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Despite the attack on Kitty's family, life had to go on for the other castle's denizens and, true to her word the day after their too-short day off Betsy led Amara and Piotr on an investigation mission down to Brazil. Piotr was there as both ostensible team leader, Betsy not having acted in that capacity yet during their training scenarios, and strong arm. Betsy of course had her telepathic powers which would prove invaluable for the research into Da Costa's past. Amara was there because she knew the country better than any of the others, and knew where to start looking.
Roberto originally came from a rich family, his father owning several construction companies scattered across Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. His father had hosted a party for the newly discovered city state Amara came from at their villa in Leblon, the richest district in the city, and she had been there with her father at one point. Their cover was as a trio of joggers making their way through the rich neighborhood.
Considering his build was not at all like a normal joggers, Piotr got some odd looks but most everyone they passed tended to ignore them. Both women were dressed in relatively skimpy clothing, exercise clothing to be sure, but still skimpier than his upbringing was happy with, yet in comparison to some of the people around them, Betsy and Amara's outfits were practically repressed.
Not that it's the only thing my upbringing is unhappy with of late, Piotr thought dryly as he followed the other two, attempting to keep his attention on them and not on any of the other women they passed. Something, though he didn't know it at the time, that won him major brownie points.
There's also the whole fact that Amara's been hinting that she would be happy if Danielle joined us in our relationship. She hadn't come out and said that of course but she had hinted at it occasionally, and also seemed fine with Danielle flirting with him in front of her.
Then there was Amara's own upbringing, which was ancient Greek, and much more open about things like sex, the body in general, than Piotr, brought up a Russian Catholic in a very rural hometown with strict grandparents, not to mention a very young and inquisitive sister who had no concept of privacy, was comfortable with.
The most bizarre thing had occurred the day after the battle up in Montréal, with Piotr, Amara and Betsy all lounging around in the adults only communal bathhouse in Camelot. It certainly isn't the Russian way, but I can't exactly complain about that and call myself a man he thought, smiling internally. It wasn't exactly a thought his grandparents and his grandmother in particular would've been happy with, but it was true enough.
The looks Piotr had gotten in turn during that brief interlude in the baths had been… gratifying, but made Piotr very self-conscious and confused. I like Amara, but she's just a little too open too in-your-face about these things for me to be used to yet.
As if she had known his thoughts were on her, Amara turned looking at him and winking broadly before running a little faster now, shaking her rear just a little bit more. "Case in point," he muttered, racing to catch up, breathing heavily now, while Betsy fell in behind him.
A few moments later Amara slowed down, something Piotr was thankful for by that point. The houses around here were even larger than the normal sort in Leblon, and included gates, large front lawns and equally grandiose fences. "Fourth house in," she murmured, despite there being no one near enough to overhear them, slowing down to power walk instead of jog. "It looks almost exactly the same as the time I was here with my father, but I can't tell if there's anyone home. That'll be your job Bets'."
"Indeed," the purple haired woman replied. "Just keep moving at this pace, I'll leave a conscious command for my body to keep following you but I won't be able to speed up or slow down." Betsy wasn't Emma or Jean, she hadn't honed her telepathic ability to the level she could concentrate on both the material and mental planes at once.
Amara nodded, and watched as a sort of vacant expression came over Betsy's face. Her body was still moving as she had said it would but there was obviously no one home, the telepath sending her telepathy out towards the household.
Piotr moved to Betsy's other side, frowning. "I wonder what she will find? I can't help but wish one of our more experienced members were with us, but they have so much to do, so many demands on their time, that this side project is just too much."
"It's not the first time we've been out and about on our own. You'll get used to it." Amara replied, reaching across Betsy to pat the large Russian on the shoulder.
Piotr nodded, then looked at Betsy between them and then over at Amara before saying softly, "We need to talk."
"That had some interesting connotations to it," Amara said smiling a little worriedly now. "This is a private talk I suppose, about us right?"
"We need to talk about barriers, I suppose," Piotr said slowly trying to form his thoughts into words and fumbling for the English words wasn't helping any.
"You know it's the girl who usually sets those barriers right?" Amara said, her smile now a little more certain. "This is about the time I talked you into bathing with me and Betsy right?"
"That's part of it, but the other part is about Dani. You, I, you haven't made a big deal about the facts that she's, she's interested in me, I mean she's flirted with me in front of you! If anything you've, you've hinted at the exact opposite."
"I haven't made a big deal out of it because I like her, and I think Dani's joining us could be interesting," Amara replied simply. "Just like Harry and Jean and Ororo and Emma. Though I think I'd draw the line at one other girl!"
"Bathing with Betsy?" Piotr asked, his mind going off on a tangent for a moment.
"That's just a cultural thing," Amara waved her hand airily. "If it makes you uncomfortable to bathe with us, I'll stop asking you to stay when one of the others shows up."
"Thank you," Piotr said sincerely. "But that's not the only thing. You, you might be happy with the idea of, of being in a threesome, but I, I am not. It goes against my religion, love should be between a man and a woman. I won't, I cannot in good conscience decry anyone else's choices that would be wrong of me, I am not God. But neither am I like Harry. Harry might be able to split his time and love between so many women, but I don't think I can.
"So you're a one woman man…" Amara mused, moving in front of Betsy for a moment and then across to Piotr's other side before linking her arm with his. "You know, I think I'm fine with that!"
Piotr looked at her in surprise and Amara shook her head. "I should've realized that you weren't fine with it, I thought you were just embarrassed, not that you were having religious issues, I apologize for that."
She let their linked arms fall apart for a moment before grabbing his large calloused and yes even now a little paint splattered, hand, bringing it up to kiss his knuckles one after another. "As for Dani joining us, I can't say that she'll be happy with your decision, she's rather liked you since the first time she met you, and she and I have always gotten along well. I also won't deny that I'm, well, attracted to girls as much as I am to guys. Still, we're in a relationship, and that means that that choice is up to both of us. If you don't feel happy or comfortable with the idea, I'll drop it."
Piotr nodded, though he was a little uncomfortable with how blunt Amara was about the whole thing. Still, he was the one that had started this discussion, and being blunt at this point was a better idea than trying to hide things. "Thank you," he murmured, bringing their linked hands up to his own mouth kissing her knuckles in turn, then moving down her hand and to her elbow, which he'd learned was rather a ticklish spot for her.
"Gah, stop that!" Amara laughed, pulling her arm away quickly.
"That was possibly one of the sweetest things I've heard," Betsy said having come out of her trance a few moments ago. Both younger people blushed hotly, and she smirked at them, poking an elbow in Piotr's ribs. "And I'm almost sad you didn't take Amara up on her offer, it could've been interesting to see if I could join you three after all." At both of their blushes Betsy laughed, shaking her head sending her purple hair cascading this way and that. "Just joking, no offense Piotr, you're a nice guy and handsome too, but you're not my type."
An instant later she sobered, twitching her head to one side as they finally passed the edge of the property she had been telepathically investigating. "I found some things out, and they're not painting a pretty picture. Roberto's father is dead, his younger brother, Roberto's uncle, is now running the family business."
"Dead how?" Piotr asked quickly, grateful to get off the topic of emotions, relationships and jokes on him thereupon. "And were there no witnesses in the house to what happened?"
"No, no witnesses, everything I've got is secondhand, mostly from a police report the new head of the family had read after the fact. Not mind you that he's looked into it very closely, evidently he was second in line to take over the company. Roberto was first in line, and very much a favored son apparently."
"I could have told you that second part," Amara interjected. "His father doted on Roberto thanks mostly to his skill at soccer.
"Yes, but Roberto had no head for business, and that favoritism from his older brother apparently caused some familial friction there, since the uncle thought he should take over." Betsy shrugged, shaking her head. "It's an old story."
"As old as nobility," Amara murmured shaking her head. "Pity, I liked Mantigo, Roberto's father. He was a womanizer, but at least he was a very urbane and intellectual one. I don't think I ever heard about his younger brother however."
"Apparently he was stationed down in Argentina running the families interests there, while his brother and Roberto were, in his mental words, gallivanting around like playboys spending the money he was making for them. Did I say familial issues? Familial issues." Betsy murmured, lowering her voice as they turned around to head back to their hotel.
The trio had booked a room at the Brazil Hilton for four days, assuming that it would take a while to piece together what had really happened, with only Betsy having any experience in this kind of investigation and with Sage, Dennis, and Raven all busy elsewhere. Harry was busy up in space and working with Kitty, while Ororo was busy with Dr. Druid, all working on various magical projects. That left only the three of them.
Then too they would also like a few days down here themselves. Brazilian beaches were supposed to be amazing or so Amara said, though she had objected when Piotr brought up the idea of bringing Illyana and Melody along with the other kids to see them, as they had in California. When he actually saw the beaches a few days later, Piotr was more than glad she had. There were some discussions he did not want to have with his sister, ever if he could help it.
"Was he at all involved in what happened?" Piotr asked as they walked.
"No, but he's more than happy to take advantage of it. I caught a hint in his mind that he thinks Roberto might still be alive somewhere, but he is not going to lift a finger to find him."
Piotr frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "On the one hand that could make it easier down the line, if Professor Xavier is able to help Roberto regain his own mind, he'll simply stay with the X-Men I suppose. Yet at the same time, his control of another company could help Harry's plans in the long term."
Both women looked at Piotr with respect at that, nodding. "Well thought out Piotr, but not really necessary in this case I think. Still we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I got a few locations from the brother's mind where we could go and ask some questions anyway."
Piotr nodded thinking, but after a few moments it was Amara who spoke up. "All right, we'll head back to the hotel and change out of our disguises and I use the word loosely, then Piotr and I will hit up one of those places, and Betsy you can hit up the other. Are they at all close to one another?"
"Pretty close, one of them is a dance club downtown, the other is a soccer stadium called Estadio Vasco Da Gama."
"What is the connection there?" Piotr asked quizzically.
The dance club is where the father disappeared, and the other is the last place Roberto was seen before his own disappearance. The timing I think is important," Betsy said, smiling thinly. "Mantigo disappeared within two days of Roberto. But the police haven't been able to find any hint of a connection."
"Was there ever any hint of Roberto's girlfriend in his uncle's mind?" Amara asked.
Betsy shook her head in ignorance, she had looked for that specifically given what little Amara had been able to tell them about Roberto before this, but hadn't found anything. "But given the uncle's estrangement from Roberto and his older brother, that makes sense I suppose."
"In that case, let's stay together for now, and investigate the stadium first," Amara decided, looking at Piotr who nodded.
A few hours later they were at the stadium, which was located in what could be called a middle class area of the city, well off, clean but not rich. The stadium, a multi-sport one, was being repaired. Half of it had seemingly been melted into slag at some point in the past, damage which had spread to the field itself, burning much of the grass to ash.
While Betsy talked to several locals, Piotr and Amara inspected the site itself. Both of them came to the same conclusion, that it had been caused by Roberto. "His powers must've gone out of control for some reason," Amara said shaking her head. "I know about that kind of thing all too damn well."
Piotr put his arm around her shoulders giving her a squeeze, but Amara simply smiled. While her powers had gone out of control creating the volcano that sat outside her home city's walls, she hadn't actually killed anyone when her powers woke for the first time.
After concluding that, they left Betsy to continue that part of the investigation, heading to the nightclub where apparently the father had also disappeared. There they ran into a dead end. Neither of them had any training in asking questions but they posed as old friends of the family, which Amara actually pulled off rather well given her knowledge of Mantigo.
Nonetheless, they couldn't find any witnesses to what happened. Yes Mantigo had been there, and the workers apparently knew this was the last place he'd been seen. But that was all anyone knew, none had seen him leave, or had any memory of anything happening. When she followed up on this the next day Betsy was even able to verify it, no one had seen anything.
That evening the three of them met up at the hotel, and after grabbing some food from a nearby eatery absconded to their hotel room's veranda looking out over the city. Rio de Janeiro was a beautiful city, if incredibly crowded. It was a little too much for Piotr's taste, including the massive statue of Christ the Redeemer, which simply made him shake his head and mumble something about not worshiping graven images under his breath.
Over a few of the local beers and some rather good food the three of them exchanged information, after which Betsy shook her head. "So now we know what set off that stadium's destruction, his girlfriend getting caught up in a fight between his group and a rival gang of football thugs." Betsy shook her head. "I'm a Brit, and I know about football thuggery, but these Brazilians take it to a whole new level!"
"That doesn't answer the question what happened to Mantigo," said Amara frowning. "A business magnate of his power and influence doesn't just disappear, along with two of his best bodyguards! I'm beginning to think Sebastian Shaw might've had something to do with it.
Piotr frowned. "But Emma didn't say anything about it, nor did Sage."
"True." Betsy threw back her beer, then clunked the empty bottle down on the table. "I'm not happy about this. So far we've turned up a big solid zero, which means Charles is going to have one dickens of a time trying to help Roberto. His girlfriend was alive at least from what the locals said, I think that's the route we need to follow, forget the elder De Costa's disappearance for now."
"There's a chance she might be," Amara murmured. "You said that none of the locals knew whether or not she died with the rest of the gang members, no remains were found of a woman? She could still be around somewhere, but finding her is going to be damn tough unless we find someone who knows her."
OOOOOOO
In an effort to take Kitty's mind off the attack yesterday, Harry had lunch with her and Doctor Druid. Ororo would have joined them, but Sage had asked for her help that morning on vetting a few of the contacts Shaw had made in France and Egypt. It was a moment of familial peace in a day that was going to be incredibly busy for Harry.
They talked about magic in general, and the bottleneck that he and Ororo had talked about yesterday morning. The runic arrays were incredibly useful, allowing them to use magic in various ways for dozens of projects, but at the present there was only Harry, a master, Kitty, a budding and inventive journeyman, and Ororo and Dr. Druid, apprentices both, who had any ability with them. Worse, Kitty couldn't devote all her time to working on various arrays even now, and the less said about all the demands on Harry's time the better.
"We need a way to speed up the work on any kind of runic array, one that won't take still more of our time. I also want to find a way to speed up the smelting process for Orihalcum, and figure out a way to speed up the work on the defensive arrays on the Ravenspires. That is going to be an issue going forward," Harry said, frowning. The work on the Ravenspires was slow going, and Harry was near to the point of asking Dr. Doom for more construction droids, but not quite ready yet.
Doctor Druid nodded thoughtfully, tapping his fingers together. "I have tried to devote as much time as I could to learning about your various runic languages Mr. Potter, but I have to admit I have no idea how to speed up that process. Moreover I would be very leery at even following directions on an existing array let alone coming up with my own."
"What about those time dilation arrays you set up for the farms?" Kitty said softly, looking up from where she had been poking at her food. "Could we use them to give us more time per day?"
"Yes, but for the person using it that time would continue. Do you want to be alone working on something like that for weeks on end while everyone else thinks only a day or so has past?"
"That makes sense," Kitty said thoughtfully, though now her eyes were narrowed thoughtfully. "But I had another idea actually, I mean you'll probably think it's silly but…"
"Kitten…" Harry drawled. "You do remember that time you brought up the idea of my old broomstick and the flight array? You've proven that you sometimes see things I've missed, so please, lay it on me girl."
Kitty smiled, and nodded, some of her normal attitude coming back to her for a moment. "Well, you said at one point that house-elves can't use runes, but that's not the same thing as carving them is it, unless their inherent magic interferes with the process somehow? I was practicing runes for months before my magical core began to grow, right? So couldn't we have the house-elves create some kind of production line for the various arrays we need in numbers, and then have one of us power them before emplacing them?"
"That," Harry said thoughtfully staring at the girl. "That right there it is precisely the kind of idea I wanted to hear. It is definitely a plan. If we do it well enough, it could free you and I to continue to research new and better ways of using runic arrays. It wouldn't work for all the work we do, the defensive arrays on the Ravenspires need to be emplaced where they are, but the Trust-me-Not arrays, the runic doors and the initial work on the X-men uniforms, that kind of production line could work for all of those."
"Excluding the crystalline tattoos, though, those need magic pumped into them at every step of their creation," Harry said, gesturing with one hand and suddenly holding a dagger before making it disappear, the array on the back of his hand glowing for just a brief millisecond. "I'd like to get to the point where both the Custodes and the X-men have access to those. "
I'd also like to research the runic doorways and their impact on the ley lines and the magic of the places they are set up on. But that's for the future.
From there the lunch went on, with the two of them figuring out how to set up the production line and where, plus who would teach the house-elves and which house-elf to put in charge of the project, and what arrays Dr. Druid should start learning. After a bit Harry left Doctor Druid and Kitty still talking, happy the girl had regained her normal enthusiasm. Harry, unfortunately had another, far less pleasant meeting to get to, one of many today.
OOOOOOO
"Madame, Ms. Frost and Mr. Potter are here to see you."
Paris looked up from where she had been writing something on her desk. While she routinely used a laptop or computer for practically everything, there was just something satisfying about making your own notes by hand. "Excellent they're right on time. Could you find Amora for me, then let them in and show them to my office?"
Her chief butler nodded his head gravely and left the room, quickly coming back with the blonde newscaster who had, in what many thought an odd arrangement, come to live with her employer. The two women exchanged a glance and Paris nodded. "They're here. Do that voodoo you do so well."
Amora frowned not understanding Paris' whimsical joke there but she nodded. Moving over to the human the Asgardian gently touched her forehead and then her ears intoning a spell in an ancient tongue under her breath.
During the night where she had given what comfort she could to her friend/benefactor, Amora learned that her heritage gave no aid in staying sober, and that humans had come up with drinks whose alcoholic content made even the best mead or wine seem like water. Drunk, Amora had performed some small spells which fizzled out badly, but they had been enough to show Paris her houseguest was something beyond what she seemed.
After talking about it, Paris took Amora's origins in stride, saying it wasn't the weirdest thing she'd ever heard. But then she had asked Amora whether or not there were other magic users, and the fact that Harry was one come out.
Now with all of this latest news and the fact that Harry was now the sole king of the Hellfire Club Paris was feeling a little threatened. Not a lot, she still trusted her own judgment of people, but she wanted some backup nonetheless.
Harry and Emma were ushered into her office, and Harry froze for a moment, staring at first Paris then over at Amora before smiling. "Prudent," he said, getting an odd look from Emma and the butler, before moving towards a chair. The butler left them there, and Harry held up his hands, showing short sleeves. "Nothing up my sleeves," he intoned, smirking a little. "I didn't think you had to share your otherworldly nature so quickly Sorceress."
Amora shrugged her shoulders. "I was not in my right mind at the time, but it seems to have worked out well enough."
"She means she was as drunk as a sailor on a gallon of Fireball." Paris broke in, smiling at the memory of how she'd tried to get the bottle away from the other woman. She'd tried to say that it was a drink best done with shots, but Amora hadn't listened to her.
Amora scowled angrily at Paris for letting that out, but the media mogul went on quickly. "It has been interesting, and rather tempting. Having an ally like this, it could open all sorts of doors. But I decided against it. I've never been all that ambitious…"
Paris waited until Emma had finished laughing at her then went on. "It's true I reached the place where I wanted to be, on top. I don't want to control the world, I don't want to control people, I just don't want to be controlled in turn and I want to keep on doing what I do best. I have more than enough money, more than enough of anything really. The one thing I still wanted, was a happy marriage and a family."
At that Paris lost her smile and leaned forward stabbing both of her younger guests with a glare intended to pin them in their seats. She had been the one to contact Emma about meeting her and Potter, and it was now time to get to the reason they were all here. "You told me weeks back that you were moving against Shaw, Emma, with your little charade about not being friendly with Harry here. Given the recent news, and what it has done to Buckman and his legacy, I have to question that."
Emma Frowned. "I was telling you the truth, Sebastian Shaw was one of our main targets. But the other was the Sentinel Program." Harry tapped her hand lightly, and Emma cocked an eyebrow at him while he shook his head.
"I won't lie Paris." Harry said, taking over for Emma quickly. "We knew before I joined the Hellfire Club that Edward had thoughts and feelings towards mutants that were dangerous. The more we looked into it, the more his involvement with the Sentinel Program came out. We didn't want to move against him, but we had to move against the Sentinels. We had nothing to do with the Sentinels going berserk the other day, that was all them. After that, we did what we had to, we didn't even need to point the finger at Buckman, that was all SHIELD and Shaw set it in motion without any input from us."
Paris scowled angrily steepling her fingers. "You did what you had to. Who is we? Who are you really?"
"My real name is Harry Potter, but I'm also Guardian, leader of the Custodes Mundi," Harry said slowly.
Amora twitched, frowning. While she could keep Harry from influencing Paris' mind via magic, she knew her chance in a duel of the arcane with him were slim to none. She didn't have the power, and she thought she might not have the knowledge either. Certainly she hadn't faced that many mages before in combat, while Harry almost certainly had.
But with that admission Harry had upped the ante considerably. Paris could now hurt him and Emma simply by sharing that information with the wrong ears. And Harry knew it too.
"That is far more up front than I expected," Paris said, leaning back in her chair, before speaking those thoughts aloud. "The Custodes Mundi, and Magical Minds. I could hurt you badly by connecting those two dots in the public mind."
"But you won't," Harry said shaking his head and staring into her eyes. He wasn't reading her mind of course, he was reading her body language, her tone of voice, and above all the way she had aggressively asked those questions. Questions of people who she thought might have removed Sebastian Shaw at the very least, and thus shown a certain ruthlessness.
Those were the signs of a woman who was still hurting deep down, and who wanted some closure. "You want to know whether or not we had anything to do with Buckman going so anti-mutant crazy, don't you? If we can answer that, will that suffice?"
"Yes. Amora has said she knows spells that can tell when someone is lying, I want her to cast them on you."
Harry glanced briefly at Amora, who was looking back at him warily. "Do it."
While Emma simply nodded her head in agreement, Amora actually blinked in shock at how quickly Harry had agreed. But Harry knew that Emma wanted to keep Paris' friendship, and was willing to go along with this for now. Amora certainly didn't have enough skill to slip a spell under another on him. More strategically, Paris' strict neutrality, which carried over into all of her media outlets, was a prize beyond price.
At Amora's gesture and the words for "Truth Revealed" in Asgardian, a brief pink and orange aura enveloped both Harry and Emma. Feeling the spell hit him, Harry felt out the magic, realizing it was a very specific type of compulsion charm. Interesting, but not nearly as powerful as Veritaserum, I could throw it off if I tried, and I bet Emma could overcome its effect on her mind too.
At Amora's return nod, Paris blurted out. "Did you know, have a part of or in any way influence Edward Buckman to becoming the narrow minded anti-mutant bigot he became? Did you at any point plan to do him actual physical harm?"
"No we did not," Harry replied firmly, not fighting the strange compulsion charm at all. "He was that way already, the Sentinel program was put into place long before I arrived on this planet."
"Explain that." Paris all but commanded.
Seeing no harm in it Harry briefly described his stay in the Negative Zone and how the Fantastic Four had rescued him, giving the date he'd come through the portal with them. Then Emma took over the tale, showing the electronic trail that showed that the Sentinel program had indeed been around at least a year and a half before Harry showed up.
Paris asked questions throughout Emma's tale, though not Harry's. She was a businesswoman not a magician. After Amora simply nodded her head saying that was possible, she left Harry's origins alone.
After Emma finished however she was forced to concede that point, since any neutral examination of the Sentinel's showed how major a production they were in engineering and tech terms. Eventually Paris leaned back rubbing her eyes. "So my Edward really was hiding things from me for that long. I didn't want to believe it, I wanted to blame you two for all this. But this, I suppose it makes sense. I have no issue with your removal of Shaw, and now that I know you didn't have anything to do with Edward's fall from grace I guess the only question remaining is what do you want from me?"
"I want your neutrality," Harry said simply, now breaking the charm on him and then on Emma with all the effort someone else would take to stretching their shoulders. "Keep doing what you've been doing: give both sides of the so-called mutant question equal time in your programs, look for facts rather than emotional clap trap, and remain neutral when it comes to the Hellfire Club."
"And what about you?" Paris asked looking at Emma. She had very carefully not asked whether or not Emma was a mutant, she felt instinctively that Emma, whatever Potter might want, would have balked at that. But the spell had worked on her as well when she claimed to have no part in Edward's blinding bigotry, so she was content for now.
"Your friendship," Emma said with a shrug. "I wasn't trying to get close to you, I at first liked having what amounted to a mentor as I got my feet under me in the Hellfire Club, and then I began to enjoy our friendship. I realize you might still have questions, but I hope that whatever happens, we can remain friends."
Paris sat back, kneading her forehead thoughtfully. "I'm not happy about Edward's fall from grace despite our break up we were together for years. But I won't fight it, I'll even open Buckshot's books when SHIELD gets around to asking about them, I'd be selling the company off anyway. I didn't realize until I started to look at them how badly Edward's company was doing, he had twisted his budget around to pay for the Sentinels. He basically purchased much of the supplies from himself via dummy companies, then funneled the parts out, and then laundered the money to funnel that to the project for the things his company couldn't provide."
"And about continuing to be your friend Emma," Paris frowned then smiled slightly. "Amora here has access to the most amazing ice cream you've ever tried. Are you doing anything tonight?"
Emma looked at her and then began to laugh, standing up abruptly and moving around the table to hug the older woman in a very rare public display of emotion. "Not at all!"
Harry smiled blandly, tipped his head toward all three ladies and made his way out of the room and then the mansion as the three of them began to talk about what they would be doing tonight. Emma could do with some down time of her own. He however had yet more meetings to get to, and one in particular was due to start in a few minutes. Damn it Jean, I miss you, get back here soon love, I need your mind and advice even more than anything else!
OOOOOOO
At the same time that Harry and Emma were talking to Paris, Jean and Reed Richards were staring at Douglas Ramsey's latest find: an up to date order of battle for a Kree battle fleet, which Dennis had pulled from the Doom Bringer's computer. It wasn't a detailed one, and it was mainly a list of places and unit designations, but with Mar'vel's help they were able to figure out what all the designations meant.
And it wasn't pretty. The list, despite being simple names and markers, was two dozen lines long. Each line denoted groups of ships ranging from four up to fifty, though Mar'vel couldn't tell them the numbers behind some of the designators. But they could guess the fleet numbered somewhere around four to six thousand ships of all classes. And this is just one battle fleet…
"I found it buried deep in a programming kernel in the Doom Bringer's computer, apparently its part of the core programming for all command ships, then the data's updated as the computer is brought online. It's supposed to be deleted if the computer registers the ship's taken too much damage, but it somehow failed in this Doom Bringer's case, so it was still there when I began to poke around its OS when we stopped. I wanted to see what the different capabilities of the larger ship's computers were in comparison to the Hellion's…" Douglas said, before falling silent as he stared at Reed and Jean.
"I thought you all knew how vast the Kree Empire was already," Mar'vel said from nearby, looking at the humans who were all staring at the list of designations in shock.
"We did sort of, but this, this puts it all in perspective. Holy shit, no wonder the Kree can lose entire flotillas and not even feel it," Jean murmured. I know Harry and I are powerful, hell we could possibly destroy a fleet this size if they were dumb enough to get close to us, but what if we're already engaged elsewhere against their special forces? The X-men and Fantastic Four couldn't handle even a large flotilla, let alone a hammer this size!
"Considering we've effectively declared war on the Kree, and that's not even considering our current mission, I really hope your boyfriend has been busy while we've been gone," Reed murmured, shaking his head.
"I hope so too…" Jean replied then scowled, shaking her head in turn. "We also need to think in terms of allies. We can't, Earth can't survive if the Kree take us seriously rather than as a backward system beneath their notice. Our anonymity, our very smallness, protected us more than any act you and the rest of the FF took, or even our own actions against the Hellion."
"True but the Skrull won't look too fondly on Earth thanks to my family's past interactions with them, and we don't know enough about the Badoon or the Shi'ar to contact them, not from a position of anything but that of a supplicant." Reed warned. "Furthermore, the basis of all alliances is mutual need at bottom. What do we have that either the Skrull or the Shi'ar could want?"
"I don't know, but we're about, what, another two weeks out from Earth? That'll give me time to think about it anyway. As for you Reed, I want you to look at everything we've got about the Doom Bringer, dissect that ship to a fare-the-well."
"Agreed. That ship, its toughness and armaments, will be the key. We've brought along enough smaller ships to give Earth a good sized skirmish force, line of battle ships will be our weakness." Reed nodded, and turned to a spare computer screen.
Jean turned away from the damning list, then looked over at Dani, who noticed her look, and nodded in reply. If Earth was to stand against an empire, and one that might eventually come to see them as a true threat, getting some gods on their side had just become a major priority. Really, really hope you've all been busy loves. I miss you all so fucking much, but this, this is more important than anything personal could ever be. Oh please, let them have started work on the space industry.
OOOOOOO
"Achooo!" Harry snorted, shaking his head. "'Scuse me." Sniffling slightly, he looked over his desk in Magical Minds headquarters. He had teleported here immediately after leaving Emma with Paris. "I'm sorry could you repeat that Sage?"
"I said I finished putting the new hiring plans in place for Unique Endeavors, though the name still needs work in my opinion." The pale, black haired woman said primly. "I've set up five dozen hiring centers in America, ten in Britain, seventeen scattered throughout Europe, and a further five in Canada should be ready soon. The centers themselves will be ready to handle interviews within a week."
Sage paged to the next part of the agenda. "I've also streamlined the paperwork for the testing of the hover ambulance, oh I took the time to go over as much of Saab's daily business outlook as I could, it was pretty obviously thought up by engineers, not anyone with real organizational skills. Magical Minds is running smoothly already, my hat's off to your manager there, and thanks to Ms. Frost's help Arc Technologies is also ready."
"With the help of her local factors I've even gotten the British government to admit, rather grudgingly, that the testbed for the arc reactor has passed with flying colors. The British Department of Energy is salivating at the idea of more arc reactors. Even with paying us for the running of the reactors, the British Government is looking to halve its current energy budget."
"I've also begun to work with Dennis on his spy network, it was a decent setup, very widespread, and integrating it with the Hellfire club's information apparatus should be simple enough, I should have that done by this evening. After that, I'll be looking over the budget for your think tanks, and then delving into the Hellfire Club's secret books, it should be fun seeing how much Sebastian didn't know about there, and there again Ms. Frost's aid will be beneficial."
"Two days…" Harry said wonderingly. "Barely two days and you've done all that." It was a statement, not a question, Harry had already skimmed some of the changes Sage had made to Saab and Arc Technologies, and approved of them all. Rather it was his sheer awe in the capability of the woman in front of him coming out.
Harry was a soldier, or a type of social revolutionary depending on who you talked to, who was building a business empire in order to push his social agenda and build a force in both material and man-power in order to defend humanity as a whole. It was a means to an end to him, and no matter how good he was at it, there were aspects of the business side of things he overlooked. Emma was a businesswoman, but she had been born at the top, had never needed to get into the real paperwork, though she knew how to.
Sage however, thanks to her mutant power was a genius at anything involving numbers and organizing. She had been the head of Shaw's internal security team, had oversight of all his companies' budgets, and was an accomplished spy and hacker in her own right. And that hadn't been enough to keep her busy all the time.
"What am I paying you now Sage?" Harry asked, then shook his head. "Whatever it is, triple it. Congratulations, you're now the go-between me, Jean and Ororo and my companies, you're in charge of the day to day running and whenever I start up a new one, you'll add that to your duties. Have you had the opportunity to look over my plans for the Ravenspires and the rest of my plans for space?"
"I have, and they're ambitious. I honestly didn't think you had any real hope of pursuing such an agenda, but that was before I became aware of your magical and scientific resources. Now the only bottleneck to enlarging the industry you already have, the robots you have working up there, is manpower and magic. That first will take time to solve, and I've marked out time to talk to Carol about auditing the classes they are coming up with for space workers. I'm afraid I don't have enough of an engineering background to audit their plans for the Ravenspires, but I think they are good to go."
Sage smiled, shaking her head. To call Harry's plans for space ambitious was to say the sun was mildly hot. But she went on more seriously. "You definitely need to figure out a way to break the magic bottleneck though, as I understand it you, Shadowcat and Dr. Druid are the only ones who can work runes?"
"Agreed, and we've already worked out a possible solution to that this morning. It'll take a few days to set up, but it should work. Now, I know you set up a few meetings today between me and the newest think tank group, so let's get on with that shall we?"
From there Harry introduced himself to his medical think tank for the first time. They would be working on several low key things for now, but one big one too: regeneration and anti-aging. Harry's own healing factor and the fact there were mutants out there who had healing factors even better than his proved that such a thing was possible, though Harry knew it would take them years to isolate the ability. Harry supplied them with several samples of blood and tissue to go over, not saying where they came from.
Of course, Magical Minds headquarters was spelled such that they couldn't take the samples home. Harry was well aware of reciprocal magic, and had no wish to deal with such in the future. Nor would they be allowed to take their notes home either, something which made some of them mutter angrily.
"Most mutants refuse to be examined peacefully," Dr. Tonas, a Bengali doctor said, frowning. "In the interest of ethics, I have to ask where you've obtained these samples. If they were not obtained with the consent of the individual, I will not work on this project, no matter how fascinating." After he said that many of the other doctors spoke up in support, but he was the first to step forward.
Harry smiled. "Congratulations Dr. Tonas, you've just won yourself the head position of this group." Tonas reared back in surprise, but Harry went on. "I deliberately didn't mention where the samples came from, I wanted to see who'd bring it up, and what you would say. As to the samples themselves, they come from myself and a volunteer, a young mutant of my acquaintance." Rahne had volunteered for this, so long as she never had to deal with the doctors in person.
There was some muttering at that, but Harry showed them an example of his own healing factor, and that silenced the doctors' worry. After that they practically ignored him as they rushed to set up their labs with the samples he had given them.
After that, Harry had conversation via the phone with Dr. Vorlus. The Doctor wished to go on a field trip, but didn't outright say where he wanted to go, only that he would probably be out of touch for at least two weeks. That was kind of odd, but when he said that he was going in search of what could possibly be the home of Thor during the time the Asgardians lived among man, Harry was willing to give the man whatever resources he needed.
Then Harry had a much nicer discussion with Carol. She and her core team wanted to expand, and had over five hundred names of people they wanted to bring in. Harry gleefully agreed, so long as the job interviews happened in the Magical Minds building. The process would be slow, but continual from now on, humanity, in drips and dribbles was going into space!
Over the next few days Emma and Sage, with Paris' help, went to work on the Hellfire Club. While not as overtly corrupt as the London branch had been, there were still members of the club with a lot of dirty laundry, and the Hellfire Club knew where all of that laundry was.
They even knew where some bodies were buried, and in a few cases where a lot of bodies were buried. Several club members were arrested in the following days as the probe into Edward Buckman and Sebastian Shaw's affairs expanded, or so the public thought. The public didn't know that Sage and Emma simply had passed some information the police's way, making it seem as if it was coming from the investigation but not really. The police of course knew that, but were willing to go along with things. Especially when one of those tips allowed the police to arrest one of the biggest drug dealers in the country.
Once the deadwood was dealt with, Emma and Sage began to wheel and deal, enlarging their influence and economic power.
Harry however didn't take part in this, having something far more important to devote his time to. The next day he finished designing the two spells, and then called Ororo, Dr. Druid, and Dr. Strange and his group together. Clea and Wanda were both looking around the Room of Requirement's runic array room.
It looked like the same room where Harry and Stephen had worked on the anti-demonic dimension enchantment, many of the runic arrays that had covered the floor then were the same as now, but many were different too. Stephen frowned, looking at them his eyes narrowed. "Vision, after-images, illusion, displacement… My god Mr. Potter, have you… are you thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing?"
Clea too was looking at the changes, her eyes narrowed. The other three frowned, not understanding what was going on, but trusting Harry to not have called them all together for a spurious reason.
"If you think I'm thinking of throwing a massive illusion around the entire world, then you'd be partly correct." Harry smirked, but there was no humor in it and he quickly held up his hand as Stephen made to speak. "But this illusion won't affect anyone on Earth, rather anyone who is beyond Earth's orbit."
That made Stephen pause and he exchanged a glance with Clea, but it was Wanda who spoke up. "You're looking to fool the next group of aliens who come calling? Why?"
"Exactly. We took out a Kree ship nearly a month or so ago, and we're quickly coming to the time for a response for that. We need this spell, no this enchantment in place to fool them. Because unless we figure out a way to see them coming through hyperspace, they will always have the advantage of surprise, and if they come to destroy rather than invade or attack one group…"
For a moment his listeners were silent but then Stephen knelt down to pear at some of the smaller runes which covered the floor in concentric circles. "But this isn't just one spell, is it, there are breaks here in the arrays…"
"Yes, two spells. One, an illusion to cover Earth, which will simply show whatever is on the other side from whoever is trying to view it with Kree sensors, we know enough to be certain most powers out there use the same systems generally speaking. Of course if you can get past the veil call it, then you can see the planet, I don't want to hide the planet from our own people. Or from Jean, damnit, stop thinking about it!
Ororo looked at Harry, taking his hand in hers, knowing and sharing the thought that had just gone through his mind there, but quickly moving on before either could become maudlin. "But that alone won't work my love, if Earth is simply not there, then I would assume most attackers are certain to figure out something is up. And I don't think it would take them long either."
"That's why we give them another target," Harry replied grimly. "That is why we'll be doing two incantations. One to hide the Earth, and one to create an illusion of said, good enough to fool Kree sensors, and even good enough to respond to outside assault. I have that built into it already, and let me tell you, that was the hardest part!"
"The, the hardest part…" Clea murmured, her eyes wide with shock. "Good Gaea Potter, you don't think small do you? Do you have any conception of the strain placing that spell in place is going to put on our minds!? I presume that's why you called us here, but I think you're overestimating our abilities tremendously."
"To create an illusion like that which would be believable you would have to link it to the, call it the current earth, every individual, every building, stream, and contour of the planet!" Stephen said, while Wanda, Dr. Druid and Ororo all gaped.
"Exactly, though figuring out how to do that was relatively simple. The price in mental concentration and magical strength will be… exorbitant, but I think we can do it. Gaea has already stated her willingness to provide more power but it's our minds that will need to be working in concert, that will be shaping the spell, and I won't lie, that's going to be damn hard."
Stephen pulled at his goatee, his mind overcoming his shock slowly and he frowned. "There must be an easier way of doing this. The veil spell I grant you makes sense, but the other? Surely we could come up with another target for them."
Now it was Ororo's turn to shake her head. "There are two problems with that. One, any fleet coming to destroy the Earth will have orders to do just that, and the Kree in particular won't go against such orders. If they don't see Earth, they will at the very least fire where their records say Earth should be. And two, we don't have anything in orbit that could take their attention for very long."
"I'll grant the Custodes could deal with them before they turn their attention on Earth, but even so, we could probably not keep them from firing on it, or at least some of them getting away. Which would be very bad in the long run, we could take out a battle fleet yes, but only if they came in fat and complacent. If they didn't if they came in spread out, moving slowly and spreading out further, we couldn't destroy them all before they bombard the Earth."
"Exactly. Besides this spell will remain in place, it'll take power from Gaea and myself, hence why I had to get her approval for it, and can thus be used multiple times. Even if we could devise a threat that would make the Kree change their immediate plans, it would only be useable once, at best twice." Harry took up the tale, staring earnestly at Stephen.
The Sorcerer Supreme and his lover exchanged a long, speaking glance, and Stephen sighed. "Alright you've convinced me it's a good idea, but you have yet to explain how you think our minds are going to handle this much pressure!"
"Because none of us will be carrying the load alone, it will be all of us, and any of us can pull out of the spell if we're feeling overwhelmed, just like in a coven." Harry replied. "I asked Madame Harkness to help me with that portion, and it will work."
Agatha had called Harry a hell and damned fool, then muttered something about Fate touched always being touched in the head, but she had still helped as she could. She would have even asked to help him cast the spell, but not without Susan and Reed being back, and Thundra being around. That woman was going to cause trouble, Agatha just knew it, and she wanted to be at her best to make certain it didn't splash on Franklin.
The magic users sans Harry all exchanged glances, then Ororo nodded, taking his hand once more. Wanda hadn't understood everything that had been said, but she had followed enough, and she simply nodded her willingness to do her part. Dr. Druid hesitated, knowing he'd be the first to weaken in this coven, but nodded, trusting Harry.
That was what it came down to for Stephen and Clea too. Stephen trusted Harry. If he said they could do this, and survive it, they probably could. But doing a spell this large without aide from one of his patron gods of magic would be incredibly hard. "Alright, let's do this. Right now preferably, before I have a chance to talk myself out of it."
With that the group got into a loose oval around a monstrously large but perfect ruby, which rose from the ground on a plinth, glistening with more light than it should have. As a focus, it could not be beat, especially since Gaea herself had loaned it to Harry for this purpose. Harry and Stephen, as the most powerful, anchored the oval at both ends, while Ororo and Clea took up position directly between them along the curves as Harry dictated. Wanda took up position between Clea and Stephen, looking nervous but game, and Dr. Druid did the same directly across from her, simply looking nervous.
At Harry's nod, they all held out their hands, magic of various colors suddenly appearing around them, as they sent their minds into the ruby, and Harry began to direct them, his voice and Stephen's mumbling the flowing incantation under their breath. The first spell began to form between them, a dark diaphanous web appearing, then expanding rapidly, moving towards then through them and out to cover the world, settling into place after a bare thirty minutes.
"That was the easy part," Harry said grimly, his magic now flowing in a river out of him rather than a stream. "Now it gets much harder."
Again the 'covens' magic rose, and the second incantation began. Runic arrays here and there all around the room started to glow, and the spell slowly seeped into the ley lines. It took hours, the spell having to copy every contour of the planet, every mountain, river and ocean, and it was here where the minds of the spell-crafters started to feel the strain. They had to control that power and shape it, understanding and seeing everything they were copying into the illusion.
About two hours in, Dr. Druid fell out of the spell reeling away to sink to his knees, bleeding from the nose and where he had practically bitten through his lip. Harry had honestly expected the older man to last half that time, and he would have spared him a nod if he could.
The spell rose out of the ground, covering the earth in gold and green light for those with eyes to see, and more than one sorceress or wizard stared in shock at what they could feel was a massive illusion spell,. But since their own senses didn't seem to be the target, they all let it go, even Morgan, wary of catching the attention of the individuals behind that working. It simply affirmed that it was time for her to lay low, lest she catch this new power's attention.
Despite not having had very much magical instruction just yet, Doom too felt the spell. Cynthia however was quick to reassure her son being able to sense the intent behind the spell was to use it against someone beyond Earth. Though she couldn't tell him anything beyond that.
Clea fell out of the spell at that point, unable to continue. The need to copy and understand the nature of the sea's currents and the movement of the animals therein had been too much. She moved over wearily, pulling Dr. Druid out of the room, before asking for a house-elf to take them to a room.
The spell continued to permeate the globe, now including those creations of man, moving up from the ground. The things under the ground, Harry had judged, didn't need to be part of the illusion, since no one in orbit could see them. But because of the sheer number of items and the fact it also had to recreate people and their vehicles, the strain on the spell-crafters minds redoubled.
An hour later, Ororo finally gave up the ghost. Blood was pouring from her nose, and her eyes had started to go glassy with exhaustion. Letting her hand drop, she stared wearily at Wanda, and moved behind the younger woman, her steps like that of a zombie. But a moment later she caught Wanda as she fell back, unconscious. The least experienced of them all hadn't recognized the signs, and had pushed until she collapsed.
For a moment Stephen and Harry wavered, the spell halting and almost reversing, unable to cope with Wanda's abrupt departure. But then they regained it, and continued. Ororo sat on her knees on the ground, cradling Wanda's head, the young girl mumbling under her breath about her brain feeling like it had been electrocuted and frozen at the same time. She watched the two master sorcerers, as they alone took the strain for another three hours, until, finally the spell was complete.
Harry held it there, adding the fillipe he needed to make it respond enough to fool any Kree sensors, then, for want of a better phrase, tied the spell off, slowly removing his senses from it. The spell hovered there in space, the image of the world, following the world a full day behind its rotation around the sun, finished. With that Harry let it go, and came back to his merely human body, gasping, and shuddering, more exhausted than he could remember being since hell-week with the SAS.
"That, that was the most exhilarating, exhausting and draining spellwork I've ever done Harry. I, I don't think I could concentrate enough to blow out a candle right now, physically, let alone magically." Dr. Strange mumbled. Even moving his lips was a trial.
Harry simply nodded, moving over to help Ororo to her feet only to almost overbalance as Ororo pulled on him. They both nearly tumbled to the floor but Cory suddenly appeared, shaking his head and popping the people off into beds. "Master Harry be pushing himself too hard again, it must be Tuesday." Somehow, none of the humans had enough energy to complain, all of them falling into a deep, dreamless sleep in their beds.
OOOOOOO
Two days of searching for Roberto's girlfriend proved fruitless. Whatever had happened to the girlfriend, she had seemingly disappeared from the city. They found out her name, and from that her address, where her family had lived, but the operative word there was 'had', the family having disappeared too.
Betsy telepathically scanned the neighbor's minds but she found nothing unusual, the family had simply moved in with the father's parents on a farm in the south. There was no indication or clue about the daughter, nor was there even a hint of another telepath's presence in them. Yet when they tried to find their address, they came up with nothing, not even when they went to the municipal district center and asked around there.
Their third night in Rio de Janeiro ended the same way their first had, with the three of them once again on the veranda of their hotel room sharing a meal. Finally Piotr shook his head. "We're done here. There is nothing here for us, nothing we can find that can help Roberto. I'm afraid you're right Betsy. Charles will have to do this the hard way."
Betsy shuddered a little. "I certainly wouldn't want to try that. Removing a false personality that the person has willingly allowed to be emplaced inside his mind, you'll be fighting his psyche the entire way, and even if you succeed he's not going to thank you for it."
"Even dead, Sebastian Shaw pollutes this earth," Piotr muttered, then crossed himself. One shouldn't speak poorly of the dead, though he felt that the Almighty would have allowed it in this case.
"We need to find the girlfriend's family. If we can find an address for their farm..." Amara began, then stilled suddenly, her physical form shimmering for a moment. "Incoming earthquake!"
As Amara spoke the building began to shake as below them people scrambled for cover. The trio ran inside, stopping at the various doorframes of their hotel room. Soon enough the earthquake subsided, but in the distance sirens began to wail.
Both Piotr and Betsy looked at Amara. Her powers were based on tectonic energies, and she had informed the team at one point that she was always connected to that power, and a few experiments in the ROR had shown she could predict earthquakes as long as an hour before they could hit, so long as she was near the epicenter when they began.
She shook her head sharply. "I didn't feel anything, we're nowhere near the center of the disturbance."
Piotr frowned, turning on the TV and switching to a news channel to see what was going on, wanting to check to make certain that Amara was right. When he turned it on however, instead of the regular news reporter what he got was a large-ish looking black man with wide shoulders, a 'shirt' that looked straight from the sixties, and the most bizarre afro that Piotr had ever imagined. Really, what is with afros anyway, I don't understand it at all.
"To the leaders of the world, I am Moses Magnum! Those tremors some of your cities, Rio De Janiero, Los Angeles, Athens, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, have felt are being caused by me and my power! They are but a small taste of what I can do, and what I will do, if my demands are not met!"
Piotr gaped for a few seconds then turned to stare at Betsy and Amara. "I think we should get in touch with Harry," Amara said.
"Unfortunately, Harry can't come to the phone right now," Dennis replied via the com when they called. There was something a little manic in his tone, as if he'd had a bit of a jolt to the system, not a negative one or a positive one, just a surprise. "Frankly I think your sister could tell you more about what happened than I could right now."
"What do you mean he can't come to the phone right now?" Piotr said calmly, the calm of a person dealing with a crazy man. This is the kind of threat the Custodes should be dealing with, isn't it?
"I mean he's completely unresponsive in his bed snoring up a storm along with Storm. All the other magic users, even Doctor Druid, are out of it. One of them, a teenager, she said something about her brain being fried. But I think she was joking about that," Dennis' voice was deadly serious despite the attempt at a joke.
"Is that my brother?" said a younger female voice, before the voice's owner grabbed the phone away from Dennis, talking into it excitedly. "Piotr, Piotr, you should've seen it! There was so much magic in the air, and then suddenly there was an image of me, and then it was as if the entire castle and then the land around it and everything else suddenly had like, like some kind of afterimage or before-image or something. What've you been up to, when are you coming back?"
"Calm down sestrenka," Piotr shook his head, smiling slightly now while Betsy and Amara, who had been looking a little tense, also seemed to calm down. If it was a new crisis, they doubted Illyana would have sounded so upbeat. "I will hopefully be back in a few days, we're not having much luck in our investigation here and something else has come up now. When did this, this magical event happen?"
"Yesterday. They've all been sleeping, Mr. Harry and Ms. Ororo are sleeping up in their room, they didn't even wake up when Melody and I went in this morning. We were going to prank them again, but they looked so tired that we thought better of it. The others are in a spare bedroom somewhere else."
"Thank you Illyana, you've answered all my questions. Could you put Dennis back on please?"
Smiling happily his sister did just that, before racing off to find Melody. Piotr's voice however turned serious the moment she did. "How long do you think Harry's going to be out of it?"
"I don't know, all our experts on magic are down so I don't even have anyone to ask, unless I call Madame Harkness, and the FF aren't responding, which means they are probably dealing with something else."
"I will say that Harry looked better than the others in some ways. He and Dr. Strange were much healthier looking than the others. The young woman was bleeding from the nose, and Storm was being dragged along by Harry and Doctor Strange. Doctor Druid is unconscious, and became so before the rest of them came out of that room whatever they were doing, one of the house-elves teleported him out of the ROR while the others continued doing, whatever the hell it was they were doing."
Piotr relayed all of this to Amara and Betsy, and Amara tapped her chin thoughtfully. "It sounds like some of the illusion spells that Harry has sometimes used in our exercises, but far larger. And I certainly don't think anything like that could've taken so much out of not only him but all the other magic users." She shook her head. "Regardless, we need to figure out what to do."
In reply to that Piotr turned to Betsy who had been watching the local news while he and Amara got in contact with Camelot. "Are the locals handling this? Are we needed here?"
"I don't think we're needed here now," Betsy said slowly. "Thanks mostly to Amara's earlier efforts at least. But the Afroed-arsehole was just on a moment ago, saying if his demand, he wants to be made king of Japan for some reason, is not met within an hour he will randomly choose one of the cities he has already attacked and hit it with a magnitude 8 earthquake."
Both she and Piotr turned to Amara who frowned then shrugged. "So long as I'm in touch with the actual planet with nothing artificial between us I might be able to stop him again whatever power he brings to bear, but it won't be easy."
Her listeners nodded, even Dennis though none of the others could see it. "It'd be easier if I was closer to where whatever he's trying started, the epicenter of his power, rather than its target area. "So the question then becomes how to find him. Dennis, can you find him somehow?"
"Ms. Acquilla I don't even know what I'm looking for!" Dennis replied, somewhat aghast.
"Can you get in touch with the X-Men and Professor Xavier? Maybe he can find Magnum with Cerebro?" Piotr asked.
"I can do that, Harry's linked us up to the mansion, hold on." For a moment the line was silent, then Dennis came back. "I'm opening up a three way link, Charles can you hear us?"
"Yes I can, I take it you're all talking about this terrorist Magnum's attacks and his demand? You all do take this 'world guard' concept seriously don't you?"
Despite his somewhat whimsical tone, Charles voice was also laden with respect, and he went on seriously. "I cannot find one single mind among thousands like that unless I know what I'm looking for, the psychic imprint of the individual mind say, or if it is unusual in some fashion, or I'm very close. I will however ask Dennis to connect me with Emma, perhaps between the two of us we can find some way of discovering Moses' location."
OOOOOOO
"…So all we know right now, is that Moses Magnum has laid down the law, he becomes King of Japan or he keeps on destroying cities. The little tremors he's used thus far were a mere preview apparently, through Tony and Pym both say they have only the vaguest idea about how he's doing this." Fury said looking around the briefing room, each word coming out as if etched steel.
After the two big-brains nodded in confirmation Nick went on in the same tone. "Magnum's background, what we could find of it, is available if you want to look it over. But we've got no idea how he's doing this. His known powers shouldn't let him attack this powerfully or this far away, and any kind of augmentation technology should be well beyond what Magnum could have access to. We'll assume he got it from AIM for now, but that's going to be one question we'll need an answer to when we capture him."
"A more salient point right now is that he's got a history of megalomania and psychopathy. He's given the world powers an ultimatum, every hour after his initial time limit is passed a city will 'feel his wrath' and Magnum is just the right kind of crazy to go through with it."
SHIELD had scored several large-scale victories in the past week, nipped several problems in the bud, and finished flattening AIM in South America, which left them with only a few African holdings and maybe one or two in the Middle East and the poorer Asian countries. But this had blindsided everyone, and Fury was not happy.
Not happy about being blindsided again, not happy about not being able to see a solution. "We need to find him! Tony, Henry, this is all you."
Tony winced, but moved to the front of the briefing room, looking around at the team which he'd agreed to join on a pro-tem basis. He wasn't exactly sold about the idea of working for a semi-secret agency with even more secret sponsors, but hopefully his little bugs that he'd implanted in several areas of the helicarrier since coming aboard would solve the so-called secret part of that soon enough. And with the way the world's going, maybe having a superhero team tied into the governments of the world is a good idea…
But right now, he didn't have any real solution for their current problem and said so. "Maybe Henry and I can come up with some sensor equipment, and then trace the next attack back to its source, but I'm sorry that's the only way I can see us figuring out where the hell Magnum is. And even that'll be a stretch."
"I think," said a new male voice thoughtfully "That we need to prepare ourselves for the worst. If he wants to put pressure on the Japanese Government in particular it makes sense that he would attack them first, so we should move the helacarrier to fly in the Asian Ocean. From what I can remember the islands are extremely tectonically reactive, that makes all of those islands not just Tokyo, a target right? And Hong Kong, much as I hate to think this way, would be an even juicier target given its size."
"That makes sense, and I think Tony and I could maybe come up with some way of siphoning off Magnum's attack if we figure out the basic energy spectrum he'd have to be using," said Doctor Henry him, nodding his head. "But not in an hour, which still leaves us having to pray that he's bluffing about choosing a random city to destroy next."
For a moment there was a glum silence, then the new male voice spoke up again after slapping his hands together. "Enough, enough woolgathering, enough negative thoughts. Tony, Henry, get to work on that device. The rest of us will start getting ready. Nick, move the helacarrier to a position between Tokyo and Hong Kong. Like I said, odds are he'll choose one of those two, and if not, we'll be no worse off if we're wrong than now."
There was a sudden movement from all around them, as the Avengers, SHIELD's superpowered team of heroes began to move. Nick however simply nodded at his aide, who raced off, leaving him to stare with his one good eye at the speaker. "You know, after your rehab I had hoped to send you with the rest of the team directly after the Red Skull. There seemed to be a sort of… fitness about that."
"There is, but we're soldiers Nick, we go where we're needed, we can't always wait for what we want to happen. Besides, from your reports old Red face has bitten off more than he can chew in Doctor Doom anyway. Or are you saying we'd move against first one and then the other in succession?"
"I don't know about that one, so far Doctor Doom hasn't attacked any country that doesn't eventually officially and unofficially welcome him in. Those former USSR countries were really screwed up.
Nick then laughed, shaking his head. "'We're all soldiers' huh? I think I stopped being a soldier a long time ago Captain."
"Really? From where I'm standing you're still a soldier, still fighting the good fight. What the good fight means might've changed, your employers and your own weapons of choice might've changed, but you're still you inside Nick. Heh, whatever your body looks like."
With a small laugh Steve Rogers reached down and grabbed up a duffel that would've taken two or three normal men to lift, heaving it onto one shoulder. He nodded his blond head once more at his old friend in a new body then ran out of the briefing room to go and change into his work clothes.
Nick stayed there for a moment, staring after him then slowly shook his head. "Damn bastard still has it doesn't he?" I just wish I believed that too Steve, I really do.
OOOOOOO
Unlike SHIELD, the Custodes Mundi had resources that only peripherally touched on commonplace science. They had Emma and Charles, two of the three most powerful telepaths that the world had ever seen.
Emma had taken command of the operation with an ease and surety that was such a part of the woman. Looking at her none of the others could see how worried she was about Harry and Ororo. She had been told about what the magic users were going to try, but hadn't thought it would take them all out of action like this.
Nonetheless, they had a crisis to deal with, and would do so. Harry would demand nothing less from her, and Emma, to her own slight surprise, had no wish to shirk from it. Not that I wouldn't mind some help. Damn it Jean, we could really use you here you know?
They also had Sage, who took time off from working with Harry's companies and ever-increasing spy network, in order to aid in this crisis. She tried at first to track any tech company's shipments that could possibly be involved in creating any kind of device that a mutant could use to heighten his tectonic plate-based powers.
This didn't work so very well, but logic did. 'Logically speaking, there is no way that Moses Magnum could be hiding within the borders of a first world country, not even China. No country would be involved in something like this, not when they have so much to lose if they were found to be involved."
"I'm not certain you could say that about Russia," Piotr said rather grimly. "My countrymen have a history of, what is the phrase, thumbing the nose to the world?"
Everyone chuckled somewhat grimly at that, knowing Russia might be a problem down the line given how its society was continuing to react to mutants. But Sage merely nodded.
"Yes, but Moses Magnum is a mutant, which would discount the Russians being behind this. Furthermore, look at the severity of the attacks." Sage pulled up several systems on the hologram screen that dominated one wall of Cerebro's room, and the combined teams of the X-men and the Custodes leaned forward. This included Piotr, Amara and Betsy, who had returned via an emergency portkey to Camelot a bare few minutes before this briefing began then hopped through the runic doorway to the mansion.
It also included young Ichiki, or Armor as she wanted to be called. The Japanese girl had heard that Tokyo had been attacked, and had demanded to be allowed to join the team. Considering at least half of this mission would be relatively simple search and rescue, Amara agreed, and hoped the girl wouldn't come to curse her later. She had learned after the battle in Montreal that SAR could force you to see things that even combat couldn't.
Sage gestured, tapping first Rio de Janeiro, then London, then Berlin, Washington, Tokyo and Hong Kong. "Tokyo and Hong Kong were both hit slightly harder from whatever this was than the other cities, it wasn't obvious at first, and the difference is slight, but it's there if you look close enough at the seismographic data."
"That convinced me to look at the rest of the data, and I noticed there is a definite power curve. Whatever this is, it loses power the further away from its point of origin."
"I thought Berlin and London were reporting more damage than any of the other cities," Scott objected.
"More damage yes, but as I said the seismographic data tells a different story," Sage replied and Scott nodded understanding the point.
"So somewhere in the Chinese ocean, an island somewhere, or maybe a ship?" Amara murmured, crossing one leg over the other as she leaned back. "No, it'd have to be an island. Working through water is really damn tough for me, and I have to believe that whatever ability Magnum's using has the same limitations.
Kitty giggled from where she was leaning up against one of the walls, her recent gloominess caused by the attack on her family abating. "This just sounds like a James Bond movie, wasn't it the Man with the Golden Gun who had some kind of base on an island near Japan?"
"It was," Scott replied, smiling at the younger girl, but then he frowned turning back to the display. "Still, if memory serves there are dozens of little islands scattered across the oceans there. Do we have to search them all?"
"No, because you have myself and Charles," Emma said, gesturing towards Cerebro. "With Cerebro boosting our powers he and I will be able to reach out to those islands, looking for any that have a population, skimming the surface of their thoughts for anything pertinent." They'd have to work with Cerebro in shifts, the system not designed to allow telepaths to work in concert, but it was definitely doable.
Piotr nodded and looked at Scott, who looked back at him. "Your team still isn't as armored or armed as well as I would like to see," Piotr said, sighing slightly. It had been less than a week since Charles had bitten the bullet, and Harry had to prioritize throwing up the Veil and the Illusion over putting Kitty's idea of how to speed up work on runic arrays to the side for now.
But Scott scoffed. "We haven't been either of those for a long while, and we've seen just as much combat as you lot, and our suits do have the magic arrays Kitty devised, we're good to go." Beside him Rogue and the others all nodded, all of them already in their uniforms. "And there doesn't seem to be anything here in America for us to deal with right now, and you're badly understrength besides."
"In that case," Piotr said turning back to Betsy and Amara, "I think the three of us need to go get ready. Should we contact the Fantastic Four and Wyatt you think?"
Betsy shook her head. "The Fantastic Four is dealing with issues of their own I think. Dennis and I tried to contact them, and didn't get a response. I think they're over visiting Crystal and Medusa's people, wherever the bloody hell that is."
"How long will this take?" Piotr said, turning back to Charles and Emma.
"We don't know," said Charles with a shrug. That depends on what we find, how we can narrow it down, if the islands are crowded or not, if the minds are so close together individual thoughts become so muddied we can't pull any specific clues from them. It's a large area to search as well, and if more than one small island has a heavy concentration of minds when there shouldn't be one there, it may take us time to figure out one island from another."
Amara growled a little. "We're down to 15 minutes before the next attack, can we get into position somewhere to stop it?"
"Cory, Clare can you teleport us up to High Note?" Kitty asked the air.
The small house-elf which served Harry as his go-to elf and chief of all popping popped in close by Kitty, the only magical there, followed by Clare, Kitty's bonded house-elf. "We's can do that Mistress Kitty. Yous all be written into the secret, so that is easy."
"Good, in that case we'll move High Note over the Asian Ocean, bringing it into the atmosphere, then move from there down with the blackbird. It's rated for flying that high isn't it?" Piotr asked.
"The one we've got now is, sure," Scott said smiling at his pride and joy even if the thing had over a dozen carefully hidden trackers they'd have to remove. Heh, but now Charles can say screw you to the Feds who've been funneling money to us, we've got a better backer now. "And it's a hell of a lot faster, not fast enough to get to Asia from here quickly, but I think we can get there from out of atmosphere even faster."
As the teams moved out of the Cerebro room, Dennis' voice stopped Piotr and the other Custodes. He had been listening in via the com from Camelot but hadn't had anything to add to the discussion before this. "I note you didn't even think about using Destiny's ability to try and figure out where the next strike is going to come?"
"Mystique was very blunt about what her power is costing Irene every time she uses it," Piotr said quietly, exchanging glances with the other two Custodes, the only two who knew about Irene's health. They both nodded in agreement. "No, I will not sacrifice an old woman like that, not even for an advantage of that nature. That is not a decision I could live with."
Over in Camelot Dennis nodded, exchanging a glance with Mystique, who smiled thinly before turning away grateful that Irene was sleeping off their return journey from Alaska right now. If she had been awake she would no doubt have volunteered, but now Raven could tell her honestly later that she wasn't needed. Her friend wouldn't try to sacrifice herself today.
Moving High Note over the Asian Ocean took a bare seven minutes, leaving them with ten minutes before Magnum's deadline, which the teams spent waiting nervously, buckled into the blackbird, which Cory and Clare had to work together to get into High Note's hangar bay. None of them were nervous about going into combat, no they were nervous about getting there in time to hopefully stave off the next attack.
A few moments later Charles was on the line. "We've narrowed it down to four islands, but we can't narrow it down further before the time limit Magnum imposed hits! We can't seem to see through the miasma of the minds on any of the islands, nor has there been any Spyke of purpose or anticipation in them. In fact if I didn't know any better..."
Emma cut in quickly, her icy voice grim. "I do know better. Magnum has some way of, of muddying the presence of his mind and those of the people in the area. Sage and the two of us are working to figure out which of those four islands is most likely to house a secret facility, but we're out of time. Are you all ready to go?"
Scott and all of the X-Men and the Custodes present turned to Amara, who straightened her shoulders, cracking her neck explosively and wringing her hands out as if preparing for hand-to-hand combat. Then she looked at them, smiling grimly. "I'm ready."
A moment later the news popped up on one of the blackbird's control screens, causing all of them to turn and stare at it. "The time of my ultimatum has passed, and there has been no word of the Emperor abdicating! Perhaps the leaders of the world do not believe my threats, or simply refuse to pay my price. Very well, now see the folly of your action! I do hope those living in Tokyo will forgive their leaders for sacrificing them for so foolish a reason!"
The moment the word Tokyo was out of the madman's mouth Scott gunned the blackbird's controls, rocketing out of High Note's hangar bay zooming down into the atmosphere quickly.