A/N - I spoil you too much, but you have another chapter. Read and review.
o-0-o
Harry walked out of his room, when he saw Jean walking towards him. "Hey, what do you want?" He asked
"Professor wants to see you," she said "He said that he would like to see you as soon as possible."
He arched an eyebrow and looked at her.
"Don't arch an eyebrow on me, I'm not his mind and sometimes his reasons are an unknown." He could tell that she was telling the truth, yet there was something more to it than she was willing to admit.
"Fine," He nodded. "It's just that I like to have some more informations."
"Who doesn't," she said as they walked through the hallways of the school. He could see that even if Jean was also a student, she had a lot of respect from the rest of it as they tried to stay out of her path.
"Why do they move out of your way?" He asked and when he glanced at her face he could see a slight grimace flicker across it.
"It's a long story, one that I don't want to tell you, at least not yet as I do not trust you enough to tell it," she said and looked at him "It's nothing personal, but I don't like to talk about it with you, at least until I know you better."
"O-Okay," he nodded, a bit surprised by her behavior. She seemed for him like an open person, yet her behavior was strange at times. He didn't have too much time to think over those things as before he could notice they arrived in front of Professor X office. Doors in front of them opened on their own.
He glanced at her and she motioned for him to go into the office, he nodded and walked inside. He saw Professor X sat behind his desk and look at him. "Harry, do you have any idea why I asked you to come here?"
"No, Professor," he said, shaking his head and sitting down in one of chairs.
Professor X nodded "The reason why I had called you is hidden inside of your mind, there is a parasite inside of it. One that shouldn't exist and from what I know it feeds on your energy."
Harry's eyes narrowed as he looked at Professor X. "How sure are you of it?"
"As sure as I can be, otherwise I wouldn't bother you with it," Professor said and looked at Harry "I know how to deal with such things, so can you drop all of the shields surrounding your mind and allow me a safe access into your mind."
He was silent for a moment, but than nodded. He whispered several phrases in language of Asgard and upon the surface of his skin appeared rows of black runes. They formed circles around his eyes and a swirling pattern across left side of his face and neck.
"Impressive," Professor X said, before closing his eyes, the very same moment Harry felt something lurking into his mind. He fought an urge to squash it and remove from his mind. He knew that it was a friendly person so he let it do whatever it was doing. He felt it pull on something and than he let out a hoarse scream of pain as he felt as if something had stabbed him, multiple time, with a white hot iron.
o-0-o
Somewhere deep in the dark forests of Albania Voldemort let out a loud shriek as something or someone destroyed a part of his soul and weakened him. During past eleven years he was growing in strength, but now a good part of it was gone, simply gone, as if cut away with a knife.
He hissed as he considered who did it, when I'm going to find him, I'm going to slowly and painfully kill him, he swore to himself and flew towards the nearest snake he could spot. He needed its energy to sustain himself and get energy for even the most basic magic.
o-0-o
Wanda Maximoff was in the middle of her meditation session when she felt something activate one of few spells she had left on Harry. Her eyes snapped open and she focused on that spell. When she saw the issue with it, her eyes narrowed dangerously and flashed a dangerous shade of scarlet. "He wouldn't do that, would he?"
She summoned herself a portal and stepped through it, it seemed that she needed to speak with some people about being stupid and doing rash things.
She stepped out of the portal in Xavier's office and looked around, balls of energy in her hands. "What did you do to him?" She asked as her sight landed on a bald mutant that was in the office.
"I did nothing," Xavier said and her eyes narrowed. "I only removed a leech that tried to live on his energy and magic."
"Leech?" She asked as balls of energy disappeared from her hands and she looked at Xavier. He is telling the truth, she thought. "What kind of leech?"
"I have no knowledge of magic, but it was a part of some wizard and was connected with the scar on his forehead."
"Part of some wizard?" She asked, her voice getting a dangerous and sharp edge to it.
"Yes," Xavier said and paused for a moment, as if he was looking for a word. "It felt evil, it was tainted with death."
She nodded as almost immediately knew what it was. "Horcrux, than."
"What's that?"
"In short, a way to cheat death, one that makes them can live even if his body is killed. If I had to guess on the night when James and Lily were murdered, Voldemort wanted to make another one. When he was hit by his own curse his soul shattered and a shard of it lodged behind Harry's scar." She said and looked at Xavier "Where is he?"
"In medical bay, sleeping," Xavier said and looked at her. "Do you want someone to take you there?"
"No." She shook her head. "I will appear in a couple of days as now I want to track down the rest of those things as there must be more of them."
"How many more?"
"Maximum that you can make is seven including main piece or shard of soul, more than that would turn you into an abomination that isn't a human being," she explained and summoned another portal for herself. "I will be watching him, don't make a mistake," she said before stepping through a portal and disappearing from Xavier's. She needed to hunt down an annoying wizard to get data out of him.
o-0-o
Harry opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times when he felt strong, bright light hit him straight in the face. He could hear soft beeping of medical machines, he looked around and saw that he was in some sort of a medical facility. He felt a throbbing, dull pain in the back of his head. He sat up and groaned as his muscles protested.
"It seems that you set a new record in how fast you can land in medical bay," someone said and when he looked in a direction of that voice he saw a large mountain of blue hairs.
Harry arched an eyebrow when he looked at that thing. It didn't look a lot like human, he was used to seeing weird mutants, but even this was a bit of a stretch. It reminded him of Kree he had seen when on Asgard. But they weren't so furry and certainly were more human-like.
"I'm Hank McCoy, also known as Beast." The mountain introduced himself. "I normally teach Biology, Chemistry and few other things, as well as heal the X-Men and students that did something stupid."
"Did I do something stupid?" Harry frowned as a stream of memories hit him. "Ouch." He rubbed back of his head.
Beast smiled and Harry could see some amusement in his eyes. "You didn't do anything stupid, just Professor needed to be a bit brutal when he dealt with that thing that decided to live in you. What are those tattoos covering left side of your head and neck?"
Harry looked at himself and saw that tattoos that normally stayed hidden were visible. "Part of defenses of my mind, they help me with pushing out of my mind psychic attacks or any probes that want to learn about things that I don't want to talk about."
Beast nodded and was silent as he seemed to be checking something on his tablet. "You seem to be fine and as healthy as I'm or even more, so you are free to go. Just don't get send here as quickly as you will leave it."
"I don't want to disappoint you, but knowing my track record when training on Asgard you will see a lot of me," Harry said as he got out of the bed.
Beast sighed and looked at him. "Between you, your cousin and X-Men it seems that I will be busy this year."
Harry chuckled lightly and looked around. "Where is exit out of here?"
"Behind me," Beast said. "Than second doors on the right should get you to the main part of the mansion."
"Thank you," Harry said and looked at Beast "I will try to stay out of troubles, but I do not look for them."
"They just find you and you can't do much about them," Beast finished, making Harry arch an eyebrow. "Your cousin uses the same excuse when he gets injured."
"Oh." He made a note to talk with Warren about a thing or two. It seemed that there was more to his cousin than he at first thought.
"Just stay away from them and we will be good," Beast said and Harry nodded, walking out of medical bay and leaving the ape-like mutant to his own devices. It was less important to him than the fact that he was thirsty, hungry and felt as if he ate a lot of Styrofoam, which wasn't pleasant. He walked round the corner and almost crashed into Bobby and Warren.
"What had happened to you?" Warren asked the moment they got over their surprise and managed not to bump into each other. "I saw you being levitated by Jean to the medical bay, but I didn't get a single word out of her."
"A thing attempted to leech on my magic and Professor was forced to deal with it," Harry said and winced. "He did it in probably the least subtle manner he could."
"Meaning what?" Bobby asked "Also you look like hell."
"Thank you," Harry said dryly and thought for a moment about explaining what he meant. "He used a simple brute force attack to get that thing out of my head."
"Ouch." Warren winced as they walked into the main part of the mansion.
"Yeah, very ouch," He nodded and sent a trickle of magic into tattoos covering his body, they shimmered and disappeared out of view.
"How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Not have tattoos, than have them and again not have them," Warren clarified.
"Magic," Harry said with a smile. "They are a more nasty set of protections that surround my mind."
"If they are supposed to protect your mind." Bobby started and Harry glanced at his Brazilian friend. "Than how the heck that thing managed to stay inside of your mind."
"It was there before they were inscribed onto my skin and it simply avoided being spotted," Harry said as they got to the canteen. He lazily waved his hand and smiled when food simply flew towards it. "It seems that I can still do my magic," He said as he sat down at one of free tables.
Warren's mouth was wide open as he stared at Harry and later at the food that he just summoned.
"What?" Harry asked as he looked up at his older cousin, who was still a bit taller than he was.
"How did you summon food?" Warren managed to say after a moment.
"Magic" Harry smirked.
"So what magic can do?" Bobby asked
"Better would be what it cannot do," Harry said and paused for a moment. How much I should tell them, he thought, all of it or only the most basic and boring things. "It can't raise dead, other than that it depends on the power, knowledge and creativity of one that uses magic."
"Okay," Bobby stuttered and shook his head "Since you are a son of Thor, do you have any bonuses from it?"
"Excluding being a Prince of Asgard and in line to the throne?" He grinned.
"Excluding that." Bobby nodded.
"In theory I should be able to have some sort of control over weather and lightning, to what extend is an unknown."
"Storm is going to be jealous," Warren chuckled and Harry looked at him. "She has control over weather."
"Oh," He said, he didn't yet hear too much about Storm, that is excluding her reputation. He knew how she looked as it was quite hard, not to see her, but he didn't see her powers.
"And she is most likely the one that will help you in getting them under control," Bobby added. "So I suggest that you meet her, by the way, what do you think of your team?"
"Frost is just charming." Harry said said with a lot of disdain visible in his voice.
"She is, isn't she," Bobby agreed. "Although with Mirage and Wolfsbane you shouldn't complain too much about her."
Harry nodded and focused back on eating, he wanted to sort out some of his thoughts and this moment of silence was a perfect opportunity to do so.
o-0-o
Sean Cassidy looked around as he entered Xavier's, he was here a couple of times and his daughter was a student of it. He easily spotted Wolverine who was leaning against the wall and waiting for him.
"I see that Fury sent you here to help us," Wolverine said. "Not that we mind it."
"He did," Sean said as Wolverine joined him and they walked into the Institute. "So who or what is new?"
"Black Eagle, younger cousin of Angel and a son of Thor. He seems to have issues with White Queen, who is his team leader," Wolverine said and Sean mindlessly nodded.
White Queen was a hard one to get on with, so him having a problem with her is a thing that they should have expected, he thought. "Usual butting heads about who is in command and arguments about some rules?" He asked
"Yes," Wolverine nodded."If she won't change, she loses her team leadership and someone else will need to be placed as their leader." At those words Sean looked at Wolverine.
"You want to outright change leader of the team even before they will have their first training session?"
"She and Black Eagle seem to dislike each other to the point where it can be a problem on the battlefield and since you are here, you might as well be their leader," Wolverine said.
Sean was silent for a moment as he mulled over those words, it wouldn't be the first time when I was given a team to lead, he thought and looked at Wolverine. "I will speak with Charles first and than with them."
"What about your duties as an agent of SHIELD?"
"Fury sent me here and it means that for a really long time I'm stuck here," Sean said with a smile."Not that I have anything against his decision. I always loved being here and maybe finally I will have more time to spend with Siryn and a couple other people."
"You should as they are a training team, at least for the time being," Wolverine said. "Although the moment some other mutants will show an interest and will in joining the roster, they might be upgraded to an actual team."
"Excluding Black Eagle who else is on the team?"
"Mirage, Native American, archer and can create powerful illusions and Wolfsbane, Moira's daughter, she can change shape into a wolf. He is an enigma as with each day we learn more and more about him," Wolverine said and paused for a moment. "According to what he said, excluding his usual set of traits that come with being an Æsir, he will also have control over the weather and has wings."
"Wings?" Sean asked, if he was right about it, he would hit a goldmine with him. Usually winged or connected with air mutants are good with flying and steering the plane, he thought.
"Yes," Wolverine said and Sean could see some flickers of amusement in his eyes. "If you are thinking about the same thing, I am thinking, we are most likely correct. I didn't have time to ask Cyclops to take him to the simulator or an actual plane."
"Do it as soon as you can," Sean said "If this year will be as bad as previous one was, we will need every single pilot we can get and now we have me, Storm, Cyclops, Angel, Havok and that's all. One more pilot would be ideal as we could rotate them and keep everybody fresh and ready."
Wolverine was silent for a moment and than nodded. "You are right, you can be sure that I will talk with them about it, today."
"Good," Sean smiled as they stopped in front of Xavier's office. He looked at the doors and later at Wolverine. "I will find you once I'm done with him and everything is settled."
He saw Wolverine nod and with a small smile he stepped into the office of Charles Xavier, probably one of very few people that could make him be careful.
o-0-o
Freyr walked through the halls of the Citadel and was surprised, it was so silent and peaceful that it was almost impossible to believe that it could be so quiet. During last few years it was much louder than it was now. He kind of missed the times when it was louder than it was now. However, on the other hand, it being so quiet wasn't that bad as it allowed him to clearly think without any need to watch out for a small bundle of energy that might have decided not to watch where it was going and crash into him.
"To think that just only one person caused so much noise," someone said to his right and when he looked there he saw Sif, she was wearing her normal armor with a sword slung over her back.
"Yes," he said. "I wonder if we should pity inhabitants of Midgard or be thankful that they need to deal with him."
"I would say pity," she said and looked at him. "Although with what I heard about how dangerous it can get there for him, I would say that I much more prefer him being here."
"He has his wolves with him and Wolf Guard will join him the moment there is danger," he pointed out and was silent for a moment. He knew that they were missing something from a bigger image, something crucial that could be a problem or a good thing. His eyes widened when he realized what they were missing. "Did one that killed Lady Lily and injured His Highness was killed for good or captured?"
Sif was silent for a moment, he could see her eyes narrow. "No, according to my knowledge he neither was captured nor was he killed," She said slowly.
"Well, it seems that we need to speak with His Majesty about this little annoyance that needs to be hunted down," Freyr said as they turned around the corner and entered into a much wider and extremely lavishly decorated corridor with banners hanging from the walls and pieces of art placed along them. He rolled his eyes in amusement when he saw this obnoxious and loud show of wealth and power, he could recognize pieces of art that came from at least several different cultures that weren't a part of the Nine Realms. They were brought from Olympus, Kree Empire and Heliopolis to just name a few.
"Are you going to lead the hunt?"
"No." He shook his head and glanced at her. "Hrimhari will be the one as it seems that I will need to travel to Kree and negotiate with them. They requested someone from one of the leading noble families or from the royal family and since I'm Prince of Vanaheim I'm one of few that can do it. My dear sister could do it, but she doesn't want to and Eitri is playing his usual game against Giants and makes a lot of money in the process."
"Kree?" Sif arched an eyebrow. "What do we want from them?"
"It's the other way around," he said and sighed. "Midgard even if it is a rather useless planet when it comes to its location, has a lot of things that everybody wants and we either negotiate with them or we will have a war."
"Even with that alliance signed just a couple months ago and the fact that they are battling Skrull and would like our help?"
He nodded and sighed. "They do not think clearly when it comes to that little planet and the fact that we extend our influence irks them." He frowned and paused. "It doesn't irks them, it's just a world that they want to keep out of the game or get an agreement that will give them some rights to it. Also Chitauri are once again getting loud and may cause troubles in the future."
"They won't get bored with losing a war after a war, will they?" Sif sighed. "We had beaten them ten or so times in the last century and they got mauled pretty badly above Midgard. Yet they still want a war."
"Intelligence doesn't seem to be their strong side and it looks like this time their leaders are pretty bad," he said and nodded to guards that stood at attention to the sides of the doors. They soundlessly moved, revealing a massive circular chamber behind them. It was a Chamber of Privy Council, he entered it and took his usual seat at the lavishly decorated table. He saw three empty chairs, not a surprise there, he thought, Thor, Loki and Harald are on Midgard, so their spots are free. He pushed those things out of his mind and focused on his liege, it was going to be another dull, but important meeting.
o-0-o
"Why do I have a feeling that it will end terribly?" Harry asked as he stood with Rahne and Danielle in Danger Room. White Queen decided only to watch the exercise, for which he was grateful as he knew that he might have issues with working with her. He was dressed in his Asgard forged plate armor, he turned down an offer to use a traditional X-Men suit, which was worn by girls. It consisted of heavy, black leather boots, pants covered in layers of composites to reinforce them and protected one wearing them from at least some injuries. and a jacket reinforced with pieces of armor.
"You are a big boy, you will be fine," Mirage said. "Also you have your plate armor, while we have our normal suits."
"True," He briefly smiled as he looked around the room. It was changing as the walls shimmered for a moment and in place of usual blue walls and floor was a part of a ruined city, also there was an actual piece of sky above their heads.
"I've seen this one before," Wolfsbane said "We need to get into one of those buildings and wait out the thing that will happen."
"Thing that will happen?" He asked as he looked around, his eyes slipped over pieces of concrete that covered the street, burned out cars and some blood between them. Than they moved over to the buildings along both sides of the road, they seemed to be low, up to two floors, but usually just one and they were missing doors and windows were in pieces.
"You will see," she said as she ran into the nearest building. They followed her into it and he crouched behind the wall when he was inside. He slipped Tyrfing back into its scabbard, instead he grabbed his pistol. It wasn't a normal pistol, no, it was a pistol made by dwarves of Nidavellir and it didn't use something as crude as normal ammunition, instead it fired runic one. It was far superior to anything that humans were able to construct and far more accurate.
"Good idea," Mirage nodded. "Sword would be too bulky."
"Can you help me here?" Wolfsbane asked, she seemed to be fighting with some doors that didn't want to open.
"Open them?" He asked as he joined her and took a look at them. They looked like typical ones made out of wood and reinforced with a bit of steel or other metal.
"Yes," She said.
He nodded and kicked them a couple of times. At first they held strong, but after second kick they gave up and fell apart. He looked at Wolfsbane and she smiled.
"Follow me," she said. "And for the sake of everything precious, be silent."
He sensed that she wasn't joking and nodded, he stepped through the remains of doors, half a step behind her and looked around. It was dark and he could feel some faint smell in the air, he glanced backwards and saw Mirage join them.
Wolfsbane raised her finger to her lips and than pointed forward. He nodded in understanding as he recognized it as one of few signals he had already learnt. He gripped tightly his gun and focused a bit of magic in his eyes, everything became much clearer and the darkness was mostly gone.
o-0-o
Sean Cassidy smiled as he watched the trio that most likely would be his team walk through the city. "They know what they are doing," he said as he looked at Wolverine. "I feared that Black Eagle would have issues with not being in command, but he seems to be able to listen to orders and does them without questions."
"I also saw it," Wolverine nodded. "It should help him as it will be a long time before he gets a command post."
"Exactly. He is also able to think which is a thing that I didn't expect him to posses. Not many would be willing to switch their weapons, at least not without prior training."
"He was trained on Asgard. And I think that it would be one of the very first lessons he would get. To think and be careful, in close quarters sword is a bit too large to freely move, especially one that he has. While I have a feeling that his gun is something more than a normal one."
"Let's see," Sean said and turned to the console responsible for this simulation. He changed a couple of settings and turned to watch the display. Soon it was going to be much more interesting.
o-0-o
Harry's eyes slipped over the walls covered in damp patches and paint that was peeling away, under the ceiling were sparse light bulbs that provided some light, but even with them most of it was covered in various shades of darkness.
"There should be a door on the left," Wolfsbane whispered.
He looked at the wall and placed his hand on it, he was willing to trust his touch more than he was going to trust his eyes. He looked for any line that was too straight and even to be a natural made one. His fingers slipped over a line. "There is something," he said as he glanced at her.
"Can you open it?" She asked
"I should be able to," he said as he lightly pressed door handle, with a loud creek, that made him jump up, doors moved.
"Wa-" Wolfsbane started to say when he stepped into the room and felt a heavy piece of wood slam into his helmet. "You should first wait," she said pulling him backwards,"Those things are generated as realistically as possible and they leave the same amount of pain as you would normally feel."
"You could have said that earlier," he sighed and let her take the lead. In the room there was another set of doors and two windows to the sides of them. He crouched below one of them and looked out. He could see two gray robots move through the street accompanied by a couple of mercenaries. They were hovering above the ground and it looked as if they were looking for someone or something.
"Those are Sentinels," Mirage said as she joined him. "Robots that hunt us, aim for head and if you have armor piercing, use them."
"What about those mercenaries?" He asked indicating a couple of humans that were with robots.
"I will deal with them," she said, grim expression on her face.
"O-Okay," he said and took a careful aim at the closest robot, he depressed the trigger and watched as a couple of supersonic darts flew through the air and impacted the robot in its head. They punched through the metal and exploded inside of it, sending it to the ground. He didn't marvel the destruction he had caused, instead he quickly moved his gun towards the other robot and fired a couple more darts into it.
When the second robot slammed into the ground he looked at the mercenaries and saw that they were laying on the ground, unconscious.
"Good job, but we need to get going," Wolfsbane said. "They will most likely see that we had dealt with them and we can expect them to hurl something more at us."
He nodded and they followed Wolfsbane through the maze made out of building and small, and narrow streets. It seemed as if the city was deserted, but he could feel someone or something getting close to them.
"Watch out!" Mirage shouted as she pushed him out of the way. He had a second to see what was the reason for her behavior and he saw a dozen or so of Sentinels converge on their position.
"Crap!" Wolfsbane said before she changed shape and in place of her normal nails she had claws and her eyes turned into lupine ones.
He nodded in agreement and started to focus magical energy in his hands. Sentinels didn't wait to see what he was preparing and started to fire at him. However none of those shots hit him and with a nasty smirk he pointed his hand in general direction of those robots. From his fingers erupted a stream of energy that cut the first two in half and burned a couple more.
"Wow," Mirage said when she saw the amount of damage he had caused.
"Thanks," he said and sent an invisible blast of force towards the remaining Sentinels and they were crushed by it, falling to the ground in dozens, if not hundreds of pieces.
o-0-o
"Who is he?" Sean asked when he saw Sentinels ripped by something that he didn't spot. "He can fly, has superhuman level strength, agility, endurance and is almost impossible to kill, can summon bolts of energy and now this."
"That didn't look like telekinesis, did it?" Wolverine asked and made Seam pause for a moment.
"No, it looked more like a some sort of weird form of energy manipulation. It wasn't the same thing that Magneto has, no, it was more similar to what I have," Sean said and frowned. "Yet it wasn't sound as it would simply scatter them, it crushed them so it was something that covered a large area and didn't leave them room to maneuver."
"He also knows how to fight in hand to hand combat."
"What he doesn't know?" Sean asked in exasperation. "He must have some weak point or more as so far he looks too good to be true."
"He dislikes White Queen and seems to have issues with control of his temper," Wolverine said. "As well as he seems to focus on attacking when in fight." Sean looked at his friend "It doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to defend, but he doesn't use it a lot."
"That can be his bane when he will run into someone that is better than he is," he said, thoughtful expression on his face. If he is so focused on attacking and doesn't like to defend, he needs someone to beat some intelligence into his thick skull, he thought.
"The Crusher?" Wolverine asked. "Or something else?"
"The Crusher isn't bad, but not thrown onto him right away, let him get used to being here and if I'm right someone else will explain to him the need to be more cautious when fighting." Sean said and saw Wolverine nod.
"Sunspot or Angel should be able to do it, sooner than later or even Phoenix as she knows the issue with control of your power and should know how to explain it to him."
"Phoenix?" Sean arched an eyebrow.
"New nickname of Marvel Girl, she changed it around last year or so."
"Okay," he said and turned back to displays that showed the simulation, he was impressed by how well they were doing for their first time. It was still an easy one, but they didn't make too many mistakes and he was glad that he sent White Queen away from them. She would be more of a pain than of help.
o-0-o
Maria Hill looked around as she stepped out of the Quinjet that landed in a small hangar that was a part of the main SHIELD base in Europe. Her gaze slipped over steel pillars and rough stone that was visible between them. It was still in the construction stage so wires and plumbing was visible all over the walls.
"Director Hill, welcome to the Rock," Natasha Romanov said standing to attention.
"Thank you, Agent Romanov," Maria said. "Can you take me to the command center?"
"Of course," Natasha nodded. "It's still a bit rough around the edges, but it should be sufficient for your mission."
"He mentioned that, he also said that you are the one that is supposed to tell me about ones that I'm supposed to hunt.
"Death Eaters, they are a rag-tag group of wizards from old and rich families that think that wizards are superior and the rest of society should serve them. Their leader is supposed to be dead-"
"Supposed to?" Maria asked, she was used to knowledge being more precise.
"He was supposed to get killed when he attempted to murder Harry Potter some ten years ago, but the problem is that excluding his robe and wand they didn't find a single piece of him. And wizards have a tendency to survive odds that should have killed them."
"Just great, so leader that can be in hiding," she said and looked at Natasha. "What about the rest of them? I would expect them to be safely locked away and or dead."
Natasha snorted in amusement and Maria glared at her. "In normal society they would have been imprisoned, with wizards, they are still happily roaming the country. Heck, one of them is one of the closest advisors to the Minister of Magic and the rest of them have lofty positions inside of that institution."
"So the Ministry will be totally against us?"
"Not exactly, there are some that attempt to fight with this thing and they also have high positions. In fact they have two the most important ones, one is a Director of their law enforcement and second is of mysteries, which is a mix of research and intelligence division."
"What about MI-13?"
"MI-13 is good, but doesn't have power necessary to deal with this organization, not when they need to battle the Ministry. If it came just to removal of some rogue ones, they would do that, but not when against the biggest force on the Isles."
Maria nodded and took a look around the command center into which they had entered, it was a large circular room with rows of workstations and a large holographic map of the world and even more detailed one on one of walls. However excluding those things it felt extremely bare as otherwise walls were rough and unpolished and wires were hanging from the ceiling, reminding her more of a construction side than of an office. She walked to the map and motioned for Natasha to join her. "Where would you start looking for ones that are our targets?"
Natasha was silent for a moment. "Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria and other countries associated with Durmstrang school of magic," she finally said.
"Durmstrang?"
"One of the three most prestigious and the best schools of magic on the Old Continent, known for dark arts and shady students. They also tend to provide shelter to ones that have sentences for dark arts or murders."
"Lovely group," Maria snorted and looked at the map. "Where that Durmstrang is supposed to be?"
"That's the problem with this school, it moves from country to country," Natasha said and indicated a spot on the map. "One of the last times I saw it, it was here."
Maria followed her finger and whistled quietly. "St Petersburg, no wonders that we had so many issues when in Russia."
"Among other things."
"Can you track it down?" She asked as she looked at Natasha.
Natasha was silent for a moment and than nodded. "I can do that, I still have some contacts that should know where it is going to be."
"Do it and try to look around it," Maria said and looked at the map, she had a pretty large area to check for terrorists and not a lot of man. Or at least for a moment not a lot of man as Fury held back some that were supposed to get here ahead of her.
She sighed and walked to her office, she sat down behind a desk that was most likely installed only a couple of hours ago and opened her laptop.
o-0-o
Harry rolled out of the way of falling piece of debris and turned to look at the thing that sent it towards him. He was getting annoyed by those robots and the fact that they seemed not to end, to make matters worse he somehow got separated from Wolfsbane and Mirage. They were ambushed at the intersection and split. He channeled a trickle of magic into the triskelion set in his bracelet and in his left hand appeared a round shield, at the same time he drew his sword and looked at those annoying robots.
He was tired of them shooting at him and with shield in front of him, he charged at them, when he was in front of the closest one, he jumped into the air. He brought down his sword in a overhead strike and with some satisfaction watched as it cleaved through the composites that made up most of Sentinel's head.
He jumped away, ripping the sword from the wreckage, he spun around and slammed into one that was to his side, runes engraved on the blade of Tyrfing flashed dangerously and it cut through the body of Sentinel. It came out of it on the other side and in a fluid motion he opened the chest of the last one.
He watched parts of Sentinels slam into the ground, he looked around, just to see if there were more of them coming his way and when he spotted none, he kneeled. He drew on the ground a couple of runes and sent a small trickle of magic into them. They activated and he smiled when they pointed straight ahead. Putting sword into his scabbard he stood up and walked in direction from where he had came.
"So where are you?" He asked himself as his eyes scanned the landscape, most of buildings that previously were standing here were demolished by them and their fights with Sentinels. In the air were thick clouds of dust thrown up all the explosions and crushed stone, he knew that it was a simulation, but it was so darn realistic that it wasn't funny.
Squinting his eyes he looked around, he sighed as he saw only dust and even more dust. He spread his wings and jumped into the air, he knew that he would be targeted by every single Sentinel and sniper that was in the area, but he needed to see what was going on.
o-0-o
"Risky tactic," Wolverine said as they saw Harry fly to get above all the dust and sand that were in the air.
Sean nodded in agreement. "Risky, but he doesn't have many choices when it comes to his tactic," he said after a moment. "That or he relies on senses and in this cloud of dust maybe Wolfsbane or one of telelaths would be able to find the rest of the group."
"They shouldn't have split."
"We both know that this was the only good choice that they had," he said and sighed. "They should get their earpieces and get tied into the net, it would be much easier for them. But they didn't and now they need to find each other, in a more traditional way."
"And avoid getting shot into pieces," Wolverine added, he only glared at his friend or comrade and nodded.
"There is also that, but they should be fine and the moment they find each other it ends."
"You want to talk about it with them or not?"
"Yes, they are good, but everybody makes mistakes and it's better to know about them now, than get injured or killed because you did something wrong."
"It seems that they are getting to the end of the simulation," Wolverine said, drawing his attention back to the display.
o-0-o
Harry hovered above the ground and his eyes scanned the ground, he was looking for Mirage and Wolfsbane as he knew they should be somewhere around the place. From above it looked even worse than it looked from the ground, as he could see the true extend of damage done to the town and it looked like a landscape taken from the moon. Almost every single house was damaged or destroyed and everywhere were parts of Sentinels.
He spotted a brown wolf pass between one piece of rubble and another, he folded his wings and dived towards it. His wings unfolded as he neared the ground and slowed him down, so that he didn't crash into it, but instead gently landed. Brown wolf that he had previously seen was gone and in its place was standing Wolfsbane, over her face was smeared grime and some blood.
"Good that you are here," she said. "I couldn't find you with my nose and got worried."
"I'm not that easy to kill," he laughed and looked around. "Do you have an idea where Mirage is?"
"Yes, follow me and watch where you place your feet as ground isn't as firm as it looks to be."
"Okay," he said and followed her through the rubble, he watched the landscape and was still surprised by how realistic it looked. If it wasn't destroyed by their fights with Sentinels, he would say that it looked beautiful as it used to be a picturesque town. Now it was a giant pile of rubble and debris.
Wolfsbane entered a small building that seemed to be the least destroyed and he followed her in, from time to time looking around to see if there were more Sentinels coming. He didn't spot any. Mirage was leaning against the wall, bow in her hand and a half empty quiver to the side.
"Where did you find him?" Mirage asked when she saw that he was also there.
"Somewhere in that pile of rubble." Wolfsbane said, indicating everything around. "I think that this simulation is over."
"Yes," Harry agreed as he saw the landscape around them slowly shimmer out of view. In its placed appeared blue on blue walls of the Danger Room.
"You did good," Wolverine said walking towards them, Harry didn't have the slightest idea how older mutant managed to slip into the room unseen by them. However much to their surprise he wasn't alone, Harry looked at girls and saw that they recognized who it was. He was a tall, lean person with blonde hair and blue eyes, he was wearing uniform worn by X-Men, but with a red trim, not a usual yellow one. "That's your new leader, Sean Cassidy, also known as Banshee," Wolverine explained.
"Thank you, Wolverine," Banshee said and walked to them. "From today I'm a new leader of this team, White Queen was removed by Professor X and he chose me as a leader."
Harry breathed out in relief. "Honestly speaking, anybody will be better than she was," he said sincerely.
"Well, I will try to be better than she was, but be warned that you won't get any preferential treatment from me. I will demand a lot from you and I the training won't be easy, you are going to dream about such simulation as this one."
Harry smiled at those words, he wanted someone like Sean.
"Are you sure of yourself?" Sean asked him.
"No, just sure of my abilities," he said. "I'm used to demanding training from my time on Asgard."
"Will see," Sean said in such way that he almost instantly gulped in fear, he knew that he was not going to enjoy a couple of next training sessions. "Anyways, for the first training session you did good, there are things that there could have been done better, but we will work on them at a later date."
o-0-o
"You can change into a wolf?" Harry asked as they walked out of the Danger Room.
"Yes," Rahne said and briefly smiled. "You seem not surprised by it."
"Well, uncle can change shape into whatever form he wishes to take and some of them are much, much more interesting than a wolf," he smiled. "So, no, I'm not surprised."
"Is there anything that can surprise you?" Danielle asked.
"Maybe," he laughed. "But it will be a hard task."
"We'll see," she smirked as they walked to the changing rooms to get out of their clothes and get into something cleaner and fresher. As well as much more comfortable as he felt in his armor as if he was slowly boiling.
o-0-o
Vampireking40 - she is up to something, but she plays her cards really slowly and Banshee caused her a lot of problems, let's just say that he is neither a good, nor a bad character. Just tries to end in a place that gives her a lot of money and comfort.