Jasmine sank her teeth into her burger before letting out a moan that had Harry staring at her, then at Remus hoping his guardian didn't notice his reaction to her groan. "God, that is better than sex."

"Excuse me?" Clair said, glaring at her daughter.

"I imagine it is better than sex," Jasmine amended quickly.

"Mhhmmm," Clair said from where she sat on one of the picnic blankets that were laid out on the hard stone floor, a fish sandwich in her hands. Though, while it was fish that didn't mean it was any healthier than the burger Harry himself was eating; he had a feeling it Clair squeezed it she'd get a cup of grease.

"It's just an expression, mum!" Jasmine complained. "I didn't really mean it. No reason to go nuts."

"Right right, of course," Clair said, waving her hand dismissively. "Let's see what your father thinks."

"...please don't," Jasmine whispered in fright.

Clair, with an innocent smile on her face, called out, "Oh Jack, Jasmine has such a-"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"And you'll never kid about that again? At least not for another few years?"

"Of course, mum, anything mum! Just... don't tell da!" A bit quieter she added, "He'd lock me up and never let me out of the house!" Clair merely smirked and Jasmine stuck her tongue out at her mother, not bothered in the slightest that bits of her half chewed burger were on display.

"Don't tell da what?" Jack asked, ambling over with a burger in one hand and two boxes of fries in the other.

"Nothing!" Jasmine said sweetly. Jack merely raised an eyebrow before passing her the fries. "I could have gotten these, da."

"I wanted to get them for you," Jack said with a simple smile, handing Harry the other before making his way back to where Lance was standing.

Harry glanced over at Jasmine and softly said, "That's how he says I love you... you know that, right?"

The young woman looked down at the fries, a tiny grin pulling on her lips. "Yeah." In a softer voice she added, "He always finds a way to let me know."

Harry turned his attention to the rest of the group who were currently milling about the Hall of Speakers, bags full of fast foot littering the ground. Normally one of them would cook for the rest, rotating on whose job it was to whip up a meal using the supplies that were brought in by on a bimonthly basis (with Lugia ensuring that the waves always led back to the Whirl Islands there was never a danger of anyone getting lost). It had been interesting to see how everyone handled the task. Harry himself had learned how to cook during his time at the Dursleys and knew how to make what Remus had labeled 'comfort food' and what Harry called 'Half of what Uncle Vernon normally ate'. Jonas tried his best but it seemed the stoic Kenway was rubbish at cooking because he did it so rarely, preferring to let a family member cook (or just throw a pizza in their ship's oven). Remus loved to cook and tended to trend towards family style dinners while Lance and Jasmine admitted they had garbage pallets and would cook up quick "Single person" dinners. Clair and Jack were contrasts: Clair liked to do the box meal routine, though she always managed to spice it up. Jack, thanks to his years living out in the wilderness tracking Pokémon was a raw ingredient nut and more often would forgo whatever was in the supplies to go and hunt down dinner.

Harry still remembered Jack proudly walking into the Hall with a deer slung over his shoulders, everyone fleeing as he happily went about skinning the carcass and preparing the meat. Still, it had been one of the most amazing roasts he'd ever had.

Tonks had put aside any thought of cooking when she'd revealed that she'd had her Rotom transform into an oven and keep a whole menu of greasy fast food burgers, fries, and other items nice and warm. Everyone had practically fallen upon it, save for Jack who had complained that he wanted to show them how to properly debone a sword fish for lunch, but he'd finally decided to dig in as well, though he promised to get to the deboning soon enough.

"So, just mum and da, Tonks, and yours truly left to take ya on," Jasmine said with a grin before licking her fingers clean of grease and salt. "Ya ready for all of us?"

"Don't really have a choice in the matter, do I?" Harry said with a shrug.

"You sound like you aren't looking toward to it."

"Having my ass handed to me several times is prone to do that."

"Bah, try bein' a bloody gym leader," Jasmine said. "I'm going to get my ass handed to me on a regular basis soon enough."

"So you'll be taking over the Olivine City gym then?" Harry asked.

Jasmine nodded her head. "I know I'm a Kenway now but I started out an Ironside. My birth parents… I am thankful every day that da and mum adopted me and I don't want to even guess what my life would have been like had they not been a part of it, but I still feel the need to honor my other mum and da. Olivine City Gym has been in the Ironside family for generations and for now, at least, I want to honor that part of my heritage." She shrugged after a moment. "Besides, da and Uncle Jonas are Ironsides too so it isn't like I'm abandoning the Kenways."

"It's really important to you to respect your adopted family, isn't it? Make sure they aren't offended by you honoring the Ironsides."

Jasmine let out a sigh. "You ever notice I'm a bit… brash?"

"… no, never," Harry said dryly.

"Oh haha."

"Seriously. I mean, it's not like when we first met you openly declared you were 'thee Jasmine Kenway' and then when we landed in Johto you flipped off the ocean for funseies."

"I flipped off Kanto, get it right!" she warmed him with a smirk. Her smile though fell after a few moments and she looked down at the ground, unable to meet his eyes. He found it so odd that she was able to flip from so strong and cocky to vulnerable and timid in an instant. It reminded him of when they'd first kissed and she'd fled the dance floor in fright. "You've figured out by now that there are four faces my da wears. There is Headmaster Jack, who is the teacher and the battler and the man that enjoys educating the world. Then there is Tracker Jack, who is alone out in the bush most of the time, hunting for new and exotic Pokémon. Of course you've seen My Da, the silly git who loves Disney songs and who likes dancing with my mum and hanging out with Lance."

Harry nodded at that. He remembered well a week ago when, while the rest of the group had been relaxing after a fine dinner, Harry had wandered back down to the Hall, watching to ask the Father of Johto a question about Speaking, only to catch Jack and Clair dancing in the middle of the ancient cavern, music playing via Jack's dex. Though they had been wearing casual clothes to Harry they might as well have been wearing the finest tux and a dress made of the most expensive silks. They'd never noticed him, their eyes holding only each other as they'd moved about the Hall, twirling and spinning about as the music crashed and boomed, growing faster and, for lack of a better word on Harry's part, more epic. The lights from within the waterfalls had danced upon their faces as they two spun about, their world condensed down to just each other.

"Think of what you desire most in this world," Jack had whispered as the music had lulled, the waters as always around them muted as he stared at Clair, reaching up and stroking her cheek tenderly. "Merely speak it and I will make it real."

"You," Clair had whispered. "Now as it has always been… just… you." She'd leaned in then, kissing Jack not passionately but with a tenderness that came only from a love long sought. Harry, feeling ashamed of intruding, had moved to leave only to find Jasmine had managed to sneak up behind him and had joined him in watching her parents.

"She loved him since she was 11 years old," Jasmine had said quietly. "She'd heard tales about him from Lance, of course, but that didn't mean anything until her first day at Olivine, when he'd greeted her not as his friend's little cousin but as someone he wanted to get to know purely because that was just who he was." Jasmine had watched as her father had gone over to restart the song, the gentle notes of the piano playing once more as Clair, to Harry's confusion, suddenly had gained a look of confusion and loneliness, spinning about the empty hall before Jack marched towards her once more, the violins entering to herald his arrival. "They always do this," Jasmine had informed him. "It is how they knew they would be together for their rest of their lives."

"What do you mean?" Harry had asked.

She'd smiled even as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. "After da graduated he basically dropped off the map for the next three years. He sent letters to Uncle Jonas and Lance and mum but no one saw him for months at a time. He was learning to be a tracker, training in Unova. I think he popped up one time to cheer up Aunt Cynthia after one of her relatives insulted her but otherwise he was mostly on his own.

"When mum turned 17 her family threw a massive party in Blackthorn to celebrate. I've seen the video… it was breath-taking. Mum was taken to the center of the dance floor by Lance and he told her he had her gift before stepping away. The music started and she thought he was pulling a prank on her… until she spotted da. He was dressed in a tux with a long jacket with tails and everything, the white gloves and top hat… the whole outfit! Mum had thought he'd forgotten but Lance made sure he got back in time. He led her through the first dance and that's when he asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said, 'Never leave me again,' and da promised. He returned home, he took mum when he could on his tracking trips… and proposed to her a year later."

Harry had watched as Jack had dipped Clair, reaching down with his free hand to ghost his fingers along her neck and cheek. "They truly love each other, don't they?"

Jasmine had nodded. "It's what I want. That."

Harry shook himself out of the memory, returning once more into the Hall. "So your dad wears many faces?"

"Yes," Jasmine said. "But the world only sees for themselves his last face."

'The Reaper', Harry thought, visualizing Jack's hood, the cloth pulled down from it to form his executioner hood.

"Do you know how hard it is to be his daughter?" she said softly, not waiting for Harry to answer. "Not the Headmaster or the Tracker or Da… the Reaper. He makes it easy but the rest of the world… the rest of the world look at me and wonder what makes me worthy? Those that love him as a beacon of hope looked at me at first and wondered why he burdened himself with an orphan girl when he should produce an heir of his own flesh and blood." Her voice grew bitter as she spoke. "Jasmine the Fake Kenway. Jasmine the Usurper. Jasmine the Fraud. My da still thinks I never heard those taunts…" She took a shuddering breath. "And then there are his enemies. Those that see me as his weakness. Do you know I've been kidnapped twice?" Harry shook his head. "Once when we were Solstice shopping someone from Kanto grabbed me and pulled out this knife. He told da he'd killed his brother and he was a monster." Jasmine ran her fingers along her throat, as if trying to shove the phantom blade away. "Mum went mad and just went after the bastard, ripping me away before she just began tearing into him… the Hoods finally pulled her off but he was dead long before that. Another time, in Kalos, some idiots thought they could make a quick buck grabbing me off the playground along with Fleur; hold us for ransom, I guess. They had us for an hour in this… garage, if you can believe it. Not even a professional garage, just one at their house. Wankers. They hadn't even gotten a chance to make the threatening phone call before da showed up… it was the first time I saw him as Kanto sees him. Aunt Cynthia and Aunt Diantha were right behind him and went full Veela ready to take out the bastard but da… he let go. He just… let go." Her voice grew so soft Harry had to lean forward to hear her speak, her eyes getting a far away look. "And then, when it was all over he had Aunt Diantha hug me because he was soaked in blood… and he just collapsed and began crying, telling me he was so sorry. Sorry… sorry because they took me to hurt him.

"That's when I realized I had to become more than Jasmine Ironside. I had to become Jasmine Kenway. The Daughter of the Butcher of Fushia, of the Slayer of Koga, of the Beast of Olivine. I had to be as hard as him, as tough as him, to know how to defend myself. If I couldn't trust the world to love me… I would have them fear me. To think me a brash, violent woman who walked with a swagger and a smirk. Jasmine Ironside sobbed when her parents died and begged someone else to seek vengeance. Jasmine Kenway cracks a joke in the face of death because it's the only way to ensure the world doesn't see her tears. I've had to become strong… because I never wanted to see him cry again. Never blame himself for me being the weak one. To prove I was worthy of them all."

Harry swallowed, not sure what to say. Jasmine merely licked her lips and stared at the ceiling.

"I wish I could say I understood. But people are just glad to have Harry Potter around they don't care how I act."

Jasmine patted his knee. "This is what makes…" she gestured between the two of them, "…so difficult at times. I forget how young you are."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked.

Jasmine stood up, dusting off her pants before flashing him the saddest of smiles. "It means I'm not different from you… I'm just further along the path."

~MC~MC~MC~

Location Unknown...Calculating...Calculating...

Lucius tugged on the unfamiliar hood, trying to find some way to make it not scratch and pick at the back of his neck. He hated the way the hastily gathered clothing fit upon him; he hadn't worn anything off the rack since he'd left Kalos and been forced to buy a suit from a standard clothing store. To be stuck wearing a cheap hooded jacket that had been mass produced by a machine rather than one of his hand tailored suits annoyed him to no end. It reminded him of what he could have been, what his fool of a father had almost made him into. The old man would have had him out among the scum and the peons of the world, scrounging in the dirt rather than holding in his hands what was his by right. All because the bastard saw his sister as his better.

'Cynthia,' he thought bitterly, thinking back to the reports Draco had sent him concerning his estranged sister during the year she'd spent at Hogwarts. After his son's first foolish encounter (and he'd belted him good for being that stupid) Draco had avoided his aunt and kept quiet for most of the year, watching and reporting. Cynthia's actions had only proven how wrong his father had been. Rather than standing as an example of what the small folk should dream to become (but would never be able to) she slummed it with the wretches, making friends with the likes of that moronic Lovegood's brat of a daughter.

'Who stole my cane!' he thought, clenching his fists.

Rather than using the power of being a headmaster to further her and the Malfoy family she sought only to help the pathetic masses try and 'better' themselves. He'd sucked down the bile that had risen in his throat as Draco written of Cynthia's wife and the abominations of science that were Lucius' "nieces". It still roiled his stomach to think that his sister had created children as she had.

'Of course, if the rumors are true she and that dyke bitch she calls a wife just spread their legs for Kenway and Blackthorn,' Lucius thought, sneering at the rumor (which he himself had helped spread to tarnish his sister's reputation) that Fleur and Gabrielle weren't truly his sister and Diantha's biological children but were a result of each screwing the heads of Daggertooth and Olivine Pointe, respectively. One only had to see how the two men doted on their 'goddaughters' to see the truth of that.

Then there was her so called, 'Pack'. How he hated them all. He had toiled to build connections and build himself up from the foreign stranger in Avalon to the puppet master who truly ruled the Region. Money, time, and so much effort cultivating connections and building relationships. And before that, back when he had been in Kalos, he had fought every day to build his loyal circle at the Trainer Academy, to set himself apart from the rest of his classmates and show that he, and he alone, would be the mightiest of them. And what did his sister sacrifice? What did she toil away at? Nothing. She went on a vacation to the western coast of Kalos for one summer with her 'best friend' (even then Lucius had suspected his sister of being a freak of nature who longed for her own gender's touch) and returned with grand tales of her two new friends: the heir of the mighty Blackthorn family and the scion of the infamous House of Kenway. Those powerful men had practically fallen into her lap!

'I work for everything while she has it handed right to her!' he thought in disgust as a cool wind struck his face and he adjusted the hood again. 'Friends, power, the Malfoy family estate... all of it should have come to me!'

But the worst, the absolute worse... was how she'd utterly disrespected him during his master's failed attempt to destroy the Potter brat. Never mind that she had rushed to the boy's side, no... no, what truly got under Lucius' skin was how she hadn't even addressed him. Called out to him. Attempted to battle him. She hadn't even given a second thought to him being there. She hadn't seen him as a threat. He'd been a nobody to her... and Lucius' temper boiled at that. He would show her the folly of dismissing him so easily. When his master took over Avalon, with Lucius as his right hand, he'd make sure to demand of Kalos, in exchange for peace, that his bitch of a sister be brought to him in chains. He'd make her crawl like the dog she was to him, let her beg on the name of their father... before he had Malamar consume her.

"Stop thinking so heard, oh brother of mine," Bellatrix cackled beside him, walking her fingers along his chest. "Such naughty thoughts twist and turn in your head and make you scowl so. Your frowny face makes me terribly sad."

Lucius shifted away from his deranged sister-in-law. "I am merely thinking of what we must do next," he lied. "Some of us like to plan ahead before they go out on a mission."

"Mmm... I much prefer to be surprised. All the pretty babies squalling as mummy comes to punish them." She hugged herself, giggling in delight, before suddenly coming to stand right in front of him, her entire tone changing as she jabbed her finger right under his nose. "And you were thinking of something else. Something dark and rude. Dwelling on things rather than our master's glorious plan."

Lucius fought the urge to smack the insane trainer in the face. He knew that it would only end badly for him; as crazy as Bella appeared that didn't make her any less dangerous. She loved to make people think she was flighty and foolish but behind those cackles and maniac grins laid a masochist who enjoyed nothing more than torturing those that presented their backs to her, ready for a knife or five to be plunged into it.

Though, just because there was a brain behind her insanity did not mean she wasn't, indeed, quite mad.

No one quite knew what had caused Bellatrix Lestrange to snap. During her school years she had been quite rational, if vicious to those that got in her way. When Lucius had arrived in Kalos he had known that he needed a bride from a powerful and established family to help legitimize his standing with the Ancient and Noble Houses. Without the pedigree such a union would bring he would have remained little more than the upstart from a far off land who had delusions of grandeur. No, he had needed to find a wife from an old family and the Blacks had quickly become his target. A gym leader family that had also produced Prime Ministers, Elite 4 members, and even a head of Hogwarts or two, they had held with them the promise that at long last Lucius would receive the respect he had always been due.

The eldest, and the most beautiful and cunning, had been lost to him before the hunt had even began, much to his pity. Andromeda Black had married, of all people, the son of a Pokemart manager. Edward Tonks was the first of his family to attend Hogwarts and from what he had gathered on the man was happy to muddle about through life, never seeking to elevate himself. Normally he would have appreciated that, as commoner who knew there place was better than an uppity one, but not when he stole one of the prized Black sisters. Andromeda could have been a queen in Avalon, the likes of which had never been seen in several generations; now she was a lawyer who couldn't even produce an heir, birthing only a girl who now, according to his spies, served as Jonas Kenway's new second-in-command in the Johto Elite 4, acting in his steed while he was off with the Potter brat doing… Arceus knows what.

The second option to him had been Bellatrix and as Lucius watched his sister-in-law thankfully go over to gush with Regulus Black about how wonderful their master was Lucius wondered what life might have been like if he had found her while she was in school. According to all the reports she had been a cunning, devious, and skilled trainer who had been the top Slytherin in her class and who'd ruled the Snake Pit with the perfect mixture of fear and loyalty. Her enemies cowered as she passed and her allies fell to their knees in hopes of pleasing her.

But then, the summer after her graduation, once she had fully taken her place in Team Nocturne, something had happened and by the time of her 19th birthday she had gone completely mad. Some said it was from becoming a magnus with a Ghost-Type, which was always frowned upon and had even been outlawed after the war. Some claimed that the Dark Lord had feared her and to prove herself she had submitted to the full power of his Cruio, the pain breaking her mind but proving her loyalty. He'd even heard whispers that Bellatrix had become pregnant while in school and her father had forced her to give away the child, the loss of her baby shattering her mind.

Others whispered that her husband, Rodolphus, had won her hand not by proving to be her equal on the field of battle but through psychic attacks on her mind that he had thought would merely make her feel love for her but instead drove her into insanity. Lucius thought that was a possibility as Bellatrix had proven that she was still madly in love with the Frank Longbottom, even after he'd married his sweetheart. Even now, in Bella's world, the ranking for those who deserved her affection went their Master… then Frank. Lucius had watched her just two days ago kill a grunt for mocking the boy Neville Longbottom, Bella screaming that he could have been her son. Nevermind that she herself wanted to kill him because Neville represented that the object of her desire had been with another woman.

Lucius thought it far simpler than that. Sometimes... sometimes a person just let go. And there was no going back.

Whatever had happened to her it had led her and Lucius on radically different paths that yet had also brought them back into contact. Bellatrix had become the Dark Lord's lead torturer and killer on the battlefield while Lucius married Bellatrix's baby sister Narcissia and used the pilfered wealth he'd taken from his family home along with his own cunning to become the backer for his master's campaign.

'And if I must choose a role I will choose mine over hers,' he thought to himself as he watched Bellatrix straighten as their Lord made his appearance finally on the deck of the ship; while the rest of them had been told to wait above he and he alone had been allowed the comforts below. Lucius watched as Bellatrix fawned over their master, prostrating herself and promising glorious pain for all his enemies. 'When the war is done and all are brought to heel our master will still have need of me. I will rule as his right hand. As for her... what use is there for a mad dog when there are no more to sic them upon?'

Lucius pushed such thoughts away as his master approached him, looking at everyone from behind his masked hood. Unlike the previous times he'd appeared before them all the Dark Lord had appeared since the battle against Potter and his rescuers in all manner of masks and hoods. None dared wonder if it was because he'd chosen to alter his appearance again or if he had been injured; such questions were a death sentence. Instead they all merely bowed as their lord cleared his throat.

"We have done well to strike out against the first who have dared stand against us," the Dark Lord said, his voice muffled and whispered, forcing them all to lean forward to hear. "Many of our brothers and sisters have been freed. Now though we strike at a different target, to ensure the wedge between them and Avalon is forever in place. By tomorrow morning there will be no hope of a peace. We will have all the regions baying for their blood while we prepare to take advantage of the chaos to cement ourselves as now and forever being the rulers of Avalon... with me as its undisputed master!"

The Nocturne Agents, Admins, and Grunts all cheered at this.

The Dark Lord turned, adjusting the long brown coat he wore, before pulling out a pair of escrima sticks. They were crudely made, having been fashioned quickly and without any of the additions the true pair had. The sticks were a pale shadow of the ones wielded in the Kanto/Johto War... but this night it wouldn't matter.

All they needed for blood... and disinformation.

Location Discovered… 4 miles north of Little Surrey