Chapter Seventeen: Crisis Averted.

"So, the crisis was averted?" Atlee asked as she watched Harry with wide eyes and Harry simply simpled in response.

"Yes, it was, although we had some anxious moments, Karen said as she eyed the younger female. "So, you've been keeping up with your training, have you?"

"Yes," Atlee confirmed as she nervously chewed down on her lip and she reared her head back with a sigh, with Karen smiling at her.

"Good girl, just keep doing what you're doing, pretty soon you might be able to join the team," Karen said, and she meant that with the utmost of confidence. She had shown a lot of improvement and the sky was in fact the limit to her.

She looked at them, with a bubbly smile. "You think so?"

Harry decided to jump in. "No, we don't think so."

Atlee's face fell for a moment before Harry amended his latest statement. "We know so."

She smiled despite that. Confidence was a key mark of her abilities. With Harry standing there, she wanted to work even harder than she did.

"Well….it's all down to you, isn't it?" Atlee asked and Harry looked at her with a quizzical look. She decided to elaborate. "I mean, you do inspire a lot of people, don't you?"

"I am….I do, believe me," Harry said, pretty pleased that she came to that conclusion all things considered. Even though he did not want to toot his own horn, he did inspire a few heroes, inadvertently.

"Well, I think that you do," Atlee said as she bounced up and down in excitement. She was blissfully ignorant about what that did to her breasts.

Karen struggled between educating her and enjoying the show. Conflict flashed through the mind of the blonde.

'Decisions, decisions,' the blonde thought, but she decided that it was the best not to say anything.

"Just keep it up Atlee, and you might find yourself, rewarded," Harry told her and Atlee smiled.

'Well, that was subtle implications, but I can't say that I blame you, although it's almost sad that you're corrupting her innocence," Karen said but then she paused. 'And I did say almost sad, but not entirely.'

'I'm not really corrupting her innocence I'm merely opening a few doors to enjoyment,' Harry thought to her and Karen raised an eyebrow at him. 'But, yes, I suppose that I'm corrupting her innocence.'

'Can't believe…..well that little time travel is over and I must say, I didn't really miss the past as much as you'd think,' Karen thought as they saw Atlee walk over for the test that Harry had set up for her.

"Just take your time, Atlee, and do your best," Karen said to her and she paused, adding with a wicked grin. "Just imagine the two of us our in our underwear, and you'll be fine."

There was no question about that, Atlee went slightly red at the implications of that statement and Harry turned to Karen, who hid the smile that she had.

'Okay, who is corrupting the poor girl's innocence now?' Harry asked the blonde.

'Well to be fair, you sort of corrupted mine,' Karen bantered back to him as she curled up onto Harry's lap and he wrapped his arms around her in response.

'You had no innocence to corrupt in the first place and we both know that,' Harry thought as he kissed the side of her neck, which sent shivers down her spine. 'But to answer your question….no that does not make you a bad person. You moved on. The past happened, the future is now, really it's nothing that you can do.'

'Do you ever think what….'

'What's done is done, but yes I do, but still what's done is done,' Harry said as he plucked Karen's question right off the tip of her tongue. They both watched Atlee manipulate the mountains, with renewed skills.

"Good job Atlee, keep it up, don't lose your cool though," Harry said as he saw her bite down on her lip. It really was the most adorable thing.

'Good news, I went through the records in agonizing detail and not even one single thing has changed, at least what's been documented, which means I lived that lovely eight year period about the same,' Chloe said as she closed her eyes. 'And I know what you're going to say, adversity builds character and all that jazz.'

'I wasn't going to say anything,' Harry persisted and Chloe just grinned.

'You might not have said anything but you're going to think it and you are kind of right,' Chloe thought to him.

'Naturally,' Imra thought as she chimed in for a few seconds as Harry and Karen watched Atlee in pride. She had come a long way even though there was still room for improvement.

"It was scary from our end for a moment, and well we should be used for something like that," Tinya informed the quartet that time traveled about the point of view of those who were left in the future. "For a second….it was almost like we….."

"Faded from reality?" Harry asked and they nodded. "And the fact that you were aware of it….."

"It was only a second from our perspective," Imra chimed in to him. "Which mean it was likely a little bit longer than it was but it was just a matter of perspective."

"Very true," Harry agreed as he tried to recall what it would feel like to be erased from history, albeit in a temporary manner and remember it.

"We checked up on the Forbidden Zone," Imra told Harry and Harry was half dreading what she had to tell him. He had almost forgotten what happened during the time where they were going all over creation. Zatanna briefly popped up and kissed Harry on the lips hungrily. She then swiped a bit of toast and sat down across to Harry, slowly nibbling on it. She half paid attention to the conversation. "And….."

"Yes, please spit it out," Harry said the blonde from Titan casually waved it off.

"Oh, no, it's nothing…really too bad," Imra commented and Harry raised an eyebrow before she continued to speak. "They're still in that dormant stage over there. They haven't really moved all that much after what happened, you know."

"Yes, I remember what happened," Harry said, he had been so preoccupied with everything that occurred as of late. As such the Forbidden Zone was kind of far removed from his mind but….he did not forget about it.

"Is it just me, or is the fact that they have not woken up, a bit too easy?" Kara asked as she popped up and Harry considered this matter. He summoned a cup of coffee and slowly sipped it, mulling over these thoughts in his mind.

"No, it's not just you."

"I kind of agree, given how….violent they are," Chloe said as she turned up and sat down to join them. "If there was a way to destroy the entire Forbidden Zone with all of them in it, you'd do that, unless you're trying to save them."

"The ship's sailed on saving these people a long time ago,'" Harry said, harsh as it might seem, he was not about to go down the Dumbledore road of trying to redeem those who could not be redeemed. Snape was the prime example of it. He did not hug a kitten to get that dark mark, let's just leave it at that.

"I figured as much, no matter how much you would have liked to save them," Chloe said, as she had her only failures saving the people around her as well. It was just something that came with the territory.

"You do know how to kill a mood, don't you?" Harry asked her and Chloe's grin got even wider.

"It's a part of my charm, as you should well know, my husband," Chloe stated to him, pleased to see that she finally found happiness in her life with Harry.

"So, what was it like….going back to where it all began?" Harry asked and Chloe pondered for a second before giving him a response.

"Everything seemed so simple, dealing with the freak of the week and all that junk," Chloe said as she threw her head back and sighed. "Everything was simple but everything turned….not so simple in the end."

"Don't you know it," Harry said as he tightened his grip around Chloe and his wife relaxed on his shoulder.

"Well, it's interesting to go back and figure out things that you might have missed," Nuru said and there were nods of agreement.

"Yes, it was….although the good old days….kind of good, until all the shit hit the fan and I can't believe we saved Lex Luthor of all people," Chloe said and Karen popped up around this corner at this point. She was about to open her mouth but it was Chloe who cut her off at the pass. "Yes I know, hero, not as good without his villain, we all know that."

Harry smiled, he didn't really have much luck in the villain department at first. Riddle made a lot of people afraid of him and he somehow managed to create seven Horcruxes when one tended to backfire on some people, trapping them in their soul containers forever and a day. However, in the end, Harry defeated Riddle.

His real enemy came from someone who he once thought of to be his best friend. He saw certain perils between that relationship and the one between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. Although there were many differences but both Hermione and Lex had been twisted into something that was hardly recognizable from what they once were due their obsessions.

Harry did concede that Hermione had better hair.

"You're in deep thought about this, aren't you?" Imra asked him and Harry looked at the blonde telepath with a wide grin on his face.

"How did you ever guess?" Harry asked as he teased her. "Or did you read your mind?"

"No, more like your face," Imra said as she took a spot across from Harry and slowly sipped on the coffee that she poured out. "This is going to get a bit more intense, you realize that."

"Oh believe me, I realize that," Harry agreed as he kept sipping on the coffee that had been poured as well. "Once we take down the Forbidden Zone….I'll be happy."

"And if you could have….."

"Would have already done it," Harry chimed in and Chloe grinned as she was now on Harry's lap, having nudged Kara off of it discreetly. Kara folded her arms and pouted it. The blonde threw her head back.

"Well if that is a statement that figures out….although maybe we should just blast a fireball through the Forbidden Zone….."

"If that would have worked I would have already done it," Harry repeated casually as he summoned over a half empty box of donuts and ate one.

"Yeah, well you're no fun sometimes," Chloe said as she showed her pouty face but Harry casually fed her a donut which she took with a smile. After all, free food was free food and she was not going to complain about that. Especially with how it was given. "But, that ring, seriously speaking, you think that it's the best shot we have?"

"Best shot, only shot…providing it works, and….."

"You have your doubts," Imra said as she chimed in.

"Well, I don't know, but the sooner we beat those people in the Forbidden Zone, the better all of us are going to sleep, I think," Lournu said in a completely excited voice as she started to bounce back and forth. All three of her showed up to polish off one of the boxes of the donuts and squabbled amongst themselves for the crumbs.

"You might have waited a hundred years," Zatanna said, speaking up for the first time and she was silent, pondering her lot in life and her appearance in the future. "But it's going to be worth it in the end."

"I hope that it is," Harry admitted as he crossed his arms. He was about ready to take that next step forward and there was an instant where he hesitated.

Chloe pulled up the Forbidden Zone scanner. Despite her bravado, she was really curious as to why things seemed so quiet. It did not seem right but yet, there was not a creature stirring in the Forbidden zone, not even any zombie mice.

"It is very odd," Chloe muttered more to herself than anyone else and Harry raised his eyebrow, staring at her and the blond amended. "Hey, I'm allowed to agree with you, aren't I?"

"All of the time," Harry said with a grin as Chloe nearly took off his finger in an attempt to get that donut.

He did not want to enter the Zone without a stable plan. Especially given that his presence could be a temptation to those people and it would cause them to wake up.

"We'll get in and take them out in one fell swoop," Kara said as if she sensed what her husband was talking about.

"Yes," Harry agreed with a smile on his face as he threw his arm around the blonde's shoulder as she leaned up against him.

"It's a battle that's a long time in the making," Diana said, she had recalled how much time Harry and Kara had spent trying to track down information. All roads lead to this point.

"I see it….the end could be closer than I hoped," Nuru said and Imra regretted asking this next question but she could not help herself.

"When?"

One word yet in some ways, it was an extremely loaded question. The two blondes locked eyes with each other and Harry waited as Nuru actually looked confused.

"It's actually…..not clear," the blonde whispered and Harry cupped his hand on his wife's chin.

"Don't feel pressured….that you have to find out something," Harry whispered to her and Naru nodded. She relaxed and focused. "Just….relax, and celebrate the fact that we averted a couple of really great crisises."

"But at the same time, don't get overconfident," Diana said, there were a few times where the League had a few successful missions but she found out that things took a turn for the worst. The memories returned to her and that caused her to sigh deeply.

"We're in this, no matter what," Imra said and that was something that was agreed about by the entire Legion and their allies. If the other members of the Legion were here, they would agree.

Harry meanwhile hated to admit this, as much as he wanted to spend every minute of his day in the company of beautiful women, he had work to do. This mystery was a long time coming to be solved.

Time was something that was not on the side of many people and there were instances where Harry wondered if it was not on his side. A thousand years of his life were lost and even if he was awake, he would not have aged one single day past the moment where he acquired the Hallows. No one in living memory had ever held all three of them at once and a part of him wondered if had anyone but him touched them, would they have been able to handle the great power?

Of course, the true power of the Hallows was overstated in myths, Harry understood what it was and the greed that many who picked up those artifacts would have…..well to put things bluntly, they would have allowed the power to run away from them. Laziness regarding magical artifacts tended to be a common problem, it was not just the usage of wands.

That brought his attention back to the ring, the current bane of his existence.

'We have trouble,' Harry thought as he pondered what he could do with the ring. The answers were close, all he had to do was open up his mind and seize the day.

It had given him a brief message of an incoming doom but that could mean any of about five hundred or so things. Harry had fought things that lead to do before and he kept half of an eye on Chloe's monitor as well.

The fact that things were quiet, it unsettled Harry greatly.

'Time and energy, that's what I don't have,' Harry thought as he closed his eyes. The ring shifted for a second and he could have sworn that it just moved about a half of an inch on its own accord. Maybe, he could have been a weird trick of the light. Just when he thought that he had the answers, someone kept changing all the questions.

"Okay, focus," Harry said as he shook his head.

"You've been focusing on that ring for about three hours and….."

Karen was about ready to say that nothing happened but then a blinding flash of light, followed by ominous chanting indicated that something in fact did happen. The other blonde Kryptonian scrambled inside, along with Diana and Zatanna. The rest of the Legion was soon to follow. Kara and Zatanna stood, with counter spells at the ready but as it turned out they did not need to do anything.

Harry stared at the ring, his mouth hanging open and Zatanna looked at Harry, nervously biting down on the bottom lip.

"What was it?" Imra asked as she could sense that Harry saw something although the images went by in her mind faster than she could even process it. "What did you….what did you?"

She was confused and things were making her want to ram her head repeatedly into a desk.

"There's something out there, something coming, something far more dangerous than any of those people in the Forbidden Zone could ever hope to be," Harry whispered as he threw his head back.

"When the Big Bang happened, he was there to light the fuse, he has wiped out constant timelines, he is coming, you cannot stop him, no one can stop him," the sinister voice within the ring stated and Harry remained stoic. Even though he was trying to figure out this entire mess.

"I don't….I don't know what to make of this," Nuru whispered as she bit down on her lip fiercely and they all agreed. Baffled was a word that pretty much described all of what they felt.

"Let me try one more thing," Harry said as he tried to get the ring to do something else. He saw images but they could not be comprehended entirely.

"I'll check the archives, see if I can get anything," Chloe said, they all saw flashes and they hoped Chloe could dig something up.

It had been a long time since Harry was this frustrated. He tried not to lose his cool because bad things happened when he did.

"Maybe you should sleep on it," Kara suggested as she whispered hotly in his ear. Harry turned around and saw that his Alpha was wearing some see through white lingerie that he could not take his eyes away from. Karen showed up and she was wearing some lacy red lingerie, where the cups of her breasts barely being held in.

"Yeah, we'll do this," Karen whispered as she closed her eyes, giving her husband a hungry kiss which he returned.

Harry smiled, he did not want to say anything but these two knew to make him relax.

"I'd say that we should all go to sleep, but I'm not sure how much sleeping there's going to be," Karen whispered with a cheeky grin across her face as she backed Harry into the room.

Kara laid next to Harry after he had been pushed back onto the bed. The blonde ran her hands down his chest as his top had been taken off and Karen was down between his legs, working off the bottom half of his outfit. His trousers were pulled off to reveal the treat that he had to give both of them.

"Just relax, honey," Karen purred as she had him ready. She cupped him and stared him right in the eye with a smoldering grin. "You're going to feel so good, I promise you,"

Harry believed that, as he could feel himself be exposed, the cool air blowing across his tip and her mouth….well her mouth was about to do such magical things to him.

'Well, I didn't want to bother you in the middle of that display, but we have a situation, and as you know, I still haven't found a way to leave,' Raven thought to Harry.

'Oh you haven't?' Harry asked as he opened his mouth but Raven cut him off at the pass.

'And that is not your responsible to find a way for me to leave,' Raven warned him as she knew that Harry had far more interesting things to work with, especially some far more dire things. 'But you should know that your friend….well she found her way out. I don't know how she did it but, she's annoying resourceful as I'm sure both of us could agree.'

Harry waited and rested, the two females that rested against him, snuggling against his chest, he did not want to disturb them, not yet.

'Chloe, take another look into the Forbidden Zone,' Harry mentally told her and Chloe raised an eyebrow. 'There's something rotten in the state of Hogwarts, and I think that….Hermione might be blocking you.'

'Wait she's…..'

Chloe realized that all technology, no matter how sophisticated and no matter how advanced, it could in fact be fooled by something.

"Lex Luthor, Legendary Genius or Criminal Mad Man?" an excited voice read out loud as she poured over a book that she had found about her famous ancestor.

"He would have had to be a bit insane," A second voice offered with a shake of her head.

"Sometimes there's a fine line between insanity and genius," the other voice persisted, causing the girl across from her to shake her head once more.

"Well, I think that our famous ancestor crossed it a few too many times," the second twin state, before throwing her head back with a sigh.

"Well, I think that given the fact he survived for so long, even with that Superman tool going after him half of the time, he must have been doing something right," the first teen said as the two of them walked into a nearby museum. "And some of his plans could have worked, had he been given a bit fairer shake."

"I want to learn a lot more about him too, but I think that this is the wrong way to go about it," she said in a calm voice, but then again, she was the more even tempered of the two twins.

"Come on, where's your sense of adventure?" the first twin asked and the second twin paused, before shaking her head in disagreement once more.

"Look, if the Legion curb stomps us because we're breaking into one of their sacred, secret museums to steal something that once belonged to Lex Luthor, I'm going to hold you personally responsible, Alex," the second twin replied.

"You can be such a wet blanket sometimes Alex," the first twin said, but never the less she hacked into the lock with a sophisticated mastery that only a Luthor could manage. Alexis and Alexandra Luthor walked through the building, ready to figure out what they needed to do.

They set off an alarm almost immediately.

"Great, now we've done it," Alexandra said, before resting her face in the palm of her hand with a sigh.

"No, we haven't. All have to do now to find a way out of this is just think of the age old question," Alexis said as she paused and smiled brightly. "What would Lex Luthor do?"

To Be Continued.