Me: Welcome back, this is the second part, detailing the present and the future! Cue disclaimer!

Harry: This guy doesn't own anything from any worlds, he just owns this story line.

Me: Alright, onward!

From 1998-2004, there was a flurry of discoveries in the non-magical world. Theories on the universe were revised, the process of refining ectoplasm into a safe, renewable energy was discovered and implemented, a man began doing hostile takeovers of a large multitude of companies, and then leaving them alone. The Digital Millennium Copyrights Act was passed. A terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The magi decided to work more closely and come out in the open to deal with the threat against the Americans. The Linux kernel reached 2.6.x series. Linux became a serious competitor to Windows in the computing world. The beginnings of a recession. The fall in popularity of American President George W. Bush after the failures in dealing with the terrorist organization Al-Qa'ida and the War in Iraq.

However, the most unusual part of this period was the huge bout of magical activity in the non-magi sections of the world....

In 1999, a powerful crime organization called the "Dark Hand" began attempting to steal priceless treasures around the world. These treasures were twelve ancient talismans of Chinese legends, belonging to an ancient demon sorcerer known as Shendu.

Shendu was the ancient demon sorcerer of Fire and ruled over Asia during the Warring States Era of China (476BCE-221BCE), with his seven siblings (each controlling a different element) over various other parts of the world. Around 215BCE, his subjects became disgruntled enough with his evil and torturous rule that they summoned an ancient immortal chi warrior to destroy him. This warrior, known as Lo Pei, used a powerful chi spell to banish Shendu to a netherworld as seven other immortal chi warriors had to Shendu's siblings before him. Shendu eventually returned through the clever use of his ability to astrally project himself out of the realm he was banished to. So, Lo Pei devised another spell to defeat him. He sealed Shendu into the form of an Orbouros dragon statue, with his head in the center. Shendu's various powers were split away from him, in the form of twelve talismans, each representing a different animal of the Chinese zodiac. Lo Pei then used another spell to scatter the talismans across the globe, to help ensure Shendu would not be revived.

Section 13, one of America's several secret magi/non-magi government paramilitary bases, along with a team specializing in ancient legends and chi magic worked to try to stop the Dark Hand from acquiring all twelve talismans. However, in 2000, on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Shendu was returned to his true form. Section 13 and the special team traveled to Hong Kong, where Shendu's palace lies. They fought off Shendu and reverted him back to a statue and then destroyed him. However, this was not the last of Shendu.

A few months later, the Dark Hand attempted to begin a stealing spree using Shendu's talismans, which they recovered from Shendu's palace. During the spree, Valmont, the leader of the Dark Hand, was possessed by the spirit of Shendu. The talismans were recovered, but Shendu did not care about them too much, for Shendu had no use for them as a spirit. Shendu, trapped in Valmont's body, forced the Dark Hand to head to Tibet to find the Pan Ku Box, which was used by the eight immortal chi warriors to make and seal portals for each of the eight demon sorcerers, Shendu included. Using the Pan Ku Box, the Dark Hand released each of the other seven demon sorcerers, and each time Section 13 banished them back and sealed the portals permanently. Finally, Shendu's door was sealed permanently, while forcing Shendu's spirit out of Valmont's body.

Then, Daolon Wong, a dark chi wizard, attacked Section 13 to take the talismans. While this happened, the talismans were accidentally destroyed, releasing their magical essence which traveled to "noble" animals, descended from the original animals that the Chinese zodiac designated. Eventually, all the powers were recovered except for the Dragon Talisman, which contained the power of combustion. Because there were no "noble" dragons descended from the dragon that the zodiac image represented, the power was believed to be lost. However, Daolon Wong resurrected Shendu, the original owner of the power, and incidentally, a descendent of the "noble" dragons. Shendu attacked Section 13's underground base, only to be forced to leave in order to follow the animals containing his powers. Eventually, Shendu recovered all of his powers. Daolon Wong gave Section 13 the spells that they needed to defeat Shendu, the spells that turned Shendu into a statue centuries before, and split his powers out in the form of twelve talismans. This time, Shendu was not destroyed, but kept locked up, along with the talismans. Daolon Wong's powers were severely restricted and he was sent to prison.

While in prison, Daolon Wong managed to awaken Tarakudo, the king of the Shadowkhan and lord of all Oni. Oni are horned demons from Japan. In fact, it was during the time period shortly after the Shikon no Tama was recovered and hidden away but before he disappeared that Tarakudo and his Oni generals were defeated. It is said that Tarakudo and his generals wanted to enslave the entire planet and cover it in shadow through their power to manipulate Shadowkhan and their limited access to the Shadow Realm. The Youkai and spiritually-empowered humans worked together to seal away the nine Oni generals into nine masks and a tenth mask for Tarakudo. Before the tenth mask could be used, Tarakudo transported the mask to the Shadow Realm, hoping it would never be discovered. The rest of the masks were scattered across the world, hopefully to never be reunited. But it wasn't to last...

Once Tarakudo was awakened by Daolon Wong, he grabbed four former thugs from the Dark Hand to work to get the masks. Each time Tarakudo and the thugs acquired a mask, Section 13 would take it away from them. Unfortunately, this usually happened after someone wore the mask and their breed of Shadowkhan was used. After acquiring all nine masks of the Oni generals, they broke and released the original Oni generals because the masks were all in the same place. Section 13's underground base was taken over, and Section 13 was jailed. However, they discovered Tarakudo's mask, and used it to seal away all the Oni generals, the Shadowkhan, and Tarakudo himself into the mask. The mask resides in Section 13 as well.

Then, a few months later, Shendu's son, Drago, begins to attempt acquiring the demon chi of each of the seven other demon sorcerers from the objects the immortal chi warriors used to banish them. After a search across the world for the seven objects and the removal of Drago's own Fire chi, Drago captures the leader of Section 13 and the archaeologist working with them for ransom of all eight demon chi powers. He does get them, but Shendu is later released to deal with his son. Both of them are sealed into the netherworld, never to be seen or heard from again.

From 2004 to 2006, all the ancient spells recovered and researched will be published and stored in government archives to prevent the loss of the spells in the event they are needed again. After this, magical activity drops world wide, as many magical entities and objects depending on the imbalance of the good and evil life energy began to fail without the imbalance favoring evil present. One in particular is the Springs of Jusenkyo.

Activity in the non-magical world begins to pick up, despite worsening economic conditions world-wide....

By 2007, thin screen touchscreens were developed, though not used widely. In 2008, the recession becomes bad enough to be noticed, the world economy suffers. SCO Group, who claimed to own UNIX, loses the case against Novell and goes bankrupt, effectively dead. By 2009, the entire world is in dire straits, most countries in large debt, and to signify how bad it was, Microsoft laid off 3,000 workers for the first time in its nearly 35 years of operation.

In 2010, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger moved to America and formed Black, Inc. The group grew powerful due to the Potter influence and quickly became a giant in the world for manufacturing magical computers and non-magical ones. It was the first company to be a mixed company, of both magical and non-magical beings hired in it. The company literally saved the world economy.

Unfortunately, ten years later, Hermione Granger was killed by Draco Malfoy's son, Ares Draco Malfoy. At this point, Harry Potter began turning into a recluse. He always worked through proxy after this occurred. Many believe it was because Hermione Granger was one of few friends during the Second War with Voldemort that survived. The rest that had are considered dead because they either are insane from Cruciatus over exposure, or severely handicapped due to dark curses.

In 2038, Microsoft collapsed due to litigation strains and overspending against piracy and Linux. The Windows core division, which was the failing part, was spun off to die away from the company. Microsoft refocused and became a platform software development specialist as they had in their early days. They made their money to pull out of financial trouble through their Microsoft Office suite, which was ported to Linux and sold mass market with a random Linux distribution disc, as well as the Xbox platform, which was rebased to OpenBSD in 2020, and Visual Studio, their premier software development kit.

In 2039, Microsoft built their own Linux distribution, using components from FreeBSD, Fedora Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Gentoo Linux, and even their old Windows OS, which while dead after being spun off, Microsoft still retained joint rights over source code regarding kernel interfaces because of the IBM deal with OS/2 in the late 80s. A new Linux distribution was built, but not called a Linux distribution. It was called Microsoft Xenix (pronounced Scene-X), in reference to the old UNIX code base they licensed in the 80s, and to the scenes you see from a window. The thing that was special about it, was that it had the capability to run on magical computers just like regular Linux did, while providing compatibility with old hardware connected to non-magical computers. Microsoft sold this as an added value distribution for magi, and a valuable distribution with compatibility to non-magical people. As magi bought it and used it, the non-magical people did as well. Microsoft never really reached the dominance of before, but they managed a majority of the world to use their software. This was in part due to Black, Inc. buying a license for all of their magical machines and mixed magi/mundane factories. Black, Inc. eventually bought out Microsoft and split it into separate divisions.

In 2040, the US Government released information on the Stargate. In 2050, Harry Potter successfully replicated the Stargate with pure technology. He said he had actually replicated it five years earlier with assistance of magic, but he wanted to do it without magic. Harry Potter began funding research into time itself. By 2100, the research was complete and a Stargate had been adapted as a viewing window into the past. Unfortunately, this caught the attention of a certain Time Lord, known only as the Doctor, who visited Harry Potter. After Harry explained what it was and its purpose, the Doctor left cordially, seeming pleased.

Harry Potter spent the next hundred years investigating magic and how it works. His research stunned the entire world. Apparently the genetics that lead to having magic were present in every human. However only a few have them triggered active. And magic is merely a form of energy that can be manipulated by sheer willpower. Wands and incantations helped solidify the intent used to manipulate magic. This led to new methods in determining children capable of magic. Gene therapy techniques were made to force the activation of the genetics granting humans the power of "magic."

By this time, the legend of the "Boy-Who-Lived" had faded away to leave the impression that Harry was an old eccentric inventor. He had invented and built four androids. One was one that looked like Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog. One looked exactly like Sonic, which Harry said was a gift for a kid. One looked like Shadow the Hedgehog, and one looked like him. Many times, people were unsure if they were dealing with the Harry android or the real one, since Harry built his androids to function exactly as real humans do. Harry had invented many other things, but he kept it secret from the public. Only a small portion of the research and work Harry had done since becoming a recluse has ever surfaced.

Time went on, and by the year 2500, the world had reached a golden age. Earth had reached out to alien civilizations and established diplomatic relations with them. When the Daleks resurfaced, Earth scrambled to figure out a solution to the problem of the Daleks. Eventually, it was decided to destroy the Daleks using Chronoton energy, which is energy from temporal vortexes. The Time Force was established to regulate technology relating to manipulation of time and time energy. After defeating the Daleks along with the Doctor, the Time Force encapsulated the remaining police systems and merged with them all, to become a world police authority. By the year 3000, the only major criminals left were those mutated and ostracized due to scientific experiments gone awry or mistakes during gene therapy. The Time Force handled them well, and Earth pretty much remained peaceful....

Me: This one was only eight pages long, but still, I think this is enough for the Astonishing Future...

Harry: I seem to drop off the face of the Earth by 2200, why?

Me: Mainly because you make yourself drop out of view. And also because another story will deal with that...

Harry: I have a feeling I know what I'm going to be doing....

Me: Hehe... Anyway, if anyone wants to use parts of this, they are welcome to. Just please credit me and send me a link of your story so I can read it too. As I said in the previous chapter, I am always up to read more stories!