ProfessorX-I simply must thank you for the suggestion you made regarding that bill. It never occurred to us to have mutants declared a legitimate minority group.

JazzOwl- I have found that the older you get, the harder it is to think of the obvious, especially in those who claim to be wise. At least you had the sense to take advice from someone younger than you who is still capable of seeing the big picture in a much simpler viewpoint. I can think of one old man who went positively senile and developed a rather unfortunate king complex who did an untold amount of damage.

ProfessorX-Dumbledore was a foolish man. Putting that much pressure on a single child without giving them adequate reason to want to save the magical enclaves was a rather poor move. He should have known it would backfire on him.

JazzOwl- Strange tell you?

ProfessorX- He clarified what I already picked up from your visit. He was most astonished when I accidentally revealed your identity, but agreed not to mention it. However he recommends you at least alert the MACUSA before you reveal your full heritage besides that of being Tony's only child and heir.

JazzOwl- a pity I can't bring you into Stark Industries. I suspect Obie is up to something unpleasant in order to get rid of my birth father and take over the place, but I have no proof it's him. Though if he is, he's going to be in for a nasty surprise when the truth comes out.

ProfessorX- I could always arrange a special trip for mutants with engineering skills that Jean could supervise.

JazzOwl- Unfortunately there's no way I can arrange that just yet, but I can alert you to the next time Tony plans on doing an 'open house' for new blood in the R and D department. Which would be in three months at the earliest. I would rather cut off any plans that man has for him, but I'm not going to tip my hand just yet.

Jazz was still surprised Strange had allowed her to keep the "sling ring" as he called it, despite the fact she wasn't a follower of that particular group.

Then again, the leader of the order had properly interviewed her and as long as she didn't abuse the powers she was free to study with them as long as she liked. Unlike some, she had a proper respect for power and for life...she had easier ways to deal with people if they deserved to die.

At least now she was registered as a full adult witch, even if the MACUSA had no idea that the "Girl Who Lived" was currently living in the States under her mother's maiden name.

Wizards, honestly.

Jazz looked at Tony's Malibu home with distaste. Sure, the view was great but the fact she usually came here with Pepper to get rid of the 'trash', as the older woman called Tony's latest conquests, put something of a damper on it.

After learning he had a daughter, Tony was at least trying to reign in his bad habits.

She didn't have the heart to give him a better picture of what her life had been like before she came to America. Honestly, it wasn't like he could do worse than what the Dursleys put her through in her formative years. Never mind the 'stellar' parenting of the magical enclaves. Anyone who thought it perfectly acceptable to drop a child out of a window just to display a bloodline gift wasn't suited to raising children in the first place.

So finding the room Tony had specially made for her in his Malibu home and the fact she now had access to his private lab where he kept the real secret projects was a nice gesture...even if she really didn't feel comfortable staying there.

Considering her upbringing, showing off how rich you were simply didn't appeal to her. None of her neighbors were aware that she was rich enough to buy the entire building she lived in without having to haggle, and she liked it that way. She had to deal with less idiots.

She was, however, going to make her own AI...and insure that the voice was not British like JARVIS. Nothing against the AI Tony had made, but after all the nonsense her own countrymen put her through she could live without having to hear the accent ever again.

Besides, she wanted someone who had no issues with talking back to her or pointing out flaws in her plan. Someone who could lock her out when she was being completely unreasonable.

In an effort to connect with Tony (she had a lot of issues calling him "Dad" when she was clearly more mature than he was), she opted to ask him for advice on how to make her own AI that would work in almost the same function as JARVIS did.

Tony took to the idea with great joy. After all, it was a project he knew he could help Jazz with and doubled as a great way to bond with her. He was more than happy to sieze on any chance to get to know his newly discovered progeny.

He really didn't want to be anything like his own father Howard.

It was strange, having a parent that at least tried to care without being too smothering. Tony was more of a child in many respects, and he had no idea how to go about being a 'responsible parent'.

Jazz was too emotionally jaded to allow much parenting in any case. She had a firm grasp on reality, and found it rather amusing that she was the adult one who brought Tony back down to earth when he got out of hand.

However there was one thing she did highly disagree with her father about, and that was the old business partner that he allowed so much leeway with, Obadiah Stane.

Something about him gave her a bad feeling and she didn't want him knowing about her at all.

At most she was an amusing "assistant" to Pepper.

Tony didn't want to push it, mainly because he was still afraid he'd drive the only family he had left off. She hadn't exactly filled him in on the full reason she left England, or why it was too dangerous for her to return.

She still had yet to tell him the truth about magic, because she was worried he might reject her.

It took them a full month and dodging Stane who was wonder what sort of "pet project" would hold Tony's interest for so long and not have any visible results, but eventually Jazz had her own personal AI loaded onto the same servers as JARVIS.

She called it Nyx, after the female personification of Night in Greek mythology. Considering that particular goddess was also the daughter of Chaos, she felt it quite fitting.

"Nyx, I want you to go through all the personal devices of the Board of Directors. I want anything I can get to throw them out and what trails to follow to make it look legal later, with particular emphasis on Stane. Can you do that for me?" asked Jazz when she was alone in her apartment.

Nyx was a seperate entity from JARVIS, and while they were operating on the same server, the programming was different enough that any traps set to watch for the original AI weren't as likely to catch her.

Especially since Jazz had tweaked Nyx using something Tony didn't know about...Technomancy. Dr. Strange had been very nice to introduce her to some young mages who had found out a way to integrate magic and technology... making an AI a living, breathing entity on the web was entirely within the range of what they could do and they were more than thrilled to help her.

Besides, most of them were Digimon and Pokémon fanatics and if they could make a living AI, then it was one step closer to recreating Digimon or even just the Porygon trio.

(They were all appalled that she had never played the games and barely knew what Pikachu was. She was quite happily decimating gyms now and playing catch up with the rest of her age group.)

Nyx gave her a salute, and went about digging into the Board of Directors discreetly. As a living AI, she could bypass firewalls with no trouble at all.

And what she found on Stane was pretty much the motherload.

However she couldn't just bring this to Tony. He would want to know why, and Stane was one of the oldest, most trusted employees on the Board.

The others were easy to dispatch...some of the things she found on file were 'leaked' anonymously to the same reporters who loved to print about Tony's bad habits, along with a note on where to look and who to ask pointed questions.

Within a week those fools were easily fired and disposed of.

Stane though... Stane had become her own personal project.

The man was old, but unlike Dumbledore wasn't senile. He had to have a few tricks up his sleeve and she would need to find out what to expect before confronting him and taking him out.

There was one particular piece that had her rather worried. A device that could induce paralysis without any warning at all from certain frequency waves. There had been a few prototypes but not all of them had been accounted for.

There was also the 'counter' device which allowed one to avoid the paralysis that was missing.

Stane had been one of the people on the project before it was scraped. It was entirely possible he had kept a prototype and the counter device for his own personal use. It wasn't like Tony kept track of all the projects in development, and this sort of thing would have interested him.

Jazz was already modifying the known counter device...if she did it right, she could modify the signal that blocked the frequency to work on a regular hands-free device or over speakers.

Or she could just ward a room to resist allowing a short EMP burst from affecting the rest of the building. It couldn't be that hard.

It was a pity Stane was out on 'other business', which she suspected was illegal anyway. She could have gotten quite the show from her little trick.

Runes was such a fascinating subject, and this bit of magic was so small there was no way anyone could mistake it for "muggle-baiting".

Just a little prank to keep everyone honest.

She had given Tony the counter runes the night before, not that he was aware of it, thus he wouldn't feel compelled to mention that he had a daughter.

Jazz watched the entire show with great glee, while happily recording everything.

Pepper was beyond horrified...they would be dealing with the press for weeks, if not months.

Stane, when he returned, was not pleased. A lot of those same board members were people he would have easily convinced to hand over the reigns to him if anything happened to Tony.

He would have to start all over from scratch, and the few who remained were more terrified of their own misdeeds coming to light and getting fired as well.

She had the sneaking suspicion Rhodey either knew about magic or had it himself. It would explain why he spotted the runes so fast, even if he didn't say a word about it.

She wasn't surprised in the least when the runes were discreetly removed or damaged in a way that only the ones that put them there would notice.

Tony was not happy, and was calling for full background checks on all the high ranking employees. Stane, who wasn't a fool, was quick to bury his illegal side business the second Tony even mentioned it.

She would let him dig a nice, deep grave. Last she checked selling weapons to terrorists was a federal offense that came with mandatory jail time if caught. Especially those that were an active threat to Americans serving in the armed forces.

If he went down, he would go do so hard and fast there would be absolutely no chance of recovery. She wanted to limit the damage done to Tony's trust if possible.

Jazz had a bad feeling about the "Jericho" missile from the start. She hated the fact Tony was developing weapons, but he had a hard enough time switching to a less damaging mind set when it came to creating new toys.

She was just lucky the Americans liked her more defensive line enough to actually buy them and complete part of the government contract they had with Stark Industries.

That bad feeling ramped up to eleven the second Tony mentions demonstrating it in front of the government big wigs in Afganistan.

At the "suggestion" of Stane of course.

Tony would never pass up a chance to show off how smart he was, and took the bait easily. Jazz mentally started going over plans in case they had to up the schedule when it came to revealing the fact she was Tony's daughter.

The MACUSA was more than happy to push through her emancipation, since she was already a legal adult anyway and she just had a year left before she was considered one in the "normal" world. Besides, she had a stable job, kept her bills paid and had already graduated high school, even if she didn't bother owning a car.

She was one of the most self-sufficient teenagers around, and it was more of a formality at this point.

It didn't hurt that as a "legal adult" she could happily tell the English bastards where to shove their damn wands and they couldn't do a thing about it. She had already moved her inheritance from her adopted father and godfather to America, and the rest of it was locked down under a blood seal, meaning the Ministry couldn't touch it even if they tried. And they would, once the truth came out.

It was nice having an actual say on her freedom, and the fact that her father was really a muggle who had slept with her mother when they were both quite drunk meant that quite a few of the 'pure bloods' would be rather loath to touch her at all. Just the way she liked it.

Besides, with how out of date those idiots were, having them arrested...with their wands snapped of course, along with any other magical items confiscated or discreetly removed... and deported back to England in the most unpleasant way possible in order to give the mundane English government time to give those idiots a taste of their own medicine by throwing the out of date fools into sanitariums, prisons or create a case to remove their titles and peerages would be far too much fun!

She suspected that the Queen certainly wouldn't mind someone giving the spoiled English enclaves an unpleasant reminder of how reality worked. Especially with the nonsense she had to put up with because of Dumbledore's inaction and Riddle's madness in going after the normal folks.

She was just finishing up some design ideas when she felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if something had gone terribly wrong.

Without a second thought, she called Rhodey and asked where Tony was.

In spite of herself, she had grown somewhat close to the glorified man-child, Pepper and Rhodey.

She knew Pepper was safe, as she was in the office next to her. Rhodey and Tony, however, were still in an active warzone.

It took him twenty long minutes to get back to her, but when he did he had news that made the pit of her stomach drop.

"Tony's convoy was hit. Whoever did it planned for the device you made to deal with IED's before they could do any real damage, because they used a few of the older Stark missiles. Tony's missing and most of the soldiers were killed, especially those in the humvee he was traveling in."

The Anti-IED device she made (that Tony helped to make reality) didn't have an official name, but the response from the soldiers when they found out exactly what it did and how many lives it could save had been enormous.

More than a few of them had said disparaging things about Tony because of his toys and how easily they could be used against American soldiers.

Now they were singing the praises of Stark Tech because it had saved their hides from an ambush, even if it meant having to get extra training so they knew how to operate the device correctly and drove the K-9 units completely bonkers when active.

The higher ups were eagerly anticipating the portable version...it wouldn't replace the K-9 units or the bonds they had, but it would be a decent substitute since it took a long time to train that sort of partnership.

Jazz sat down hard, as Pepper seemed to sense something bad had happened.

"What's going on?"

"Tony's convoy was hit. Have they found a body?" asked Jazz.

"No. And we checked thoroughly. But...there was a void where the missile hit, so it's possible he's heavily injured."

"If there isn't a body, then there's a chance that whomever has him will try to keep him alive for as long as possible to make better weapons. Or as a hostage for a large sum of money to buy them. I think making weapons is more likely though... far more cost efficient and less likely to get them caught as easily as a ransom demand would be," said Jazz, mind already racing.

Rhodey had an odd expression on his face.

"That idea has been thrown around a bit. And we are keeping track of anyone who might be taken captive with the skills to heal the sort of wounds a close hit would cause. So far it's come up empty."

"Not if they already kidnapped or captured a doctor beforehand, just in case. I can think of plenty of reasons to do so for a terrorist group, and not just to keep captives alive while they're trying to break their spirits through torture."

Hearing Pepper's horrified gasp, Jazz winced. Perhaps she was a little blunt on the knowledge that Tony would almost certainly be tortured before he was rescued, if only because he was a smart ass of the highest order.

Then again, she had to live with the knowledge she would be forced into a small scale civil war by the very adults who should have been protecting the children, rather than display a very disturbing impression of an ostrich and hoping the problem would go away.

She was quite jaded in that respect.