-scene break-
The situation was being nicknamed fallout, which all things considered was probably apt. The UN, that was to say the General Assembly, was not happy at the moment, and well to be completely honest it was understandable. The repurcussions in domestic politics was also a rather thorny issue as well, but all eyes for the moment were on the international perspective. They weren't on the issue of magic, or mutants, or how internal apparatus of political parties were reacting, but on the issue of world wide response.
For half a dozen plus years the US had been involved in a demonstration of conventional military might half way across the world. The international community had complained. Alien invasions came and went like clockwork at least once a year. The world didn't get used to things like that, but there was little to do to stop them.
For sixty plus years nuclear weapons had been the final word in destructive power. The symbol of the security council's permanent members. Members who had all talked about disclosure before it had gone down. Israel, Pakistan, and India all immediately raised their own complaints.
For that matter so to did pretty much every member of the UN General Assembly, but at the end of the day the UN still remained what it was. The UN had been established before decolonization, and immediately following a major conflict. The permanent members were the winners of the second world war. These five single nations together roughly represenated 40% of the global incremental GDP.
To compound all of these factors was the matter that objections were not being levelled for any singular cause. The other nuclear nations were suddenly faced with the issue that their weapons were no longer simply ineffective against alien invaders, but also possibly more terrestrial rivals, or that such would be the case quickly enough. Of course the writing had been on the wall ever since superman had shown up.
"So?" Spook One asked from the stakeout van.
The FBI liason shrugged, "We're tracking plenty of spy types coming into New York," which made a certain amount of sense with regard to the emergency convention of the general assembly. "So I heard Tony Stark actually got up before noon today, will wonders ever cease, right?"
"Eh you know we're only building giant shapeships. The head of Stark Industries was bound to get interested in this eventually," The agent stopped, "hold on we've got movement," He announced watching his video screen carefully. This kind of shit was bound to happen. The whole fiasco involved the Sentinel rampage had encouraged a dramatic increase in security. It had renewed support for the initiative that had been fading over a couple of years.
In this way under the auspice of National Security, and the threats posed not simply by foreign enemies, alien or otherwise, or domestic threats thw whole city was carefully monitored by numerous forms of electronic security, as well as more mundane methods. Magic was about the only thing that the US government didn't employ when spying on all of New York.
"Thats..."
Magneto was back in town it seemed, which could only bode ill. It was also kind of problematic because the mutant leader happened to suround himself with other mutants who reinforced his already prominient defenses. "We'll radio this in." There wasn't much option to do anything besides this. It was going to be something for SHIELD to deal with, or the NID.
On the other end of the surveilance system the Mutant had other things occupying his attention, and for the moment there was no interest in engaging in any kind of public spectacle. No... this whole disclosure issue was a game changer, and not something that could be let slip away. The whole game was changing, and if the humans were going to make a mistake it would be in the coming days when they were off balance.
"Magneto, we got company," One of his soldiers remarked making it completely obvious he had seen the government detail across the street.
He shrugged, "The humans are irrelavant. Has Charles arrived yet?" Magneto demanded, disretely looking around. He had the distinctly unsettling feeling that there was something very wrong with the city. Of course there was the chance of a repeat of last time, but the sentinels were just one threat amongst many potential ones... still they had been active. Mutantkind needed to prepare itself for the future. The mutant race however could no more defend itself against the technological warmachine of alien empires than humans could... without time to prepare for it at least. That was where Charles came in. A certain amount of cooperation would not be unwelcome.
If only Charles be willing to be so reasonable on other topics. Mutants did not have a country... not yet at least, but that would need to wait. Today though the focus was upon New York, which as always presented its utmost effort in being the busiest city on the planet. "What about the human's defenses?"
"The USAF has deployed the active elements of their 3rd Space Fighter Wing, but its vastly understrength," The other mutant responded. All of the information had been passed along thanks to Mystique's infiltration of the US government. "The other problem that exists I-"
Magneto snorted waving a hand to silence him, "SHIELD, yes. We will need to find Charles quickly," The unsavory feeling in the pit of his stomach left him concerned. He knew better than to ignore the gut instinct that something was wrong, "We will very likely be under attack soon, and I wish to be in the most potent position of strength we can to defend ourselves."
Finding Charles Xavier was actually reasonably easy... just find Storm, who was a frequent speaker at the UN on a number of subjects. Magneto's arrival was not without notice, his entourage was far from discrete approaching the UN... even bumping into a young high schooler who happened to be taking photos of the event for the school paper.
He was however not the threat Magneto was still searching for. "Erik, I'm glad you could make it here without incident," Charles greeted offering his hand. The two mutant leaders shook, as their respective entourages gathered to size up their counterparts.
"Yes I see there are enough problem, that cretin Godfrey's staff are running around," Magneto remarked, "But what of your students Charles? You seem rather light today."
Xavier nodded, "Most are at the Mansion still." Most didn't have the interest for this kind of event, and there was no point dragging the unwilling to this.
"Is that wise? Particularly given the recent sentinel attack, that they should be left without supervision? Or do you have this new player watching them?" It didn't particularly matter... for the moment. The new player wasn't a mutant, which was hardly an issue. There were enough superpowered beings running around, and while a new one was important it didn't merit dropping everything in the face of a global summit.
Magneto wasn't the only one with his eye on the summit. It was just the kind of high profile event other parties were looking at.
-scene break-
In Gotham things were nearly as tight security wise, which made it very hard for the mentally disturbed geneticist and researcher to actually get around. He didn't care about the situation in New York, or how it was going to effect meta-humans, average people, or well anyone else for that matter. That lack of caring was probably going to be the biggest fiasco cause for the day though.
SHIELD since the opening of their new Field Office had managed at least one good thing... that was to say corruption of Gotham PD was down... or at least less effective in aiding criminals.
Doctor Emil Hamiliton activated the launcher. The little widget shot outward, and then sparked generating an EMP pulse which shorted out every unshielded electronic device in the radius of the pulse. The city's grid however wasn't the real target. No SHIELD would respond, but SHIELD, which was largely comprised of normal humans, couldn't do that if they were stuck in traffic. Emil fired twice more, each time a pulse knocked out a substantial number of cars. Some stopped dead, others careened off the road, and some worked perfectly normal. That was the best part it was just chaos. Chaos was precisely what doctor Hamilton wanted as he disappeared off the street into a dark alleyway.
He had batman's file, and Wayne's. It was incomplete of course, an unfortunate facet of his level of security clearance, but he could piece together enough. It was amazing how far Wayne... and that was as far as Doctor Hamilton's thought process got before the Joker hit him over the head sending him into unconciousness.
"This better be worth it Joker," Two Face grunted, as he hefted the doctor off the street, "lets get out of here before bats, or one of his kids shows up."
The clown grinned, "Oh relax, old boy. Totally under control." He giggled a bit, and ignored the heavily scarred Harvey Dent as they piled into their working vehicle. It was one of Penguin's special craft designed to elude police... and the bat from detection. It cost a pretty penny to get a hold of.
Dent personally wouldn't have signed on for this... if not for the whole Ra's threatening to do something inventive with a bladed object and some nasty looking corrosive green stuff. The Clown could plan, but... him and the Demon's head together this whole shit screamed bad juju. Still he could understand nabbing Hamilton, and he could understand getting out of Gotham for a little while... after all kidnapping a Federal Scientist was a big move... even if the guy was completely nuts.
"Ugh... what?" Hamilton started to come around, "Joker? Mr. Dent?"
"Why is he Mr. Dent,"Joker tilted his head making an irritated face, "anyway good, you're up see doc we need your help, and a compliance is mandatory. We have a project you see... and we need to get batsy up and about. Plus you know stir up a little chaos." The Clown grabbed Hamilton by the wrist and smacked his hand on some kind of screen. The still groggy scientist vaguely processed a light scanning his hand... and it seemed to be taking his vitals.
He'd used similiar technology before during his work at STAR, and very often with regards to his work for Cadmus. That was what bothered his still addled mind... Joker was a madman, and a penchant for chemical agents. Cadmus had considered Joker's formula... after all they had to develop and test their own... and antidotes of course.
There was a long standing theory that Joker considered himself a dark mirror of the Bat. They both used obsessively thematic weapons. The royal flush gang had seemed to support that... and that had not made Cadmus leadership very happy. Of course it was all theory. It didn't change the fact that Emil recognized he was very much in the hands of the enemy. Groggily he watched as they past a lamp post.
"You better not have given him a concussion." Harvey Dent grunted as the machine did its work. To be entirely honest he was wishing he'd taken a que from that mountain of muscle and left the country for a while. Instead he'd decided to stick around, and now he was stuck working with Joker, and they had Killer Croc for big muscle. If there was anything that Two Face was worried about it was how the Joker had such a large gang.
"Don't worry so much,"
He ground his teeth in response... the sooner the next phase began the better... especially since it involved the clown voluntarily getting locked up in Arkham. "I should call and make sure they have a doc on standby."
Joker waved his free hand dismissively. It wasn't like it mattered, Harley had made sure to calibrate the machine to scan for those kind of issues... in the event Hamilton had an accident. He chuckled to himself, oh this was going to be so much fun. The bats had been so boring as of late, but there was no way when they pulled this off was... the Joker devolved into an uncontrollable fit of laughter and rolled around on the seat.
Two face shook his head; this was going to be a cluster fuck.
-scene break-
Static knew this was going to be one of those days. "How do people do this? WHY? Do they just take stupid pills in the morning?" Richie half screamed at the television.
"Do you want to know the truth?"
Richie stared at him, "Please don't say magic makes people stupid." He asked the towering assassin, who merely shook his head.
"No, basing your society on a lie does." The assassin commented bluntly, "You spend every day saying everyone is created equal, but then you go every day seeing thats not true. The gods don't do equality. The allfather, his brothers none of them are interested in equality. A man lives his life and then he dies, and it is what he leaves behind that is his legacy."
The blonde teen stared at him, "Can you be any more bleak? Seriously Elijiah can you tone down the scary religious dogma stuff for a day. One day, please." Richie slumped into his chair, and exhaled... any other hero... well except maybe batman...maybe wonder woman totally couldn't have justified having this guy as there ally... and days like this Richie figured the real reason was the headache he'd have given them besides the you know 'minor legal complications' of an being almost two hundred year old professional killer slash priest. "Okay Static what are we going to do? The FBI is already jamming cellphones,"
"I would suggest taking care to avoid SHIELD." Elijiah remarked.
Static nodded, "That too but we've got to rescue the hostages somehow." Trust the Justice League to be busy with bigger cities. There was a knock on the door.
"I hope I'm bringing something useful to the planning of operations." Percy remarked... managing to make a completely weird picture. Percy never went any where without wearing his finely tailored, ridiculously so, suits... and now he had an assault rifle and a bullet proof vest on top of his crazy expensive suit. "You're that Elijiah," Percy looked around, and did a good job surpressing his urge at grinding his teeth, "This is going to be a, very, long day. I see you've already tapped into their communications, and the police, and the FBI." He handed a piece of paper over, "This will let you tap into SHIELD and the NID's communications on this unfortunate incident, whatever we're going to do we need to do it fast. Two hours you might want to start a clock."
Gear hit a series of shortcut keys on his homebuilt computer and a timer started, "Alright we're on the clock guys. So what do we do now?"
"We could split up," Static suggested looking at the hologram projector. It had been cobbled together by Gear months ago. "Go two different sides, take the top and bottom separate."
Richie nodded, "SO me and you go in through the high windows, and I guess Perce and Elijiah go in through the sewers, through this access point in," He searched the schematics, "Here this refridgeration unit in the food court," Because he had a sneaking suspicion Percy might just shoot him if he suggsted they go through the bathroom.
Dakota's Angelo State Mall was a million square feet, and that was just the original portions not the additions that had been added in recent years. The so called phase 3 expansion in part was how these guys had managed to get in. "Hey what are these guys even attempting to accomplish, besides you know death and destruction?" He asked as they slowly worked to make an entry way without being detected.
"I would assume destruction, and fear are their main goals. To do it as a statement of whatever ideology they choose to profess." He personally distasted the minor daedric flunkies but he was hardly going to attempt to explain that in this mess.
The Cult of Blood revered Trigon... and besides getting pretty much most of their facts wrong welll they were reasonably capable magic users... in a completely homicidal fashion of course. Still the plan to do this quietly went sideways when the crazed magic users decided to get aggressive... and sparked a fight on the inside.
Spyke barely had time to throw himself over the balcony railing and on top of the crazy knife wielding religious nutjob. That was when things went side ways... and Spyke decided to stop playing nice. Evan extended a row of reinforced spikes from his forearms and attacked.
"Crap," Ritchie muttered his scanner processing the change, "Okay he's a mutant, and there are like at least a dozen wizards. We need to go in now the FBI is getting antsy." An explosion blew outwards through the skylight as dozens of arcane glyphs started to channel magic. Ritchie and Percy came out of the refridgeration unit facing four wizards.
Across the food court Static and the assassin phased through into the store room of another restruant. "Is it always that cold?"
"Yes," Elijiah responded before slamming his elbow into the mask of one of the wizards.
Static wasted no more time and tapping into the buildings power to super charge his own electric generation, which he quickly turned upon the wizards before they could unleash their own fire spells.
Sirius Black cursed his luck in the mean time and withdrew his wand. It was true wandless magic was possible, but it took practice, and more energy than he really liked to waste, which was probably why the crazy daedric nutjobs were using knives instead of wands. "Whatever works," He muttered, before silently disarming one of the red clothed priests. "You okay Spiky?"
"Yeah thanks," The mutant muttered ducking behind a column, "What was that, that humm?"
"Magic ressonance, or something." He responded, that area of study had been Lily's thing, and and well it couldn't be helped. Still after all these years... Sirius Black had learned enough about Daedric cults... or their alleged 'light' counterparts to know it couldn't be anything good.
-scene break-
One of the footballers laughed, "I didn't figure you guys for the whole witchy shit," As the team gathered into the library of the nearby liberal arts college, specifically at a table packed with all kinds of books that most stickler for normalcy parents wouldn't have approved of.
"Its not Witchy shit, its alternative spiritualism-... okay fine its fucking witchy shit," The quarterback admitted from behind the chair, "But hey deal with it." Mutants, Aliens, Super technology, and on top of that magic and everything in between... a guy had to find some way to keep in the game. "Vikings did this shit." He declared emphatically.
Not everyone was completely convinced, but it got everyone to at least stand around the table. "You think we should ask you know one of mutants... I mean you know after that whole fiasco with the giant robot nearly killing us." The latest sentinel attack weighed heavily on everyone. In the end they could agree one way or another.
"But didn't you get some of this shit from your grandma's house?"
"Shut up."
So they sat around piling through shit they had scrounged from a dozen different sources... and then they made their move... and then promptly got distracted by the explosion of messages from their smart phones as text messages came in about the apparent terrorist attack in New York.
The Aedra sighed. It was a mere unfortunate reality of this world. It was poor in magic, and thus largely lacking in traditions, and warnings. The wizards who did live on this world were largely mixed breeds... descended by and large from the Alteran... and their blood was so diluted. The last traces of his brother's bloodline with the gift had passed from this world recently enough. Not that Sithis knew had likely cared, or even known. "I am Stendarr, God of Righteous Might, and Merciful Forbearance." He barely touched one of the chairs, and it shifted into a much lighter toned wood, and grew heavy arm rests... he couldn't stand the Cathedra style chair Sithis liked. "I have heard your call..." and petty interest in magic... in theory anyone could learn in practice a predisposition towards it at birth tended to help, but divine patronage helped too. "I suppose its a small fortune you didn't go running to my brother,"
"I don't think we met him," Duncan commented glancing at the cooler sitting under table, "Can I get you a beer, or something?"
Stendarr accepted the bottle with as much good cheer as he could, "Thank you. So you want to learn magic, and you have your concerns over these troubles your world faces, as you should this Era is dying."
"The priest guy said..."
He nodded, "Yes some mistake this as the Age of Nightmares returned. In truth though it will be the Rising," The truth was records were easily corrupted people misinterpretted things, "So let me tell you of things. Mankind has freewill, but very soon a collection of wizards with good intentions though they may be in Europe will call my brother onto this world. When this happens the Daedric Lord of Order, my brother's fondest student, will lash out. Hircine and others will join him. We will enter a period between eras. It may last centuries, it may last but the span of a mortal generation. It however will be enough. You have time enough to learn magic ahead of this." or at least the simple basics. "Also my comrade Arkay has a Chosen near here, I believe you have had the issue of meeting him... and certainly Sithis's chosen as you share a school. I suppose you however have other questions, this thing in your village of New York."
They did... but no one really commented on calling a major metropolitan center a village. There were so many questions... not the least involved all the bullshit that constantly happened to Earth over the last several years... and well before that to, "So aliens, or alien invasion again,"
"Oh come West Chester doesn't get it that bad, not like New York," which was the truth New York got it bad, but even the Thanagarians had shown more interest than the latest invasion. That wasn't to say that there hadn't been Jaffa, but ... the sentinels were rampaging killbots that could come at any time... invasions came once a year normally. "What do we do?"
Duncan grimaced, "Guess we go apologize to Xavier's crowd," Summers was going to be fucking impossible to deal with after this. Still between the Sentinel debacle... and not a member of the Justice League in sight... "I mean you heard him, Alien invasion or wizards in Europe? Which can we really do something productive to prepare for?"
-scene break-
Hermione, unsurprisingly, was the one who heard about the gas attack in New York. The strange transmogrification of people into lizard creatures was all over the news. It was Alastor though who chimed in about the Daedric cult in Dakota, "America has gone positively insane," One of the order members chimed in after both finished cataloging the events of the week, "Does Sirius even have an explanation about this?"
Sirius didn't... it was probably why he hadn't shown up. Then again they were lucky if Sirius came back to England once a year. That had made more sense before Voldemort had come back, after that the ministry hadn't been that concerned with searching for Sirius... and then it just continued to lose interest in the pursuit. It just seemed like Sirius had lost interest in England.
Hermione thought back to the other news, the one that had left Moody needing an over an hour to compose himself over. Utgard's sensor network had shown them something. Ships, thousands of starships massing. Some of the vessels were hundreds of kilometers long. It made the massing of ships that the Americans had disclosed to the UN seem so pathetic... and then the UN had been attacked. That was the problem the wizarding world had a problem. There were plenty of wizards who had taken umbrage various things. Muggle research into Nth metal had set some of the purebloods off, but it was nothing compared to this kind of fall out...
"How are things in New York?" Dumbledore asked, "Did things get fixed? The Justice League put everything right?"
Hermione shrugged, "Some new hero in New York got it reversed. He aerolized a counter agent so what could have been a major disaster turned out to just be a bad weekend."
"Do we have any idea of who was responsible for this?"
Alastor shook his head, "No, no solid leads Albus. It could be entirely muggle. The Daedric cult attack has me more worried. Scath is one of the bad ones." It was no secret Alastor opposed the course of action that Dumbledore insisted on following, but Voldemort was building up steam" Two attacks had been made on the ministry's personel... as if they were looking for something
"I agree with Moody," Snape growled out, "The Dark Lord has expressed a growing interest in amongst other things Atlantis, and the muggles seem to know something, couple that with the renewed interest in the Daedra and what he has us working on."
Dumbledore nodded, "Yes I fear you are right to think something is coming my boy." Albus had come to appreciate the bonanza of information that this new millenium was bringing, but it was just sad that the information came at such a price in human lives. It was why more than ever it had to be done... Harry could finish this, and with apparent ease. Then they could take over... fix the broken mess that had been made of their world. "Alastor you stargates facilitated the travel between worlds, and Severus you said Voldemort was interest in seeking this Heart?"
The scarred former auror just nodded gruffly, but Snape chose a more wordy answer, "The Dark Lord has more than one interst Albus. Its everything. The Heart, the Stargate, Hades's armor, the metal of the gods. All of it, including whats underneath Stonehenge."
"The attack on the minister of Magical Antiquities?" Both of the attacks of late had been careful, if anything the lull of them had made the ministry relax. Not that Minister would ever consider reaching out to the French for help. Albus had considered it... time and again, but he hardly wanted to risk trading one dark lord for one coming out of retirement. Not that he was sure that would be the case. "Any clue as what this change of strategy means? What is is he's looking for?"
Severus pulled his hand away from his face, "He's after too much Albus. Rosier has as many files as I do, and neither are us are in the know about everything." Malfoy was on half load research only because he had other projects... like liasing with the Bulgarians. "Its too much information. I couldn't begin to guess.
-incomplete rewrite-
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