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The next day most of the magic-users were still out of it, but Harry at least was awake and cognizant enough to hear about what had happened while they were all out of it. He sat up slightly in bed, nodding at Piotr, even that little bit of movement tiring him out. "Gah, I hate being an invalid. Sorry to pull you away from the rescue efforts in Tokyo Piotr, but I wanted to talk to you."
Piotr nodded, moving to take a seat by the bedside, resolutely not looking over to where Ororo was laid out practically naked on top of the covers. She had actually kicked off her clothing despite how exhausted she was. Something Harry hadn't even noticed as tired as he was. "You wish to talk about the operation? Or how we are still out there cleaning up, and the statement we made to the newsies? Or, or how I deferred to Magma so much?"
Harry frowned internally, hearing a bit of self-recrimination in that statement. I wasn't going to talk about that, but it looks like we should.
"No, none of those points worry me. Dennis filled me in on the very brief statement you made when those idiot reporters tried to get in your face. With Sunfire on your side, and the job you've done so far, I doubt you're going to run into much of an issue with local anti-mutant sentiment despite Magnum being one."
That statement boiled down to 'we are the Custodes Mundi, we guard the world. We'd prefer to guard the world from foreign enemies, but we will also try to guard it from anyone who would needlessly endanger civilian lives that we can stop'. Amara, the daughter of a diplomat had done some pretty fancy verbal footwork there, but she got across the gist of it without saying they would always be around or hint at how they had been able to be in the right place this time. And then there was Captain America.
"Especially with Captain America there." Harry shook his head slowly. He had to move slowly because if he shook it fast he was afraid that his head would fall off. That illusion spell had taken a hell of a lot out of him, even talking was causing pain to lance through his head like nobody's business and it was worse for the others.
Captain America had a respect that was near impossible to find in this day and age. It was a respect of a man who had fought a war. Who had a reputation for doing what was right, and for treating his enemies with respect. Never exulting in their defeat, or humiliating them. It spoke to a sense of honor, in far more countries than just America. In a sense, in many areas, it had become almost cultural since his impact during the 40's and his efforts during World War II.
So when he thanked the Custodes Mundi on stepping up at this moment of need for the people of Tokyo and other cities around the world people listened. His stance had pretty much taken the wind out of anyone's sails who tried to say this had been a personal issue between the Custodes Mundi and Moses Magnum, or a mutant against mutant problem. There were still some grumbling going on, but not nearly as much as there had been.
"I'm still getting used to the idea of a living legend still being around like that, but with him around and approving of you and the X-men's presence I doubt anyone will have the courage to try and make an issue about you. I can't say I'm happy to know that he's working with SHIELD, but Nick hasn't proven himself an enemy, just a pain in the rear with his spymaster attitude and his insistence on working with the system.
Harry shrugged somewhat uncomfortable, above and beyond the pain the move sent through his head. The idea that SHIELD and the Custodes Mundi might eventually fight had occasionally worked its way through his mind, despite his earnest desire to not seek such. And the idea of taking on Captain America, no matter Harry's material superiority, bothered him. The man had been a symbol for the Greatest Generation, and was still seen as representing the best and brightest of the free world.
"But in terms of you basically handing over the leadership position to Amara, I don't have a problem with it."
"But I do." Piotr frowned looking away. "I know you have given me every opportunity to prove I am leader material, but I am sorry, I just, sometimes I do not think I fulfill that role."
"Piotr…" Harry frowned, realizing that once the adrenaline had worn off Piotr had begun to second-guess himself, but there really was no need for that here. He wondered for a moment how to get that point across then smiled.
"You know that in every army there are officers and non-coms yes?" Piotr nodded and Harry went on. "Your normal officer is the one making the decisions, making the long term plans, but is often times the non-coms, who are the ones carrying them out. And when it comes to the morale or discipline of the troops, of understanding them, being the moral and physical compass, that all comes from the non-coms."
"You may never be the planning sort of leader Piotr, but that doesn't mean your contribution isn't important, and it doesn't mean you're not a leader. Look at the way you made the decision to guard Amara, or get in touch with Dennis only after making certain the locals in Rio didn't need your help. You still make decisions, just not ones that deal with combat. Never doubt your worth Piotr Nickoleovitch Rasputin."
Piotr stared at Harry for a moment then chuckled shaking his head and nodding simply unable to come up with words. Inside however he was wondering why Harry and Captain America or 'call me Steve' had so many similarities between them. It is very odd, and yet somehow extremely gratifying. "Then what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Moses Magnum and the tech he used. With the Avengers there I understand why none of you wanted to take the chance to grab any, and I fully approve leaving Magnum to the Avengers. His attack was so public we couldn't simply make him disappear without a lot of questions being asked later. But I still want to know about the tech, the device Magnum was using to amplify his powers, the suits his men used, where did those men come from? And why did Magnum want to be King of Japan?"
Something about the whole scenario was bothering Harry. Magnum might have had an ego, but he was supposed to be smart. He should have known he couldn't get away with exhorting a head of state to hand over power to him. Not unless Magnum had allies or enough men to guard his new acquisition.
And why had he attacked so many cities in the first place if Japan alone was his goal? That had only won him enmity from nations which could have been persuaded to remain neutral. All those points might mean someone else was working behind the scenes, possibly the same someone who was so adroitly fanning the ongoing conflict between pro-mutant and human supremacists.
"I am sorry tovarishch, but I did not take a good look at any of it. As to the men, they looked like gangsters or toughs, nothing special. The armored suits had massive batteries operating them, Iron Man said they would only be good for a few hours of operation at best."
Piotr racked his brain for anything else he had overheard about the tech. "I think I remember Tony and Hawkeye discussing who could have made them, and he said they were remarkably high tech, but not something AIM would have made, too durable, and… there was something else, something about the pilots, but I'm sorry I wasn't close enough to hear."
"That's alright Piotr, but what about Magnum himself? Tell me about him."
For the next few minutes Piotr described what he had seen of the man, how he had fought and his powers. Most of this dovetailed with what Dennis had passed on to Harry from Moses' rap sheet. But nowhere was there any connection to Japan found. There was megalomania there yes, but not stupidity. After a moment he thanked Piotr, sending him off to head back to the others in Tokyo, while Harry leaned back, his eyes closing wearily as the question, So who was pulling Magnum's strings, and why? went through his head.
OOOOOOO
When he woke up the next morning, Harry's mind was still throbbing, but he was once again lucid enough to speak, something Emma, who had shown up to shout at him for not telling her he and the other magic users would be out of it for so long, took full advantage of. After nearly kissing him hard enough to knock him unconscious again, only this timevia air loss . Given the time difference it was still four in the morning when it was nine in Scotland, so Emma had several hours before she was missed.
However, kissing her lover wasn't the only reason Emma had come over. The more, or at least equally important, reason was to tell Harry about the public response to Magnum and the ongoing reaction to the Sentinel project. "It's bad Harry, very bad. If not for the Custodes intervening, and, I have to say, Captain America showing up and giving his support of them, we would have lost all the progress we had made."
She shook her head as Harry sat up, carefully not letting him see her concern as he winced in pain. "Sage and I have been keeping an eye on it, and several Asian countries which were leaning toward, call it enlightened equal rights under the law, have back-tracked. It's not even their governments, it's a pure social response. And the Middle east…"
Emma actually shuddered, some of the imagery they had seen from various Middle East countries was horrifying, looking like things from the Dark Ages. "The Middle East is horrifying. I, I just don't think we can come up with any solution there, except getting out any young mutants we can. Father Garnoff says we lost several names almost as fast as they showed up and it's going to get worse."
Harry winced, and not from the pain in his head this time, grateful that Ororo was still asleep. She would not have handled that well.
"Just as bad is what we're seeing from Italy, Germany, and America, though in very different ways. In America, the anti-mutant agenda's taken a shot in the arm, and is now back to where it was before the Sentinels. Worse, there's starting to be a distinct religious overtone to it, the Friends of Humanity have become the Church of Humanity, and thus now can claim freedom of religion when going about its business. Thankfully most police districts seem to take a low view on mob rule, but there have been several violent clashes between them, the 'Church' and pro-mutant groups."
"I can guess what's going on in Italy and Germany." Harry cut in wearily. "Tell me about the other side of things."
"Mutant Supremacist groups have appeared in every country I've looked at. Most of them are small, and generally speaking have no more power to make trouble than any normal mob. But there are a few whose members have actual powers, that have begun to appear, and I think it's only a matter of time until they begin to lash out."
"I don't like how they are organized, and Sage agrees. For some reason these groups all seem somewhat organized along the same lines, and they've all begun to show up now?" Emma scoffed. "Someone got a little too cute there."
"Magneto coming back onto the scene, you think?"
"Him or someone who is using the Brotherhood blueprint." Emma nodded, then smiled somewhat warmly. "Thankfully we, as in the Custodes, are winning the war thanks to Piotr and his actions in the Magnum crisis. And the fact the known, neutral news agencies have covered both sides also helps. Piotr and Amara came off as intelligent, caring and decent people. Neither the human or mutant Supremacists have come up with spokesmen who are nearly as photogenic or well-spoken as you were a few weeks back nor those two the other day. Passion is all well and good, but doesn't last beyond the day, compassion and probity lasts far longer."
She paused thoughtfully before looking at Harry shrewdly. "I think we can bring more governments and certainly more neutral people to see the plus side of mutant/normal coexistence if Harry Potter, owner of Magical Minds, comes out and makes a statement on the recent, mutant created tragedy and speaks out against such."
Harry nodded. "I talked to Sage about finding me a permanent PR person, someone young and photogenic him or herself, that can help me write up speeches and make statements for my various business interests when I can't for one reason or another, mainly when they aren't important enough to take up my own time honestly."
Both of them chuckled at that then Harry went on. "But this one will be simple enough. I will offer to send more aid in the form of potions to Tokyo, and ask that Magnum be tried in a country with the death penalty for his crimes."
Emma nodded grimly, happy that Harry had understood what was needed, but Harry wasn't done. "Further I will go on and say there needs to be laws in place to deal with mutants who abuse their powers in such a way, not just to defend them under the law but to defend other people from misuse of their powers."
"Ouch, that is going to make you a target for both sides you know. Your pro-mutant stance on the one hand and your demand mutants be held accountable by the laws of 'the lesser race' on the other."
"Let them target me," Harry said grimly. "That will simply let me take out a few of their pawns and maybe trace them back. Raven and Dennis are following up one way to Magneto, but if it turns out to be someone else behind this, that might be a good idea."
"I'll set it up through PNN then, their neutrality means they'll be listened to by far more people than the few pro-mutant news agencies." Emma nodded, and then turned back to the discussion, talking about some specific instances of violence that worried her and other things for the next few hours, interspersed with bits of business news. Harry in turn shared his concerns about where Magnum had gotten his tech, but for now that was all it was, a worry.
They wound down after a few hours, and spent several minutes simply cuddling in bed, talking more about Jean's continued absence more than anything else, though also hitting on Sage and Emma's ongoing work in vetting Shaw's espionage contacts, especially those Sage hadn't known about. The man had a heck of a lot more contacts on the political side of things in South America and the United States than Emma had thought, but most were not very useful to them at present.
Then it was nearly time for Emma to leave, but as she stood up Harry asked, "Is there anything else you want to share, anything odd or unusual?"
Emma hummed, stretching languidly and enjoying the feel of Harry's eyes on her, but then she frowned, thinking. "Two points really, both about different African countries, Genosha and Wakanda."
"I know about Wakanda, that's the nation where vibranium was found right? And the only nation too, I thought that rather odd at the time. But I'm afraid I've not heard about Genosha before."
"No reason you should have. As for Wakanda, Sage has reported some interest from them to begin business with Magical Minds. They are already beginning to meet your social and legal prerequisites for that which is good. But I thought one point was rather… strange, and worrying. They want to talk to Ororo Windrider directly."
Harry sat up quickly, wincing in pain as the sudden move sent a flash of agony through his head. Emma quickly leaned forward, touching his head lightly, massaging it and trying to telepathically dilute the pain he was feeling, giving scant aid despite her little backdoor past his invisibility cloak. After a moment however he spoke. "What, why? How much do they know?"
"They seem to know she works for you, how they know that, or anything specific I don't know. But they want their representative to meet with Ororo Windrider." Emma shrugged. "I don't have any interests in Wakanda, it's a remarkably close-knit country with very few foreign companies having any representation there, so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything more."
Rubbing his forehead, Harry wondered how they had managed to find even that much, but then shook it off. "Alright, I suppose we can only agree to their request to find out why, but we'll wait for a bit for that. I'd like to experiment with some vibranium and get them onboard for our long term goals, but it's not important right now. And Genosha?"
"Genosha's an island nation off the African coast down by South Africa. It's small but self-sufficient, with an extremely high tech base and large population for its size, but not exactly important on the national scene. But lately the news coming out of it is disappearing."
"Disappearing?" Harry repeated, his eyes narrowing. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the government there is beginning to subtly turn aside any foreign news crews, agencies or companies. Two of the Hellfire club members had business interests there, and they have lost them through hostile takeovers by the locals. Something is happening there, I just don't know what. I suppose I might be jumping at shadows, but it's something to be aware of."
Harry nodded, saying he'd make a note of it, but that looking into it further might be beyond them right now. Though their espionage service was still growing thanks to Sage carefully adding Shaw's old agents and contacts to their own, they didn't have enough field agents to run down every point of interest they wanted to.
After another long, sensual kiss Emma left Harry there in bed next to the still comatose Ororo. He lay there for a moment, wondering if she knew what this business with Wakanda was about, but eventually his thoughts turned to other matters. He spent several moments writing up a small speech for his public response to Moses Magnum's Madness, then looked up to find Hedwig waiting patiently on the foot of the bed.
"You always know when I need you, don't you Hedwig?" He said softly, and the snowy owl flew the short distance between them, landing lightly on his shoulder, nuzzling her head against his for a moment.
Hedwig had been rather busy lately, spending time with Illyana and dealing with a very odd pair of ravens that had shown up recently in her territory. They weren't physically odd, but they acted far too intelligently for any non-bonded bird. And the fact they kept on bothering her, trying to play tricks on her or simply following her when she was out hunting, had begun to ruffle her feathers the wrong way.
But that was her problem, not her Harry's. So Hedwig merely waited while her Harry filled out a message to King William. In it, he asked to speak to William and General Demontebanks in an informal setting somewhere at the kings choosing, but in a few days' time for certain. "Hopefully I'll be up and about by then." Harry chuckled self-deprecatingly and Hedwig clucked disapprovingly before letting Harry tie the message to her claw and flying off.
As she left the castle, Hedwig spotted the two irritating ravens again, out and about in a tree at the edge of the castle's meadow. They watched her, awake and seemingly active despite having spent the entire previous night following her around. Yes, they were very odd birds indeed…
OOOOOOO
Commodore We'hnt smirked evilly as the hyperspace countdown began to plummet into the red. Poor Yon-Rogg never really understood how to apply brute power or when subtlety was overrated. No doubt the Fantastic Four or some other Earth-based superhero group caught him with his pants down and the Sentry not around to save him. A small loss in the great scheme of things for us, but if the Earthers think that the Sentry or that fool represented the might of the Kree Empire, they are in for a very rude awakening. If any of them wake up ever again.
We'hnt knew that he was part of a power struggle being fought between the Supreme Intelligence and Ronan the Accuser. Ronan had been pushing hard for several cycles now, wishing to break the AI's control and Mar'vel going over to the humans was a point in his favor, since it had been the Supreme Intelligence that had not only promoted a half-breed but chosen him as a spy for Earth.
The fact that the Supreme Intelligence's response to Mar'vel's defection had disappeared in turn had forced it to respond far more quickly than normal doctrine would have. But We'hnt didn't care, he didn't even care which of them wrote his orders, though he could see how either could gain something by it. All he cared about was the task at hand. It was his first independent flotilla command and he would see it through.
The Kree had ways of dealing with uppity civilizations that didn't know their place and despite having several superpowered individuals, humanity was no better than any of their other subjugated races. There were some strange rumors that the Fantastic Four had turned away Galactus himself somehow, but We'hnt disputed that. The World Eater was a law to himself, the entire might of the Empire could not do anything against him, so how could anyone believe that a group of four monkeys barely evolved from their shit-flinging predecessors could do anything to him?
No, they would die just like the rest of their race. After all no hint had ever been seen or reported that the humans had any kind of space presence, not even a solely defensive one. Fools. They've got some of the technology at least, but according to the first Sentry's reports they haven't moved into space at all! Pathetic. They're going to learn the oldest rule of space warfare, if any of them live to remember the lesson: he who controls the orbitals, controls the world.
"10 seconds until we leave hyperspace," his tactical officer announced.
Seconds later We'hnt's command, his medium fist, the Agonizer, six light fists and eight fast fists, came out of hyperspace right on the dot, quickly spreading out in a previously planned maneuver which spread them over half of the hemisphere of the target planet, which its inhabitants called 'Earth'. As they did, the sensor and astrogation officers looked up from their stations, scowling at one another before turning to the Commodore, who was not only the wolf pack's commander, but also captain of the ship.
The astrogation officer was senior to the sensor specialist, and he spoke up first. "Commodore, our data on the third planet's rotation seems to have proven inaccurate. We came out right on the points we specified, but the planet is actually behind us, several rotations back of where we calculated it would be."
"Odd, but not important, we don't have to be in orbit directly over the planet to do what we came to do, just within weapons range, which we are. Make certain all ships have linked computers to their designated alpha ships. Tell each alpha ship to target the largest cities on this side of the world, one pack to each target, with the Agonizer designated to take out the largest, and fire." We'hnt replied coldly.
"Largest cities in our current line of sight locked into our targeting computers." The tactical officer said. "Firing on targets one through four, now."
A bare second later a deep thrum filled the ship as the medium fist's small railgun blasted out ,sending a small, for the weapon type, gauss round out from its prow down at a diagonal towards its target, which it would strike with all the power of a multi-gigaton nuclear explosion. At the same time, the other ships of the pack fired on their own targets with energy weapons, heavy grazers, low powered lasers and PPC blasts flashed out from all of their weapons, a rainbow of death in space lashing out towards the foolish primitives below.
As the attacks went home We'hnt turned his attention elsewhere for a moment. "Is there any indication that they've begun to build a space-based infrastructure?" He asked. "And keep an eye out for the Fantastic Four. Given the Hellion's disappearance they should be able to get out of the gravity well."
We'hnt knew that at least the one called the Human Torch would be able to get up into space quickly enough to do something. But the others would have to get transportation first, yet the Hellion's disappearance obviously said they had such. But the Kree had once again adapted their doctrine to deal with the threat of the Fantastic Four.
"Not yet my Lord, though our scanners are at full power, the moment we spot anything we'll be able to switch targets. First volley has hit, top three of our first four targets are destroyed, we're seeing the death clouds from here. Target four was a miss, I told you that Ardent Fury's tactical computer needed an overhaul." His tactical officer said, ending with a faint sneer.
"We'll see to that as soon as we're back in the yards." We'hnt soothed. The tactical officer was due a promotion, and knew that any deviation from the plan would be a mark against him when it came to that promotion and the assignment he could hope to get afterwards.
Perhaps it was because of this that the tactical officer was being much more diligent than normal on a somewhat routine orbital bombardment mission like this. "That's strange… sir, we're getting some bizarre readings from the ground here."
"What do you mean strange?" We'hnt asked sharply. Unlike Yon-Rogg, We'hnt wasn't going to underestimate a group of superpowered individuals who had taken out not one but two Sentries, as well as a Light Fist like the Hellion.
"We should be getting readings of debris, bits of dirt and metal and so forth thrown up by the force of the impact, but beyond the dust cloud we're not getting anything specific, it's all generic debris. And, and I think the dust clouds are a little too uniform, it's very strange. We should also be picking up radio waves telling of our attack, or at least I think we should at this point. Surely these humans have some kind of ability to talk from one city to another, whose absence would tell them something was going on."
"The second can be explained away through sheer complacency, but the first…. Are you positive we're getting actual readings of our targets destruction at all? It couldn't be some kind of trick?" We'hnt asked, growing concerned. Something was odd here, and he didn't like it.
But then he was interrupted by the communications specialist. "Sir, Swift fury it, it's gone and, and so's..."
Almost as soon as the com tech said it the sensor specialist spoke up. "Deep Strike and Swift Fury are gone, Strike's engine blew. I'm picking up debris from both fast fists and from something else, something that looks like debris from asteroids, in an expanding cloud that… sir, it looks like the asteroids were cloaked somehow and the Light Fist and Fast fist just rammed right into them!"
"Some kind of trap?" We'hnt muttered. "Cease-fire on the planet for now, I want all active scanners concentrating all around us, find out what just happened!"
"Sir, our sensors aren't telling us that there's anything out there, but the asteroids were definitely there, which is itself odd, considering the nearest source is .983 AU, but I can't see anything that even hinted at its presence before the collision."
"Could it be some new kind of cloaking system, one so advanced it can fool even active sensors from this close?" The tactical officer muttered.
"Perhaps, or perhaps it's merely tailored to combat them in some fashion. Regardless, prepare a hyperspace courier drone, continually update it for the rest of the time we're in realspace, and be ready to send it off as soon as I give the word." We'hnt ordered then strode over to his gunner station.
Stopping there he leaned over his gunner's shoulder. "Communications, relay orders to the pack leaders, they are to follow our lead on this. Gunner, use the tractor beams to grab the largest bits of debris, then plot a full sphere of coverage around us before hurling those pieces out in all directions. If we can't see these asteroids of whatever, we can at least see where there's nothing and then target that."
A bare minute later the tractor beams, of which battlecruisers only had a few and the smaller ships even less, went to work. It took them several moments but they quickly began to get returns. "Cease operations." We'hnt growled, staring at the updated tactical plot, which showed several large areas of space marked out in red, with no other information available on them set around them in a strange formation of some kind.
So the humans have been trying to set up some kind of orbital infrastructure. Well we can't have that, though I wonder why it was set out here like this, something about that position... "Target each of these areas in turn, full batteries from all ships for two minutes each. I don't care what they are, two full minutes of full weapons fire from this number of ships could take out a dreadnaught! Destroy them!"
OOOOOOO
Like most days, Carol and her ever growing team of specialists and their growing teams had been up in space for various reasons when the attack began. She had been there to see the latest work done on the first Ravenspire, an area hollowed out and prepared to house the water reservoir the fortress would need, and the area designated for the hydroponics garden.
Several of Carol's team had been out on the surface or out in space too. They were working with the suits in order to get a feel for them the better to be able to finish writing up their training regimen, or overseeing some of the robot workers trying to decide on what jobs humans could do better than the robots. Others were simply taking advantage of Harry's willingness to let them out into space to enjoy it for the first time.
Now she gasped as the Ravenspire around her and her team began to shudder, the few magical defenses most of them had fading quickly. "Shit, we're under attack, evacuate, all teams evac back to the emergency doors if you can!" Grabbing the nearest members of her think tank she pulled them along, heading further inwards as the asteroid began to shudder from end to end. Whatever was attacking them was smashing kilotons of rock and ore off with every blow, taking the unshielded Ravenspire apart piece by piece.
That doesn't even consider the crews that were out there. And those people are probably dead now, Carol thought grimly. Fuck, we thought we were prepared, but we forgot the one major rule of siege warfare: the attacker always has the element of surprise!
Dropping off her crew at the Magical Minds headquarters, she quickly found Sage, who practically never left the building since moving in, having taken over Harry's office as if it were her own. Sage looked up, frowning as Carol rushed in, but realizing something had happened simply pointed to the runic doorway which ostensibly led into the president's bathroom, but actually led to Camelot. Carol nodded in turn, but didn't stop, racing through the doorway.
OOOOOOO
"Harry," Dennis snapped through the intercom. "We're getting a priority SOS signal from High Note! "'Warning, alien ships in orbit!'"
"It doesn't rain but it pours," Harry groaned, slowly pushing himself off the bed, where he had been using his enforced downtime to do some reading of the grimoire King William had given him months back. Let's just hope our illusion's working, he thought grimly.
Then he frowned, remembering that Piotr and the others were still in Tokyo helping to aid the city after Magnum's attack on it. Not only a surprise, but at a time when we are understrength in more than one way. Damnit, I miss Jean even more now. And her group too I suppose. "Open a link to the FF and the emergency line to Dr. Doom, then Cory, get me a pepper up potion."
As he waited for the link to the Baxter Building Harry quaffed the potion Cory gave him before analyzing how much magical strength he had regained in the two days since he and the others had created the monstrous illusion spell. He was surprised to find he had quite a bit of his magical reserves back.
His mind was still very fuzzy, but it was clearing up as he focused on it, forcing his magic into his brain matter for a moment in order to speed up therecovery process. It stung like all blazes, but it worked, and he pushed himself out of the bed, his mind clear for the moment.
With a gesture Harry disengaged the camouflage spell on his clothing, amused to noted that Ororo hadn't been up to changing his clothing after the two of them had collapsed after the spell. "Magia Erebea, 40%." With that he leaned over Ororo, kissing her on the cheek before quickly racing off.
"Doctor Doom isn't replying Harry," Dennis said as Harry strode into the halls, which doubled as Harry's current command center. "Are you sure you don't want to call in the rest of the team?"
"No." Harry said shaking his head. "They're still dealing with the aftermath of Moses' stupid ass scheme, I can't in good conscience pull them out when they could be saving lives and combating the effect Magnum's attack had on our position. Plus Amara wouldn't be of much use in space anyway." And this time, I don't intend to take the attackers intact, that makes this so much easier.
He turned at a sound behind him to see Carol in her Uzume suit. Before he could speak, she barked out "If you think I'm sitting this one out Potter, think again! We just lost people up there, and I want to get some!"
Wincing Harry nodded, he had forgotten that Carol and her growing core of space-work specialists as he thought of them were routinely up in space these days. "Alright, get over here, we're heading for the Baxter Building." He ignored the look in Rahne and the other teens' faces, no more willing to take them into battle than he would normal children, and a moment later he popped away.
OOOOOOO
Doctor Doom's personal space watch had of course informed him the moment they realized that there were ships in orbit. Now he exited his castle nodding towards his mother. "I will return. I go to fulfill my part of our defense agreement." And possibly claim a prize or two for my own ends.
He stopped suddenly, staring at the lights crisscrossing down and away from the Earth, heading out back, his mind told him, along Earth's rotation around the sun. So that was what Potter was up to, some kind of magical illusion that could deceive Kree sensor systems? Ingenious, brilliant, and magically costly, but it has evidently paid off.
Doom shook that thought off, and then rocketed up into the air, his suit outfitted with a new breather unit, as well as an orbital capable repulsor system. It is time for Doom to fulfill his part of this bargain. Let the Kree beware!
OOOOOOO
Nor was Doctor Doom the only one who noticed what was going on in space. Fury was astonished, his face actually showing his shock as he stared at the plot devised by Skywatch using new scanners Pym and Stark had devised that made the sensors NASA used look like a child's science project. "Those ships are just ... firing randomly off into space?"
"Not randomly sir. All of their shots intersect the point on Earth's orbit around the sun, just where we were two days ago that's all." One of the astrologists said.
"Um sir," said another tech looking up at him his face white. "I just ran an analysis of their shots and the rotation of the earth and various longitude and latitude course corrections. Um, if the earth was still where those ships seem to think we should be, San Francisco would be gone along with Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington and it looks like they would have missed Hollywood by just enough to save the city."
"Sweet Jesus…" Fury muttered. As if we don't have enough problems on her plate, now we have to fear, what? Space Pirates, Kree, Skrull or whatever they are that the FF has dealt with before coming back with vengeance in their eyes? I'm getting too old for this! "Can the Avengers get up there and do anything?" Fury asked the air front of him hoping someone had a positive answer.
They didn't. "No sir, we don't have anything that could get out of atmosphere. The only one that could possibly get up there is Iron Man, and even that's doubtful," answered his aide, before frowning thoughtfully. "We could call in Thor, but he's not exactly the best about having his communicator on him, and he might not think this an emergency either. He didn't respond when we tried to call him in to help with Moses Magnum after all."
"Sir," the tech who had first sounded the alarm spoke up quickly. "The ships have stopped firing, and, WOAH, two of them just, self-destructed maybe? Now the others are doing something, but whatever it is, they've stopped firing on what they seemed to think was Earth."
As Fury made his way back over to him, the man fell silent, staring at the computer screen. "Now we're getting more readings from space, looks as if the Human Torch, at least I think it's him, is up there already somehow, along with someone else, readings aren't conclusive."
"So again SHIELD is playing second fiddle," Fury growled, his teeth clenching. I'm really going to have to keep the weapons Striker, Ross and that Baron had come up with off the books. Get Tony and Pym to start work on our sensors to figure out a way of getting up in space and with those weapons if we have the numbers and the Avengers we might be able to stop him if Potter goes completely rogue.
OOOOOOO
As the last asteroid or whatever they were died, the bits and pieces appearing on his plot as their cloaking devices failed, We'hnt turned his attention to the planet once again, preparing to order the tactical officer to resume the bombardment. Then he stopped and stared at the tactical plot as a new red icon, smaller than any of his ships, appeared there.
Doctor Doom floated in the air in front of one of the battle cruisers of the Kree, and his hand suddenly glowed. "You have attacked the planet of Doom, now you will pay the price for your hubris!" With that a bolt of light smaller but far, far brighter than the weapons the frigates and light cruisers had previously been using slammed into the Agonizer's shields.
"Shields are down!" Said one man before screaming, jerking away from his plot as the computer began to go haywire, sending sparks everywhere catching him on his fingers burning them severely.
"All hands to boarding stations!" We'hnt barked. "Turn us around, get us away from…"
"Too late!" the tactical officer shouted, overriding him.
Doom was upon them, slamming into the outer hull, slamming into and through the outer shell of an airlock. The interior one he opened much more carefully, one finger resting onto the controller set into the side of the airlock. Small mono-fiber wires sprouted from his suit's finger interacting with the console as data began to scroll over his HUD in front of one eyeball. The Latverian monarch was thus able to quickly override the local control, opening the inner airlock and also dumping something else into the ship's systems.
Stepping inside the door closed behind him, and turned, sneering behind his mask. Several of the Kree were there already, taking him under fire with heavy weapons. The ships had all been prepared for boarders before they even left hyperspace. Doom flew backwards under the impact of the weapons, skidding down the corridor, before he stood, unharmed.
Doom smirked. Each weapon aimed at him gave his personal shield more information, making it that much more capable. The heavy weapons had been a bit of an issue but after a few blasts from them his shields compensated.
He frowned however when he noticed his energy gauge. Interesting, I will have to look into a better energy source for my suit. Still it should suffice for this battle. With that he raised his hands, and again blasts of energy flew out, catching Kree and hurling them backwards broken, charred, or in pieces.
OOOOOOO
"…So, Doom's handling that one, that leaves the other two for us. Torch, can you handle one of them on your own?"
Johnny nodded grimly. He stood with Thing, Coyote, Uzume and Harry in his Guardian persona in the hanger bay of High Note. The massive asteroid had been targeted for a bit, but it's magical defenses, unlike those of the Ravenspire, had been powerful enough to not even notice the ships assault.
"Let's do this!" with that the Human Torch barreled away carrying the Thing behind him. Harry made his way toward his own target, frowning, waiting to port in his own two allies when he actually attacked a ship.
He scowled angrily as he took a brief second to stare around at the remains of what had been the kernel of the space-based industry he'd so desperately been trying to create. How the hell did they get past the Fidelius spell? For that matter, why did the defensive arrays fail so quickly? I know they were slowly losing power with no access to a hearthstone or a ley-line but still…
That thought however would be for later. Right now, Harry had to do his part to stop this attack before the Kree realized they had been hoodwinked. Covered by his invisibility cloak and several other spells to hide his presence Harry closed with one of the ships, which had turned to fire at Johnny and the Thing, trying to keep them away from its fellow, but also began to pull away backwards. Several others too had turned entirely around in their position, trying to cover their fellow, forcing the Torch to dodge around like a maddened firefly.
"Smart of them," Harry murmured, scowling as he counted out the ships. Mar'vel was right, a full flotilla! Damn it. Have to take out these ships now, let the FF take one of them out from the inside. But we don't need all of these to survive in one piece.
With that Harry lashed out with a bolt of pure magic the size of a car at one of the smaller ships, the type they had labeled a frigate class. The ship's shield didn't even slow the magical assault, and the small ship, only about the size of five fighter jets set nose to tail, lost its entire port side exploding out in an explosion. The impetus of the blast threw its remains backwards and away from where the real Earth was hidden behind the first illusion the magical cabal had created.
Even before that ship finished dying however Harry had turned to his next victim, another frigate. The others were pushing out and away, trying to open the range, but they had started out in a large clump, the better to bring more power down on their targets in the shortest amount of time, and this cost them now.
A transfiguration spell caught another frigate, turning several feet of its outer hull into glass. The ship's own desperate flight ripped it to pieces after that. A spell Harry had learned from Stephen, a spell that was a condensed solar flare, took another ship, burning its nose off, killing its bridge crew and sending it tumbling away, all systems dead.
The other ships acted in a coordination that in other circumstances Harry would have found admirable. The larger ships, the light cruisers, turned, trying to take Harry under fire, while the frigates continued to fire at the Human Torch, all of them still spreading out retreating from their former positions.
From the battlecruiser there was nothing, no fire, no movement. Doom's keeping that ship's attention wholly on him, good. Still, can't let them spread too much, or else some captain might think of retreating to hyperspace. We can't have that.
Quickly gathering his power, Harry shouted out a simple spell, pouring power into it and pointing at each ship in turn even as his mind began to burn with pain again. "Arresto Momentum!" Each ship targeted stopped moving suddenly, throwing off their fire. The spell wouldn't last for long on targets so large and metallic, but it would last long enough.
The Human Torch jumped at this chance, raking a frigate from one end to another with a blast of fire so hot it seared through its armor, before dropping off the Thing on the outer hull of another light cruiser. "Have fun Ben!" He shouted, the voice carrying over their com gear as he raced towards another frigate. He winced as several of the Kree ship's fellows took him under fire, the energy bolts blasting into him, warring with his own flame-form, tossing him backward but not breaking through before he could move aside.
Harry raced forward, landing onto one of the light cruiser's sides, searching quickly for its airlock. Finding it, Harry ripped the airlock off its hinges, throwing it out into space. He was in no mood to spend time at this, and no need to take these ships intact. The next instant he disappeared, teleporting back to High Note's hangar bay, before teleporting back, dropping off Coyote and Uzume.
"You two will be alone for a bit, but you've got coms with me, so call me in if you need to!" Harry said, breathing deeply. His brain was on fire now. Though Harry's magic wasn't failing him, his mind might be, despite his hastening it's healing as much as he could.
"Got it!" Uzume replied, leading the way in. "Fire and advance, kill anything that moves!" The former Air Force major shouted, and she and Coyote moved in, their heavy sniper rifles switched to full auto, hosing down a security team as they moved into the ship.
Harry nodded racing away only to dodge to one side as a laser blast tore through the space he had previously been flying through. The other ships had broken out of their stasis now, and were again trying to open the range.
Then suddenly, the heavy cruiser joined the battle in a way the Kree could not have foreseen.
OOOOOOO
Inside the Agonizer, Doom had made his inexorable way through the ship, killing any Kree he came upon, uninterested in mercy or prisoners. Yet he almost wandered, not seeming to follow any set route, not making straight to the engine room or bridge as a normal boarder would have, which let him bypass the normal defensive hard points. For Doom was merely biding his time, keeping the crew's attention on him while his real attack went to work.
While Harry had noticed one weakness in how the Kree made war, Doom had noticed another, which was more to do with their ships computers than their tactics. The Kree computers were amazing, their abilities many times beyond normal human computers, their material at least five generations ahead. The Kree also made use of datalinks between ships to coordinate offensive and defensive fire and their sensors, ECM and ECCM both were incredibly advanced.
But they had a glaring weakness, or rather the Kree ships interconnected networks did. While they had defenses on their com systems against ECM, they didn't have any internal defenses against virus warfare. While Doom covered it with his hacking into the airlock's controls, he had injected a computer virus into the system, which would eventually shut down the entire ship and more, turning the defensive installations of the ship on its crew.
This occurred about five minutes after he had boarded the ship. Suddenly a heavy weapons installation above a Kree gun position which had been firing at Doom canted down, blasting into the Kree below it at point blank range, turning them into offal. The alarms which had been blaring cut off abruptly, and Doom smiled behind his mask. "Excellent."
With that he turned to a nearby computer screen on a wall. A few minutes careful typing brought up a map of the ship, and Doom turned, making his way to the bridge. He also took the time to bypass the emergency hyperspace probe launch, which would have taken all the information the Kree had learned thus far with it when launched into hyperspace. Thankfully none of the lighter ships had such as part of their regular supply, so the Kree would remain in some ignorance for a while to come.
The ship's security team's tried to get in his way, tried to stop him, but Doom's evolving suit defenses were up to the challenge. If only it could handle magical assaults as easily. Ah well, one cannot have everything, at least not without some effort.
Moments later he arrived, and began to burn through the emergency hatch which protected the bridge, while at the same time the engines cut off for a moment, as did the gravity.
The Kree inside the bridge had all armed themselves with the heaviest weapons they could get their hands on, and had augmented their numbers with several squads worth of the ships security crews. The moment Doom finished cutting an entrance, the cut out piece of the hatch falling inwards, they fired. Beam weapons, heavy sluggers designed with explosive rounds to drill into the Thing's armored hide or some kind of freezing agent to combat the Human Torch's fire, and team-crewed fusion-based guns,all of it was fired into the new doorway.
After a moment they stopped firing, staring into the smoke the attack had caused. Then a metallic hand appeared waving from side to side, banishing the smoke. A magical shield shimmered in front of Doom for a moment, a more powerful form of Harry's Protego which Doom had created with his mother's aid, backed almost directly by another, scientifically created shield. The two of them working in concert had stood up to the barrage easily.
From deep within the metal mask Doom laughed coldly, seeing the blue-skinned Kree, there didn't seem to be any of the half-breeds among the crew, pale. "Fools. I am Doom, such as you are but bugs to me! I told you when this battle began, your hubris brought you to this end!" With that he raised his hands, and energy blasts began to fire out.
The Kree didn't fall down and die, they fought back, but with Doom's defenses, they couldn't harm him. Nor, with the computer under his control now, could they even blow up the ship. We'hnt realized this instantly and while his men fought for their lives, he turned trying to get to the emergency explosive device set under the bridge, designed to kill the captain and destroy the most important computer systems.
But Doom saw this, and turned one of his hands to the man. A small tractor beam lashed out from one of his suit's fingers, grabbing the man and pulling him towards Doom until We'hnt was directly in front of him, his neck in Doom's grip. At the same time silence fell on the bridge, the last defender having died under his fire.
For a moment Doom held the helpless alien, turning him this way and that lightly as if studying him. "You would be the captain of this attack then? You deserve… a more hands on approach." With that Doom gripped We'hnt's neck, snapping it with ease before dropping the Kree's still twitching body to the floor.
Striding carelessly over the dead bodies that littered the bridge now Doom sat in the captain's chair, smiling thinly behind his mask as small computer fibers separated from a few of his suit's fingers. A moment later the ship's computers came back online, and his smile widened.
OOOOOOO
The battlecruiser turned on its axis as only a ship with near-reactionless drives could even in space. From both sides a heavy broadside shot out, shattering two of the remaining light cruisers. At the same time from the prow of the ship a rail gun projectile shot out, catching the last light cruiser on its nose, blowing through it from one end to the other.
The four remaining frigates turned, trying to move out of the gravity well they had only just noticed they were caught in, but Harry and the others jumped on them, destroying them quickly. Then Harry and the two FF members joined Coyote and Uzume in assaulting the light cruiser they had boarded.
That part of the battle took longer than the rest of it, but eventually, Carol pulled off her suit's helmet, staring around at the bridge she had just helped capture. "Holy flying fuck. It just hit me, but this, this is a real space-going vessel isn't it? I mean, a ship designed to actually leave the solar system, to go from star to star. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I am standing on the bridge of a spaceship!"
Harry smiled at her, moving over to move the captain's body from where he had tried to reach for the same controls the captain of the Hellion had, then sat down, sighing heavily. His magic core was still large enough to keep going, but his head was pounding so much Harry doubted he could concentrate enough to cast even a tickling charm right now. Casting a Rifela had nearly knocked him out a moment ago.
He tried to hold his head still for a moment, staring over at Carol. "Heh, you like this more than the Ravenspires?"
"Yes, this was made to move, we could use it to explore! The Ravenspires are great, a great idea if we can replace them and arm them, but this ship is even closer to my dream than any of your other plans." Carol said then sighed faintly, remembering the human cost of this attack. "And we will have to rebuild."
"Oh yes," Harry said, turned and fiddling with the ship's sensor until an image of the battlecruiser showed up on the main screen. "Which means I have to talk to Doom once more. Only this time, I think his position is actually much better than mine, it will be tough to convince him otherwise."
The damage from the Kree assault was bad, but it could have been a lot worse if Harry and what Emma called his 'semi-coven' hadn't been able to create the spells they had. Thousands of hours of work could just as easily have been millions of dead without that, and no one on Earth, at least not yet, knew how close they had come to death.
But the actual damage was bad enough in terms of Harry's dream of a space-based industry. Every asteroid he and Jean had towed into orbit to turn into Ravenspires was gone, including the ones furthest along the process, costing him months of time. The Forge, which had been close to completion, was gone, and with it any way of creating the weapons or equipment they'd need anytime soon.
The Hanging towers of Babylon had survived. They were hidden directly next to High Note, and High Note had shielded them from the majority of the Kree's fire. High Note itself had taken the assault with barely a flicker in its defenses. And Dr. Banner's little 'home' had been spared any attack.
Examining the wreckage Harry found that the runic arrays on the surface of the asteroids had begun to fail in parts, the arrays not having enough magic in them to protect themselves, even Raven One, the Ravenspire with the runic doorway down to Magical Minds headquarters. This showed Harry he'd have to connect those doors directly to Camelot or some other heavily magical place. The doorways couldn't transfer enough magic otherwise.
Worse of course was the human cost and the productivity costs. Practically every android Doom had sold to Harry (not for money true, but they were still sold) were gone, along with over eighty men and women from Carol's group. Those could not be replaced as easily.
Yet when Harry talked to Doom, he found the Latverian monarch actually blasé about the losses. "I will sell you two construction droid designs, and lend you forty more droids for now. This ship, and what it can teach me is more than enough to pay for that, and your plans have proven both efficacious and necessaryr. It behooves me to do what I can to help you back to your feet, both as ally and fellow human being."
"Thank you for your largess Doctor. I guarantee they will be put to good use." Harry replied, bowing formally.
Doom turned abruptly from looking at his ship's sensors. He had thought to change the name to Cynthia in honor of his mother but had decided she would not appreciate that, and simply decided to call it the Monarch for now. "Your tone says you've made a decision already on how they will be used."
"Oh yes," Harry replied grimly. "I've learned quite a bit from this attack trust me, both my mistakes, and how to correct them. This will be the last time the Kree get a free shot at my infrastructure, believe me."
Later that day, Harry sent another message to King William. They would have to speed up the timetable for their little meeting.
OOOOOOO
Astonishingly over a week passed after this assault without any further crisis rising up out of nowhere to, in Betsy's words, 'bite them in the danglies'. Harry and the other magic users recovered each in their own time, with Dr. Strange and his little group moving back home. Various projects proceeded apace as the world began to calm down from the spike of violence and hatred that the two crises, one nearly on top of the other, had caused.
Kitty and Dr. Druid began to teach the house-elves what they needed to know to help them in the new runic array construction line. With each house elf learning a part of a single rune, the forty house-elves assigned to the work would be able to create copies of runic arrays far faster than any magic user could alone, though it would take another week or so before they were ready to go, and the process would still require quality control. Still, once that was in place, what had once been a bottleneck would quickly become a flood.
With Kitty and Dr. Druid handling that, Harry threw himself into working with Carol and her group, missing Jean even more now than before, to replace the damage they had sustained. But this time, they went about it very differently. The group was no longer allowed up into space, practicing what they could in specially prepared environments, the design of which, much to Carol's disgust, they copied from NASA's.
The design team went back to the drawing room. It was obvious until they devised a way to see the enemy coming through hyperspace the Ravenspires would need to have their own weapon systems to defend themselves. This of course forced them to rethink the existing design drastically.
For his part, Harry ordered Doom's construction droids to begin work on a single asteroid rather than several. Harry wanted Forge 2 up and constructing the various parts they needed soonest. The new Forge also had a runic doorway leading straight to Camelot, the magic of the castle moving through the doorways to power the defensive arrays, which Harry had personally put in place.
Eventually Harry would need to find another place to put those doorways, since he in no way wanted any of the work force which would eventually be working in orbit to need to come through Camelot to get there. Most of those people would of course pass magically based tests to see if they were trustworthy, but even so, Camelot was the center of nearly all his power base along with being home to the Avalon Academy, and thus could not be risked.
Harry also took over several factories in the UK. While the public thought this was to expand Arc Technologies, it was in actuality to expand his droid workforce. When those factories were repurposed, they would be able to construct over a dozen construction droids every week.
Sage had looked at the designs and the software for those before he put them to work of course. She had deleted several software backdoors that Doom could use, not enough to make an issue, just business as usual with the Latverian monarch. Doom himself had begun to explore the moons of Uranus and Venus with his new ship for some reason, while his spies on Earth continued to try and ferret out the Red Skull's few remaining bolt holes.
Eventually Forge and it's sister Smelter, which was still in the design phase, would need to be moved away from Earth orbit, but Harry was leery of doing so now even with proof that the Fidelius could be ineffective,for a simple reason. He had no idea how far from earth the magical transfer between runic doorways could go, and was unwilling to let them rely on scientific defenses just yet.
The Ravenspires' inability to survive the Kree's firepower had astonished Harry. He had thought the large asteroids natural defenses, backed by his magical additions, could have allowed them to survive fire from anything less than a battleship. They hadn't, which was sobering, and a sign that energy shields were a must in the future. Or that the next group of Ravenspires would have to be larger. Much larger.
While he had been doing that, Ororo had handled much of the vetting process for the new inductees to Carol's group, and oversaw Sebastian Shaw's secret weapons factory being repurposed to produce their own weapons. She also spent as much time as she could with Kitty, starting her apprenticeship and learning about runes in turn, and, in a surprise move, going over everything they had gathered on the Asgardians, in particular Hela. She had told Harry about their meeting, but was still wondering where that would go.
Emma spent most of her days with Sage working on their espionage resources and her own businesses, while also trying to follow up on some minor mysteries that had cropped up there, solving all but one: the software worms that had given her father Winston such a tremendous edge in the realm of cyber-warfare, had disappeared from every system they had been in. None of her tech people or even Sage could say how. The only clue Sage had was that they seemed to have been deleted rather than moved.
All three of them also went out of their way to reassure one another and all their friends that Jean and her group would be returning any day now. Though overdue for their best time back, Jean and the others still had two weeks to go before they passed the outer edge of that time. It didn't help the trio much. Then one evening their patience was rewarded.
OOOOOOO
"Coming out of hyperspace now," said Reed's calm voice. "We'll be near Saturn orbit as planned, but we'll have to get some more fissionable material out here before bringing the ships further in, none of the other ships have enough fuel for another jump, or even to move much in real-space."
"Looks like we didn't lose any though," Douglas said from where he was manning the sensors. "All of the ships came out of hyperspace at least. Some of their engines read as nearer the red than I'd like but I suppose that's to be expected."
"Fine, whatever," Jean said from where she sat in the captain's chair, not even listening to Reed or the others mutter about how they were astonished at that bit of largesse from Lady Luck. "Do whatever you think best Reed."
No, Jean's attention was on the connection she had forged with Harry. All her concerns about her condition and how Harry would react had faded, leaving only the desire, the need to see him, Emma and Ororo and now she opened the link between their minds. Telepathy could not cross the solar divide, but distances within the solar system didn't matter a damn to it. Jean was ecstatic about that, as she opened her mind and heart to the people she had come to treasure more than life itself. "Harry! Ororo! Emma!"
OOOOOOO
In Camelot Harry and Ororo, who had been discussing Carol's newest brainstorm, creating actual colonies elsewhere in the star system, looked up, their eyes wide and unseeing as the touch of that gorgeous, beautiful and loved mind after weeks of absence filled eyes suddenly blazing with mystic energy, Harry reached out taking Ororo's hands, and with a nod the two of them appeared in the room of doorways, just as Emma bolted out of one, her eyes wide. She too had felt that touch. "She's back!" Emma shouted telepathically, words seemingly beyond her for a moment.
"I know, come on." Harry held out a hand to Emma, even as he replied to Jean's mental shout down the highway her power had created between his mind and hers, that hidden, special chink in his mental defense that only she, like the one he had allowed Emma to forge, could only be used or even found by Jean, a link which had been cold and silent since she had departed the solar system. "Jean, god it's so good to hear your voice! Show me what you're seeing love, and we'll be right there."
On the other end of the link Jean grinned so widely it looked as if her face was splitting and complied. Standing up from the captain's chair she moved quickly to a clear area by the hatchway, waving off everyone else to keep the area clear. With that done Jean looked around, sending a mental copy of the image through the link to Harry.
It was tough to apparate to a place you had never been whatever you tried, but taking a mental image like this at least allowed you to try. Power for the trip wasn't an issue either, not with Harry's magical reserves back up to their normal level and Ororo lending her own to the spell too. An instant after memorizing the view around Jean, Harry, Emma and Ororo disappeared from Camelot.
They reappeared on the bridge of the Hellion, causing shocks of surprise from everyone there save Jean. Emma tumbled to the floor, not having apparated often enough to get over the effect just yet. Ororo too stumbled, her own reaction exacerbated by the monstrous distance they had just traversed and the drain on her magical core.
Harry's too had been drained badly by the need to cross so much distance, so much so that he thought he wouldn't be able to teleport them all back without some time to rest. But this was but a peripheral thought. The rest of Harry was too busy enthusiastically kissing the life out of Jean to care about such trivialities.
Jean moaned aloud, audible despite their fierce liplock, her tongue twining around Harry's in her mouth as the two of them poured as much wordless Love, joy, welcome, love, desire, across the link they shared as they could. Her hands went around him, and Harry's went around her. They broke off for a moment and then Ororo was there, joining the hug as she captured Jean's lips with her own, before making way for Emma in turn, unmindful of the watching, and now furiously blushing in some cases, onlookers.
For a few moments none of the group could even think coherently, simply lost in the sheer joy of their quartet once more being all together. Then reality asserted itself, helped by several loud, rather severe-sounding coughs from Reed, accompanied by a wolf whistle from Nikolai. Ororo, who had been kissing Jean once again, broke off to glare over at Nikolai, while Emma nuzzled into Jean's neck as Harry leaned forward, resting his forehead against Jean's. "Oh, Jean we've missed you!"
"I've missed you all too, just as much I think," Jean replied, uncaring of her bruised lips or her wide smile. She glanced over at first Emma then Ororo, returning their smiles, before her eyes fell onto Ororo's panja ring. One eloquent eyebrow rose at the sight, and she wondered what that represented even as Harry turned slightly away, addressing a statement from Reed.
But right now, she had something else on her mind. She tuned into the conversation as Harry was saying, turning a wide smile on her. "I expected a few ships, seven or so at the most, but this haul is beyond my wildest dreams! Damn, you are really an overachiever aren't you Jean? Even your arrival gave me a hint about a way to solve one or our biggest issues!"
"Hah, she's also a slave driver," Nikolai grumped, but he did so with a smile. Even taking away the sight of the trio of women kissing one another the sheer feeling of happiness and joy the quartet was giving off was infectious. Next to him Dani nodded in agreement even as she stealthily pulled out a camera.
"It was touch and go a few times," Susan replied, smiling. "But we came through it, and we discovered some things along the way about the Kree ships and other things too."
Jean leaped on this cue, sending a telepathic thank you toward the older woman. Some of her trepidation about this news came back and she moved out of his and Ororo's encircling arms, staring at the two of them and Emma before concentrating on Harry, her jade eyes staring into his emerald ones. "Um, one, one of those things is, is something about myself."
Somehow Emma got what she was hinting at without any further discussion. She looked at Jean from head to toe, concentrating on her stomach for a brief moment as her telepathic power found what could only be… She stood back quickly, her eyes widening in shock, as she smiled and frowned in turn, uncertain what she felt about this.
Harry and Ororo however still looked confused and Jean went on. "Um, you, you know how we both noted that first time you and I made love that the Phoenix Force was able to break your protective spells?"
Ororo seemed to get it then, and her smile widened into a grin her blue eyes sparkling with happiness, but Harry seemed to need it spelled out for him. Grabbing her courage and trepidation by the scruffs of their collective necks Jean plowed on, hoping that Harry would respond as her friends, and her own mind in her more lucid moments, had predicted. "It… well… it turns out that those protective spells weren't the only ones the Phoenix Force broke that first time. It, it also broke the spells you placed on the two of us, to um, well, anyway… it um, I'm…"
The redhead's voice trailed off as the light of realization dawned in Harry's eyes. They first widened in shock, then seemed to soften as Harry slowly went to his knees in front of her, staring up at Jean. His eyes were still full of love and adoration but those emotions were softer now yet somehow just as powerful along with something very much like awe mixed in. "You're, you're pregnant?" He whispered quietly.
His mind was a broil with shock, surprise, astonishment, and a sort of wondering joy. Despite not sharing his blood Melody had become his daughter in truth and he would disembowel anyone who said she wasn't with a rusty spoon. But a baby, his baby, his and Jean's? That was something he hadn't thought to see for years, if ever.
"Yes," Jean replied, staring into those emerald orbs, getting lost in the emotions she saw there. Why the flying fuck was I worried about this again!?
"I, I never expected this, this to happen so soon, but, Jean I, I am so, so happy right now, I don't even have the words. That is, I mean, are you, do you… Do you want to have the baby?" Harry trailed off in turn while Ororo and Emma stayed silent, watching from the sidelines for now, letting the two of them have this special moment to themselves.
It cost Harry physical pain to ask that, Jean could sense it along their link, but he felt he had to, which also came through their link. He loved her so much that he would abide by her decision, no matter how painful.
But Harry wanted them to have the baby that much was obvious even to those who didn't share a mental bond with him. Harry had always wanted a large family, and while Melody, and now Illyana in many ways, filled much of that void, a child of his own body and that of one of his loves was something like a dream of Harry's, buried deep in his mind but always there.
"Yes!" Jean replied quickly, both to stop Harry's pain at the idea she didn't and because that was what she really thought now. "I do want to keep it, but, I, it's stupid I realize that now but I hadn't wanted to assume…" She broke off as Harry shook his head, still looking up at her with that same mix of love, desire and joy that sent tingles down her spine.
Jean watched bemused as Harry suddenly raised a hand, which an eye blink later held a simply designed jewelry box made of oak. He opened it, and Jean wasn't the only woman there to gasp at the ring within. Even Emma hadn't known that Ororo's panja ring was one of two jewelry pieces Harry had created, and now the effect was all he had hoped.
A single, perfect, ruby surrounded by intertwined bands of gold and platinum, the surface of the bands etched with incredibly tiny marks. Under a magnifying glass a person could see these were a series of runes, so delicate it was astonishing anyone could have carved them out. The sheer beauty of the piece was enough to take your breath away, and when you realized that harry had created the ring from scratch that impact was heightened further.
As Jean stared, Harry chuckled, shaking his head wryly. "I was going to ask you to marry me before this, I'd been planning to ask all three of you that question for a while now, this just, well anyway…"
Still on his knees in front of her, Harry held out the now open box to Jean, his face, while still loving, showing a tad more seriousness than they had before. "Jean, in the months I've known you, you've grown from a girl aching to break out of her mold to a magnificent young woman, whose soul, body and mind I have come to love. Will you marry me?"
Even as her eyes widened in shock and began to burn with happy tears, Jean's telepathic link to Harry hadn't waned. And because it hadn't, she heard the thought, "Damn it, I'd hoped to make this more romantic, I know Ororo liked my second proposal far better than the first. But I could tell Jean was worried for some reason, hopefully my proposal means she knows that was silly. And just as importantly, no baby of mine is going to be born out of wedlock!"
That last bit nearly made her collapse into laughter, but she was too busy bursting with incredulous joy for that to happen just yet. Instead she simply shook her head wildly laughing and crying slightly at the same time. "Of course I will you, you idiotic, lovable man you! Was there any doubt!?" With that she leaned down, letting Harry put the ring on her finger before pulling him up by his shirt into a soul-searing kiss.
That seemed to break the stasis on the others watching this show, save Dani who had been recording the entire thing. Reed and the others, including a softly crying Paige and Susan, began to cheer or shout congratulations, while Ororo and Emma, who still looked conflicted somewhat, moved forward to envelop Harry and Jean in a hug.
Ororo nuzzled into Jean's ear, letting her panja ring clink lightly against Jean's own ring. "Welcome and more than welcome beloved sister!"
In response Jean turned, now knowing the significance of that piece of jewelry and leaned in to kiss Ororo enthusiastically. "You too Windrider, you too!"
She didn't care that Harry had proposed to Ororo first, or that his timing in this proposal was pushed forward by her own surprise, since she had felt the truth of his wanting to propose to her eventually anyway. No, Jean was simply happy that their little family was being formalized like this. It made all her concerns about the baby seem silly in retrospect, even her concerns about being a good mother. Because if the four of us, with all the house-elves and the others to help can't get that right, no one could!
Harry put his hands around all three women, then concentrated on the link between him and Jean, asking her to bring to mind the appearance of her room on the Hellion. In the next instant, as the others made to move forward to slap backs or shake hands, the quartet disappeared. They would not be seen by other eyes until late the next day.
For a moment Reed and the rest of the people on the bridge were silent, the emotions of the moment and its sudden cessation shocking them into silence. Then Dani murmured, "Now that, that is how you make an exit." And the spell was broken as everyone on the bridge broke into laughter.