Sinister and bring the hammer down in no uncertain terms.

Harry was very much looking forward to that. Generally speaking, he'd had enough of dealing with terrorists, especially mutant-type terrorists or anti-mutant terrorists, both types pissing him off for much the same reason: they thought that because they were different that meant they could dictate to those that weren't like them, setting aside any other questions of morality in order to attack and abuse those they saw as beneath them.

But Sinister, Sinister bothered him on a personal level. Harry's hands clenched as he thought about how Sinister had been so interested in trying to capture Jean. Jean or the baby you and she have made, a voice whispered inside of his head. He's a mad scientist type, a geneticist who believes in purity and experimentation in equal parts. Who's to say what he could do with a baby?

Of course, Jean heard that tone and responded by pulling his mental self into a hug, her mental voice both soothing and somewhat surly, a very odd combination, but one she pulled off despite that. "Yeah, well, if Sinister was after me, Harry, he's waited far too long."

There was indeed a certain waspishness to Jean's mental tone at that thought, since she was no longer allowed out of Camelot at all. Of course, Jean wasn't bored or anything of that nature. Despite staying in the castle, she had more than enough to concentrate on. She was still working on helping Carol and her think tanks occasionally despite her pregnancy. She spent time with the kids, all of whom were getting a kick out of her pregnancy, especially Melody. Melody was always laying her ears against Jean's belly these days. And Jean had also taken over some more of Harry's organizational duties with the EDF, working with Sage, Carol, Murphy, and Powers.

Still, there was no denying that she still felt irritated at not being allowed to go anywhere physically, and she often glared or pouted at Harry and Ororo about it. Emma and Hela…not so much. Emma would simply tease her into a right frothing fury over her incarceration being all Jean's fault in the first place, and Hela would tell her to woman-up. Both ladies lacked a certain amount of empathy when dealing with Jean's mood swings.

At that thought Harry decided he'd had enough serious thoughts and stood up, intent on following Jean's earlier orders. As he walked downstairs, Harry felt Jean's mental self recede slightly. A second later he heard the sounds of feminine laughter and shouting from the small adult-only sitting room. This had been a new addition to the castle created for the adults when Nikolai's sister had finally moved out into the X-mansion. It was basically a place where they could come, eat, talk, or just hang out and not have to deal with the hustle and bustle that was a prominent feature of the main dining hall regardless of time of day. There were always classes, people eating, talking, Dennis working with the hard light system on various communiques, or Pinoptes and several dozen people playing games of all sorts.

Entering, Harry found Jean, Carol, and Mary Jane sharing what looked like a giant Caesar salad—about as wide as Harry's outstretched arms—popcorn, and watching what looked like an old sci-fi movie. "Ladies ,what is the occasion of your merriment?" he asked, going down to his knees and gently laying his head sideways in Jean's lap, looking up at his pregnant lady with adoration in his eyes.

"Hey, boss," MJ said chirpily, pointing at Carol, unmindful of the fact that her sleepwear put her body on display for his male eyes, considering he hadn't looked away from Jean since entering. Daww, they're so cute! "This is Carol's shindig; ask her. Although I can tell you the movie's one of those old B-rated movies, the Hordes of Mars or something. So awful it's good, or at least hilarious."

Carol grinned at Harry, flashing him the victory sign and equally uncaring of the fact that she was wearing a sports bra and panties in his presence. "NASA is now officially being shut down! The powers that be in the US have decided that NASA no longer fits the profile of its original mission of exploring space and must heretofore be replaced. They've ended their funding and thus the world's most moribund space bureaucracy is cut off at the knees. It's only a matter of time and reallocation before it's all, aaall gone~~." She ended in a singsong tone.

"Since I never had to work with them, I will bow to your judgment on how this is a good thing," Harry said dryly, addressing Carol despite not looking away from Jean's face.

"You really should, Harry," Jean said, sighing theatrically and breaking their locked gazes to lean down and kiss Harry, feeling his arms snaking around her waist for a moment before she leaned back, her tone shifting from loving to angry. "I watched a recording of a discussion they had not two weeks ago about plans for America to get back into the 'space race,'" she said, holding up quote signs. "Harry, they were still talking about rocket technology! 'Repulsor technology is unproven and unfounded and could not be expected to work on a larger scale without further experimentation under proven auspices.' Pathetic!"

"Ouch," Harry said with a nod. "That does sound both painfully stupid and embarrassingly slow. Do you think I should have recruiters in place to headhunt anyone?"

"Not from NASA," Carol said, looking disgusted at the very idea. "Oh, they've got a few decent brains. In fact, I'd wager if you could get them all to sign on, you could give Reed Richards or Tony Stark a run for their money when it came to space or space-based physics. But you wouldn't be able to. All of those minds, they're just as concerned about the bureaucracy side of things as they are the scientific side. Many of those people really did believe that malarkey that Jean was just saying, that repulsor and arc technology are not suitable for spaceflights because they personally haven't been a part of its development."

"Where in the world have they been living for the past few months?" Harry asked softly, shaking his head.

"There is no one who can stick their heads further up their asses than a bureaucrat, especially one who's been shown up professionally," Mary Jane said with a grin.

"And did you come here just for this party of yours, or did you come for something else too, MJ?" Harry asked, looking at the non-pregnant redhead for the first time since entering the room. He did not, MJ noticed, remove his head from Jean's lap or his arms from around her.

She winced a little, looking away. "Let's just say, well, that I had a rough day and wanted to chill out a bit. We're still getting some fallout about the Badoon from Europe and South America and how their unaimed scattershot approach could have gotten through that magical illusion spell of yours, something a lot of pundits had been calling an unbeatable first line of defense."

"I never said it was unbeatable," Harry said with a sigh. "Although, honestly, the Badoon's weapons came as a nasty surprise, as well as how profligate they were. Simply launching enough hyperspace kinetic weapons to saturate the area of space around the Earth they saw without even knowing that Earth was a fake was far too effective for my liking. Although, now that we've finished reverse-engineering them, Fortress Mars has a new primary offensive weapon, and the Verdun defense platforms in conjunction with the hyperspace trap should be able to deal with further such attacks."

"I know that, you know that, hell, the slick bastards in power know that," MJ groaned, grabbing up a drink that was very obviously alcoholic, however fruity and colorful it was. "The public, not so much. Once something is stuck in their brain, it's really hard to get them to realize that they were misinformed. And some of those same slick bastards are still trying to make you out as a hack who should be handing the EDF over wholesale to the UN."

"Maybe, but you're getting really good at getting those political speeches, right," Jean said admiringly of the younger redhead.

Actually, MJ was two years older than Jean, but, thanks to the changes pregnancy was having on her body, Jean now looked a little older than her actual age. At that thought, Harry's eyes strayed down and stayed on her chest, where two large prominent changes were on display despite her baggy clothing.

This won him a mental laugh from Jean but also a rather rueful reply. "I know you love 'em Harry, and after last night I can…see some positives in how sensitive my tits are now. But they are so not worth the back pain, trust me."

"I bow to your superior knowledge in that area, my love. You know I'd love them…er, you, whatever you looked like," Harry replied in turn down the mental highway Jean's powers had created. The loving humor and, yes, the lust hidden in his words and appreciation of her made Jean smile.

"Ugh, so not by choice, though," MJ said before smirking. "But at least misery loves company, and Harry here gets to go out there and give the public the speeches I've had to write up again on this matter. Coming from you it might actually stick in too."

She laughed wickedly as Harry groaned, closing his eyes.

"Yeah, well, that's nice and all, but actually the new think tank that might take over the US's future space-going ambitions is going to be more ambitious at least, if just as independently-minded. I've got a friend who's already been approached for them. He says they are thinking about the space elevator concept, or perhaps mass teleporters. Anything but old fashioned fission rockets!" she groused. "But anyway, Stark is going to be part of it, but not the leader. Someone I don't know, a chemist of some kind named McCoy, is going to be in charge of making sure all these cats march in lock step."

"Huh…" For a moment the name McCoy jarred some memory in Harry's head, a conversation he'd had with Xavier months back. But something more important occurred to him then. "Is that why America pushed for the right to create their own base on Mars?"

The US had pushed hard for that in the discussions directly after the Badoon attack, but they hadn't been willing to meet Harry's demands on the resources he required, his demands for payment as they went, stemming from their needs in terms of his aid in transportation and everything else, all of which they would have needed to have before they could even start work on a base on Mars. And Harry had stomped hard on turning over a portion of his growing space-based industrial capacity.

He was most certainly not going to let America create its own space navy. There would be one navy represented by everyone, united to defend the planet. Harry was willing to take from their traditions, sign their admirals and officers on, and so forth, but would not allow them to take some of the Kree vessels or build their own. Unfortunately, that meant that the EDF has to remain neutral in land based warfare.

"Probably. By the time they had it up and running they might have created their own teleportation device. Although the power requirements to reach Mars are just…"

"Scientifically impossible," Jean said dryly. "Trust me, I tried to work it out with Pinoptes after Harry here and Hela began work on their latest project. No, the best way to do it, if you didn't have the resources to actually use ships, would be to create something like a hyperspace slingshot. Create a simple 'shot,' an unpowered ship or series of airtight containers, then slap a hyperspace engine on it, shoot it off to Mars and then back and forth. It would be fast as heck but still energy intensive."

That latest project was, in point of fact, not very new. Indeed, it was an old accomplishment, only done on a truly unimaginable scale: the runic doorways. Harry and Hela had begun working on larger versions of the runic gateways, in this case giant, mountain sized circles with the same sort of spells on them. They would create a web of doorways for Ravens to travel throughout the system. The idea was to create several per planet. They would take time to design, but, once designed, they might be able to be mass-produced.

That way Raven attacks could come from any angle at any time at any strength they wanted. And since the construction bots had begun to mass-produce the things recently, well, that would certainly be a force multiplier. Yet the mathematics of the amount of power that web of gates would use boggled the mind, even magically. Harry had recently been delving into local magic more with Camelot's library, Hela, Kitty, and Dr. Strange in order to create a runic array that could siphon power from solar panels. They could be built to flare out like sails and then tuck back in after use, an amazing collaboration of magic and science, but they were still a week at best away from being where they could create a first prototype.

Carol looked interested, as did Harry, at Jean's words, but MJ waved her hands like an angry conductor. "Enough of that! Come on, let's just watch the movie! Trust me, it was just getting to the really hilarious parts."

Harry shook his head and reluctantly stood up, his hands trailing up Jean's back as he did so, tangling in her hair, and, as his head reached head height, he kissed her thoroughly. She smiled against his lips and then watched him leave, shaking her head. Gods, I love that man.

Harry headed downstairs to find some food and to see if Ororo, Hela, or Emma were around. He would have stayed with the trio above, but he wasn't in the mood for B-grade sci-fi fun. "I'm in a steak mood, I think," he said to himself.

After telling one of the house-elves on cooking duty what he wanted, Harry found Ororo sitting by herself, her eyes closed in seeming meditation. She opened them as Harry approached, smiling at him warmly. Harry smiled back, swooping down to give her a lingering kiss on the lips as he had Jean a moment ago. While Jean had taken the kiss almost docilely, if still lovingly, thanks to her body's gravid state, Ororo quickly deepened the kiss, licking and sucking at Harry's tongue and pulling him down to sit next to her. It had been a few days since the two of them had been able to have time alone. Alas, being too busy was starting to become all too common, and both were starting to feel a bit needy.

Ending the kiss, Harry leaned back, one arm going around her waist and holding Ororo against him. "What's wrong?"

"I do not know if anything is wrong…" Ororo said slowly. "It is just an odd feeling."

"Is that another way of saying your women's intuition is trying to tell you something?" Harry asked, trying to make light of it, although his eyes were serious as he looked at her.

She chuckled at the joke but responded seriously. "No, it's not that. I do not honestly know what it is I'm feeling. It began but ten minutes ago and feels almost like having an itch you cannot scratch, and yet…it is in my head, I think. I don't know where it is coming from. At first I thought it had something to do with my mutant powers, but I cannot say that that is the truth at this point. When I concentrate on my link to the weather I am not getting any-more information than normal."

"That seems strange," Harry thought aloud. "Hmm, I hate to say it, but could that be Jean's out of control telepathy trying to get through your 'electric storm' defenses?"

"No, I know the touch of telepathy, and this is nothing like that. I…"

She was interrupted by Dennis coming over, his fingers flicking over a hard light keyboard. He had obviously heard what they had been saying as he said, "I think I might, good lady." He finished typing, and small screens appeared in the air in front of Ororo and Harry, some of them meteorological data, others news reports from the world over. "What do you think of this?"

Harry looked at it, frowning. "What am I looking at here? The cold is dropping too fast, is that right?"

Ororo however got it instantly. "That is not a natural phenomenon!" she said swiftly, stepping to her feet and staring at the screens. "The temperature shouldn't drop so precipitously even if we are in winter right now, and look at the reports from near the equator!"

At that Harry too stood up and frowned, cursing inwardly as he leaped ahead of Ororo, taking in the areas most affected and where the cold front must have begun. That area of the world was the Finnish border with Russia, all of North Eastern Europe, and then through Russia down into China and Kazakhstan. And the temperatures were still dropping rapidly. Far too rapidly to be natural and far too cold, hitting minus forty degrees and showing no signs of stopping.. Even worse, the cold fronts were spreading outward rapidly, both from within Russia and from the poles.

Just as he was wondering what was causing this and if Ororo should talk to Gaia, the goddess herself appeared in front of them. But everyone who saw her knew instantly that there was something wrong, for her form wasn't the normal, middle-aged matronly form she routinely took. Even a few days ago when Harry had last seen her, Hela and Ororo arguing about some point of ancient history, she had seemed energetic and lively for all that she had assumed a mantle of winter, a heavy white skirt, a gray dress, and a wimple.

But now she was not a middle-aged woman with a bright look in her eyes. No, she was an old woman, bent and crooked in a way that no one else had ever seen her. Her eyes were nearly closed, and her hands were thin and palsied.

This appearance caused many a gasp to go around the dining hall, and a quickly widening cone of silence spread with more than one person heading rapidly towards the Earth Mother. She, in turn, only had eyes for a suddenly very worried Harry and a truly horrified Ororo. "Help me," the goddess moaned, collapsing forward into Harry's arms.

OOOOOOO

It was called the Crystal of Ever Winter by the Russians, but whatever the Russians scientists around them might think, it was not, in fact, a naturally occurring phenomenon which they had harnessed through their science to produce the effect they wanted on the weather of the Earth. It was, in fact, a magical creation of nearly incalculable power. And, in a similar vein, its real name was the Planetary Soul Constrictor.

What it did was simple to explain, if horrendously difficult to achieve, having taken several generations to create and then dozens of years to duplicate. The crystal would slowly wrest control of the forces of winter, ice, snow, and, above all, cold from a planet's normal cycle, mutating it horribly and bringing about an Ice Age over the course of a month or less. If the planet had a spirit, that spirit would only be aware of the effect if the users of the crystal were foolish and went too quickly. If not, they could keep it a secret for quite a long time until it was too late. And they had. This process had begun months ago and had not stopped since until tipping over that invisible moment where the speed of the change like that moment when a few small pebbles had come together to form an avalanche.

This was what Samantha Orlonova—or that was her name among humans, anyway—had been working towards ever since she had come to this planet over thirty years ago. She had been young woman then, one of the first hundred who had been sent to Earth to take on the guise of humans and explore the planet in order to see if it was worth the effort of taking over for the Dire Wraiths.

During their explorations they had seen phenomenal changes among humans, so much that it had somewhat scared them all. These humans were advancing so quickly in terms of technology it was frightening, especially to the magic-using Dire Wraiths, who could well remember the civil war they'd had with their Skrull brethren who preferred science over magic.

That had made deciding on a single country to concentrate their invasion on very difficult and had made them think that, perhaps even with the ability to weaken them from the inside, this planet might be more trouble than it was worth. While the higher ups had been debating that, Samantha and her crèche sisters had decided to use Russia, something that began before the second world war. The fact that it had never been invaded successfully made Russia a perfect staging ground for their eventual takeover world of humanity, something that had been proven in the next world war when, even without their aid, the Russians were able to fight off the Germans and their horribly effective war machine.

And those foolish Americans believe anyone would invade them? HAH! A few lights in their tiny deserts and suddenly everyone thinks that their nation is the natural place for aliens to invade first? Although I would say that the Fantastic Four and their adventures have certainly shown that our former brothers and their Kree enemies lack our vision.

Yet for all their success in suborning the Russians, a process that had only accelerated after Stalin's death, Earth wasn't really worth all that much to her people, and there were those among the Dire Wraiths that believed that simply pouring more wealth into this mission was foolish, something the Skrull would do, and which they could not afford to continue to do. This was made worse by the fact the humans were now growing out into space and creating their own space navy. Samantha was all prepared to be ordered back home and would have been grateful to have been so ordered.

But then something had been discovered in on this planet that made all of the effort worthwhile, first in Norway, then in other places. The mineral, Ocetite, was a naturally occurring crystalline mineral that had a slight orange hue which could be confused with odd-colored quartz. It was a mineral that the sisterhood had believed only existed on their own homeworld and had long been mined out there. It was important because it resonated with their brand of magic to a degree, adding to their power in the physical realm more than was normal. For example, the local magic user, Potter, was far stronger than any of her people could become, as strong as any five thousand of them at any one time, maybe more. With enough Ocetite, that disparity could be corrected.

Samantha didn't know if the crystals had magical properties the other magic users could use, and, given recent events with Harry Potter/Guardian and the fact that he didn't seem to be aware of its importance, she suspected not. But to the Dire Wraiths it was a pearl beyond price. Agitating the Russians and using them to conquer the nations which had begun to find Ocetite was child's play and well worth the cost.

It wasn't as if we needed to stoke the flame of conquest all that much. The Russians were already primed to attack most of the countries around them, she thought. Too many people in the government still pined for the days of the Russia-dominated USSR, for all its problems. Honestly, only humans would think that socialism could ever work. Perhaps my sisters are right: the humans have some kind of deep-seated desire to become a hive mind race. Regardless, it makes them easy to manipulate.

She looked over at Dr. Volkh, who was smoking on a pipe at the moment with truly horrible tobacco in it, an affectation he apparently had picked up in homage of Josef Stalin. He was the Russian equivalent of Reed Richards and led his own group of the Bogatyri, who the Russians thought could stand up against that particular superhero group.

They were not mutants. Each of them had gotten their powers through various scientific experiments or mishaps and so had not been subjected to the amount of public ridicule and hatred that mutants were in Russia, a hatred that was totally homegrown, nothing Samantha or her sister had egged on. With him and with various of her crèche sisters having assumed positions of high command among the Russian government, preparing them to launch a world war was easy, especially considering how paranoid the common Russian individual was beginning to get about how Harry Potter had been excluding them from the united space defense force. I still wonder about the why of that. Could he perhaps have some inkling of our involvement?

Regardless, Samantha knew that even Potter and his EDF could not know the true strength of the Russian army any longer. Not with what is hidden underneath the very ground thanks to Mole Man and our alliance with the Subterraneans.

And if Potter believes that he can overcome the Planetary Soul Constrictor magically, well, I would love to see him try, she thought. For a moment Samantha's eyes flashed behind their glasses, and she saw the magical gateway within the crystal. That pathway connected it magically to not just hundreds of her crèche sisters here on Earth but to the Dire Wraiths homeworld and millions of magic users there, all of whom were currently linked into this one overarching gestalt, working to a single goal, a single object: Cold! Cold! Let the Earth freeze. And while it did, they would take command of the Ocetite in Norway, Finland, and Estonia.

"It is done," Dr. Volkh said to the others, looking at the monitors around the Planetary Soul Constrictor, which were whirring and buzzing away electronically, enough to satisfy the few true human scientists among those around it.

"Good," grunted another man, this one wearing the full uniform of a Field Marshall, with a smile that was both humorous and grim at the same time, a true Russian smile. "It is high time that Mother Russia shows the world that General Winter is still and always on our side!"

With that he turned away, moving over to a series of other generals and army group commanders who were clustered to one side of the room. He nodded to them all and said simply, "Field Marshals, we are ready to begin."

They all smiled, turned to one another, and shook hands before moving out. And it was only Samantha and her fellows who would know that among them were four of her own people.

OOOOOOO

Looking over at his lady from where he had gone to one knee with the avatar of the Earth in his arms, Harry could only stare as her mutant powers started to swirl around her, visible arcs of lighting and wind appearing. He could tell she was trying to combat whatever was going on now but was having no luck. As he looked at her he saw sweat begin to bead on her forehead, and she growled, shaking her head, her hands rising as if to push against an unseen barrier, crackling with power. "This, I cannot…" Her eyes flew open, having shifted into the opaque white they assumed when she used her mutant power and locked onto Harry's. "They are… It is… Whatever this is, it is taking control of the Earth's weather, and it is gaining momentum! If this continues the world might enter a second ice age!"

"How can I help, love?" Harry asked still kneeling there as the Custodes pushed through the crowd around them.

"I don't know, but, this attack it is not a mutant; I can tell that much. And the speed…"

"The speed means the attack is most likely magical in origin." With that Harry quickly leaped into action. "Cory!" he shouted. An instant later his favorite elf stood before him. "Take a message to Dr. Strange and everyone who lives with him. Get them all here as soon as possible. Someone else get Dr. Druid up here too." Not being very sociable, Dr. Druid spent most of his down time in his own quarters working on potions and reading through the Camelot library. "Ororo, you're with me. Piotr, could you…"

Piotr was already moving, though, kneeling down next to the slumped over goddess, and lifting her out of Harry's arms. "Where do you wish me to take her, tovarishch?" he asked.

At that moment Hela came in, scowling angrily as she wiped down her hair with a towel, her hair and the bottom half of her face gleaming as she had just come out of the bath. Hela always took extremely long baths, enjoying the sheer sensual pleasure of it, of the far larger baths than she had ever been used before and all of the hair and skincare products humans had come up with. "I felt something shiver in the ether. I…" She paused in shock, staring at the small and frail form of Gaia, her eyes noticeably hardening behind her half mask as her jaw clenched. "What has happened here?!"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, we need to start fighting it. Dennis, you and…" Harry broke off as Jean appeared, floating down the stairs via her telepathic power. Her worried expression told Harry that she had been listening into what had been going on via his ears, and he nodded at her. "Good. Jean, get in contact with Emma. You two are going to be our coordinators. I want the two of you to get in touch with everyone who works for us, everyone we're allied with. I want every team member we can get up and ready for combat as soon as possible, but to wait until we know more about what's going on. That includes Wolverine, his little girl, and that partner of hers. Roust them out from the Savage Lands; we need all hands on deck for this. Get them up to High Note and prepare from there, Dennis work with them. Hela, if you could come with me, please."

She nodded and took his arm and Ororo's as Harry touched Piotr on the shoulder. A second later the four of them and the near-comatose form of Gaia apparated away from the dining hall, reappearing in the air above the topmost floor of the library tower, where they hovered. With a single gesture Harry flattened the roof into a perfect circle, complete with balustrades around the edge. The trio alighted down onto the rooftop, and Harry moved to the center of the roof, setting Piotr down. "Piotr, let Gaia down there. Hela, Ororo, what we need right now is, I think, a ritual, perhaps one based around a coven link."

Hela nodded slowly. "While I personally have never worked with covens, I know the type of spellwork you are speaking of. But that is only one half of this battle, you must know."

But Ororo shook her head, swaying where she stood. "C, can't concentrate on, on both… Harry, I'm sorry…" Her hands rose again, thrusting out as her eyes closed, and some kind of unseen energy flashed out from her again as she gritted her teeth and bore down on the fight with whatever was causing this attack.

"No worries, love. We've got this," Harry said, keeping his voice upbeat with difficulty. All my power, and I can't affect the weather as she can and can't add my magical power into her mutant power either. Fuck, I hate this!

OOOOOOO

The Dire Wraith, Samantha, had been very correct. None of Russia's enemies understood the true strength that Russia could bring to bear because of their alliance with the mole man and a trick they had taken from the allies before D-Day: they had created dummy armies, complete with blow up tanks and army reserve troops moving around the bases in order to fool the spy satellites and few spy planes that could get into Russian territory.

Everything else had been moved underground. Tunnels of immense size and complexity linked several forward bunkers along the various borders Russia shared with its targets and other nations along its borders, with bases hundreds of miles to the rear. These tunnels were complete with trains which could take whole armies that distance very quickly. Now, from out of the secret holes in those forward bases, came, not the forces that NATO had worried were ready to cross the border, but three times that number, and far closer than NATO had realized, too. Hundreds of thousands of tanks and nearly a million soldiers punched out into Poland in four large armies of disparate sizes from what, in Harry's world, had been the country of Belorussia. Another army group of close to five hundred thousand, with another hundred thousand Subterraneans and their artillery, attacked across the border into Finland.

Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and even China faced army groups far larger than they had thought. Mongolia faced a pittance, a bare four second-tier tank regiments and accompanying second-tier troops. China faced a full army group, larger even than the forces assaulting into Poland and the Ukraine, with two groups of 'Special Powers' groups. Kazakhstan, oddly, faced an army almost entirely composed of the Mole Man's Subterraneans. Still another army group was waiting in Siberia in the hopes of storming across into Alaska if possible.

And with these armies came the cold. Indeed, the cold struck first, unmanning Russia's enemies, who, unlike the Russian troops and mechanized units, were not prepared for it.

OOOOOOO

In Kazakhstan, the border with Russia was not nearly as defended or built up as it was in Poland, Finland, China, or even the Ukraine. For one thing, no one in their right mind would think of invading a country that had so little to offer as Kazakhstan. It was barely an industrialized country, and even then most people would argue the point. Like Afghanistan, its terrain was rocky, mountainous, and not very forgiving. The people were much like the country, being still based upon tribes and each little tribe seeing to its own devices. Therefore it should be no surprise that there was no organized defense or even response to just the cold front coming down from Russia.

"It's shit cold," said one tribesman to another as he came out from his small house built into the side of a mountain.

"Sukabi, your mastery of the obvious is amazing. What next, you will say the steppes are stony, the mountains high?" said another man, shaking his head as he began to pull on his long, makeshift jacket, pulling it up over his mouth. A second later he pulled his turban further down to cover the tips of his ears. "But I agree with you: it is getting far too cold out. Still, it shouldn't last. It'll go up soon enough to a more normal level."

"Maybe, although I… Do you hear that?" This first man broke his words off to look around him in confusion, shaking his head. "What is that noise?"

The second man paused too, cocking his head as, around them, the rest of the small town—village, really—began to awaken. "Avalanche? No, it's too regular for that."

Their breath now steaming, and more people coming out and exclaiming about the cold, the two men who had been the first to wake up moved to replace the night's watchmen, asking them about the noise. "It just started a few moments ago, but whatever it is, it's coming closer," said one of them, pointing to the north. "It's coming from over that way."

"Some new tool of the Russians, then?" scowled one of the newcomers. All of them, about fifty, all told, who had gathered by this point, scowled and muttered, spitting to the side and making curses. Everyone in this neck of the woods could remember times when Russia had been enemy or overlord, and there was a very thin line between those two things. And, of course, there was the cold too, beginning to get so bad people's fingers were starting to freeze.

"Out of everywhere those bastards could be going, why would they be coming here?" asked one of the first two awake, somewhat more equably than the others. This intelligent comment brought scowls and grimaces from the others, and the general reply was, why would they go anywher? They were grasping Russians.

Five men volunteered to head out towards the noise, which now all of them could perceive was coming closer. But they needn't have bothered. Because, just as they were about to leave, a nearby fissure in the earth suddenly began to widen, the edges collapsing inwards. All of the men turned to stare at it and then looked at one another. "Perhaps we were wrong. It is not the Russians but an earthquake?

"We haven't seen a real earthquake in this area for about four years," said one of them, shaking his head. "Besides, that sounds far too regular. Like a drumbeat."

As they all stared at it, from out of the fissure of the rock came creatures. That was the only way any of the locals could describe them. They looked something like a few of the mutants that they had seen on posters around the nearest town, when they went to barter for food and clothing. Humans touched by Satan, or so many of the mullahs would tell you. They were large, heavily muscled creatures, or at least the first two coming out were. They stood ten feet tall, wide at the shoulders and even wider at the hips. Their eyes were bulbous, silvery looking balls stuck into the front of their heads like tennis balls with no iris to see. They wore masks over the bottom of their mouths, and what looked like some kind of thin body armor covered their entire forms.

Behind them, however, came dozens of smaller creatures, all as alike to the giants as one man was to another. They all have the same features: bulbous eyes, small heads, and wearing the same kind of armor. The smaller creatures didn't wear the masks over the bottom of their faces, and all of them were armed with guns, although they looked nothing at all like any guns any of the locals had ever seen. The first two giants seemed to be armed with large hammers with axes on the back of them.

That tore it for the locals, who instantly raised their own weapons, old fashioned single shot or semi-automatics, and began to fire. Whatever these things were, they were not Kazakhstani, and that was enough.

However, their bullets just bounced off the attackers, who calmly opened fire in turn, cutting down the vast majority of the men facing them within seconds. Nearby, the womenfolk of the village saw this and screamed, turning to run away in their burqas. Children screamed as well, racing away, while the Subterranean attack continued even as more fissures opened, and the sound of the rumbling got close.

That rumbling soon revealed itself to the few scattered survivors as a column of other subterranean creatures looking like large stag beetles and a rhino. These were towing large cannons, and a few of the smaller attackers were sitting in what were obviously tiny tanks. At their head was a short, misshapen man wearing a visor over his eyes, a cape on his back, and a staff in his hand. "Go forth!" he shouted. "Go forth and conquer! We will have our own nation on the surface! We will force the surface dwellers to realize that we are here, and that this Earth is as much ours as the others'! Now go!"

"Conquer!" shouted thousands of throats, thrusting their hands up in the air.

OOOOOOO

"Not to sound like a broken record, but could someone please tell me why just yesterday it was simply slightly cold out, and now it is visibly unpleasant?" Shang Xiao (Colonel) Li Qi Zhou of the 152nd Armored Brigade asked as he smacked his hands together while he looked around at his brigade's officers, zeroing in on one of them who was an amateur meteorologist. "Well Shang Wei (Captain) Dian Thip? Do you have any wisdom you wish to impart?"

"Sun Tzu often said that knowing oneself is one of the keys to victory," Dian Thip said calmly, smiling back at Li Qi Zhou. "In this case I know myself well enough to know that I have no idea what could be causing this."

"I am certain that that will come as a great pity to all the troopers who are now stuck inside their barracks or in the hangar bays doing maintenance instead of outside performing calisthenics or other necessary drills," Li Qi Zhou said pleasantly as the others laughed at Dian Thip's joke.

"Shang Xiao Qi Zhou?" said a voice from the doorway.

The Shang Xiao and the other officers all turned and saw the general's aid, a young, pasty-faced youth with excellent party connections and, admittedly, decent cooking skills, but no martial ability whatsoever. He gestured for the Shang Xiao to follow him, and Li Qi Zhou, the leader of the People's Liberation Army's first energy-weaponized tank brigade, stood up quickly, waving to his fellows as he followed the man out.

In the anteroom to the general's office, the tall, trim senior field officer found four communication specialists all working furiously, while through the open door he could see the general staring at some kind of printout in one hand and then at the computer screen on his desk beside him. "Close the door, Shang Xiao," the older man said without looking up.

The Shang Xiao complied even as the general turned away and nodded to one of the communications officers before the door closed. An instant later alarms blared throughout the base.

The general nodded his head out the window, now looking up at the younger man in front of him. "China is at war. Are you prepared to defend party and state, Shang Xiao?"

It was a phrase that the Shang Xiao had heard before. Indeed, it was a question whose rote response was drilled into him just like it was every other man or woman who did their time in the army as they were required to as Chinese citizens. Unlike the vast majority of such, however, the Shang Xiao was a thorough going professional, having stayed in the military after his initial tour was up, something most young men and women didn't do. So he simply saluted and then moved into the parade rest position as he barked out, "What do the committee and party require of me, sir?"

"Russian troops are pouring across the border over the Alar River. Their objectives are unknown, but our border patrols were quickly overwhelmed, and they are already within Chinese sovereign territory. It could be as simple as just tying Chinese resources up fighting them, or they could be actually after some kind of conquest. Regardless, it falls to us to make certain that, whatever they are after, they do not prosper."

The Shang Xiao blanched. "Sir," he said hesitantly, "while our material resources are top-of-the-line, our troops are not nearly ready to fight the Russians on an even keel. Not even my brigade could turn the tide in a straight clash."

"We will not be," the general said coldly. "Your objective, Shang Xiao is, is simply to slow the Russians down while the rest of the army moves out and takes up defensive positions and aids in evacuating the citizens. The Central Theater command is already being readied for redeployment."

But that is not the biggest issue facing us or the Party's Army as a whole currently. Li Qi frowned, internally debating as trepidation held his tongue, but Li Qi decided that he had to speak up, regardless of whether it might be construed as an attack on the Party's ability to organize and see to its people. "Sir, we don't have enough winter gear for the army. Not for a winter as cold as this seems to be becoming. Not enough coats, gloves, or anything else."

"The infantry can survive long enough to fire a few shots, Shang Xiao. They will do their duty to the Party. The army as a whole, however, is not your concern."

Shang Xiao Li Qi Zhou tried to keep his displeasure off of his face at how cavalierly the senior general was speaking about tossing some of the finest troops of China away, but he wasn't sure he succeeded. "What is your command?"

"You are to take your brigade and move out as soon as possible. Slow them down. I want no pitched battles from you and yours. Just slow them, slow them down any way you can. Give my army time to truly prepare to meet them. The People's Air Force will be sending in planes as we speak, but I have no faith that they will be able to do anything."

"Sir," Li Qi said, saluting, then asking quietly, "What about Shao Xiao (Major) Fu Din? His mechanized unit is based closer to the border and should already be responding to this." Fu Din was a contemporary of the Shang Xiao and led a tank company assigned to one of the bases closet to the border with Russia.

"Again, Shang Xiao, he is not your concern!" the general snapped, slamming his hand down on the desk. "Do your duty to the party! And understand that others will be doing theirs."

About three hours travel later, Li Qi Zhou's command tank, a model called the Huoyan-shetou (flame tongue), passed by the remains of several destroyed trucks, a few dozen cars, and many more bodies, most of them in uniform. It would appear as if I have found Fu Din's command… So did they flee rather than fight, or were they simply overwhelmed?

The border between Russia and China had been in a state of a somewhat tense face-off since the Zhenbao Island Incident, and China routinely kept four regiments of infantry and two mechanized cavalry units—trucks, jeeps, and artillery half-tracks as well as tanks—near the front. In fact, they were barely a mile beyond the so-called demilitarized zone. Of course both sides had scouts that routinely entered that area, but the main units stayed to their own zones.

Before today Li Qi Zhou would have said that peace served both countries better than war and that they all knew it. Now, riding past the shattered remains of yet another burning jeep, he wondered what the hell the Russians were playing at. Perhaps they are worried about us because of our new allies.

While China wasn't technically speaking a member of NATO, it had certainly allied with that group when it became clear that Russia was beginning to flex its muscles again for whatever reason. And, unlike the former Communist Russia, the People's Committee had been able to make an agreement with the EDF and had begun to supply them with people.

"Where are they?" the Shang Xiao's gunner muttered, scowling as he traversed their turret from side to side. "Those wrecks are still smoldering; they must be nearby."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," LI Qi said softly, looking at the burnt out remains of a tank. It was one of the newest non-energy weapon equipped tanks, a heavy tank built based on the famous T-34 from Russia, a Type 69. They were not pleasant to be in by any stretch of the imagination, as many a soldier could tell you, but most of the people who used them would think that you were simply trying to make a joke if you told them that being in a tank should be comfortable in the first place. They were robust, tough, and decently quick, with sloped armor and a good-sized main gun, but were not a patch on his own Type 80 based tank. He also noticed that the other tank had been running away from the border. As had been the rest of the military units he could see. That did not bode well, but the Shang Xiao had his orders.

Ahead of his tank a fast scout on a heavily modified and armored dune buggy moved over the horizon towards the Heilong River. A second later the Shang Xiao's com buzzed, but before whoever was on the other line could say anything the buggy exploded. "All tanks prepare for battle! Spread out!"

Behind him the columns of two hundred and ten tanks spread out into a loose line slowly, far too slowly. Li Qi could practically feel the trepidation, the shock of what had just occurred, and his men, while highly trained, had not yet experienced a real battle. It had been many years since the Sino-Russian conflict, and few veterans from that time had remained in the army after their obligatory time was up. Damn it!

Ahead of them the Russians began to fire even before they cleared the horizon, their solid shells able to lobbed up at an angle, a marked advantage at range against an energy-based weapon, Li Qi mused. "All tanks to evade, second company, advance on the right flank, third to the left. First company will fall back," he said, keeping his voice calm, almost amused, the better to put some steel in his men. He couldn't let them panic, whatever…

A tank nearby blew up in a blast of fire and flame from a direct hit on its turret, and the first tank battle since the end of World War II began. The first echelon of Russian tanks, their units somewhat mixed up for some reason, twisted to the side, keeping the range open as they moved, not towards Li Qi and First Company, but to the right flank. But now they were within range, and his own tanks began to fire. While the Russians had a marked range advantage thanks to their better equipment, two out of every three of his tanks were the new Type 80 with the same sized cannon as those on the Russian T-72.

They also had much the same armor. Only a hit on the back or direct hit on the turret could be assured of a kill. This was proven in the next few minutes as rounds spanged off the sloped armor of the front of his tanks, which twisted wildly to keep their frontal armor facing the enemy, who continued to spread out and were now falling back, possibly realizing their mistake in closing beyond their own maximum aimed range.

But they were still in sight, and that meant they were about to find out just what the other one out of every three tanks in his battalion was armed with. "All Huoyan-shetou, fire at will!"

Energy bolts of white and yellow around two feet long and as wide as the cannons' mouth lashed out in short bursts followed by steam escaping from the back of the turrets and the tanks as the energy guns developed by the Chinese Communist Party (really, by the Mandarin) fired. One beam, fired by a tank whose crew called it Loquacious Zu, hit one of the larger Russian tanks, one whose type Li Qi hadn't seen before. Where a regular 125mm round might have bounced off its frontal armor, the energy bolt didn't, hitting and melting through much of the armor. It wasn't, alas, a single shot kill, the armor having absorbed all the beam's heat, but it left a large, gaping hole in the tank, and the rest of the armor around it was molten now, actually sloughing off in places.

Li Qi's men were all well trained in what to do in this eventuality, and two regular Type 80 tanks twisted their turrets to the wounded behemoth. One shot hit its side, the ablative armor exploding outwards and protecting the tank. The other shot struck the side of the frontal armor and entered the tank, exploding inside. The Russian heavy tank slewed to a stop, its crew dead.

All around Li Qi the battle became more and more mixed, with more tanks coming up from both sides of the battle, spiraling out and around and moving this way and that as Li Qi tried to control his troops andto make certain none of the Huoyan-shetou tanks were left with their rears undefended. The Chinese had the better weapons, but the Russians had the experience. They started to split into two tank teams, attempting to flank the Huoyan-shetou while keeping the normal Type 80 tanks from getting into their own rear. More of them died to side shots from the Type 80, and the Huoyan-shetou tanks killed many, but the Russians took many of them along with them.

Then LI Qi watched in horror as one of those larger Russian tanks opened up with its own weapon. It was instantly apparent that the Chinese were not the only ones with energy weapons. The heavy tank opened fire, and a wide blast of nearly uncontrolled ravening energy like that of a lightning bolt slammed into one of Li-Qi's tanks, slagging it within seconds of sustained fire.

"Fuck!" Li Qi roared, then grabbed at his headset. "Open the range, open the range! All tanks pull back!" Before his men could do that, though, the heavy tanks slagged four more of his, all Huoyan-shetou, losing only one of their own.

Other tanks were beginning to fall out of battle. The tanks had been moving at full speed for several hours before the battle, and the rapid movements, back and forth, shifting, and the wear and tear of battle were beginning to tell along with the cold. The weapons of the Huoyan-shetou tanks were very good, but the rest of the Chinese equipment was subpar, riddled with quality control issues, and this told now.

Engines died, tank treads broke, turrets stopped being able to turn, the flame-tongue cooling system exploded or just died, forcing them to stop firing as fast as they had been previously, and the air machines within the tanks started to fail, forcing the tank gunners to pop the hatches. This in turn let in the cold, and that too began to take its toll. Many a man began to suffer as his hands started to freeze in the suddenly well below zero temperatures, sometimes even freezing to their controls.

Li Qi tried to keep it together, tried to pull his rapidly shrinking brigade back. They had bloodied the Russian's nose, and that was all they could do. This decision was reinforced as artillery rockets began to fall among his people from well behind the enemy tanks. They weren't very well aimed, but there were hundreds of the damn things. "All units, retreat!"

As the tanks pulled back, there was a heavy whistling in the air, and ten squadrons of MIGs flew over the battlefield. There were practically flying nape of the earth, so low that whatever anti-air the Russian tanks had could barely miss, and even so, they'd had a devil of a time getting up off the ground due to the cold affecting the maintenance of the fighters. The wind and visibility once they were in the air were god awful. Indeed, these squadrons were ragged, barely two out of every five planes still there.

But unlike the Western countries, who didn't have the stomach to pay that kind of butcher's bill before the battle was even joined, the Chinese were near fanatical about protecting the Party. Any hardship, any amount of loss of life was to be embraced in the defense of the Party against the imperialist Russian invaders. The MIGs flashed in, rockets firing down into tanks and the artillery pieces behind them, flinging their broken, scattered carcasses backwards. Then more anti-air weapons opened up, massive howitzers among the rocket launchers in the artillery as well as the high-tech weapons of the heavy tanks, elevating to take the MIGs under fire with their energy cannons. These proved as deadly against MIGs as they had previously proved against Chinese tanks, slagging the MIGs with even a glancing blow.

LI Qi took his chance then and ordered his remaining tanks to fire on them. Most of his tanks nearly killed themselves, their cooling units now failing despite the temperature around them helping cool the outer siding of the cannons, at least. But they killed every single one of the enemy's lightning-equipped tanks and were able to pull away. The Russians continued to fire at them until they were out of range, but the MIG assault had disrupted their advance badly, destroying most of their artillery pieces and the few half-tracks at the far back of the advance, maybe even killing the local commander.

Later the Shang Xiao would learn that they had been allowed to leave because the Russian unit he had been facing was one of four that had launched across the Heilong river, and the other three hadn't been stopped, despite being hit by more MIG attacks. The other three nearly cut him off from the rest of his forces and decimated two more armies and their bases before taking the only town anywhere near the border under fire before the civilians there could be evacuated.

At the moment, however, Li Qi was willing to take it, though he paled as he finally began to look over his casualties. He had led a reinforced brigade of tanks into this battle. He was leading a bare company back out. If this is what war is like with the Russian bear, may Buddha help us.

Yet for all the Russians' success, they did run into difficulties. Because not everyone was unprepared for the cold…

OOOOOOO

George Abernathy was a soldier. His father had been a soldier, and his father before that, a freedom fighter. He believed in Finnish independence, believed that they had a right to self-rule, and would fight anyone that disagreed, including their giant eastern neighbor who historically had disagreed with that idea most violently. Indeed, he believed that the Gulf of Finland should belong to them entirely, not merely a little under half of it.

As one of the special forces, George was patrolling through the woods and mountains that were the borders between Russia and Finland. This territory was so rocky, so heavily forested and snowy almost year round, that the very idea of putting in real roads was kind of amusing. That and they are a natural defense, he thought in some humor as he breathed out, noticing that his breath had started to mist over.

He frowned at that, turning his head up to the sky and breathing in before gesturing with his hands behind him. His five man team paused where they were, and he turned in place on his skis. Winter had hit, but before just this moment he had thought it would be while before they entered true winter. Now, feeling the temperature dropping like a rock, he wasn't so sure. As his men, well-hidden even now, watched, he pulled up a mask and then flipped up his parka, pulling it tight. They all understood. They couldn't afford to let valuable warmth leave their bodies, and they couldn't let their breath give them away either.

White on white, the six men continued to move through the forest for another hour and then made a brief, impromptu camp. Well-hidden, they could now afford to talk, or rather, bitch, as all soldiers since time immemorial have done, while they took in the requisite calories needed to keep their bodies going. Most of the time they did so more to take their attention away from the horrible taste or appearance of the food.

"Bah, why are we out here like this, huh? Because the giant Russian bear has nothing better to do with its time than try to bare its fangs once more at little Finland," spat one of his men.

"Ahh, but you know the thing about musclebound oafs, yah?" said another man with a grin, grabbing at his heavily covered groin. "They always act out and work those muscles because they don't have any muscle worth mentioning down here."

"Yah, the overcompensating bear!" guffawed another man.

"And you know what they say about a Russian with a beard, don't you?" George said, getting in on the false bravado. "It's the only hair he can grow."

None of these jokes were all that funny, but they served a purpose: they allowed a certain amount of distance from the horror that was war, something that all too many of the men and women in Finland knew about, having grown up listening to stories about it. As they looked around, everyone there knew it and were reminded of the preparations they had seen back in their bases.

But the Finish Army was already prepared for winter on an institutional level that few other nations could match, along with a level of training and preparedness second to none. It had already begun giving out more rations—in winter you had to input more rations per calorie than during summer. Vaseline, condoms for the tops of rifles, and other makeshift but easily obtainable solutions abounded, though as Gregory remembered watching a group of soldiers wiping down an artillery piece with Vaseline as another group began to set a large tire on top, he could only laugh. He now shared the memory with his officers, and, despite the fact that the temperature was dropping so precipitously, the imagery was such that everyone was soon grinning.

Their laughter died, however, as they heard the sounds of rumbling in the distance. And there was not a storm cloud in the sky. The sound came from the east, and it wasn't thunder but the loud thrumming roar of thousands of engines. George stood up swiftly, heading to his skis along with two of the other men while two more worked to call it in and the last two put out the fire. It was a practiced move, and soon everyone was up and moving, spreading out, still in sight if you knew where to look, but disappearing into the background snow. The message they had sent to their superiors was simple: They are coming!

A bare second later George slid to a halt behind a tree, raising his rifle to look through the sniper scope and watching as tanks appeared, smashing through the woods.

These were large, bulky hover tanks, built around the same kind of technology that allowed the Titanium Man to fly. There were twelve of them leading columns of lesser tanks, and they came on, moving through the hilly terrain easily, only being halted by trees and the largest boulders, and even then not for long. They had two special cannons thrusting forward along a bulldozer-like shell at the front to deal with such as that and destroyed the trees as they came.

Those George had seen before, and behind them came the regular T-72 he had been trained to spot the weaknesses of. Yet at the back were four tanks that looked even more high tech than those in the lead. What are those? And to throw ten of those brand new hover tanks at us at the start of the battle? Andrew thought. He had seen some estimations about how much those hover tanks cost, and his entire extended family could have afforded to buy a mansion and live in it quite comfortably for the rest of their lives, including the lives of his children, on the money that even one of those things cost. The Russian bear, he thought, his body so still it disappeared from sight. The Russian bear flexing its mighty muscles!

Behind the tanks came row upon row of infantry, paralleled by several hundred on skis, moving through the woods as best they could, and for a moment the Finnish pride got the better of one of George's men. "Those Slavic bastards," he growled into the communicator, pointing ahead of him out of his tiny dugout. "They stole our idea!"

"It was more than forty years ago, Andrew," George said with a chuckle, "Everyone's stolen that idea. And fucking remember radio silence!"

The other man muttered incomprehensibly but subsided, and they all continued to watch the incoming army again, the two artillery spotters in his group well behind the other four of George's squad. For a moment George began to frown, wondering where the artillery was, and then he got his answer.

The Finnish artillery was far back, out of sight and unable to see their targets, hence the forward spotters. Now they opened up without warning, without waiting to for the Russians to fire on them. The Finns were not NATO forces; they didn't have to wait for someone to prove they were hostile. You cross their border, they were going to fuck your shit up, which was all to the good in George's opinion.

Andrew watched in delight as the artillery shells slammed down, bursting in among the tanks, destroying one out right and grounding two more. Another shell hit among the regular tanks falling behind, blowing three of them into the air and onto their fronts or sides. The infantry scattered, and, on high, Andrew could vaguely see artillery shells racing back the other way towards his own, but he trusted the fact that the Finnish artillery were firing at the front of the Russian army, and the Russian artillery was further back than that.

However, a moment later he couldn't concentrate on that. The Russians were pushing ahead anyway, all of them moving like seasoned winter-trained veterans, keeping to cover, moving easily over the snow, and with camouflage too he thought, sighing sadly. Well, Papa, it looks as if you and your generation killed all the stupid ones. A second later Andrew and his scouts began to open fire, every other man firing down range at the Russians while pulling back and separating, moving deeper into the woods and away from the line of advance, taking turns, firing from cover and covering one another in an intricate dance.

Behind them their artillery continued to wreak havoc with the main Russian column even as Andrew and his people began to take fire in return. For all that they were not as used to this kind of terrain and didn't know it like the backs of their hands as the Finns did, the Russians were still extremely competent soldiers, and their weapons were just as good if not better.

Nonetheless, Andrew and his people gave a good account of themselves as they pulled back, leaving fourteen dead Russians on the ground and sixteen more that had wounds which would need to be taken care of. Wounds in the cold, especially at temperatures like this, were horrifying things. Your blood could freeze, and it was just horrible, the cold sapping your energy.

At that thought Andrew quickly pulled out an energy bar, chomping into it even as he continued on, skiing cross-country through the woods. He met up with his troops at a rally point, nodded to them all silently, and as a group they faded back even further into the woods, the dense, immensely wooded, immensely rocky, nearly unpassable woods. A local specialty, Andrew thought as he went, taking his skis off and climbing over a series of ice and snow strewn boulders after switching to snowshoes. We will see how the Russians like it.

Behind Andrew he could hear one of his men starting to sing softly. It wasn't much of a song, more of a mantra, really, but the sentiment was delightful. As much about pride now as it was back when it was originally coined even as he knew this war was going to be even harder than that one. "'They are so many, and our country so small; wherever will we bury them all?'"

OOOOOOO

The forces in Finland were also ready for the downturn in weather and the forces in China were able to match their enemies in numbers at least at first. The NATO forces in Poland could do neither. Poland had thought it had more than a month to go at minimum before the weather started to turn this bad, and it had been a very long time, since the 1940s, in fact, that Poland had seen a winter like this, and those two facts now caused tremendous problems on every NATO base.

Sergeant Marty was a tanker by training and inclination, but he firmly believed that his men should know their rides well enough to do some of their own maintenance. Now he grimaced as he pulled on his heavy pair of gloves again, wincing as the bite of the cold hit his fingers now that they were no longer actually in the way of the wind which had quickly cut off all feeling quickly. "It should be fine now! Try turning the engine over again!"

The trooper above him in the cockpit of the tank did so, and the engine they had been working on sputtered, sputtered again, and then came to life at last. "It works! About damn time!"

Marty stuck his hands underneath his arms, grimacing at the cold and then all around them. This was inside a heated and reinforced hanger. Outside it had quickly turned into a kind of frozen hell. The NATO forces here in Poland hadn't gotten all their winter equipment yet. Various countries had supplied bits and pieces, but it had come in piecemeal, since everyone was more interested in getting the weapons and ammunition and food in as fast as possible. Now that was biting them on the ass in a very, very bad way, since not many men had hats and fewer had gloves. "What's the word about the Russians?" he shouted to no one in particular. "And has the weather spook said about where the hell this weather came from!?"

"Nothing good," shouted a few voices, and with no officers present he gave them all the finger. "I know that! I wanted specifics, you bastards!" That won him some laughter, and he rolled his eyes and went back to his work.

He was still working forty minutes later when alarms around the base began to sound. Marty looked up in shock as a voice came over the loudspeakers, crackling with interference as even the wires of the speakers were being affected by the cold temperatures. "Invasion! This is not a drill, this is not a drill! All combat personnel to report to battle stations! All combat patrols are to report!"

Then a new voice came on in a squawk of electronic noise. "Do not bother! You and yours could hardly stop a group of Russian children come to play, let alone an army trained and molded on the steppes of Russia."

The voice was that of the Russian mutant-cyborg named Sputnik, and his power was that he could take over anything electronic. He could bend computers or anything with an electrical current going through it to his will, even molding its physical form like silly putty if the energy available was high enough. The Russians had snuck him into this, the main NATO base in Poland where their missiles were kept, with some difficulty, having lost the entire team of spies they had sent with him. But he now acted upon his orders, taking over the missile silos and then launching them towards other NATO bases. With that done he escaped into the snow and swirling cold. The Russians did not want to lose one of their most important and well-trained mutants in an opening gambit, no matter how potentially devastating.

Yet those missiles would never reach their destinations. As men and women all over the base watched in horror that horror rapidly gave way to joy as the missiles were suddenly wreathed in fire. Marty and more than one man with him stared at the missiles and the fire, wondering if it was just them that thought the fire looked as if it had been shaped into the talons of a massive bird. Every soldier on the base and the furious Sputnik nearby watched for a time as those talons rose into the air, pulling the missiles up into the sky and out towards space until they were out of sight.

As they went, the spell on Marty was broken. "All right, you grease monkeys! Back to work! We've got a war on in case you hadn't noticed! Let's get these damn tanks ready to move!"

Several hours later Marty was involved in the first tank-only battle in this new war. It began and ended within an hour. On the one side were a full division of main battle tanks, with none of the accompanying infantry or mechanized infantry units that would be normal in a equivalent NATO force. On the other side what should have been a division in the NATO tradition of a more mixed unit were only three hundred working tanks. All of their other resources were moving in full retreat behind them, those that were able. All the other tanks and trucks and tracks had issues, all of them caused by the cold and the way it hindered maintenance.

"Turn around, turn it around! Target the next one!" Sgt. Marty shouted as he desperately tried to twist the wheel of his tank around in order to let his gunner get a shot off at the incoming tanks.

They were going too fast. His own tanks had been nearly at a standing start in comparison, for God's sake! And the enemy tanks just kept coming through their own artillery fire. "Come on!"

"Damn it, I can't get the turret to move! The freaking gears aren't working!" the gunner shouted. "And the range finder is fritzing too!"

Marty was able to get the tank around, and his gunner fired, only for the enemy tank, a T-72, to twist into their fire, taking the shot on its frontal armor where it bounced off. The enemy attack fired and their tank also shuddered at the hit, but their frontal armor wasn't going to be penetrated that easily.

For a moment the two tanks dueled at range, shifting this way and that, firing and firing as best they could, but eventually the rest of the battle came crashing down on Marty. An enemy tank from one side blasted out his tanks treads, and another cannon round sheared off their main gun near the base. "FUCK!" the gunner yelped, twitching away from the controls.

All around them the rest of their ad hoc brigade were destroyed in a similar manner. The six or so tanks Marty could see were the dull gray and white of the Russians' winter camo, and as he watched a few survivors of their crews crawled out of the wreckage and waved down a few of their nearby fellows. He watched them for nothing better to do, prepared to die as the Russians finished him and a few other immobilized tanks off.

But to his shock the Russian tanks didn't linger. They pushed forward, leaving the shattered remains of their enemy behind.

For a moment, as the tanks which had peeled back towards Russia disappeared in the opposite direction, Sergeant Murphy counted his blessings at being alive and started to shout aloud to get any survivor's attention. No one replied at first, but two of his men took up the charge, allowing Marty to turn his attention to the Russian tanks.

They were nearly out of sight, but as he watched they started to fire at the retreating column of jeeps and support trucks which had almost made it over the horizon. Those support trucks were soon burning, but the sound of distant gunfire and cannon blasts continued on for some time. Marty pulled out a pair of binoculars and watched the horrible slaughter. Unprepared, with most of their weapons malfunctioning in the cold and taken by the faster, far more heavily armed tanks at range first, then in close with machine guns, the infantry regiments and those men who had been forced to join them when their tanks hadn't worked were slaughtered.

No one's going to be able to retreat to base camp Bravo, he realized with dull horror. As he watched the Russian tanks peeled off. Half of them twisted around and moved back the way they came, shooting any tank they came upon, but by that point Marty and his crew were hiding behind a downed Russian tank with several others for lack of any other cover. As those tanks broke off from their fun and headed back the way they came, he looked past them, back deeper into Poland at the others.

Those tanks, they have gasoline containers on their backs. They were set for extended independent operation. He knew now that those same tanks were going to continue on to maul the forces at base camp Bravo, and with the main base in the region at Camp Charleston gone, Bravo might well be on its own.

Looking around, he started to shout the other men into moving, leading the way towards the infantry and trucks they'd been supposed to protect. As he walked the blood on his coat from a ricochet started to freeze, and he started to lose feeling in his fingers and toes.

But when he started to get close to the column of trucks he found a few scattered survivors as well as two more downed enemy tanks, taken out by lucky side-on bazooka shots by their damage. But while a bazooka could put down a tank under the right circumstances, creating those circumstances was damned tough, and he found a lot of unfired bazookas lying behind their dead owners. The Russian tanks had moved quickly, never stopping and staying at range, and their machine guns and main weapons had made them deadly against infantry who had yet to acclimatize to the suddenly intensely cold winter.

Marty paused for a second, his head dipped in prayer. Then he reached down to grab one bazooka for himself before he started to organize the rest of the survivors in sight, finding himself the most senior of them, by a bare few hours in a few cases of other sergeants.

Near the end of the large column, a young Lieutenant had also survived, though, and had already been pulling survivors together, pushing them to move along the road that they had been trying to retreat along before, finding few if any certain supplies, and more than one survivor. "Why didn't they finish us off?" he asked as Marty joined him, looking around in confusion as he hopped in place, trying to keep warm.

The sergeant scowled bitterly. "They didn't have to finish this off Lt.; they didn't even have to kill our tanks. All they had to do was destroy our trucks and then let General Winter do the rest."

At that the lieutenant paused in his jumping, looking around as the snow continued to fall, slowly burying the evidence of the battle as he and Sergeant Murphy tried to organize a continuance of the retreat. But it was so cold out, so cold, and the night was coming on…

OOOOOOO

Nor was the Russians' army the only aspect of their military on move. Their air force might be downed by the force of the winter along with the air force's of every other nation, but they still had their navy.

The United Kingdom's Baltic Sea flotilla had originally been tasked with keeping a watch on of the Russian Northwestern contingent. This flotilla consisted of eight destroyers, two frigates, two missile cruisers, and one somewhat dated, but massively refurnished (with guns based off designs passed on by Harry Potter), battlecruiser as its flagship. Normally all these ships weren't out at sea at the same time, obviously. Conditions in the Barents and Greenland seas were such that ships needed maintenance and people downtime more often than they would in warmer climates. The temperatures up here rarely got above minus twenty degrees, and that impacted both the machines aboard the ships and the people, causing sickness and injury with sad regularity.

But when the ball went up the whole flotilla had been out on maneuvers. While NATO had been dismissive of Harry's worries about Russia possibly having backing from an alien race or being manipulated by one, William and his admirals had not. Because of this they had been among the first normal people to notice the change in climate. It was awfully hard to miss the ocean actually freezing as you were watching it from the bridge of your ship or listening to the sounds of men thumping out onto the deck to join the now near-constant deicing teams.

"What in the world is going on?" muttered Captain Truedor, CO of His Majesty's heavy cruiser, Redoubtable.

"Is that a rhetorical question, sir? Because it seems to me as if the ocean's freezing," noted the man next to him, the head of the ship's communications department and one of Truedor's closer friends aboard the ship. As much as a captain could be friends with his crew, anyway, which, honestly speaking wasn't much. Still, he did approve of the other man's very British, stiff upper lip attitude and dry humor.

"That was a rhetorical question, yes, though if you have an answer to it beyond a flippant one, I'd be all ears, Commander," he said dryly.

"Some mutant power at work?" the other man asked more seriously. He was one among many who were worried about mutants and their powers, but he had never been an actual racist about it.

"That makes sense, yes, but if so, why, or rather, whose interest is this serving?" Truedor replied, gesturing out to the ocean where he had been watching ice starting to build up on top of the waves.

A third voice interjected at that point, causing the captain to turn from the view out of his bridge's windows. "Well, sir, I suppose that would depend on how wide reaching this kind of thing is."

The captain nodded to his first officer and was about to reply when the communications officer raised his hand, cutting them off, as he held a hand up to his headset. His face paled noticeably. "Sir, report from home. I have Admiral Southhampton on the line. Red Dawn, Red Dawn."

The captain snapped to attention, staring at the man, all his earlier ease and laid back air disappearing instantly. "Verify!" he barked out.

At the same time he glanced towards his first officer, who saluted crisply and moved towards the intercom system, his hand over the button. They waited a second, staring at the communications officer as the entire bridge crew watched him in terse silence. After a moment the communications officer nodded. "Call code authenticated service, Russia has declared war on NATO. They've got forces…"

"Thank you, that's enough," the captain said, cutting the other officer off quickly and nodding to the first officer.

He slammed the hand down on the red alert side, barking into the intercom, "All crew to ready stations! All crew to ready stations!"

The captain turned back to the communications officer. "Get on the horn with the destroyer captains. Tell them Operation Beater is a go."

This quick response took the man aback for a moment, but he nodded grimly and was on the mike with the commanders of the two destroyer squadrons in an instant. There had been a few blips over the past few days on their long-range sonar of unidentified subs out there, and if they were Russians...

At this order the destroyers reacted like so many previously leashed puppies suddenly let loose. They each individually twisted and twirled away from the flotilla, zooming out in different directions. Elsewhere some of the bridge crew could barely make out the movements of other ships in the distance, doing the exact same thing. The entire flotilla had just basically exploded, almost, their ships flashing out in every direction.

Sonar also flashed out from every ship, combing the seas for submarines, while two reconnaissance drones were launched from the missile cruisers, the latest Yorkshire class. At the same time the frigates started to move directly behind the now screen of destroyers, their more powerful radar reaching out across the oceans, looking for airborne or sea-based threats. Every ship began evasive maneuvers, sudden shifts in direction that were designed to throw off any torpedoes.

A tense hour passed as the news circulated throughout the flotilla about what was going on. Soon everyone knew this was most certainly not a drill, as many of the lower rankers had thought. No, this was all too real. At the same time Truedor got on the horn with home, getting an update on what was going on. It made for grim listening, but he thankfully had no new orders: simply keep patrolling the Barents Sea and make certain that the Russian fleet in the Kara Sea was, if not boxed in, then watched.

As the hour passed the tactical map, a large table set in the back of the bridge, was updated with sightings of several submarines. The destroyers that had spotted them were quickly shifting towards them as the flotilla went from ready stations to battle stations. Two of those blips disappeared, the other stayed on the screen for several minutes before doing the same.

A second later the missile frigate's drones hit the outer edge of their control and began to spam radar pulses. A moment later the map updated again, this time with the designations showing ships coming towards them from the northeast.

Smiling grimly, the captain leaned back in his chair, listening to his well-ordered team going about their business. The only sign of anything approaching concern that appeared on his face over the next few minutes came from the the report of the weather getting even worse and one of the recon drones actually failing, its internal structures slowly freezing as it fell to the ocean. "Make a note of the weather and send it off to GHQ. Any reinforcements will need to know what to expect and prepare for it."

He held up a hand as the marks on the board updated again, and he internally cursed before saying calmly, "And ask them to update our orders, please? Because I think I'm dealing with the entire Barents Sea fleet coming out after us."

OOOOOOO

A similar scene was occurring on the United States Fleet Carrier Constellation, flagship of the Alaskan fleet. This was a much more powerful squadron than the Barents Sea flotilla, consisting of six missile cruisers, four heavy cruisers, four destroyer flotillas of six ships each, all built around the carrier Constellation, one of the most powerful warships on the face of the planet, and two smaller carriers.

The Constellation's creators had designed the carrier so that she could continually launch fighters and had built it to withstand a lot of punishment. But the problem was, offensively its punch was its fighters. It had been proven time and time again in World War II that the future of naval warfare was based around carriers. But that supposed that the weather would allow them to get their birds up into the air, and that visibility wouldn't be entirely zero above the level of the ships at sea.

But that was what they were dealing with now: anything above a thousand feet off the ocean's surface was in an almost complete whiteout, with people aboard the ships actually having trouble seeing not ten feet away. And the higher you went, the worse the visibility was. The ship had already lost six planes on recon flights, and Admiral Stutton had been glumly wondering how the Congressional review was going to go for losing so many young boys to routine flights when the ball went up.

He cursed luridly as he read over the dispatch, his flag officers all watching his face as they continually updated the tactical situation on the large plotter, one that was far more advanced and just larger than the one on the Redoubtable. The problem for Stutton, though, was that the ocean between Alaska and Siberia was far smaller than the playground Truedor was dealing with in the north even as those very oceans froze. Truedor could use his ship's speed to move back, giving up ocean for time. Stutton didn't.

And then there was the other reason for Stutton's anger: the conditions. If the Russians pushed across now, my ship, this glorious carrier, would be next to useless. Not good, he thought, not good at all.

Nor was he the only one who knew it. Ahead of his flagship, deep beneath the water, lay four Russian submarines, all of whom had been given simple orders. The moment their officers began to worry about the cold they were go to go on the attack, sinking any ship they could, going especially for any large ship they spotted. It was a simple plan and only vaguely organized, but, because of that it was unpredictable, as were the movements of the subs in question. Added to this was the new communications equipment they had been given in the past few months, allowing them to communicate without being detected.

When one of those captains spotted the Constellation, the largest ship he'd yet seen, he nodded, lining up his shot, and fired.

Back aboard the Constellation, Sutton was debating a very hard decision here. His most powerful ship, and his two next most powerful as well, were going to be next to useless now thanks to this weather. So should he retain it or should he send it further south? And, if so, should he cede the entire area to the Russians, hoping that they weren't interested in Alaska, where a full American Army group had been stationed along with a Canadian army group right on the border with Alaska in a joint defense operation?

And whatever I decide, our own subs should be moving into the area too. There was a sub-pen down in the Aleutian Islands which served six subs year round, and whatever the Russians thought, their subs were not up to par with America's, not the latest Seawolf class, anyway.

If they come across the ocean they'll get a lot of hard knocks from the subs and have to deal with a tremendous amount of distance even for them to keep up lines of supply. They have to know they won't find the means to support themselves in Alaska. No, their main thrust has to be through Poland and into Finland. Then down into the Baltic area.

Like most of the rest of the military and political leaders in the world, Stutton didn't have any idea why the Russians were willing to go to war. They already had all the resources any nation could possibly want in order to build up their industrial capacity, and he didn't really think that pride alone could force them to act, although he was of the opinion that Harry Potter's decision to exclude Russia from the EDF until they started to crack down on anti-mutant atrocities was foolish in the extreme.

As Stutton dithered, the decision was rapidly taken out of his hands as a spotter outside shouted, "Fish! Fish in the water on the port bow!"

"Evade!" the captain of the ship shouted. "Change course into it; don't present our profile!" While the captain had forgotten much of the terminology to deal with an actual enemy torpedo in the water, his training was spot on. If the ship turned towards the torpedo they wouldn't present as large a target. But it was too late.

The submarine had launched not one, but six torpedoes all at once in a wide radius, and though the Constellation tried, two of them slammed into its bottom, blasting through its hull below the waterline. The water exploded up and out from the impact points, flooding inside as the ship listed badly.

But this was a carrier, and the Americans had learned during World War II the importance of both building to take damage and training damage teams. Even as their fellows died, and the ship began to take on water, those teams went into operation, racing towards the damage: welders, divers, and others doing what they could.

For a moment the Admiral could only simply keep his feet by grabbing at the plotter as the ship shuddered underneath them. "Get me a damage report!" he shouted, forgetting for a moment that he was an admiral and not a captain, earning a subtle glare from the ship's actual commanding officer even as, around them, the ships of their flotilla responded to the assault. Three destroyers broke off from where they had been on escort position, racing into the formation towards the direction the attack had come from. Their Hedgehogs were firing already in a show more of enthusiasm then actual training, unfortunately.

But the head cruiser under commander Brown dipped away in the opposite direction, corralling three other destroyers, and sending them out in a different direction.

Aboard that ship, Rebecca Brown smiled grimly to herself. "Now, if I was a determined little Russian, that would've been what I would call the first shot. The fusillade would come from another direction."

And, as she had expected, more torpedoes were in the water seconds later, and her ships began to evade rapidly. Not one of them hit, and then she was above them, and her ships were dropping depth charges. The Russian Navy might have struck first, but it also lost the first ships of this new war as two subs succumbed to the depth charges of the Americans.

However, the damage was done. The Constellation was hobbled, and, with the weather as it was, it was also useless. Stutton smashed his hands down on the tactical screen, shaking his head despairingly. "Captain," he said formally to the commander of the Constellation. "Your orders are to break off from the flotilla. We will retreat south. Whatever weather this is, we need to get away from it.

"If we even can, sir," his communications officer said. Both officers turned to look at him, and he shook his head. "Sir, I'm getting reports from GHQ. This cold is spreading everywhere!"

OOOOOOO

That was an understatement. The cold was spreading, far faster and far more widespread than anyone could have ever anticipated even after seeing Storm in action. The African beauty would have been hard-pressed to control this amount of weather. People unprepared for the cold in areas around the equator started to succumb to it in areas that had never felt such cold temperatures. Houses started to freeze while, around the world, power grids started to work overtime and, in many places, fail.

Soldiers dealt with frostbite, broken equipment, and losing energy quickly more than they had been trained for, rapidly going through their ration bars, even officers not realizing they needed to husband those calories even more now. In areas north of Georgia the cold quickly got to the point where, if someone had skin open to the weather for even a short amount of time, they would have to deal with frostbite.

In the Black Sea, the sea began to freeze as the Turkish civilians watched, shivering and retreating into their homes, wondering about what was going on, while their military began to suddenly realize that perhaps they needed to get ready as well for an invasion. If the Black Sea froze, the buffer zones of Georgia and Azerbaijan would no longer matter. Elsewhere, it was as if history was repeating itself, as the mighty Russian armies smashed across borders accompanied by the cold into the Ukraine, Poland, and elsewhere.

Nor, unfortunately, was that the only issue that Harry and his allies would have to deal with.

OOOOOOO

"Yes," Sinister said almost happily, staring into the TV screen as the reporter on the other end began to babble about what was going on. Elsewhere he had other screens showing more detailed reports of basically what spy satellites the world over were telling their creators. He didn't know why the Russians were doing this—he had his suspicions, but Sinister honestly couldn't care less. Whoever ruled the world today, or whoever fought over Eastern Europe today didn't matter. All that mattered was the future; all that mattered was creating the ultimate mutants, the X-Project.

He nodded over to the Marauders present at the moment—Blockbuster, Arclight, Scalphunter, and Gambit—and his communications officer, his face splitting into a wide, dangerous smile. "Now," he said coldly. "Do it now."

In the small African nation of Genosha, riots began at his command, both for mutant rights and against them, in every one of the four major cities spread across the island and the few outlying farms and other areas. None of these seemed connected except for the timing of the outbreaks. Here violence began because of a bank robbery by a mutant gang turned into a shootout. Here a mutant miner was beaten and his family and friends rioted in revenge. Here two gangs of pro-mutant and anti-mutant marchers met and began to fight, soon spiraling into further violence.

But these outbreaks of violence were small and nearly pitiful in comparison to what was about to occur. In one of the port cities a young mutant whose code-name was Chamber arrived. He was a near-energy proto-form, half his body being able to turn into energy and explode on cue or in times of great stress. Ironically, he had been a British citizen before his powers manifested and destroyed everything around him in a radius of a hundred meters, including his family and their house. Sinister's agents had snatched him up before the government could, well before Potter had begun to ally with them about bringing in young mutants and training them up.

Now here he was, drugged to the gills, the energy within his body kept in check by a specially designed remote-controlled suit that looked to be a regular jacket and scarf combination covering his chest and neck. His power had also been heavily modified by Sinister to be even more out of control, even more powerful.

Chamber didn't have much ability to think or even see the world around him at this point. All he saw were shades of different colors in among the blobs of red, white, and hot pink, the drugs in his system a concoction to make most hallucinogenic drugs pale in comparison. He stumbled forward, subliminal messages keeping him moving for a bit until he was well away from the ship that had dropped him off here. He continued to stumble forward, some voice in his mind telling him he hadn't yet arrived where he was going.

More than one passerby noticed this, and finally one of them actually moved over to grab Chamber's arm, halting his stumbling progress. "Excuse me, are you all right, young man?" the other, somewhat older man asked.

Chamber looked at him, then felt something on his chest start to give way, a pinging sound reaching his ears as his jacket started to pop open. "Ge…" he muttered.

The other man leaned in, pulling Chamber to one side of the sidewalk so he could lean against the wall of one of the buildings lining the street. As he did, Chamber spoke again, but once more the man couldn't make it out. "I'm sorry, young man, what was that?"

"Get away…" Chamber said, forcing the words out as his jacket and scarf opened up as if from a single seam, revealing the roiling orange and red energy within. The older man had barely a second to stare at the energy within Chamber before it finally exploded.

One moment the port city was hustling and bustling save for the bits of it being wracked by violence, which had been mostly contained by the local police. Then the next a blast wave of energy blasted out in every direction, immolating people and smashing buildings into rubble and ash. What had been a bright, vibrant center for commerce became a fiery hellhole.

The explosion could be seen from offshore by several hundred leagues. And soon, thanks to Sinister's robotic and mutant agents, everyone knew what had caused it: a mutant going out of control.

"No more mutants!" was the scream. "No more freaks walking free!" The government, its military and police, too, were affected by the upsurge, rabble-rousers in their ranks urging their fellows on to capture, chain, or otherwise control mutants for the good of the nation.

"No more atrocities, no more humans, Homo Superior rules!" was the shout of the mutants. Quiet, slowly rising agitation and violence by Sinister's people reached a fever pitch with the suddenness of a string breaking, and Genosha went to war with itself.

Into this maelstrom of violence Sinister led the Mutant Liberation Front. Clad in his black, form-fitting armor he made a speech, carried to his scattered gathering posts. "For decades we mutants have been ostracized, hunted, feared, reviled, and beaten down. Many of you have experienced things equivalent to torture. Of late, the world would like to forget, to move past this shameful past, to believe that we Homo Superior and mere Homo Sapiens can live in peace. 'Honest progress has been made,' the wizard Potter would have us believe. 'There are bigger issues at stake,' he would cry. Yet those bold words cannot truly cover the fact that he has forsaken the mutant on the street who can tell you that the darkness is still there, the hate and fear which have forced the flatscans to persecute their betters. Nor that his promises of salvation, of a home for mutantkind, had already been compromised.

"Yet the idea is a good one: a nation controlled by, protected and led by mutants would serve us just as well as it has the Jews. And now the hatred flatscans feel for us have given us a chance. When you touch Gateway, he will take you all through to the nation of Genosha, an island nation whose flatscan population wish to enslave your fellow mutants. We will not let this happen. Instead we will enslave them!" Sinister waited for a moment for the cheering to die down before going on. "Follow your team leaders, follow my Marauders, and we will be victorious."

With that Sinister nodded to Gateway, an ancient looking Australian aborigine, who started to whirl a stone on a string around him. The string started to expand and grow, and around him a large gateway appeared to a random city street. "Now go and claim our freedom!"

At that shout the first group of the MLF being brought to Genosha roared and moved forward, led by Blockbuster. In the next hour Gateway would transport every branch of the Mutant Liberation Front into Genosha, and with them the battle would start to go against the 'flatscan' controlled government.

Of course, Sinister didn't really care which side won. He could step into a leadership position on either side, but the man with the position of High Technologist, his cover title among the Genoshans, was known as a recluse. Once the dust settled, and the collars he had developed and the robots and mechs he developed had won, he could step forward then in that guise to take over from the shattered government. The MLF needed a more face-to-face sort of approach, and he had just given them that.

Regardless, he too transported himself through Gateway's gate, a personal one between larger groups. Once in Genosha, he made his way to his lair there, where a few of his aides, in particular Experiment Pryor and others, were waiting for him hidden behind layers of security and prepared anti-magic defenses. The whole assault on Genosha was, after all, a mere sideshow to his real goal: Jean Grey and the child, or children, she carried.

And I even have obtained a sample of Scott Summer's DNA, if the children of the wizard Potter proved unsuitable for my purposes. Honestly, that aspect was almost too easy. Xavier really should look into getting soundproof rooms in that mansion of his, otherwise couples will always be going elsewhere for their fun times, and who knows what that could lead to? In this case it had led to one of his barely sentient cyborg spies picking up a discarded condom as well as a sheet with a sample of Rogue's blood on it. Now I just need the other side of the equation, Subject Grey.

Unbeknownst to Sinister, however, two among those watching were not among his true believers. "So, that's the big guy, huh?" Morph whispered to Mystique as Sinister made his speech. "Funny, I thought he'd be taller."

"Shut up," Mystique said coldly as they moved forward to join Ripper and Harpoon going through the teleportation circle as it became time for their group to head home. "We need to be ready here, and we need to realize that Potter and the Custodes might not be able to help us very quickly. Sinister doesn't get away. One way or the other, that doesn't happen." "

"Hmmhhmmm, yep, and I know our target, too," Morph replied, staring hard at Gateway and guards standing beside him. Specifically, Morph was wondering about the necklace the man was wearing. That really doesn't seem his style, does it?

OOOOOOO

Even as he and Hela began their work, these reports and more came in one after another including the explosion down in Genosha, reported to him by Dennis. As they did, Harry cursed and kept on cursing until Hela smacked him upside the head. "That is doing no good other than wasting breath," she said tartly. "You have better things to do with your time right now, Jarl Potter!"

"Right," Harry muttered, "right." Whether it was the light tap upside the head or the use of the word 'Jarl,' he was tracking once more. He looked at Hela and smiled faintly. "Thank you for the dose of reality there. We will have to see what we can do out there, but things first things first, let us deal with what we can here. As I was saying, we need to create a coven-based ritual array, I think. Whatever this is, it's attacking Gaia and the weather both, and unless Stephen knows some magic to counter it, we need to cut the connection between the will behind this spell and the weather. To that end, we need to help Gaia."

Since her ability to connect to the weather was based off her mutant power rather than magic, there was little aid the others could offer Ororo. But she in turn could aid Gaia, and Gaia, they could help. She would be able to take the magic they would pour into her and use it to combat whatever was being done to her, though it would undoubtedly be difficult, considering it seemed to be acting like some kind of sickness, attacking her through her own leylines, both ground and air types, judging by her haggard appearance.

"Agreed," Hela said crisply, moving into the center of the tower where she began to create a web of magic in the air. Arcs of magical power radiated out from her, and Harry quickly knelt down on the rooftop nearby where he began to write out a runic script in the stone as quickly as he could without making any mistakes even as he and Hela talked about what could be causing this. It took him ten minutes to create the first ring, a small, sliver of the full working, but enough to set the central catalysts within.

"Set Gaia and Ororo in the center, here," Harry said, gesturing Piotr forward with Ororo even as he stood up and took Ororo's arm himself. His voice was worried as he stared at his love, even as Hela moved over to gently touch her forehead and cheek. Ororo smiled as she felt that, and one hand came up to mix her fingers with Hela's, but she didn't actually look at the other woman, and white light could be seen flickering out from under her eyelashes as she concentrated on her link to the weather patterns of the world, fighting against whatever foreign influence was causing this cold.

At the same time, Cory returned with a communications device, and Harry clipped it to his ear. Tapping it, he said simply, "Get me Scott and Steve."

Sage was online already, having moved swiftly from the head of the Magical Minds headquarters up into High Note, where she was working with Pinoptes in order to get a handle on what was occurring. At the same time Emma, with MJ's help and Jean's, talked with various military and political leaders the world over, getting a few of the balls they had already prepared for this rolling. "Done," Sage replied instantly.

For a moment Harry smiled as Scott's voice as well as Steve's fought for his attention, shaking his head. I've got good people working with me, thank the gods. "Gentleman, I hear you both, but I can't understand you if you're talking over one another. I take it we're all of the same opinion, though, that we need to get in on this?"

Scott let Steve go first as the more senior leader, and the star-spangled hero replied simply, "I was out running when the ball went up and have since been accosted and called numerous times by a lot of people, both official types and regular bystanders. There's a lot of panic on the streets, Harry, but I'll be ready to go wherever you think I need to in a few minutes. Where should I be heading?"

"You're all on standby for now until I know where to send you, Steve. Once you're in uniform, though, I'd like to you to head over to the Pentagon. I need a liaison there, and that means you need to drop off a communications device there. I'll have Cory drop it off at your house."

"Oh, good," Steve said with a laugh in his voice. "I feared for a minute that you'd ask me to do it."

"That would be a monstrous waste of talent, Cap. Once you and whoever else you gather is ready, call me back, and I'll get you all up to High Note. We'll use that as our staging ground." Steve answered in the affirmative, and Harry switched his attention to Scott, knowing that Steve would gather whoever he could to join him without being told and would also brief them on what to expect. If there was anyone who didn't need to be babied when a world war called, it was Captain America. "Scott?"

"Sir, I have both X-teams already suiting up and getting ready, but, like you said we don't know where to go just yet. There's this business in Russia, all of the news agencies are covering it right now, and then there's Genosha and the violence getting worse there. I… It looks really fucking bad, sir. Both of them."

For a moment Harry wanted to waste another minute cursing, but he didn't. Sinister. Genosha has got to be that cock, playing both sides against one another again. "Agreed. We'll be going in armed for bear whatever happens. Get in touch with Pinoptes and Carol, they'll be in charge of getting you kitted out for this. I'll be giving you some targets as soon as possible, but I need to start setting up our magical response to this cold front of the Russians."

"It isn't a mutant power then, it's a magical attack?" Scott asked, sounding worried. "I thought between you, Hela, and Dr. Strange we had most of the magical side covered."

"So did I," Harry said with a sigh. "I don't know how they are powering it, but this has to be magical. There's just no other explanation. No mutant could build up to this without Ororo noticing and fighting it as soon as they started. But she didn't notice anything until less than half an hour ago."

Harry fell silent and then decided to go on, if only to emphasize the seriousness of what was happening. "And Steve, Scott, keep this to yourselves; don't even tell your teams about this one. But the goddess Gaia is also being affected by this. Her physical form is that of an old crone for some reason, and she is almost completely comatose. What that could mean for the world in general, I don't know, but it can't be good."

Both men cursed, understanding at least some of what that meant without needing to be told. At that Harry let them go and turned his attention outward again as he felt the arrival of Strange and the others. He looked over to the edge of the roof as Kitty phased through the roof, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked around before locking on Ororo. "Ororo!"

She leaped forward, and both she and the weather goddess would have fallen as she turned solid before smacking into the African woman in a move reminiscent of another barrel of bushy tailed energy Harry had known. He grabbed them both, however, steadying both girls as Kitty clung to her teacher. "Ororo, are you okay? Oh-my-god, this cold thing, is it attacking you? It must be; I mean, otherwise you would've…"

"Easy there, Kitten. She's fine physically, but she's fighting this whatever it is even now, so she can't really concentrate on pesky things like her body at the moment," Harry soothed, hugging both the older and younger woman, who had been busy the past few weeks forging ahead with her chosen task to skip grades and graduate this year from high school.

As he said, Ororo didn't seem able to reply verbally at this point. But she hugged Kitty and laid her head against Harry's shoulder even as she didn't open her eyes, the rest of her concentration on the war occurring within the weather patterns of the world, trying to keep further disasters from occurring with the sudden violent decrease in temperature. She was doing a good job, too, but the cold was still spreading even if it hadn't spawned the hurricanes, and violent storms it should have.

Kitty leaned back before darting in to give Ororo a kiss on the check and whispering, "We've all got your back, Ororo. Go get 'em, goddess!" With that morale boost given, she turned to Harry, her face serious as, behind her, Wanda, Dr. Druid, Strange, and Clea floated up over the side of the tower. "What do you need me to do?"

"Ah, and there we see both the willpower and the willingness to work that no doubt made my, that is, that made Ororo take you on as an apprentice," Hela said, looking at Kitty fondly. "We are attempting to create what is called a coven ritual, Kitty. When we are done, we'll be able to bring aid unto Gaia and, through her, Ororo."

"That sounds like an excellent idea, actually, as I am afraid my own magics are unable to tell me anything about this," Strange said with a faint frown, touching the large brooch at his neck. "Even the Eye of Agamotto cannot pierce through to whatever is behind this. I can sense the minds of literally thousands bundled up into it, but the how and the where elude me at this moment."

"Hela and I were talking, and we think it's hyper-dimensional in origin. Not other-dimensional, as that would have run into the magical defenses we put in place months back. But someone is beaming in magical power into whatever is causing this," Harry explained, scowling. "I'd held out hope for your Eye of Agamotto, but if that thing can't find it, I doubt anything I can do would be able to either, or Hela. It's…" Harry paused, looking over at the small, elderly, and weak form of Mother Gaia. "It's even taking over the ley lines, using them to move the spell along."

Clea looked at Hela, who had bristled at the idea of there being something she couldn't do before subsiding, as it was true, after all. The two of them hadn't talked or even generally been around one another very often, and rather purposefully. Clea was, after all, the daughter of a Demon Lord, and Hela was a goddess, one who served Death, and very, very few deities of whatever stripe liked to be reminded of the fact that even for them there was the Great Ending. And Death in turn didn't like anything that tried to deal with souls, removing them from the cycle of regeneration. Clea wasn't her father, of course, but she had spent most of her life in his realm, and there was still a bit of social paranoia perhaps between the two of them, certainly a bit of awkwardness, anyway. "Goddess Hela, can you not do anything in this instance?"

"I am afraid not. I have tried, but the domain of my power does not allow me any control over the weather outside mine own realm." Hela said with a scowl. "I could, mayhap, connect to the ley lines directly, but I would simply become either a battery of power to them or vice-versa without a spell betwixt it and I. Regardless, it would not serve any purpose."

"I can aid in creating an array that will allow us to affect the weather. If we use Ororo and Goddess Gaia in the center and use them as the catalysts for it, the impact will be even more than it would otherwise be. Is that the kind of tactic you were going to try?" Strange asked, looking on in interest at the runes that Harry and Ororo had been carving into the roof.

Harry and Hela both nodded, and Hela gestured to the mass of multicolored magic hanging above them, looking for all the world like a magical ball of string a cat had been at. "This is a coven connection spell mixed with several other things I thought up as I was working on it, including a connection into, but not out of, the leylines below the castle. It has enough open ends, so to speak, that we can all take part in it once we sink this spell into the runic array."

"Then let's get on with it," Clea said brusquely. "Direct us and let us get this done. Whatever this attack is, it is slowly killing the Earth. As I live here, that is rather irritating to me."

Even as the magic users went to work, though, Harry also had to juggle other things at the same time. But there, at least, he had Jean and Emma, both of whom were able to work as intermediaries.

With her permanent connection to Harry's mind, Jean was his most logical direct representative, and since she couldn't be in the field any longer, she was even happy to do it. Emma would serve as a physical liaison in a pinch, but at the moment she was speaking to Dr. Doom about what his plans were to combat Russia's push into the Ukraine, after which she would be rejoining MJ in talking to various governmental officials, especially those of their allies.

At Harry's orders now, weapons and materials had already began to make their way to Finland, Poland, and China, while the Custodes and their allied teams gathered in High Note. But where to send those teams was in question, and for that Harry wanted some input from the generals on the ground, or at least as close to that as he could get.

Instead of using any of the rooms in Camelot, Jean, with Douglas Ramsey, set up the observation and command room for this meeting. Since it already had a hard light system, the necessary communication equipment, and was going to serve as their staging ground, this made things easier. What wasn't easy was getting the various NATO generals to take 'the Phoenix' seriously in Harry's place when she refused to back down from their initial demands that she reveal herself, as Harry had months back. That took more than forty minutes and only ended when the first few reports of how badly the battles were going in Poland, China, and the Ukraine were going for the forward NATO forces.

Only Finland was fighting back at all, and they were losing ground and men, which was bad for the small northern country, although they themselves were remarkably upbeat about things. The Russians had lured a great many of the forward spotters and scouts into ambushes, using their shielded tank brigades as seemingly ripe targets to do it. It had cost them horribly, but the Russians were advancing into both Finland and around Finland into Norway. There, though, they ran into a massive fortress, a joint project between NATO, Norway, and Sweden, which was essentially a battleship-sized fortress on land with steel and stone armor fit to shrug off a nuke and several Norwegian regiments which made it their home. But elsewhere,the Russians were seemingly running roughshod over all opposition.

Watching one general after another go pale, Jean barely fought back a smirk. "I take it, gentlemen, that you have all seen at last the impact this cold front is having."

One of the American admirals, who had been glaring at his arguing fellows for a while now, nodded his head. "We have been getting those reports from the very fucking beginning, 'scuse my language, ma'am. And we haven't even seen the Russian super-powered groups in action yet save on the Chinese border, and even then it was only a glimpse. I think I speak for all of us here that we do realize we need help."

One NATO rep was going to argue, but the Finish and Polish generals glared him into silence. The American and Canadian generals also didn't look happy, but they hadn't been looking happy since this conference began. The sole British representative here, General Demontebanks, spoke up now. "I think we're all agreed on that point, yes. The question is, what is being done about this cold, and what further help can Magical Minds provide?"

"Wait, why are we talking about Magical Minds rather than the EDF?" asked one of the European reps Jean hadn't met before.

Emma's voice whispered into her mental ear. "General Konstasi, Lithuanian. They haven't been attacked yet, but they are utterly dependent on Russia for oil, which has stopped coming through the pipelines since the attack began. If Russia wants they could have the country capitulate in only a few weeks of this damned cold." Emma was feeling the cold in New York at this point and was not happy about it. "As to the man himself, he's a bit of a hack, really, and a philanderer. He also hasn't looked away from your tits and has decided that tonight's whore will have to be a redhead. Would you like me to do something about his ability to perform for that?

Could have told you that myself, love. I mean look at all those medals. The man really styles himself like a Generalissimo, doesn't he?" Jean drawled back. "And yes, please do. The idea of him even fantasizing about me at all makes me want to lobotomize him."

"Ooh, is that the hormonal imbalance talking or am I rubbing off on you?" Emma teased.

"Heh, maybe a bit of both, although as I recall it's been a while since you rubbed off on me, Ms. 'pregnancies are yuck,'" Jean shot back in possibly the dirtiest and most barbed repartee she'd yet indulged in outside of the bedroom.

Emma's astral projection doubled over in laughter and disappeared from Jean's mind. This, alas, left her dealing with Konstasi's original question, which in turn made her notice again where his eyes were, and that in turn made Jean just want to reach out with her TK powers and squish his head. Okay, so that was definitely the hormonal imbalance talking. And would be impossible too at this distance. Well…not without causing a lot of collateral damage, anyway.

Setting that pleasant image aside, Jean replied. "As to that, we have been talking with various governmental officials and representatives, and none of them agree that this is an extra-solar threat. As we do not have any proof of it being one, beyond the fact that this cold is clearly magical and they have their heads so far up their asses that they still don't like admitting magic's real, but…" Jean realized she was about to rant and paused, gathering her somewhat tattered self-control before moving on. "Anyway, the point is that the governments of the world have decided that, unless we can prove infallibly that the Russians are working with aliens, they would not look favorably on intervention by the EDF."

The Lithuanian wasn't the only one who looked pissed off at that, but Jean suddenly lost all interest in them as Pinoptes interrupted, his voice as mechanical as he could make it. No one wanted to deal with the added issue of the militaries of the world learning that Harry and company had a working AI. "Warning, multiple nuclear launches detected. Warning, multiple nuclear ICBM launches detected."

Jean turned away from the generals, waving her hands and barking out orders, "Mute all and then get me real time views of the nukes!"

With the satellites the world over acting like his own eyes, Pinoptes flared up a new series of images superimposing them to one side of where the images of the generals had congregated. Now, with all of those muted, Jean went on grimly. "Good. Thanks, Pinoptes." With the pictures' aid, Jean concentrated, and the image of the phoenix flared out around her, it's claws moving and passing through the walls of High Note once more as it had early on in the invasion of Poland.

To the people on the ground over the world over it looked as if fiery claws had just reached down from space, as had been the case earlier in Poland. They didn't burn, though, instead grabbing at the dozens of missiles which had launched from various bases in Germany, France and Italy toward Russia, these not being under Sputnik's control as the ones in Poland had been. Elsewhere, in Russia, still more missiles launched in automatic response, and even a few ICBMs came out of the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, launched at various targets on both sides as anti-missile defenses also came on line, far more dangerous defenses than had existed even a few years ago.

It was doubtful that more than one out of every five would have gotten through those defenses, but no one would ever discover that, because Jean caught them all. Oh hell, no! We'll not be having nuclear fire destroying millions of civilians whatever side they are on, thank you.

With her fiery claws grasping every nuclear missile thus far launched, Jean pulled them straight up, aiming them up into space. It was hard, a lot harder than it should have been given the raw power she had and Pinoptes continually updating the images on the screens around her. But due to her pregnancy Jean really had to force her control to keep up with the task at hand and nearly lost it several times when she had to reach down again to add still more nukes. It was hard, almost as hard as finding the Kree missiles in space had been, and draining, but she grit her teeth and bore through it.

Ironically, at that point it was mostly the allied forces launching them, not the Russians. After all, the Russians believed they had no need of nukes to take the territories they wanted and didn't want to ruin them either. There will no doubt be a lot of angry politicos out there, but I couldn't care less about that right now.

Once those nukes were in space she gathered them in one place and then somewhat gleefully tore them to pieces, leaving the warheads to gently float in space to be collected by some construction droids at a later date. Who knew, they might be useful, or at least the plutonium within them.

Once she was finished, Jean took a brief second to make certain no further nukes had been launched since she began their destruction, then turned her attention to the generals once more. She noticed idly that had taken a good hour and a half, but still more than a third of the generals and admirals remained on the line. Many of them had headpieces on their head, obviously having followed what Jean was doing while also keeping up with events at the front.

She watched them watching her for a moment, then smiled thinly as more than one of them bowed their heads slightly towards her, acknowledging both what she had just done and why. Demontebanks sent her a smile along with his nod and coughed delicately. "We were, I think, talking about what aid Magical Minds could offer without pulling in the whole EDF and making it seem as if the fleet is willing to involve itself in purely Terran affairs. But I believe that I also detected a hint of what might occur once you had incontravertable proof

"Yes, you did. Once we have the proof that the Russians are allied or being duped by an extraterrestrial threat, the EDF's charter will allow it to aid as best it can against them," Jean said, smiling at the older man gratefully, knowing he would be able to see it despite her face being covered by masks both physical and magical. "Further, Poland and the other countries we were allied with before Mr. Potter came out into the open will, by this point, have taken possession of some of our aid to them. These come in the form of high-tech weapons, particularly plasma-based weapons and gauss rifles. But we can do better than that, gentlemen." She grinned then. "How would you like to be able to bring forces directly from bases within your own countries into staging zones near the front lines?"

Moments after explaining about the doors and what they could mean, most of the generals who weren't close to the front lines broke off the communication, eager to get started in organizing their end of things. Jean then talked to the remaining generals, getting an idea of where and what kind of help they'd like to see. Done with them for the moment, Jean contacted Harry and found that he and the other magicals were now all engrossed in the magical side. The coven spell was finished and the accompanying runic arrays too. Now all of them were currently funneling the magic into the array, but the power of their opponents, who were also using some form of coven-based magic, was formidable, taking up all of their combined energy and still powering through, spreading the cold further. The effect was also spreading and now could be felt as far south as the Mediterranean according to Emma, who had been keeping Harry informed of what was going on along with Dennis.

At first the air forces of the world below the Mediterranean had been able to launch fighters and get them up into the Baltics and beyond, such as from an American carrier battle group built around two carriers operating in that theatre. Their fighters had mauled a few tank battalions moving along the opposite side of the Black Sea but had been jumped in turn by Russian fighter jets. But since then the visibility had closed in even there, and the Americans had lost practically all of their CAG (carrier air group) and were now unable to launch any more due to the fog. The Turks, who had joined with the American forces, had lost hundreds of planes as well, and so had the Russians. But it was clear the Russians had won that engagement.

But the admiral in charge of the fleet there had proven to be something of an inspired choice. He talked directly to his opposite numbers in the Turkish military and was currently disgorging all of his fleet's marines to join a large army of Turks who were preparing to face any attack coming in through Georgia. He also reported that he would then be taking his fleet into the Black Sea to link up with Turkey's fleet there to defend against any further attacks, though how effective they would be once the Black Sea began to freeze was anyone's guess.

With her connection to Harry fully opened, Jean let him speak to Cyclops and the other team leads who had gathered, including Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, who had joined her in the communications room. The rest of the hero teams were all mingling with one another in High Note's jungle, ready to split up into teams. All of them looked up as several hard light screens appeared in the air above their heads.

The only ones missing were Ghigau, Mystique, Morph, the team watching them, and those who were working with Harry at the moment. Heck, even Polaris had been asked to join in, though she had only done so under protest and pouted up at Jean's face in real irritation. Lorna felt she'd had enough combat to last her a lifetime already. Havok was there too and eager to get it stuck in even if he was shooting Lorna a few 'lost puppy' looks, which the green-haired woman was ignoring. Captain Britain was also there, dressed in his own Union Jack-like uniform.

With them were Hawkeye, who had willingly come out of retirement, E, Lance Alvers, Natasha Romanov, and the man Steve had introduced to Harry weeks back, Sam Wilson. He and the Black Widow both wore combat suits designed by Jean and Carol. The Black Widow's looked something like Carol's own Uzume outfit, but with a few special weapons and tools added to go with her Black Widow theme and preference for close combat. Sam's was a bulkier version with heavily reinforced shoulder mounts for missiles, a gauss rifle, and twin plasma pistols at his hip, along with a jetpack that Jean had devised by talking to the former villain—now prisoner—Vulture. He had even chosen a code name: the Falcon.

Iron Man was not there. Tony Stark had instead volunteered to lead the logistics aspect, bringing more material to the front in more traditional ways.

"All right, boys and girls, we're going in," Jean said, before scowling and going on more tartly. "Or rather, you all are." There were more than one audible *phew* of relief at that, and she glared around the room and into the pickup. "Does anyone want to say anything!?"

They all twitched, and more than one person both within the room and in the jungle backed away rapidly, and she nodded grimly. "Good. Don't piss off the pregnant woman, gentlemen. It never ends well. So here is what we're going to do. According to Emma, Dr. Doom says he can basically handle the thrust into the Ukraine entirely on his own. NATO in Poland and the Polish regular army are getting massacred, though. They were not ready for this. They barely had more than half of their winter gear on site, and, even if they had, most of those units are American and Western European. Only the units from Germany are at all prepared for this kind of fight, and they are scattered to hell and back, many of them having fallen back into national lines rather than remaining under NATO's command structure."

She turned to look at the star-spangled adventurer steadily. "Steve, Harry thinks we'll need you and your team there, a team of fast moving ex-military sorts, the kind of people that can work with those already on the ground and do it well. I'll also add that anyone who can speak Polish should also be included. But not yet."

Steve made to object, but Jean held up a hand. "At this point, even if you went in, that front's way too wide to make any significant headway just yet. You'll need to wait until the reinforcements are ready, then we'll send you in first to start building up some points of resistance." Steve grimaced, but knowing the size of Poland couldn't argue, and Jean turned to the pickup into the jungle. "Before that, Lorna, Rogue?"

The two women blinked, then stared at one another and then through the pickup at Jean. "Yeah, Red?" Rogue asked.

"You two are our fastest remaining flyers, and you're both heavy hitters too. I think you can do more to muddle the Russians plans in Poland at the moment than anything else. Lorna, your power alone can start dealing with the enemy's overwhelming advantage in tanks. Steve, Lorna will eventually see to your transportation too if I'm busy with something."

"Can I put my team together now?" Steve asked.

Jean nodded, and he chose the Black Widow, Husk, Carol, and Nikolai, both of whom spoke Polish, and for heavy hitting he asked to take Paige and E with him. He loaned out the Falcon to the Custodes in return for taking Paige.

"Good, solid choices," Jean said with a nod, turning to the others as Thunderbird nodded grimly, moving to stand with the others. "Scott, the X-Men are going to be sent in to help along the Finnish front, specifically the center of their lines, generally speaking." She paused as Harry relayed more information to her, the image of three house elves holding a large map in front of him and Dennis's voice in his ear coming to her for a moment, overwhelming her own physical senses before she could shake it off. "It's mostly irregular country up there—mountains, lots of woods—but they seem to have thrown in a lot of their better units up there too, and those include a lot of tanks and at least a few sightings of mutant-type special forces."

"What about Kazakhstan?" Steve asked, looking at the map that was on one side of the communication as his team gathered from out of the crowd. He would also be taking in Wolverine and his daughter, Laura, there. Given the terrain and the size of the area they would have to cover, that just made sense to everyone.

"Officially Kazakhstan is not even remotely allied to us and, in point of fact, was screaming that it will deal with the Russian infidels on its own. Unofficially, we're watching closely," Emma said as she came through the doors to one side. "They don't like mutants there any more than they do in Russia, and we've been dying for an excuse to get involved there openly. I know Wendy and her team have gone in there numerous times."

"Still, why is the Mole Man involved in this at all?" Scott muttered, looking over to Reed.

Reed stood up and moved to stand next to Jean. He briefly explained about the background of the Mole Man and the previous fights that the Fantastic Four had had with him. "I feel we should be the ones to handle that front." Next to him the Thing and the Human Torch both nodded. Even Susan's stand in, Thundra, also looked interested in that idea.

After a brief second communing with Harry, Jean nodded. "Do it."

"What about the Custodes?" Piotr asked, crossing his arms over the Juggernaut armor he was currently wearing, which was somewhat loose on him thanks to his being in his unarmored form. "Where should we go?"

He exchanged a glance with Nikolai and Laynia, though the girl didn't meet his gaze, simply glaring at the map with fury in her eyes. Nikolai, though, despite being estranged from his country, was as much a Russian patriot as Piotr was, and both of them felt almost physical pain at what their country was being duped into or convinced in some manner to do by those in power. Will it be worth it? No, he thought to himself grimly. Now it will not be worth it. I will make certain that my fellow Russians realize the folly of this.

"The Custodes are going to be severely under strength for a bit, with my condition and Ororo and Harry involved in pushing back this cold front. However, we've already asked the Chinese if they want some help on their end, and they've said yes. That's where you'll get involved. Amara, you're team lead."

The neo-Greek national straightened her shoulders and nodded grimly as Jean continued, looking over at one of the heroes in the jungle who wasn't allied with the Custodes before this. "Captain Britain, you'll be going in with the forces down in Georgia along with Falcon. You'll be alone for now, but your flying abilities should let you cover the whole front, and when Steve can move into Poland, we might be able to switch Rogue and Polaris down to join you. We hope that the skies will remain clearer down near the equator for longer than the rest of the fronts."

"Rather far from my normal stopping grounds, don't you know," the British nobleman said with a chuckle, but he nodded as did the American born African-American paratrooper. "Agreed."

"What about Genosha?" Scott asked. "What are we doing there? That looks to be a pure mutant/anti-mutant fight."

"Morph and Mystique are already there, and Banshee and his team are watching, waiting for a chance to call in reinforcements." Jean sighed. "We can't be everywhere no matter how hard we try, but I think that for now Russia's the biggest threat. If only because their war machine's going to be killing a lot more people than even live in Genosha."

Scott winced but couldn't argue the point, and they all nodded, the meeting breaking up a moment later. With High Note already above Eastern Europe, Steve's team would be first to be let off, with Polaris seeing them down to the ground. After that they would move over Finland, using primitive dropships that would just go basically straight down like a brick. They would have to abandon ship, but it would at least help them make a good first impression.

This left Douglas, Jean, and Emma alone, though of course Pinoptes was still paying attention. "Pinoptes, how many attempts to hack us have you stopped since the events in Genosha came to a head?" Jean asked.

"Several hundred. The mutant who is able to transfer his body into electronic form is persistent, but he cannot overcome my home field advantage, as it were," Pinoptes replied.

"That's not fun," Jean groused.

"Actually I think it means that while Genosha might be a trap designed to get rid of our Harry and the Custodes, Sinister knows he won't catch you there. That means we might be able to reverse a trap on them," Emma mused with a smirk. "Let me go talk to Xavier about the image inducer Kurt still uses while in public. If I can borrow it, and you for a bit, Douglas, I think we might be able to nip these attempts to kidnap you in the bud."

OOOOOOO

The first group of the Custodes Mundi to get involved in events were the X-men, something that Cyclops was rather proud of despite the means of their arrival. The makeshift dropship that they were in was nothing more than a large box which would never have been able to fly if not for Phoenix basically lowering them down halfway, then letting them go It wasn't as if they could control it very much—it had all the aerodynamics of a brick—but that was fine with Scott. "X-Men, is everyone ready?"

Warpath, Wolverine, Laura, Spyke, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Laynia, Avalanche—seconded to them for the duration of hostilities—and Havok all answered in the affirmative, if a little angrily in his brother's case. Alex had been in a right snit ever since Lorna had broken up with him, and the fact that no one had let him go with her into Poland, instead sending another flyer in the form of Rogue, had put him in an even worse mood.

They all answered in the affirmative, and, at Cyclops's nod, Warpath threw the heavy duty door open, as the dropship was still 150 feet off the ground. Since it was going to hit like a very large artillery shell, it was more imperative that they not be within it than anything else. That, and Cyclops had taken advantage both of that fact and that the X-men had been given access to all the Custodes goodies for a few months now.

"Go, go, go!" Cyclops roared. With that he leaped out, activating a small hover board that Carol had devised based upon the small-scale hover technology in Dani's boots. Behind him the others came, only Warpath and Thunderbird not bothering with the hover boards, instead just leaping out.

"Let's get it on!" Thunderbird roared, flaring his hands out to either side to slow his descent and then pulling a giant cannon off his back firing into the giant fucking marching army below them. That army was already scattering, but they had been clumped up here on a road through North Karelia, the easiest route for an invading army from Russia to get deep, seemingly into Finland. They had not been having an easy time of it, and that was going to get far worse right now, much further back from the front than the Russians had thought they had to worry about attacks.

Scott flipped open his visor to the widest setting he could and blasted down at a few tanks at what he felt was the outer edge of the blast radius. Six of them were blasted into pieces, crushed under the weight of his blast, and then Warpath hit more on the other side of the formation, with Thunderbird slamming down an instant later. Warpath missed his landing, slamming into and down into the rock below, but still grabbed and lifted the tank he'd been aiming for, hurling it towards another one. Thunderbird hit his target and tore the gun right off it even as his weight pushed it down, its treads shattering. A second later Thunderbird grabbed the turret, getting his feet under him and ripping it off before tossing it into another tank. Then he and his brother moved as one, massive war hatchets or knives in their hands, which cut through the tanks like they were paper. The two of them roared an Apache war cry, and then raced forward into the retreating tanks and away from the 'drop site.'

Before Cyclops and the others landed the dropship they'd just evacuated hit with a monstrous boom. Cyclops heard screams and cries for a second before all was noise and wind, and he clung for dear life to his hover board even as he heard Spyke shouting, "Oh my God, this ride is awesome! I have got to get me one of these!"

"I want to get a T-shirt. It will read, 'You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.' It will be the most fucking self-descriptive thing I have ever owned," Iceman muttered, clinging like grim death to his own hover board, using his ice powers to practically mold himself to it.

Laura was of the same mind as Spyke, as was Nightcrawler. Both of them were whooping in joy. Her father had abandoned his hover board to just drop, letting the wind of the implosion hurl him every which way, trusting to his healing factor and durability. Laynia, or Darkstar, had no need of a board and had simply flown high enough to avoid the event, then, as the winds and snow had been blown away, dropped back down until she could see once more, whereupon she started to attack her former countrymen with a viciousness that was slightly worrying to Cyclops as he began to take in his surroundings once more.

More importantly, the army, for that was the nature of the force below them, had been warned of the incoming dropship, but it had still gutted the force. Now to capitalize, Cyclops thought grimly. "Sound off, everybody, and then get it stuck in!"

"Wahoo!" Laura shouted, racing past Cyclops as he halted in midair, leaping down and onto a truck which had miraculously not been overturned, leaping in and finishing off the dazed and confused Russians within. Nightcrawler just bamfed straight down, lashing out with two pistols first and then switching to sword and machine gun a second later. He had grabbed those goodies at the same time Cyclops had grabbed the hover boards. Spyke too had grabbed weapons, adding to his long range firepower.

Havok was the last to sound off, and Cyclops made a note to talk to his brother again. There was a time and place for anger and being a lovesick puppy, and this was not it. Still, he joined the fight readily enough, his energy blasts cutting through a large group of infantry, hurling them every which way.

A second later the other X-Men arrived. As they did, Scott settled down onto the ground and continued to fire out blasts of his from his eyes even as he clicked on his headset and began to search through frequencies for the locals. Iceman proved that he had not only matured enough to be on the combat team but that sending him into Finland had been a masterful move, burying whole companies who had survived the impact. Above them Laynia rained down fire, cursing her target in a stream of vituperative Russian, her voice set on 'Howl'.

When he found the correct frequency, he began to speak, hoping they understood English, because he didn't speak Finnish, and none of them had thought to think about translations and the need for them when they began this party, unlike Steve. Crap, need to think about that in the future. "To the defenders of Finland, this is Cyclops of the X-men; we're here to help. Tie us into the local net. I think you're going to really like our opening shot in this war. Repeat, this is Cyclops of the Custodes Mundi, X-Men branch. We're here to help."

OOOOOOO

The sudden arrival of three Titanium men had proven to be the turning point on the Chinese front. Before they had shown up the Chinese had been willing to pay at a scale of three to one to try and push the Russians back, but when they showed up on the second day of combat that stopped very quickly. Nothing the Chinese had nearby or could get into the area could halt either one of those monstrous leviathans of man-shaped metal. They flew, or rather, jumped vast distances given the crudity of their rocket packs and arrived at the front, blasting through the best Chinese tanks, Major Li Qu's Huoyan-shetou, with an ease that was appalling, their titanium bodies completely immune to the energy weapons. Their own weapons, Gatling guns and lightning cannons, scythed through the Chinese tanks. At times they even closed and tore the defenders apart with their bare hands. Now the entire Northern Theatre command was in retreat, having moved all they could into the area and failing to stop the Russian advance.

That advance halted very abruptly as Colossus, Psylocke, Cannonball, and Magma, along with the armor clad Coyote (Wyatt Wingfoot), arrived on the scene. Though, they didn't arrive as precipitously as the X-men did, being carried nearly all the way down by Phoenix's TK powers rather than just halfway.

"Cannonball, Colossus, take out the Titanium Men," Magma ordered, her form shifting into her tectonic energy form as she spoke while her lover shifted into his Colossus form. "I'll concentrate on the advancing infantry, and between us, Coyote and I will take the tanks; aim for the biggest ones first. Psylocke, it would be a help if you could find some officer to telepathically interrogate. I find myself curious, and the bosses would no doubt like to know more about why the Russians want to make war on so many fronts at once."

"A most excellent management of resources, dorogoy (Darling). Never fear, we will do our part," Colossus said. They continued to fly quickly through heavy white clouds and snow for a bit, then visibility grew again and they saw the enemy below them. A second later Phoenix's TK grip, which had been guiding them all down in a small shield of air, dissipated from around them with a startling suddenness.

Of course the two Titanium man saw them coming and opened fire immediately with lightning blasts and Gatling guns. Cannonball was immune, his shield in place the instant he started moving. They might have hurt Coyote, but he had started teleporting downwards in short jumps. Psylocke was on Cannonball's back for now, putting him between her and the anti-air fire.

And as for Colossus, well, while the Titanium men had proved to be juggernauts in comparison to the Chinese armor, Colossus was actually wearing the armor of the Juggernaut over his own steel clad skin. He simply took their best shots and kept falling straight towards them, pulling out a gun of his own.

It was a short barreled plasma weapon of a very ugly, utilitarian design, a one-shot device that none of the other Custodes with him could even lift. It was something that Jean had come up with for Allied tanks, something smaller than the ones the Kree used, but the energy requirements were still exorbitant, and no one could lift the weapon itself and the additional rechargeable power pack. But Colossus didn't care so much that it would be useless after one shot so long as he could make that one shot count.

The Titanium man he aimed for ducked to one side as a beam of plasma, an angry orange, red, and blue, flashed through where his torso had been a second ago. Just because I'm in armor doesn't mean I'm stupid! he thought to himself. But then Colossus was on him, bouncing up off of the man's side and leaping sideways to crash with thunderous force into the second Titanium man, bearing him to the earth. "Let us see if your titanium can match my steel, comrade," Colossus said as he began to pummel the downed Titanium man, taking a few punches in turn, but the man's weapons were negated by how close they were.

The one he'd used as a springboard growled angrily and pushed himself to his feet, racing over to grab at Colossus, forgetting his own weapons for now as they had been useless against the armored mutant before this. Colossus turned and grabbed his arm in turn and then flipped himself back and up over the man before locking in a hold from sambo. The man grimaced as he could hear the armor of his suit beginning to creak, the servos whining, and thrust himself backward with his boosters, slamming Colossus down into the ground, trying to make him let go.

Nearby the last of the Three Titanium Men finished tearing his way out of Chinese tank and aimed his Gatling gun towards Coyote, who had just finished bounce-teleporting down. A sudden flare of near-searing heat on his leg though, caused him to glance down, and he saw that his foot had been hit by what looked like a ball of magma that was currently doing what the laser weapons of the Huoyan-shetou had been unable to do: burn through his armor, if very slowly.

"GAH!" Seeing a large blob of magma on your foot would make anyone react poorly, and the man hopped in one place, trying to kick the blob off while his armored foot heated to an incredible degree for a few minutes. A second later he was flattened by Cannonball smashing into him like, yes, a cannonball, hurling him up and away. "Fuck you, Amirikanski!" the man shouted, blasting his Tesla cannon point blank at Cannonball's seemingly exposed face. But the attack did nothing, and the next second they were plowing through several Russian tanks.

While the three Titanium Men were being occupied, Coyote started to pop around the place, firing his rifle. Magma slammed her hands down on the ground, and the earth started to tremble, throwing the Russian soldiers off their feet.

The Chinese, who had been in complete retreat before this, turned now and reengaged. Their tanks had been mauled, but the infantry, for all that they were using antiquated weapons and didn't have nearly the covering they needed to weather the current cold or the boots to weather the snow, still had the numbers and a will.

When they came close Magma had to stop her earthquake based attack. Instead she and Coyote turned their attention to the remaining Russian tanks as they tried to open the range on them. Neither let that happen, and one after another the tanks ceased moving, falling to Magma's tectonic energy and magma balls or Coyote's expertly placed gauss rifle rounds, which targeted their treads and down the barrels of their main guns. He could have been doing more damage if he used the magical enhancement on the rifle, but there was no need right now. Once the tanks were stopped in place, their main guns ruined or shattered by their own shells going off mid-fire, the Chinese could handle them.

"Damn you! You are Russian! Why do you fight for the yellow devils!?" the Titanium Man currently trying desperately to throw off Colossus's perfect submission hold shouted over his speakers.

"I do not fight for the Chinese; I fight for the right thing. What is going on here?! What has happened to Mother Russia that you suddenly think we need more space, of all things? Why, just why!?" Colossus shouted back before grimacing as a punch from the other Titanium Man caught him in the face. He stumbled slightly, and the man's Tesla cannon fired point blank, blinding Colossus momentarily, though the Juggernaut armor protected him even more than his own steel skin would have.

Still, he stumbled back just enough for the man he'd been trying to tear the head off of to throw him over his shoulders to slam into the ground, where he dodged a foot aimed to stomp on his head. He grabbed the foot and the knee of that boot and then began to twist until he was kicked in the side from the second Titanium man. That one now shot out wires which wrapped around Colossus's forearm and then spun, hurling him through the air. Yet even as he crashed to the snow-covered ground, Colossus was rolling, twisting, and coming back into a charge.

The two Titanium Men began to work together at that point, but Colossus was still pretty much immune to whatever they could do to him. The two of them were beginning to get desperate to figure out some way to put the mutant down when they heard something over their radios and quickly broke off, retreating to join the rest of the fleeing infantry and few remaining tanks.

Blinking, Colossus looked at their retreating backs. "Was it something I said?"

Magma made her way over the kicked up snow and ground of the battlefield toward her lover, looking around quizzically. "That did seem a bit faster than I expected. I wonder why?" With that in mind, she tapped her combead, looking around thoughtfully. "Psylocke?"

"I'm here, moving back to you from your left and front. I know why they're retreating, though, and I think we might need to look into getting out of here as soon as the Chinese have solidified their front," the purple-haired woman said as she moved over the ground between them, having used her powers liberally both to disappear to the minds of those around her and to probe those minds to see their secrets. "This whole attack on China was something of a feint. We've been suckered in!"

But in that first week of the war, the Russians weren't the only ones with surprises.

OOOOOOO

"And Mystique is sure it's Sinister?" Harry asked with a grunt audible even in his mental voice, somewhat surprising to Jean. But, given the strain Harry was under, carrying on this conversation while also pouring forth his magical power into the coven spell to try and stop the cold front from expanding further, it was a wonder he could complete a sentence in the first place.

"That's what she says. I believe her. Sinister wants to be on hand in Genosha whatever happens, and I think that he believes he can personally add something to his trap for us. Although if that trap is supposed to kill you all or trap me, there's no way of knowing, Jean replied, her telepathic projection literally vibrating with eagerness to get join the conflict, but Jean knew that that just wasn't going to happen, and she wasn't in any rush to put her unborn children in danger at this point either.

Harry couldn't even nod, but the impression of his affirmative response still carried over through their connection, and he turned his mental attention to Emma's avatar. Like Jean's fiery form, the cold clear crystal of Emma stood in the mental representation of his mind, brought there by her own mental connection to the two of them. While Jean's astral form looked a little diffuse since she was also checking up on the teams in the field, the ongoing logistics issues, and trying to organize more of a defense in Georgia and Azerbaijan against what looked to be a major thrust across the now frozen Caspian Sea, Emma's was firm and unyielding as she gave her full attention to this conversation. "And you're certain you neutralized that one asshole who was coming after Jean?"

"Oh, I am more than certain," Emma said with a chill little smile. "Jean might have reacted telekinetically to his assault. Let's see if his brain waves are immune to my powers. I'd wager the outcome will not be what he wants."

"I can't say I'm particularly happy about my image being used as bait, but I suppose that would make for a very silly argument," Jean groused, only half in jest.

"Yes, it would," said both her lovers.

Jean mock-pouted before smirking at Harry. "So, what do you want us to do?"

"Make certain he stays in Genosha." Harry said with a growl, perspiration appearing on his face in the physical world but continuing the mental conversation. "Put up an interdiction field around the entire bleeding place via technological means if you can!"

"Is that even possible?" Emma asked.

"It's possible," Harry said with a grunt. "Talk to Reed, or, better yet, get E back out of the fight at the front. Have him talk to the Black Panther about it. Between the two of them they should be able to put up something. And don't tell me the Americans don't have a fleet already moving to interdict Genosha."

"So we have permission to move forward with operation Bait and Switch?" Emma asked, gleefully.

Harry's astral projection visibly nodded at that, then Harry nearly lost his concentration on the coven spell as Emma's astral form kissed his own ardently before disappearing with a faint pop from his mind. He blinked then as Jean laughed and fumbled with the spell, grousing about sexy blondes and their inability to know what the phrase 'appropriate time' meant.

OOOOOOO

"Are you telling me that this rifle is supposed to put a round through a tank?" said the young man, disbelieving.

"Don't believe me, why don't we go out and try it? Honestly, would I be using one if I didn't believe this weapon would deliver, ey?" said the Canadian. "Why would I be out here hunting tanks with it? You think I got a death wish, ey?"

"Because you're suicidal," said the Finnish officer with a light chuckle, his mouth, and breath, invisible from under his head covering. They were hidden behind several dozen downed trees as groups of Russian infantry passed by them on skis. The Russians had quickly gotten over the fact that their initial massive blitzkrieg-like push had failed in Finland and had settled down into something of a slog far too quickly for the Finns liking. The Russians had then begun to split up their larger tank battalions into smaller squads, the better to reinforce their infantry, while the infantry dueled with the Finnish infantry and the scattered NATO forces.

The NATO forces, never that large in Finland since it had only recently become a member, had been in a complete rout since that initial blitzkrieg. Like the forces in Poland, they had been stationed too close to the border for where the Russians had truly begun to move.

But the Canadians who had begun to arrive in regiment sized blocks had stiffened the resistance very well and slowly began to encircle and wipe out smaller detached units of the Russians which had pushed forward deeper into Finland than the scattered Mannerheim fortresses.

The tanks, however, were still giving the Finns fits, though. The new hover tanks, those which had shielding and those which didn't, were just damned difficult to destroy. The small ones were very fast, despite the terrain, and the shielded tanks were able to shrug off anything beyond an on target shot from one of the fortresses' big guns the Finns had before this. And their accompanied artillery units, mortar teams and larger, were nothing to sneeze at either.

But the weapons that were finally getting to the front might well serve to push the Russians back conclusively.

The two men fell silent, staying still with the expertise of trained snipers as the snow continued to fall around them. They stayed still as three small hover tanks came through the woods, smashing trees down as they went, while behind those three one of the larger shielded varieties covered them with their heavier guns, the shield around it buzzing as the snow from on high drifted down onto it. And around both units,there looked to be about a full platoon of Russian infantry on skis, with more covering the rear.

The numbers, though, didn't scare the defenders. That had always been the way with the Russians. They could simply throw in more men than any other nation they'd ever fought could. That didn't mean they had a qualitative superiority, though, and the Finns were always eager to prove that point.

From the nearby woodlands came the crack of rifles followed by the louder plasma bolts, stitching up the incoming infantry from that side. This was followed swiftly by two of the tanks turning in that direction. Two squads of infantry also turned in that direction, firing back blindly for now while spreading out, trying to find the enemy.

The Canadian looked down the barrel of his rifle and firing into the banked back of the shield using tank. At that signal four more rifles all spoke as one, plasma weapons, peppering the shield at that specific point. The shield shrugged them off but then exploded as a man with a bazooka opened up from the other side. That was one of the weaknesses of the shields the Russian tanks could use: while it was on standby it had a limited amount of energy and did not do well when attacked from two directions at once with enough energy. And the Russians could not run them at full power all the time; they had to keep them on standby the majority of the time they were moving.

Now the tanks all broke away from one another, pushing deeper into the woods while the shield tank backed away, the infantry moving around it and outward to protect it, firing blindly into the woods. But the shield tank, while important, had not been the target of this attack.

Nearby the Finnish man shook his head and muttered a prayer to God that this would work and then pointed his own rifle at one of the smaller tanks. This one was currently chewing up the ground nearby, trying to kill the Canadians who'd already opened fire with scant success since they had already retreated. It was a very stupid infantryman who stayed put when a tank was looking for them.

His gauss rifle shot fired with a "Whoom-whunk' sort of sound, and he watched in shock as the tiny depleted uranium slug slammed into and through the cupola of the tank, killing the gunner instantly, and the Finnish man looked down at his rifle with renewed respects. "Not much stopping power but a lot of penetrating power," he said conversationally even as he hopped to his feet and ducked behind a tree before rushing away through the woods. "That was fun."

"Good, and it's about to get more fun!" his companion said, pointing to one side.

Laura and Nightcrawler were hiding there, and they flashed grins at the locals before disappearing, reappearing in the center of the largest group of charging Russians. Yes, the Finn reflected, it was both a good day and a good day to have friends. Pity the Russians don't have any.

Elsewhere the efforts of Magical Minds were also being felt. But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

OOOOOOO

Vindicator, the former leader of the now-defunct Alpha Flight, smiled and shook hands with Phoenix as, behind her, a large stone doorway was being set up in the center of a long runway. A small shiver of pride went through him as he looked around the military base outside Ontario as men moved out of their barracks and fell in for inspection, full winter camo gear on every soldier. While America began flexing its industrial muscle and preparing heavy duty winter gear, its own winter gear having been proven inadequate to the cold temperature being felt in Eastern and Northern Europe, the Canadians had shown that their gear was up to snuff, as well as their training, although it had taken days for them to be convinced of the necessity of working with Harry's Magical Minds group this closely and still more to organize their end of things. Still, whatever cold this was, they could deal with it, and thus they became the first NATO nation Jean had contacted about moving more troops into the combat zones.

"How bad is it?" Vindicator asked in a low voice as, around them, the men began to form up. To one side a young blonde-haired man he hadn't previously met was working on something on a computer, his back to Vanguard and Phoenix. It looked like some kind of logistics form, which made sense to Vindicator.

Phoenix grimaced. "Bad," she said simply, nodding and waving as a truck pulled up to one side. "The Fins are falling back to what they call the New Mannerheim line, but they lost a lot of soldiers defending their civilian evacuations. The Russians have since brought up lots and lots of well-trained infantry, and the fighting is getting nasty. The thrust into Poland has yet to stop, though Rogue and Polaris are doing what they can. The Russians are also still pushing into Ukraine and have already forced Estonia to capitulate. The Fantastic Four are on the ground in Kazakhstan but are having a lot of trouble getting through the terrain against the Subterraneans. Odd thing, though: from what Reed said the Mole Man should have retreated underground and let his troops fight it out or retreat with him underground where they could fight better. But they haven't."

Vindicator frowned, something about Phoenix's words confusing him for a moment, but he shrugged it off, turning to salute the general of the base as he hopped out of his jeep. "Sir, may I introduce Phoenix, a field commander of the Custodes Mundi and one of the four highest officers of Magical Minds." He turned back to look at Phoenix quizzically. "Have you decided on a name for your nation or whatever it is by this point?"

"Ahh, no. It's not exactly in our top ten at this point. We'll probably have everything else set up for the Nation then have a vote about it or something silly like that," Phoenix replied as she looked over the runic doorway as it activated, creating a brief shimmer in the air which disappeared quickly. As did the house elves who had done the activation. With none of the magic users able to get away, it fell on the house elves to do it, although she knew it exhausted them for some reason.

Kitty and Harry had long created a reserve of the runic doorways to be used in an emergency. This wasn't precisely what they had had in mind, although Harry had been thinking about it for a while now, ever since he'd seen a report from Dennis about the kind of weapons that Russia was beginning to arm its latest tanks with. So they were now using them to ferry troopers to a base in Finland, one near the city of Lahti. The Canadians, with their winter warfare expertise, would fit in very well with the Finns, who had already begun to rearm their reserves, Finland having mandatory military service, with the weapons Magical Minds had been stockpiling for this moment.

That didn't mean that everyone had truly understood what was going on here, as espoused by the Canadian captain in front of Phoenix at the moment. His face was suffused with red, but underneath that the woman felt that this was a man who rarely if ever smiled and did not do well with surprises of any sort. "So let me get this straight, I'm supposed to take my entire company through this doorway, and…we'll be somewhere else on the other side? Despite the fact I can actually see the other side, sir, are you out of your mind, or is this just some weird joke?" The way the man said the word joke make it sound almost like an epithet.

"That was borderline insubordinate, Captain Frederiks," said General Carmichael from where he had just shook hands with Phoenix and Vindicator, smirking just slightly at the man's red face. "But I will let it slide for now. Suffice to say that this is going to work. I've already been through one of these doors myself not all that long ago." Carmichael had not been chosen out of a hat for this. He had been first recommended by Vindicator, then had been among the Canadian officers brought up to see Fortress Mars.

"Unless you really think that you can do more good for the war effort cooling your heels on this here base than…where was it again, my dear?" he asked, turning to look at Phoenix. He knew, of course, but he wanted it said aloud for the benefit of the captain and the other officers gathered around them.

"The doorway is linked to one of the Finnish bases," she said. "The war in Finland has become one of small to medium unit combat, fast movement over hard terrain and a lot of artillery. The Russians have seemingly pulled back their tanks entirely by this point. The Ukraine front and Poland are both still very much a war of movement, or, should I say, a war of one side moving, and the other side running the hell away as best it can, dominated by the Russian tanks."

Her acerbic tone came over quite clearly, and the captain growled irritably. "Okay, I still don't get what the door is about, though. How can it…"

"Magic," Phoenix said sharply. "Believe it or not, it's magic, but even so we don't have time to spare on this, so could we get a move on, please?"

The captain scoffed, shaking his head and turning to his commanding officers. "You honestly can't think that whole thing about Harry Potter being a wizard is the truth, can you, sir! He's just another kind of mutant, that's all."

Phoenix looked at him and then over at the colonel who had chosen the captain to be the first one through the doorway. "Colonel," she said pleasantly, "you had, what, three hours to find a perfect candidate to lead the first company through these doors, and this is the best you can come up with? Either the efficiency of the Canadian Army has been greatly exaggerated, or you're trying to prove a point. Which is it?"

"Let's just say that the good captain has been a little too vocal about certain anti-mutant propaganda being taken as fact." The colonel was a large, only slightly overweight man, and he now began almost glaring at his somewhat shorter subordinate, who actually quailed a little.

Still, he replied gamely. "Sir," he said stiffly, "I'm well within my rights as an individual to have a personal opinion."

"Have them, yes. Voice them when you are a serving officer, no. Not when they get in the way of your duty to your nation or to the allies of that nation. Get a move on, Captain. You have precisely five minutes to get your company through that doorway, or else I'll be talking to your replacement," the colonel said, smiling thinly.

The man continued to sputter for a moment, and then Phoenix looked at her watch pointedly. "Four minutes, twenty seconds now," she said with a smirk.

As the man now raced off, the colonel turned to his general and the two super-powered heroes. "He really is the best to push through. Not very aggressive, but damn good at organizing. He'll set up a receiving line over there, have the weapon switch out organized and transportation to the front too. He even speaks Finnish; did a stint with some of their units in a peacekeeping operation a few months back. But damn is the man inflexible."

With that he saluted and marched off, leading a few other officers away to get the rest of his forces ready. The general watched for a few minutes as the first men moved towards the doorway, their faces saying they thought this was some kind of hazing the general was forcing them to do before they disappeared from Canadian soil to reappear at the chosen destination. With that Carmichael nodded and moved off, leading his aides back over to their jeep. They had more work to do, after all.

Just as the first company of infantry began to move through the now glowing doorway, the young man to one side that the Canadians had not been introduced to shouted for Phoenix's attention. "Here he comes!"

Douglas Ramsay was an omni-linguist. He could, thanks to his mutant power, speak any language he had heard even once, write any language he had read even once, perfectly. He could even use it to understand computer code, and this was what he was doing now. The mutant who could pass through cybernetic media couldn't do so without creating a kind of 'wave' in the code that Douglas could, with his ability, see coming. Pinoptes had been the first to realize this, the 'wave' only being visible to him at first since he too rode the code of the computers he was connected to. Once it was pointed out to him, though, Douglas could see it, almost like he could understand someone speaking English with a heavy Scottish brogue.

"Thank you, Douglas. I was wondering why I was detecting a female mind from a piece of grass over there that didn't seem to have anyone actually standing there," Phoenix said, her tone shifting into that of an entirely different woman. She turned in that direction just as something blasted out of the grass towards her. Vindicator thought that the girl suddenly visible there flying towards them like a tiny rocket greatly resembled Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

The young woman flying like a large bullet towards Phoenix was codenamed Thumbelina by her fellows among the Mutant Liberation Front. She was often looked down on for her mutation, which allowed her to shrink while also magnifying her strength, and her lack of endurance. She could sneak around extremely well thanks to that mutation, and she had been working with Pipeline, a fellow MLF member, the same one who had failed before.

They weren't alone, though. There were two more. The side of the nearest hanger-bay exploded outward, and a large mutant who stood as tall as Colossus rushed towards them. Behind him a fog began to grow out of the buildings shattered wall, door and windows, swiftly moving outward.

The nearby infantry reacted, of course. They took the man under fire and pulled away, but the man just grunted, taking the shots as his skin seemed to change in appearance, his weight seemingly increasing at the same time, his feet leaving indents in the concrete as he rushed forward. They also fell back from the mist, because they were not stupid and had been trained in gas warfare.

Unfortunately for all these attackers they were not facing Phoenix, her telepathic powers now nearly uncontrolled, nor was this attack a surprise. Rather, they had fallen into a trap.

As Vindicator blasted out an energy bolt form his hands towards the incoming mutant and rushed forward to meet him, he saw Phoenix fade out of existence just as the screen the blonde teen had been working on glowed. A man appeared there, leaping over the boy and reaching for her even as the image of Phoenix faded.

The woman, a blonde woman, stood there instead. She was somewhat shorter than Phoenix and wore a white outfit that left her shoulders bare but nothing else, and, before the man could touch her, he just collapsed, like a puppet with his strings cut. A second later his eyes rolled back and she turned, her hand flashing out. A visible blade of some kind of energy flashed out from her forehead along the line her fingers were pointing. The energy intercepted the Tinkerbell look alike, and she screamed, falling out of the sky.

Before the young woman with fairy wings could hit the ground, Douglas caught her, holding her gently, while Diamond reached out telepathically, shutting the young woman's mind down despite what looked like some kind of electronic defense against her power.

"Shit!" The large man who had been rushing towards her backed away now, turning and running away, but with an eye-roll Diamond reached out almost gently and just…cut the connection between his brain and his body telepathically. The man fell, and she turned, frowning as she looked through the mist. "Hmm, interesting. That mist seems able to somehow block my ability to find the individual behind it. GAH!"

She flinched back as a nearby machine gun on a jeep opened fire into the building. A squad then moved in under that cover, moving into the building. A series of shouts and shots rang out, and the mist abruptly began to break up.

Vindicator huffed. "Damn, but that was rather scarily impressive and somewhat off-putting. I thought I was supposed to be the surprise here. And who exactly are you, miss, and what was this about? Some Russian Force trying to disrupt our reinforcement operation?"

"Call me Diamond. I'm not normally a field member, but with Phoenix indisposed, I stepped into her shoes," Emma Frost replied. "A quick question, can you hold these young people? I imagine they are part of the Mutant Liberation Front, not a Russian force."

"And why do you think that?" the general asked. He had ducked for cover behind his jeep, watching as Diamond dealt with her attackers. He too had been somewhat terrified by the ease with which the woman, some kind of telepath, perhaps, had dealt with the attack and wondered if there was any kind of defense against that. Still, she's on our side at the moment; that's a question for later.

Smiling thinly at the general's surface thoughts, Diamond replied to the question he had actually voiced. "Phoenix has dealt with other kidnapping attempts before this, and all of them have come from a man we know as Mr. Sinister. He is the leader of the Mutant Liberation Front and the one who has caused the outbreak of violence in Genosha. Speaking of which…"

With that she turned away from the general and flipped open a communicator. "Phoenix, we're done here. Tell Admiral Stein part one of Operation Containment is a go."

OOOOOOO

In his bunker on Genosha, Sinister bit back a curse as the beacons on Pipeline, Thumbelina, Lifter, and Mist Mistress didn't move, while the one for Mist Mistress flat-lined. The others were still alive, but it was clear that Pipeline, at least, had been dealt with somehow. It was a trap, he realized. Phoenix must have been ready for them somehow. Damn it. I should have anticipated that. Perhaps some technology from Richards allowed them to capture Pipeline or cut him off from a computer. But it seemed the perfect chance.

Even as he had launched this attack on Genosha, Sinister had known that it would take something truly monumental to get Subject Grey out where he could deal with her. He had still launched the assault, though, believing that he could quickly create circumstances in which he could deal with the Custodes, knowing many, if not all, of their powers, including Potter's magic, thanks to his long term planning here in Genosha. Yet he had wanted to circumvent that because he had no idea what the rest of Potter's allies would do, even while the rest of the world were concentrating the Russian situation.

Unfortunately for Sinister's plans, Harry was in no position whatsoever to become personally embroiled in something like that. Indeed, once Jean had told him about the Black Panther and his overtures to her to aid Genosha, he jumped on it, fully willing to further bury the hatchet with the man.

So now Sinister was dealing with incoming forces from the African country of Wakanda under the Black Panther. They were mostly regular troops, but they had high-tech weapons to go with energy shields and vibranium based artillery. They were quickly disarming any of the locals they fought, both mutant and non, and were trying to create a peace-zone, calling for leaders from both sides to come to the table and talk. But with Sinister in command of the communications grid that wasn't going to happen. Still, it was a worrisome sign that Sinister's throw of the dice was not going as well as he had hoped. Perhaps I should indeed retreat.

Retreating and trying again was looking like a very, very good idea. But Sinister was, alas, about to get two pieces of information that would tell him that he had waited too long.

OOOOOOO

While most of the United Kingdom's smaller fleet had mostly gathered in the Norwegian Sea, the American fleet had long become the main peace-keeping force in international waters. Even as submarines, destroyers, and other, smaller ships were slowly broken off their parent units, they were able to create a cordon around Genosha. They hadn't been able to stop the MLF from getting there, but they had already stopped several groups from nearby Africa from fishing in Genosha's troubled waters.

Now, as Jean passed on the word about the attack on Diamond, two missile cruisers launched specially designed EMP, or Electro-magnetic pulse missiles, their payloads significantly upgraded by Reed Richards, who had fallen back from the Kazakhstan hunt for the Mole Man for now. They exploded in the air over Genosha, and the lights went out all over the island, which was only about the size of the Dominican Republic.

Then their own marines launched, and several relief ships also moved to land in the island's ports. They would be under orders to help the Black Panther try to control the violence. They would find themselves almost overwhelmed, and the MLF and locals would fight them just as fiercely as one another, but Sinister no longer could escape through technological means.

And as for mutant-generated means…

OOOOOOO

Mystique and Morph smirked internally as they moved through the Mutant Liberation Front's headquarters. Both of them had taken on new forms, Marauders Riptide and Harpoon. Both of them were covered with tape made red with blood, very obviously badly wounded looking but still game, and that and their identities gave them enough of a gravitas to move around the base easily.

Soon they were within the small compound that the Marauders who led this band used as their command center.

Prism, the crystalline like Marauder looked up as they entered, his eyes widening. "What the hell are you two doing here?! You're supposed to be…" That was as far as he got before Morph's arm elongated into a spear and slammed into his chest, bursting out his back and shattering his body into hundreds of pieces which fell with a tinkling sound to the floor of his office.

The kill was quick, clean, and as quiet as the two could make it. That was the reason why they had decided to invade this particular base, after all. If they had tried this on Blockbuster or Malice they would have been able to take anything the two shape-changers could have dished out in a short amount of time, and that wouldn't have done anyone any good at all.

Mystique quickly moved to the computer the man had been working in front of, cycling through several pages. Even on a tiny island like Genosha, there had to be a way to keep track of various supplies, troop movements, and so forth. And Sinister, who was directing the MLF from somewhere else on the island, had been very cagey about his one, truly irreplaceable resource: the mutant Gateway, his only remaining teleporter. The two of them were hunting Gateway now, having broken off from the group of MLF troops they had been a part of, presumably dead after the first clash with the Genoshan military. After all, who had thought they would have those mechs of theirs? Over the past week they'd been moving to this point, to finding out where Gateway was or would be soon, but even with that work, they'd taken a big chance here.

Luckily, it had paid off, and Mystique grinned viciously. "Yes! He's going to be here! The next jump through will deposit him and supplies along with four more MLF members from Asia. It looks as if they hadn't responded to the initial call, being in the process of planning out some major computer-type heist." She scowled though. "These look like tough costumers, though, the kind we won't be able to put down quietly, at least judging by their codenames. If we can keep up our charade, one of us becoming Prism and the other staying as Riptide, I'd guess, we should be good. If one of them knows Riptide or Prism enough to spot something off…"

Morph nodded. "Want to call in Banshee and his team?"

Banshee, Anne-Marie Cortez, or just Cortez, and Neophyte, along with one of the Custodes, had always been nearby as the two shape-changers infiltrated the MLF. They had not contacted them for very long since that initial heads up months back, but both shape-changers knew they had gotten onto Genosha shortly after the civil war here had started. They had even been joined by Frenzy, who hadn't left the Savage Land since the battles against Magneto and the two former Brotherhood's ex-compatriots.

After a second Mystique nodded. "I think we need to."

About an hour later the two of them were waiting in the special room where Gateway ported in with the four Asian members. That was when it started to go into the crapper. One of them, a young man with a truly impressive Mohawk and two pins through his nose, locked gazes on both and backed away, shouting, "They aren't who they look like! Take them!"

The other three quickly moved forward. One, a massive man that looked like a Japanese version of the Blob, if somewhat shorter, moved forward, roaring out in anger, his massive ham-sized fists thrusting forward with palm strikes. "Dosukoi!"

"Ooh, someone's played too much Road Warrior! You think you're J. Monda, huh?" Morph said, shifting into his own battle form, his hands shifting into fists and punching the palms of the other man away before spikes flashed out from his chest in an effort to force him away. It worked, but when those spikes hit the man simply took it, being uninjured and trying to grab Morph in a bear hug.

The other two also attacked as the door behind the two shape-shifters opened, revealing two more guards who rushed forward, one of them looking like a vampire, of all things, but with tanned skin. The other was a pyromancer who instantly began to cover himself in fire and flame shooting out a blast towards the back of Morph, who screamed but wasn't able to get out of the way, trapped in the large Blob-lookalike's arms.

At the same time one of the two Asians, a young woman with black hair down to her rear and the form of a ballerina who had the same Japanese look as the other man beside her lashed out, grabbing at the air above her head with her hands before pushing them out towards Mystique. Some kind of energy glowed in her veins for a moment, sending sparks from her fingers which ignited into a tongue of flame that roared out towards Mystique. At the same time the other man stamped hard on the ground of the specialized room, and a bit of it just disappeared. The next second a huge strobe of light flashed in Mystique's face, blinding her.

But even as she was blinded, Mystique dodged the flame attack, diving into a roll diagonally from the flame strike. And while her body faded out of Riptide's form, she simply gave herself bat-like hearing for a moment to pinpoint her targets. The one boy who had blown their cover was moving back to Gateway. Gateway, the old aborigine, was simply standing in the open portal, doing nothing: not teleporting out, not helping, he was simply watching. The young man raised something in his hands toward him, but a slim pistol Mystique had hidden on her (she might not be able to use the fast combat morphing that Morph could, but she could change 'patterns' easily enough) barked, and the man fell to the side with a gasp. Oh, good. He's not bulletproof at least.

"Shit, Hawkshaw!" the man with the blinding power shouted, but before he and the woman could do anything, the wall to one side suddenly sprouted several bodies as Neophyte phased the rest of the strike team in. Cortez was the first fully through, her hands glowing with pink and red energy. She blasted at the large Blob boy, but he shrugged off her assault, and she twisted, ducking under an attack from the other Japanese woman, ducking into and powering over her into a judo twist that snapped the other girl's arm followed by a blow to her head that sent her right out.

Then Neophyte released Banshee, who raced forward, a sonic scream aimed towards the door and the two guards there. Neither of them had any defense against his sound-based powers, and they screamed, their hands rising to their ears before the physical force of the sonic boom hit them, blasting the pyromancer's fire out and hurling both of them out the door. Elsewhere in the small base, though, the rest of Prism's squad had been roused and were racing in their direction. Banshee took up the door and launched several screams in either direction, but he shouted, "We're running out of time here!"

Frenzy, too, raced forward, ignoring the strobing flares of the man who had been standing next to Anne's opponent to slam a fist into him that caved his chest in and flung him backwards to land limply against the far wall. Then she leaped on top of the last opponent's back, bounding the back of his head and neck. Sumo tried to shake her off, and then Mystique was there, leaping up onto his side like Frenzy had, but instead of attacking, she thrust something under his nose.

It smelled horrible, like festering milk in the sun or something, and Sumo couldn't stop himself. He gasped and flinched, opening his mouth. Mystique's other hand came up, stuffing something into his mouth, and Frenzy, realizing what the shapeshifter was up to, slammed the man's jaw shut.

A second later, the giant mutant flung them both off and dropped Morph as his hands rose to his throat. "GAAHH!"

"What was that?" Frenzy asked almost conversationally as she hopped to her feet.

"A kind of hot sauce that makes everything offered on the open market seem like mere oil in comparison," Mystique replied, also jumping to her feet, locking eyes with the aborigine Gateway.

He looked back then gestured with one hand towards his throat, where a collar showed clearly. He didn't speak, but the look and gesture was eloquent, as was the next one he made towards Hackshaw.

Before Mystique could move, Neophyte reached down and grabbed the remote. "Come on, we need to go!"

"Through the portal," Mystique ordered. "Take that remote and let's go. We can figure out what is going on with it and the control collar or whatever it is later."

Gateway nodded and gestured them forward, indicating that he was fine with that idea, and Frenzy reached down, picking up the burnt but already healing Morph. Banshee launched a few more screams in either direction, then turned, and together the group escaped through the portal, taking with them the last teleporter Sinister had access to.

On the other side of the portal they found themselves in a small, extremely rundown apartment somewhere. Once the portal closed behind them, Mystique looked at Banshee, nodding. He smirked back and pulled out his communicator. "Phoenix, this is Banshee. Requesting pickup. We have one wounded and one semi-prisoner. Request you send us someplace not secret for now and let us figure out the semi part of that statement. But we have verified that Sinister is now trapped in Genosha. I repeat, Sinister is trapped in Genosha. Unless he can run the American blockade, he's not going anywhere."

OOOOOOO

It took news of that debacle several hours to reach Sinister, simply because the MLF units on hand had to figure out how to respond and then to call in Scalphunter, who was able to get in contact with Sinister directly. When he heard, Sinister snarled as he slammed his hands down on the command interface in front of him, the tactical map of the island shivering in response. "Dammit!"

For a moment he thought about running the American blockade, Sinister's desire to live overriding his need to capture Gray and her unborn children. About possibly simply slaughtering his way through them and out the other side, free to scheme another day. Whatever those ships were armed with, Sinister doubted they could stop him. But doing so would take time, and Sinister knew that if Potter had not been seen yet, it meant he was waiting for a target to show itself. The means of the orbital base, wherever it was, to move troops around had proven decisive in Finland and China, though Potter himself had yet to appear. Sinister did not want to be that target away from his chosen battlefield, which meant…

"I'm stuck here," Sinister said aloud, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Very well. If I cannot run from this battle, than I mean to win it! And the Black Panther will be the first to feel my ire."

OOOOOOO

"We call these Mannerheim fortresses," said one of the locals, proudly gesturing to the large fortresses all around them. "What do you think?"

The fortress in question was a large, blocky construction built into the side of a protuberance of granite meters thick. It wasn't very tall, but it was squat, very wide, and marked by truly massive artillery pieces from the roofs along with a series of anti-air cannons. All of those were high tech, the anti-air being direct energy guns for the most part, and the artillery pieces able to fire the newest type of explosive munitions out there.

The fortress overlooked Pielinen Lake and was the central defensive position of the Juuka municipality's defense, marking the southern edge of a national park which had been something of an attraction, apparently. It was one of the secondary defensive zone of the Finns, the idea of a line really not being very applicable to the mobile small unit warfare the Finns favored thanks to the nature of taiga forests, scattered mountains, and lakes that dominated this area of Finland. These fortresses, according to the locals, served two purposes: they could serve as defense for young children and women, and they served as a visible target for attackers, funneling them into mine fields or onto frozen lakes where they would be sitting ducks.

"Have these walls been tested against energy weapons?" Scott asked as he worked his revealed jaw and face with one hand while still looking around with interest despite his tiredness and his stomach growling angrily at him. They had been in nonstop combat for more than ten hours, slowing the Russian advance as best they could. There were just so God damn many of them! The Russians were pushing through the Finns' defenses, losing four or five men and a tank for every Finn they killed, but he really hoped these scattered defensive fortresses allowed them to stop their advance.

Wherever his people were, the X-men halted the Russians stone cold, of course. The Russians hadn't brought forward any of their own Winter Guard or whatever they called their mutants and super soldiers into Finland just yet. But they couldn't be everywhere, and he refused to break the X-men up further because he knew it was only a matter of time before they did.

Already some reports had come in from the Finns about someone called Omega Red being released, but what that meant was up in the air. When he heard the news, Wolverine seemed to have some knowledge of the man and had disappeared last night, vanishing into the darkness and cold so easily it was kind of scary to think about it, but Scott hadn't bothered trying to stop him when his daughter stayed behind. Logan was a force of nature, really, and Scott wasn't going to waste time trying to corral the older man.

"They have, indeed," said the local commander, a Brigadier Milzumen, with a smile, handing the young man a large, piping hot cup of chocolate with some cinnamon added in. "What's even better is that we're beginning to get shipments of the weapons Magical Minds promised us. The bottleneck getting them to the actual front has been resolved, and our defenses are stiffening all across the board. The Russians might believe that this winter power of theirs is going to vanquish the lower countries, but until the Gulf of Finland freezes allowing them to simply march across to us from Latvia and the rest, it won't matter a damn to us. We've seen worse winters."

"And this time we have allies who have come through for us," an older man with a very rugged and scarred face muttered, sending Steve and the other X-men who were moving around behind him to grab their own food a nod. Warpath nodded formally as did Kurt and Laynia, but the others didn't notice, too busy trying to find food they liked.

Just then some of the artillery up in the fortresses around them began to open up, and the man scowled. "Even if we're being pressed a little too close for my personal liking, anyway."

Cyclops nodded, turning away for a moment to concentrate on an image that had just appeared in his heads up display, which was part of his visor. It showed what looked like a few individual units closing through the hail of artillery, while other, larger units began to form just outside of artillery range, including the Russian's own mobile artillery units. "I think we have incoming," he said softly, connecting to the rest of the X-Men. He looked around and then sighed, taking his cup of hot chocolate with him and moving behind Milzumen as he exited the officers' commissary, heading for the command room. So much for food, I guess.

OOOOOOO

Harry sat in a circle on the transfigured surface of the roof of Camelot's library tower, and around him in another smaller circle set around large runic array sat every other magic user that he had yet met in this world. Dr. Strange sat straight across from him, with Hela to one side, across from Clea, the four of them creating the four cardinal points of the sphere. Wanda, Kitty, Dr. Druid, and even Madame Harkness sat between them.

In the center of that circle lay Gaia, her head cradled in Ororo's lap as the weather witch held her hands in the air above the goddess, holding a position she had held for ten days straight down, her hands crackling, her eyes globes of power, that shone from underneath her eyelashes. She was the center of their defense, directing the energies of the rest of the wizards which flowed through Gaia via a link from Gaia to her. With the Earth Mother's aid she could then control both the magical aspects of what was going on and the weather aspect.

Magic and weather, especially weather on this scale, was just a very bad, bad combination. No one wizard could figure out all of the things that would change if he were to just add a bit of cold here, or take it away there. Ororo, thanks to her mutant power, could. It was why there was so little snow away from the front. It was why the ice of the South Pole hadn't grown overmuch. It was why much of the world below the equator had yet to truly feel the full brunt of the cold assault. Ororo's mental ability was, point blank, why the whole eco-structure of the planet hadn't just failed.

But the sad fact of the matter is that, even with my goddess leading us, and Gaia's help, of course, we're losing this fight, Harry thought. For all of his power and even Dr. Strange's, and Harry was under no illusions that the two of them were in any way weak, they were losing. Whatever was on the other end of this struggle, it wasn't a single magic user. As Hela had thought when they began, it almost felt like they were facing a monstrously sized gestalt of some kind, millions, perhaps billions of magic users all working together. And if I needed more proof that an alien race was involved here, that would be my proof right there, so many magic users all willing to work together like that.

There had to be something, some way to combat this, but magic power was definitely not the answer. They were able to slow the freezing cold weather, but they were not able to stop it, let alone reverse it. And, until they did, the Russians would have a significant advantage over everyone else, to say nothing of the Subterraneans. And so long as they had that advantage, Harry couldn't pull back his own Custodes from helping local armies to try to help the Black Panther and the Marines.

In Harry's mind, Jean and Emma continued to update him on what was going on, and he replied with terse suggestions, but he didn't have a good enough idea of the entire picture from this far removed to give out real orders. The only order he had given was that Steve needed to wait until the American military could transport some ready units into Poland: they couldn't let small reinforcements be trickled in and then be ground up by the front. That would never do against the numbers Russia could bring to bear. They needed to bring their own numbers up, if not to parity, then to as close as possible. Steve hadn't liked it, but with Polaris tearing up entire tank armies with the help of Rogue and E, he couldn't argue.

It had been Harry who had realized right away that, while the EDF couldn't get involved, that didn't mean that they couldn't use magic-based travel to bring in troops from other nations. The Canadians were the first, the Americans were going to be next, then the British and the French, although their aid would have to remain simply infantry at this point rather than tanks and such like. Those still had to be transported the old-fashioned way, and the Germans had opted to move into Poland in the same manner. But once those fronts had stabilized, then they would even help the Chinese move troops from their southern provinces up into the area around Shenyang if need be.

"It's becoming a meat grinder, Harry," Jean said, following his line of thought. "The Chinese are losing thirteen to four in tanks and waaay worse in infantry. The cold's killing even more than the combat there and around the Black Sea. But China's getting really ugly. The Northern Theater Command is pulling in troops to the front, but their infrastructure just isn't there."

"Are the Chinese in danger of collapsing?" he asked in return, grunting as the magic within him continued to be pulled out into the coven spell focused on Gaia.

"I don't think so, they still seem to be determined that they can beat this assault off. But I think that they got a major shock to their system when their vaunted airpower wasn't able to really get involved. The NTC doesn't have any more air force units at this point, they threw them all away for very little gain. Thankfully the other theater commands learned from that and are husbanding their air forces," Jean replied.

Harry just grunted in reply, feeling his magic slowly draining out of them into the circle. He and Dr. Strange were the only ones that hadn't switched out. Hell, even Hela had switched out momentarily, if only to stretch her muscles and take a bite to eat. Harry and Strange had had one of the house elves feed them Pepper-up potions.

"This isn't working," Dr. Strange said, the strain showing in his voice now as Gaia shuddered, her body spasming in Ororo's lap. "We are only slowing it down, and that infinitesimally. We need to come up with another solution or they will simply overpower us eventually. This is not a position I wish to be in."

Unlike Harry who only had a few lightning based spells, he had real weather spells and had been throwing them into the gestalt at first to see if they could impact this cold spell. But it hadn't worked. For all his monstrous strength, Strange couldn't break the spell or find where it was even coming from, nor could he figure out where, or rather how, to cut it loose, as it were, from the leylines where it infected Gaia. All of it was hidden under a powerful obfuscation spell which none of his spells or items could see through. (The fact that the Eye of Agamoto had failed was still bothering the heck out of the Sorcerer Supreme.)

Harry, however, had realized this same thing days ago and had since been trying to figure out what to do. By this point he had both an idea and a plan. "I agree," he said aloud, with Jean listening in. "And I think I might have an idea, but the problem is, I don't think you or I can leave this. We might have finally created some kind of balance here, but if we don't keep our magical thumb on it, that cold front is going to expand to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in seconds. And I mean with enough force to possibly freeze those oceans in large chunks!

"Then what's your plan?" Dr. Strange asked even as a house elf appeared nearby and helped him drink a Pepper-up Potion. He sipped it, but he didn't turn away from his work.

"Kitty," Harry said, looking over at the girl who barely nodded as her entire attention was focused on channeling power into the coven spell. "I need you to break off as soon as Wanda is back in."

Wanda grimaced at that, but the food she'd just eaten along with yet another Pepper-up Potion was already doing her some good, and nibbling on a large hoagie, she finished it quickly before stepping back into the runic array, sitting down and trying to get comfortable again. A second later her power joined the rest of the coven connection, and Kitty slowly began to peel herself out of it.

Soon she was standing on wobbly legs, her face gaunt and tired. "What do you need?" she asked, her exhaustion leaching her normal upbeat air out of her. How long've we been doing this? When was the last time I actually slept?

"Hela and I have been working on something," he said with a grunt. "You know about the giant doorways? Well I want you to take one of the unassigned doorways we've been saving up and head to fortress Mars with Sunfire..."

Listening to the plan, Kitty's eyes widened. "Um… Harry, if this goes wrong, I mean, the power of the sun could bake the earth even faster than this cold is freezing it."

"I know, Kitty, but if you have another plan, I'd be happy to hear it," Harry replied calmly. "And I trust you."

That brought up Kitty short, and she looked between him and Ororo for a moment before thrusting back her shoulders and nodding firmly.

Despite how calm he seemed as he sent Kitty off on her new job, Harry was mildly furious about all this, but he was right about this. Without a target, which they seemingly could not find, most of his power was next to useless. It made him angry, but he couldn't do anything about it. He had a choice: try to outright attack Russia himself, almost undoubtedly kill millions of somewhat innocent soldiers and citizens in an effort to find the source of the spell, or keep trying to fight the cold. He had to keep doing what he was doing.

Jean quickly began to get in touch with the Japanese government, reaching out to them swiftly and asking for the loan of Sunfire. At first they were going to refuse. The Japanese military was putting together a force to intervene in the conflict occurring over in China, but the Chinese were very much against this. No Chinese wanted Japan involved in any shape or form with their country ever again.

Soon enough, Sunfire was connected via Emma, and Harry was able to talk through her. The extremely patriarchal Japanese man shook his head, staring at Jean, who had just said she could speak for Harry. "This is unseemly," he said coldly. "If Harry Potter wishes something of me, he should have the decency to demand it of me in person."

"He can't," Jean growled, the urge to tear this idiot's body apart atom by atom going through her head. "He's busy." The Japanese man bristled angrily at that, but Jean just did not have the time, or control, to deal with it. I, at least, have had some sleep over the past ten days. Harry and the others haven't. Fuck, he can barely talk to me; no way am I going to let him talk to you, you arrogant ass. "Listen, how hot can you take it?"

"What?" the Japanese man asked, his anger at speaking to Jean disappearing under a wave of confusion. "What do you mean?"

"How close to the sun can you get it for us?" Jean asked.

Once Sunfire had agreed to aid the plan, Jean cut him off and checked in with the Americans and French being sent into Poland. They had finally gathered up the needed material, in particular food, to finally make a real difference. Instantly she was on the line with Steve and his team. "It's go time, boys and girls!"

OOOOOOO

"I hope you know what you're doing, Cap'n," Rogue said as she looked down to where Captain America was 'flying' below her. Around them Polaris and E flew all of the other Custodes members who had been detailed to the battles in Poland. Those not encased in metal—the Black Widow, Hawkeye, Avalanche, the Captain himself, and Vanguard—sat on small, makeshift metal surfboards, holding on for dear life while Polaris used her powers to keep them flying. More than one of them looked like they wanted to scream

"So do I, but if this is the only way to get to the front lines, then it's a small price to pay." Steve had to shout to be heard over the wind, but he still made himself understood easily enough.

The term 'front line' in a war is always a bit of a misnomer, at least in a war of movement and constant repositioning, since it was so fluid and mixed. It had begun to be used more during World War I, where the front lines were very well defined. But in this war they most certainly were not, and so first Jean had to find the minds of the largest concentration of currently fighting troops and then direct Rogue, Polaris, and the others to it, coming down from High Note rather than through any runic doorway here on the ground. The runic doorways they were currently using to ferry in more troops were well behind, several hours travel even through the air at the speeds Rogue and Polaris could move (about half that of a commercial flight) from where the Russians were currently pushing forward, the initial NATO bases having been overrun and taken or simply destroyed outright thanks to Sputnik.

But the American and other forces were finally ready to move forward and engage the Russians, and Steve and his team had been let loose from their leashes. Their mission: destroy any Russian special units and start rallying the defenders, then work with the reinforcements to stop the Russian assaults.

This particular Russian army group was being led by one of the Crimson Dynamos. The Poles had their own homegrown mutants, and one of them had joined the fight nearby, destroying several conventional tank companies. The Crimson Dynamo in question had come in, and his energy weapons had made short work of the mutant in question, who had apparently been able to control rocks but didn't actually have any added durability himself.

Jean and the others knew the use of plural here for the Dynamos was accurate. There were apparently three more involved in the Ukraine and one Red guardian somewhere between Estonia and Latvia. More of the Russian superpowered community had yet to make themselves known, but Jean and Harry both believed it was only a matter of time and which front was seen as most important. Jean thought that that was a given: the Ukraine against Doom. Harry disagreed, seeing that as an almost incidental front in comparison to the one down in Georgia and Azerbaijan, but, oddly enough, that one didn't have any sightings just yet of any superpowered individuals.

Soon Steve began to see smoke in the distance and sighed. War, smoke, and fire. Damn, but this almost feels like home. How sad is that? Moments later he could see tanks beginning to fire on them in the distance along with anti-air guns. The Russians here in Poland had gotten back into the habit of taking those with them far too quickly to his mind, thanks to Rogue and Polaris's previous work.

At the same time, Rogue, with a visor over her eyes that not only protected her eyes from the wind but could act as range finders, saw the Crimson Dynamo they were here to naturalize. He turned toward them from exhorting four tanks to hammer a defensive position where perhaps a hundred infantrymen were dug into the snow and ice, stubbornly refusing to give way, firing back methodically at the incoming Russians. Nearby a single Russian tank was sitting, its tracks blown off by a mine, and a goodly number of Russians lay dead, their blood a pattern on the snow.

The arriving Custodes zoomed over the fight, none of them stopping long enough to let the Dynamo or the hellishly effective lightning guns range on them. Even Polaris had learned that her electromagnetic shield couldn't stop those for long. but just as they were about to pass, Steve tapped his check, activating his combead. "I think this is where I get, off ma'am. Thanks for the ride!"

With that Steve hopped off his shield, the move so fast it took everyone aback, both his allies and the enemy, who couldn't range on him in time. Steve fell, bouncing lightly off the top of a tank and flipping himself up and over to smash feet first into the Crimson Dynamo. The armored man was knocked sideways, the momentum of Steve's fall having added to the impact, and Steve flipped up and away, landing between several Russians, who suddenly found themselves flying away, unconscious.

Steve's shield swiftly followed his descent, Polaris pulling her power back from around it. The thing nearly took the Crimson Dynamo in the head, but he reached up and caught it only to find Steve in his face, a hard punch smashing into his visor. Steve wasn't strong enough to break steel, but the heavy reinforced plastic of the visor did crack, and the Dynamo fell back, the shield released into Steve's waiting hand. He then brought the edge of it up underneath one of the Dynamo's arms, crushing the metal there.

The man's other hand came up, blasting out a bolt of energy, but Steve ducked, and it hit one of the Russian tanks to one side as the tanks turned, trying to bring their machine guns to bear, the fight far too close for their main guns. Grabbing that arm, Steve twisted and twirled, hurling the armored man into another tank before leaping after him, smashing his shield's edge into the man's head twice before being pushed away by the panicking man. He spouted something in Russian, but Steve didn't bother trying to translate.

Instead he backed away, twitching to one side and rolling as the man's under arm weapons began to go to rapid fire, stitching up the side of yet another anti-air piece.

Then the others were there. With the Russians too busy to fire on her, Polaris dropped off the team easily, each of them releasing the metal surfboards they'd been holding. Husk, in her metal form, whooped as Polaris used her like a cannonball, hurling her into another tank and watching as she slammed down like an artillery shell, shattering its top and driving deep into its superstructure, where she began to tear her way out with a cackling laugh that was certain to make people begin to question her general sanity. The fact the crew of the tank were undoubtedly dead around her only added to that concern.

The Black Widow was dropped off directly in front of a group of charging Russian infantry who had been storming the defensive position. She lashed out, kicking and punching, her new stingers flaring in little bursts from her wrists and ankles, taking men out. Seeing the Black Widow in action, several dozen of the infantry who had been grimly certain they were going to die gave a ragged cheer, and came out of their fox holes into a charge to help her.

Hawkeye too was released a second later, a little bit behind the dug in troops, and he began to fire downhill, each shot slamming into a different officer that he could spot in the distance at the head of a larger column of mechanized infantry they hadn't seen on their approach due to the terrain.

E too was used as a projectile, hurled well back of the front lines to slam into a few artillery pieces being pulled along by half-tracks. "I find it very amusing to be used in this manner, yet also I find myself thankful that I do not have any pain receptors any longer. This would be immensely irritating if so," the android muttered as he pushed his way out of one of the large cannons, looking around him as the infantry all around began to point guns at him and more moved to attack his fellows.

Only a fifth of these men had energy weapons, however, and even as he stepped forward his nanites were released from the special slits in both his ankles and wrists. They began to gobble up the artillery piece behind him, changing it into weapons which fell into his hands. One shot plasma bolts which sliced into men and other artillery pieces with ease.

"I believe that this is when you realize that—what is that phrase?—that the shit has hit the fan, and run. Not," he went on, as he shot one man in the head who had been taking a bead on him from behind, a gun appearing in the middle of the nanites' swarm and firing almost at once, "that this would save you. By the time we are done with you, Russian will be only spoken in hell!"

Hearing this from above, Rogue shuddered even as two lightning guns fired on her, weapons blaring. She shook her head and took the shots, landing on one and tearing it apart as she shouted to E, "Sugah, that line of yours is really not as useful as you seem to think it should be."

Then Nikolai and Carol were there, landing on either side of the column, taking it under fire with their long ranged plasma rifles. Soon enough the Russians were in full retreat, more than half this column dead, and the Crimson Dynamo knocked into unconsciousness by the American super-soldier.

As the remaining surviving Russians began to retreat, Steve moved over, dragging the unconscious remains of the Soviet super soldier and smirking just a little as he made his way over to where the locals were. "Gentlemen, the name's Captain America. We're here to help. Can I ask who's in charge here?"

As one the infantrymen in front of him, from the lowest soldier to the highest, saluted. One of them, a major by his rank tabs, what was visible under dirt, grime and blood, spoke up. "Sir, damn glad to see you! And, as of this moment, I'd say that's you and yours!"

OOOOOOO

To the surprise of the Canadians, then the Americans, and then the British and French land-based forces, the doorways did work. None of them were large enough to take armored divisions, but full brigades of various winter trained forces were on the move as soon as Emma was able to stop by their bases to get the process started. They still had to get from those bases to the front, which took time, but not nearly as much as it would have otherwise.

Those forces came trained for winter, fully kitted out, with an understanding of the weather they were going into, how to fight it, and how to move across the land with their own supplies. They immediately bolstered the NATO forces within Poland, Finland, Norway, and Latvia, along with Georgia, aiding the Turkish and American forces who were already pitching in there. In Georgia and Azerbaijan the reinforcements arrived in time to halt the complete rout of the local forces. They still were falling back, but it was an orderly, extremely slow retreat now, stiffened by American and Australian forces and marked by destroying key strategic bridges as they went.

At the same time German forces were being sent over their shared border with Poland, and they used the more advanced road and train network in the west of the nation to cross swiftly. This further hampered the Russian advance into that country at a speed that took the Russian generals aback. Not a week after the War of Reclamation, as they had termed it, their armies had begun to slow in their pell-mell advance everywhere, and not just in Finland as had quickly become the case.

Of course there were other problems, those problems that neither magic nor superpowers could truly conquer. One of those problems was simple manpower. The Russians were matching the allies, man for man, and then exceeding them by ten times more. Whatever Jean and the others could do, they couldn't bring tanks or heavy artillery through the runic doorways. None of the magic users could be spared to enlarge the runic doors, bar Kitty, who had her own project now, and none of them had been already made that large. Enlarging them further would take a lot of time and effort, as Kitty explained at length to Jean. And she certainly wasn't going to come away from her own project to work on them.

Then there was the issue of getting men and women trained on the plasma weapons and the railgun rifles. The kick of the gauss rifles was an issue, and many personal wound up wounded from the surprising kick or hurting themselves in combat because they hadn't completely read the instruction manual on the plasma weapons, which proved to be very finicky in the immensely cold weather, creating steam and heat that could often freeze a second later on the individual firing it.

Further, this was not World War II or World War I. The Russians troopers were not poorly trained, poorly equipped, or poorly led. They were not relying solely on massive amounts of firepower. Their tanks were still superlative, and the Allies had yet to win a single tank battle that did not involve one of the superpowered individuals on their side taking part. The battle was still one of maneuver in the Baltic and Poland theaters, and the Russian tanks were still giving everyone fits. As for the Ukraine…

"Why don't they break down?" one man groused to another as he stared at the tanks ahead of them as they ran roughshod around several tanks whose treads and other pieces had simply failed, shattering in the cold, their electronics just dying on their creators and leaving them unable to fire effectively.

"I heard a story once about that very thing, actually," the other man said somewhat conversationally even as they began to take shell fire from the tanks. "In World War II, Russian tanks would break down but be easy to fix. Whereas something like ours, which are made not to break down in the first place, are very hard to fix at all."

"That's disgusting and disturbing and makes far too much sense to possibly be true," the other man groused, then blinked and looked at his companion. "Did you hear that?"

"There are so many things I'm hearing right now, you'll have to be a little more specific," the other man replied dryly. The two men had been involved in many of the battles of this war up to this point and had begun to be rather blasé about it. If they died, they died. Until then they wouldn't let that certainty get them down beyond a certain point.

"Smart ass. No, I mean, do you hear that hum?"

They stared up into the sky as a figure flashed over the head. Dr. Doom had arrived, and with him came fear.

OOOOOOO

It had taken Dr. Doom a little bit of time to recalibrate his suit in order to deal with the lack of visibility while flying and to make certain Latveria's army was equipped to handle it as best they could. Dr. Doom had gotten used to flying at high altitudes in order to get anywhere, and the inability to see where he was going was very irritating. Now, however, he had arrived on the Ukrainian front, where several dozen NATO infantry battalions and ill-equipped Ukrainian infantry and tanks were in full retreat from a far larger Russian army. Much of the Ukrainian Army had ceased to exist within a few hours of this war beginning, having been stationed too close to the front along with NATO forces. They had been completely surprised and overwhelmed by the speed of the Russians and the coming of the winter.

The winter wasn't bothering them so much any longer. After all, they were mostly locals, who knew how to deal with winter. But they had lost a lot of material those first few days, including the vast majority of their tanks. And the Russians had exploited that weakness brutally, using their own tank battalions to cut and slice off chunks of the retreating Ukrainian Army until all of them were running scared in moves that were taken straight from the rule book the Germans had used on them in World War II.

Floating in midair over the battlefield, Doom smacked away a few errant shells, ignoring the rest of them with disdain as he raised his hands, pushing them forward. From his hands came beams of power, something that looked almost like a laser except for the intensity of the light, but they did not dissipate like plasma would in bolts as it fired. These beams didn't hit and punch through like plasma, searing through only in one place and imparting a certain amount of kinetic force. Instead they followed the lines of his hands, slicing into tanks, people, and anything else they touched leaving them in pieces behind him.

Flying forward, Dr. Doom once more calmly batted aside a single tank round came towards them, gesturing with the other hand. That tank rose off the ground, trapped in its own little gravity field, and then was crushed as Dr. Doom closed his gauntlet.

He then tossed it aside into three more tanks, while his other hand continued to send a beam of energy, now slicing into a group of infantry, cutting them in twain. Their remains instantly began to steam in the cold, and their fellows, tough soldiers though they might be, started to flee in every direction. They even ignored the fire still coming from their previously retreating foes.

"I am Dr. Doom," he declared in a loud, if sepulchral, voice. "Your invasion of my neighbor has angered me. Prepare to deal with the consequences."

Just then his systems began to warn him of someone trying to take them over, and he scowled angrily, quickly activating a field of energy around him. It was based off of the UV ray's spectrum and was intended to disrupt both technical and mental assaults.

Coming towards him, flying nape of the earth, was a silver armored looking individual followed by four Crimson Dynamos. At the sight Dr. Doom allowed a sneer to appear on his face underneath his mask. The Crimson Dynamos were Russia's answer to Iron Man, but Dr. Doom was not impressed.

Three of them were already firing on him, small rockets blasting out from the wrist guards towards him. The other Dynamo was still oncoming, passing the silver man, who was seemingly now pulling back and staring at Dr. Doom in shock.

"That one must be the one that attempted to take over my armor," Dr. Doom mused to himself. That would not do.

With a flick of his wrist Dr. Doom cycled the laser weapon he had been using a moment ago into a far narrower, far longer-ranged beam. He then pointed his hand almost lazily towards that individual as he tried to fly away. The beam struck and sliced into and out of the man, sending him falling to the ground in a welter of sparks, shattered circuitry, and blood instead of just blood and tissue. Despite that, the man was most certainly in two pieces now. "Interesting… A self-replicating cyborg," he mused, flying towards the Crimson Dynamos. Perhaps four of them might give him a challenge, but he doubted it.

Then, as he watched, all four Dynamos started to retreat, firing off all of their rockets as they escorted the silver-skinned individual back, his being alive somewhat surprising Doom. Below, the Russian army began to advance once more, forcing Doom to break off his pursuit. But even so, it was clear that the Russians had learned their lesson. Now to drive it home.

OOOOOOO

The war in China had proved to be a sideshow, as Psylocke had discovered. Once the Russians had smashed any forces of China which could have crossed the border in any semblance of time, they retreated, destroying bridges, train tracks and any other means of swiftly moving troops through the battered, bloody remains of the Shenyang province, and then took up well-fortified positions just on the Chinese side of the border in the one town there, which had served more as an off-duty center for the border army, and at Zhenbao Island.

Betsy, Amara, and Piotr had pushed them every step of that retreat using Betsy's ability to telepathically invade people's minds to figure out where best to hit them, who were the officers, and where they were going to go, gutting the officer corps and more than a few whole divisions. Eventually even two of the three Titanium Men that they had been fighting had retreated. One of them had not survived a follow up battle between Piotr and Wyatt, who had shot through the man's visor, not cracking the reinforced transparent aluminum but weakening it so Piotr's fist did the rest. The other two had been pulled back quickly after that, taking the damaged suit with them.

But, all in all, the Russians were content to pull back and let the Chinese try to come after them in those positions and then further back into Russia. For now that threat was minimal, and most of the forces there had already begun moving around Russia to join the armies massing in what was being called the Caspian Theater.

"Where do you want us, Miss Jean?" Piotr asked as he and his teammates were lifted into the air by Jean. The redhead had simply reached down from orbit and plucked them off the ground, pulling them up and through the atmosphere in a telekinetic bubble of space. It was a sign of power and strength that should have taken many of the people on the ground aback, but after seeing what the Phoenix could do in full fury, most of the people on the team simply took it for granted. Still, such power demanded a certain amount of respect, regardless of anything else, like her being pregnant and the emotional issues it caused.

Jean smiled at them, gesturing to a few screens were several dozen Chinese generals were arguing. "Once they figure out what they want to do I'll get back to you," she said with a sigh. "It looks as if the Chinese ruling Committee is torn. A third of them wants to attack immediately, another third of them realize that that would play into the Russians' hands and cost lives for next to nothing, and the other third wants to make war on the Russians, but move troops to the Caspian front to do it. And they are still having trouble preparing their troops for winter."

She smirked then. "Still, it looks as if we're starting to turn the corner all around."

The doorways and the technology that Magical Minds provided was proving decisive even against the growing snow and winter closing roads and even trains. Slowly but surely the fronts were stabilizing the world over. People were still dying, thousands from the cold, thousands from the war, but it was slowly stabilizing.

OOOOOOO

Captain America couldn't be everywhere at once. And while he spoke somewhat passable German and fluent French, he'd never been able to learn Polish, the Russians having never wanted anyone else involved in their war in that nation, Stalin having wanted to add it into the USSR without further conflict. So he had to keep Carol. But after the first five or six large, splash type fights, the other members of his team were split up, scattered to hell and back across the ever widening battle front. And with them came both hope and renewed defiance.

Slowly, with more high-tech weaponry coming in and more infantry arriving, the Russians ground to a halt. Then, as the Germans arrived, they fell back here and there.

A sign of this occurred in one battle in which Nikolai took part, about four days after they had arrived at the front. He and two companies of infantry were dug into a copse of trees, having created a very decent defensible position in a bare few hours, which included one piece of towed artillery they had scavenged from a Polish base nearby. It was quite heavy, and the tracks had finally broken, but they had been able to lug into the woods. And, unlike all of the weapons they had built based on it, Nikolai's own personal rifle was still unique thanks to the bio energy draining enlargement array on the barrel.

He watched as the Russian tanks came on, six of them this time, with at least four companies of infantry and two trucks following on. These were the hover tanks the Russians had started to field, able to go where no amount of tires could allow them to.

I might have to insist we sell Jean's hover-tech, the stuff she created after reverse engineering from Mojoworld. Getting, what was it, over forty thousand hover-ambulances out here was a godsend, and thank Jean for thinking about it, but our own hover tanks would be a true godsend. Too many of the allied tanks were proving to be finicky in cold they were dealing with now, a cold that meant that Vanguard was wearing a heavy snow outfit over his normal Custodes uniform, gloves, visors, and everything else he could. But there were just some bits and pieces of most tanks that seemed to have issues: simple to solve ones, but still issues. And the need to rush them forward meant only the local Polish tanks had winter camo paint. Not good.

"Wait until they cross over that last snowdrift," he said into his mic, aiming towards the central tank.

"Yes sir," the local infantrymen, a Pole himself, replied. After the past few days none of them had any trouble working with someone with a slight Russian accent. They had all seen Vanguard in play by this point and knew where his loyalties lay. A few might still have doubts, but given the fact he arrived with the Captain they stayed silent.

When the enemy infantry passed over or around the snowdrift he had indicated, all around him the defenders started to fire, cutting down the Russians.

The Russians, of course, were no fools, and after four of their men fell the rest went to the ground, digging into the snow and firing back from prone positions. Only idiots or people with personal force fields ever fired from standing position in battle. Others behind them began to spread out on their skis, trying to encircle the defensive position around the small copse, and more and more of his men began to fire at them in turn, forcing them to stop and drop out of their skis with the ease of long practice.

Behind the infantry the tanks had stopped, and that was enough for the former Russian Super-soldier. Vanguard fired one shot first, the gauss bullet enlarging into the size of a cannon round and punching straight through the frontal armor of one of those tanks. The next second the big artillery piece opened up, but it lacked the penetrating power, and the enemy tank was still in one piece, firing. The cannon round exploded in the woods, killing two men but missing the artillery piece, which was already loaded and firing again.

Seeing that his troops had the rest of this fight well in hand, Vanguard stood in full view, hopping onto his skis and racing out of the trees towards the tanks, firing normal gauss bullets at the infantry between him and his true target, killing them easily and, in fact, killing two at one point when the bullet passed through his initial target's head and hit the man behind him in the back. His mutation-given shield activated instantly and began to absorb the impetus of the bullets from the Russian infantry. The surviving tanks, too, started to fire on him before they realized that that was precisely the wrong idea. One of them didn't learn the lesson at all, its turret blown off by an artillery blast.

About twenty feet away from the shield tank, Nikolai decided he'd absorbed enough energy, and released it all at once. The shield around the last, largest tank immediately flickered into life, absorbing the kinetic energy even as they whined and flickered to do it. Then, behind him, the artillery piece opened up for a third time, and the shield shattered, breaking like glass. Of course the tank underneath was still armored and came on, swerving away from Nikolai and no longer aiming at him, instead lobbing shells into the woods, killing more men within.

But Vanguard was still a threat, and he pointed his rifle at the tank, flipping the switch which would activate the enlargement array on the muzzle of the rifle once more. Instead of the tiny bullet that had been flashing out a moment before like any normal gauss rifle, which would have been scant real threat against the heavy shield tank, what came out was once more as large as a cannon round. It slammed into the side of the enemy tank, smashing into its magazine and exploding.

An instant later Nikolai switched his attention to the other tank only to stare as it began to retreat, and more infantry began to come up, trying to encircle his position again.

But at the same time more of his ally's own infantry were arriving from further west, coming in on large trucks, and halftracks. The Russians realized this quickly and, further, seemed to realize they didn't have reinforcements nearby. With that awareness they began to retreat.

Nikolai watch them go silently. It looked as if the Russians were no longer willing to just pour in men, but whether or not this was a change in policy or simply a response to this one fight, he didn't know. Regardless, he would have to report it.

Captain America got other reports like that, putting them all together. The Russians were still pushing hard, but the emptiness of Poland as a result of World War II and the Russians' own policies against the Polish when it was part of the Iron Curtain, had worked against them badly. It had given the defenders the same kind of room to maneuver that the Russians had always enjoyed when fighting on their own ground.

Thanks in part to Jean bringing in those ambulances to first transport civilians anyway and then the wounded. Damn, that was a brilliant move, even if she had to take the entire first production run to do it. And, we still have more infantry incoming. We don't have enough armor or trucks, but our infantry weapons can turn the tide against their tanks, and I think the Russians are learning that.

Over the next two days Captain America and the generals who had slowly begun to reform the front saw a marked difference in how the Russians were coming on. No longer were the tanks just barreling ahead almost entirely on their own, instead they were always accompanied by infantryman.

OOOOOOO

Fighting the urge to assume her normal form and eat his brain, Samantha scowled as Dr. Volkh burst through the doors and moved towards her, anger practically evaporating off him. "What?" she barked. "Can't you see we're busy?"

The man slowed, taking in the number of scientists in the room, all of whom were bustling about. His eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment Samantha saw something in one of them, a glint of circuitry? Before she could concentrate on that he had calmed down and backed away from her, taking in more of the lab. "I can see that. I take it you are having trouble here somehow?"

"Someone is fighting the Ever Winter process," she said in a low undertone. Of all the humans here, he was the only one who understood the true nature of the planetary soul absorber and the fact that it was magical instead of scientific, although he had no idea of the Dire Wraiths or how they had infiltrated the Russian government and military. Or does he?

"How is that possible? Surely they would need to find Crystal itself in order to combat it?"

"No, they can fight us for access to the ley-lines and push us back by attempting to wrest control of the weather from us. It is… Think of it as being locked in a tug of war rather than a real fight. Neither of us can find the other to attack directly, but we can both tug on the rope, trying to mitigate or overcome one another's influence over the temperature of the world and its weather."

His eyes narrowed at that, and Samantha snarled. "We're winning, never fear! Whoever it is, they can't fight over one billion magic users all at once. The cold will remain where it is, just don't expect any more help from me and mine."

After a long fulminating minute, Volkh nodded. "That is fine, I suppose. What of the Mole Man? He has not reported on his advances into Kazakhstan. But the Caspian Sea is freezing slowly. If we can send troops around from there into Azerbaijan and then into Georgia, we can break through the allies there and into Turkey." He grinned viciously. "In point of fact, the other fronts hardly matter if we can conquer Turkey. Russia will finally have access to the Mediterranean Sea! Even the oil fields of Azerbaijan, the coal and steel of Finland or Poland, pales in comparison to that."

Samantha barely hid a wince. It had been her fellow Dire Wraiths who had pushed for the invasion of the more northern countries in the first place. Norway, Finland, and Estonia were the only nations where Ocetite had been found just yet, so they were the major targets of her own people.

But Russia had wanted access to the Mediterranean Sea since the time of the Tsars. She knew that the forces sent into China had been originally supposed to go to that front, but, once more, her sisters had convinced the Russians to create a buffer zone within China's border before pulling those troops back and around to the distant front. But even with their aid in creating underground railroads and depots, those forces were too far away to be of any use in the foreseeable future.

Still, they tied down a few of the Custodes at least, thanks to the three Titanium Men on that front. We must convince the Russians to release more of their special troopers up in the northwest against the X-men. It might seem like bashing our heads against them, strength to strength, but the payoff for my people will be worth it.

Shaking her head from those thoughts, Samantha allowed a pensive moue to appear on her face. Since it had been one of Samantha's ilk who had gotten the Mole Man involved as well, convincing him to join the war and to be a surface power as well as a subterranean one, it made sense that Volkh would ask her about contacting him. Of course, that wasn't really what had happened. The Mole Man the world had known was dead. He had been replaced by a one of her crèche sisters.

"I will contact him directly. I know that his forces are bogged down in Kazakhstan against the Fantastic Four, but I believe he could free a large portion of his men to push out of the steppes and to the east. What target should they aim for?" she asked.

The doctor paused a moment and then flicked out a wrist. On his wrist he had a wide bracelet of steel which emitted lights from several dozen tiny globes. The image of a keyboard appeared in front of him, and, after a few seconds typing, the hard light image shifted to that of a map. "Have them aim for this Ural River's mouth; it is the target of the 15th Army Group. If he can take the river's mouth, the 15th will push over the Caspian at once. They have the resources to do it with their organic supply train. Once they have broken entirely through Azerbaijan and the allies are in retreat, we can resupply them with the resources already tagged to the four army groups already fighting there."

Samantha nodded. "I'll see to it," she promised. "So long as you do something for me. The news from the front in Finland and Norway concerns me, and I think we need to offset the X-men's presence. Can you see to releasing the Omega Clan?"

"That and more, my dear. Russia's Winter Guard are going to become involved soon, on all the more important fronts," Volkh replied with a grim smile.

OOOOOOO

At the end of two weeks the various campaigns on the ground had turned into a series of costly, very bloody stalemates. This war of attrition was slowly but surely turning against the NATO forces in Poland, the Baltic states, and in Georgia and Azerbaijan, with the Russians pouring in more troops and more tanks and rockets and everything in particular, while the allies were slowly running out of forces trained in winter warfare. America had begun to produce winter gear, but experience and training counted for a lot, and no democratic government could survive simply sending unprepared soldiers into that kind of meat grinder.

Talks were ongoing with other nations, specifically Sweden and the Balkan states, to send their own winter trained troops in. But they had basically refused so far, citing, to Harry's anger when it was relayed to him, the fact they couldn't afford to do so because of their commitments to the European Union, the European organizational body that helped control and create agreements between the EDF and Europe. As such, that body was fracturing, and Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

Thankfully the war on the ocean was a different matter entirely. There Russia was losing and losing badly. Russia's information about the Americans subs had been spotty at best, and those submarines had been turned loose in wolf packs to go after the Russian subs and ships of all kinds. Within fifteen days of the commencement of the war, the Russian submarines were almost utterly destroyed, beaten back, or were no longer a factor at all.

The surface war took a bit longer, and there America's reliance on carriers for long-range hitting power hampered their ability to make a difference. After all, when you launched a fighter and knew point blank that it would not return, there was no way any American officer would launch their fighters except under the direst of circumstances.

Yet even if you took carriers out of the equation, the American fleets were able to go toe with the Russian Pacific Fleet and come out ahead. Their destroyers made the difference against the too top-heavy Russian fleet. The Russians might have had more battlecruisers and even two actual battleships, whereas the Iowa class battleships had not been brought out of mothballs. But despite all the advancements in armor and maneuverability that had been made in the years since World War II, torpedoes were still the best ship killers in any navy.

The British too had handled the battles in the Norwegian Sea with aplomb, aided by American subs and French warships. They had fought a war of maneuver and then cut off the Russian fleets from the Barents Sea, using the weather to their advantage and then overwhelming the Russian fleets by pinning them between three different fleets in a two day long running battle.

Neither victory was bloodless, but the Russians had lost any hope of projecting power over the waves. The American submarines even began to sneak around the tip of Russia and began to hammer their minimal seaborne trade. Of course, Russia had never really evolved into a mercantile power, most of its infrastructure was internal, which meant that its logistics remained intact.

In the same manner the sea battles were a sideshow to what was going on in Eastern Europe. The Russians were being stymied on every front, but stymied wasn't the same as being beaten back. Eventually their numbers would win out, or the morale of the opposing units would break under the combined pressure of the cold and their numbers. It had happened before, and it would happen again. It was simple fact that the Russian people and the Russian military was prepared to absorb casualties that no other military in the world could. But the allies were about to get another reprieve, as Harry's decision to bet on Kitty was about to bear fruit.

OOOOOOO

Kitty looked over at Polaris, who sighed tiredly, her hands slowly twitching. Fighting on the front line for more than a week with only Rogue as company had taken it out of her mentally and physically, and the younger girl smiled gently at the green haired girl, pushing her shoulder playfully. "So, looks to me as if you're kind of out of shape there, Green. Maybe you should join the X-Men or the Custodes for some other training?" she teased, hoping to cheer the other girl up.

"Hell no," Polaris said, shaking her head. "I already had my time in the saddle. I have no desire to become a frontline combatant again, not now, not ever. In fact, if Harry and Jean hadn't convinced me to get involved, I would sure still cheerfully be up on Fortress Mars, helping the locals continue to expand the fortress." Indeed, once this operation was over Lorna had basically demanded to be taken off frontline work and had gotten it: instead she would be flying wounded out of the warzones for the rest of the conflict.

"But you get that was for good of all," Kitty said quietly, her good humor evaporating. "And at least you were able to contribute at all. That's something I haven't been able to do yet."

"Your time will come," Lorna replied wanly. "I imagine that once this works, Harry's going to hunt down the people involved, right, and you'll help him?"

"I believe you can take that to the bank," Kitty said grimly. The death toll of those first few days of violence had broken armies, and whoever was behind this had a lot to answer for. She still hated the idea of killing, herself, but right now she was more than willing to make enough exceptions to get at the minds of those behind this war.

Polaris just nodded to that when Kitty said it aloud and watched as Kitty went to work, moving around the giant stone disc and examining each rune as she went. She was gazing between several dozen pieces of paper in her hand and the ones she had carved out, her attention so intense that Lorna could practically see it like a shimmer in the air around her, making Kitty's already frizzy hair even puffier. Kitty had been given this job by her boss, her friend and leader, and she would not fail.

"Is it ready?" she asked as Kitty seemed to finish.

Kitty was silent for a moment before visibly gulping and nodding. "It's ready," she said firmly.

Polaris nodded too and lifted her hand, gesturing to the giant titanium and vibranium cage around the stone circle. With this cage she lifted the circle up into the air and, once the doors opened, out of the hangar bay, up into the atmosphere of Fortress Mars, and then out into space. At the same time, Kitty moved over to a nearby shuttle, following after the magnetic mutans.

There she found Sunfire nodding to her, his entire being glowing even brighter than the distant sun. He had been flying close to the sun and soaking in the rays for this moment. "Well? Is it done?"

Polaris scowled at the arrogant asshole but nodded. "It's done," she said curtly.

Sunfire nodded back and then gestured, some of his solar-based power blasting into the sphere. He kept on trying for several solid minutes, but the circle didn't show any sign of even heating up; it was completely inert. He grunted, canceling his attack, and, with the help of it being now weightless in space, the two of them pushed the cage through space into the nearby destroyer, a former Kree vessel (of course) which had been renamed Firefly.

The three of them took the ship deep into the system, as close to the sun as the ship could take them, before the two of them exited the ship. On the bridge, Kitty watched as Polaris and Sunfire worked together to drag the giant disc closer and closer to the sun. They flew together with it until it was hovering close enough that Polaris began to feel the heat through her electromagnetic shielding, retreating and letting Sunfire go forward alone.

Sunfire once more began to glow with the energy he was absorbing, and the disk too began to slowly start showing molten bits and pieces here and there as the runic arrays that Kitty had implanted began to absorb the heat. The cage, even with the perfect mix of vibranium and titanium, started to melt, and he quickly backed away to just where the metal had started to glow.

Once back on Fortress Mars, Kitty transferred to Earth and activated the other end of the runic doorway. That doorway was situated in an empty little area of the border between the Ukraine and Poland, well away from the battles going on and, indeed, any human being. Rogue had been pulled from Poland to help with it before heading up to Poland. Another doorway, more of a window, really, had been very carefully placed within the runic arrays and the coven enchantment on the tower at Camelot.

This part was the trickiest of his plan. Using their magic, Harry and the other wizards had worked on slowly shifting the coven spell while continuing to battle against the influence of the expanding cold in order to take in actual heat and spread it through the leylines. Now they slowly began to work the heat into their defenses, and Gaia, her physical form still comatose, began to take command of it.

The change wasn't instantaneous, but an hour or so later Gaia's eyes fluttered open and she smiled. Over the rest of that day her entire body changed slowly from that of a crone to that of a middle-aged woman in the bloom of life. "I can feel the energy of the sun within me, Harry Potter, closer, more powerful, more heated than I have ever felt in all my existence!" she nearly moaned. "How have you done this thing!?"

"A bit of an expansion of the runic doorway concept, milady," Harry said, sighing and bowing his head formally to her and then looking at Ororo, his face pained as he saw the look of utter exhaustion on her face. So stark was it that she looked like she had aged ten years over the last two weeks. "Can you…"

"Say no more," the goddess said, slowly standing up and pulling Ororo up as well, then hugging the woman tightly. "Well done, daughter. Now, loose the tension; I will handle it from here."

Ororo slowly complied and then simply collapsed, her will no longer able to keep her body going. Harry and Hela both broke from their positions to catch her and then slowly helped her to one side of the runic array. Then Gaia was there, her hand over Ororo's eyes. "She will sleep for a full day, mayhap more. After that she will be back to normal. I have healed her mind both physically and mentally, but her exhaustion needs to be seen to in the normal manner."

A second later Hela endured a hug from the goddess as she stepped around the circle, hugging all of them one after another. By the time she finished the heat was almost literally beginning to boil off her, and she resumed her position in the center. She then gestured, and the heat dissipated out from her visibly into the ground and from there into the Leylines, from where it would circulate around the Earth. Harry could even see a haze of heat joining the air leylines, which he knew that he or any of the others would have had trouble using it all.

The effect around them was immediate. The temperature around them instantly began to rise, and he smiled, thinking about the effect this would have worldwide. They had held the line. The militaries of the world had stopped Russia when it had the power of winter behind it. His Custodes had held the line, Polaris had routed an army and Doom had done the same to another.

Now, however, now is the time, Harry thought to himself as he stood up, leaving the goddess to continue her part of the battle. Now it is time to fight back!

End Chapter

This is the first of the two combat heavy chapters I envisioned, and the one with the most common bent to it. Next time, mutants clash worldwide, an alien conspiracy is unveiled, and Harry goes on the offensive in no uncertain terms.

I will have this be one of the three large chapter choices in the poll over on patty on, so if you are a fan and are over there,, be on the lookout for it tomorrow. I will also have the small story poll here and over there tomorrow as well. Alas, can't have two polls here on fanfic, and the small story poll contains more stories so it gets to be posted here.