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That evening, while Harry was working on creating more than a dozen lie detecting arrays to hasten the hiring process, the others bedded down in various guest rooms in the Baxter Building eager for tomorrow and their day at the beach to come. Dani and Paige slept in the room next to Mistress Harkness'. That was a very formidable old woman one that Dani immediately knew was someone she didn't want to cross, one who, if she had been born a Cherokee would have been worthy of the codename Dani had taken. Her eyes had also worried Dani, for some reason she knew that Mistress Harkness could see more in Dani than she was comfortable with, and it had been a relief when the woman went to bed.
For her part, Dani fell asleep quickly she was so exhausted from the fight against the Sentry. Yet instead of her normal dreams about time with her grandfather or on the track team or acting out various parts in movies, Dani found herself in a remarkably lucid dream. She stood on an endless plain of snow, mountains in the distance that she had never seen before, either in real life or pictures. In the distance there was what looked like a massive forest.
In one hand Dani held not the spear that was her normal mental representation of her power, but a staff nearly as tall as she was. At her feet there was something Dani was more familiar with however, the tracks of an animal. Concentrating briefly on the staff, she forced it to change to a spear for now, then leaned down, touching the ground slightly while she stared at the tracks in the snow. Some kind of deer, a large one, perhaps a reindeer, or a moose? she thought. She had never hunted either, they weren't exactly normal to see in Utah where she had grown up, but the tracks were similar enough to deer that she could tell they were at least related.
She frowned tapping her staff thoughtfully on the ground then stared at it in surprise, not having noticed that it had changed back into the staff form. She concentrated again on it, and it changed into a bow and a single arrow, and Dani smiled faintly. "This is one of the more interesting dreams I've ever had." She murmured, then crouched down low to the ground, trying to detect if there was any kind of scent to the trail that she could use. There wasn't, but that didn't bother her.
A moment later Dani was moving over the snow lightly, trying her best not to leave footprints of her own. Something told Dani that would be a very bad idea.
Time seemed immaterial here as she moved across the snow-covered landscape, though it was obvious that she was making progress. Those distant clumps of trees had grown significantly larger, much larger than they should have if Danielle was honest with herself, as if she was crossing the land between them too quickly. She didn't care about that at the moment, simply putting it down to a facet of the dream.
She stopped at the outskirts of the woods by a small, yet very deep looking pool of deep, cold looking water. The animal she was tracking had stopped here, and once again Dani knelt to examine the tracks. She didn't bother looking at the pool itself. If she had, Dani would have been astonished by what she saw there, for she would not have seen her own reflection there. Instead of Danielle Moonstar, a young, extremely fit and leggy Native American girl with black hair done in a braid down her back, feather's tied into her hair, there was another woman.
She was older this woman, possibly in her mid-thirties, though there was something ageless about her soft, attractive features, a face lined with smile and frown lines both. She was blonde haired, though her hair was slightly too dark to be called a true blonde. It was tied up in an intricate braid under a small bit of linen cloth of some kind, which Dani would later learn was called the hustrulinet, a white cloth covering used to symbolize that a woman was married. Nor was this the only piece of clothing that was different in this image.
Instead of jeans and a tight, green and black t-shirt, this woman wore a long skirt of white tied around her waist by a green and white braided rope and a cloak of red over her shoulders. Both looked like that which a well to do peasant in the Dark ages would wear, if not for how clean and extremely well-made they looked, like the finest examples of a dressmakers craft for all their simple design.
Yet for all that she looked somewhat like a village maid, there was more to her. For one, not only did she have a staff in one hand, she also wore a sword, plain and unadorned but with a well-worn grip, belted at her side. Her light blue eyes too held a tested strength and will that no mere maid would ever have had.
One moment the apparition was shown in the water of the pool, the next, as Dani stood up, it was gone, replaced by her own image as if nothing had been amiss. Dani, not having noticed anything, moved on into the woods moving through them quietly, though she now had to be more careful about making noise given the amount of pine needles on the snow covered forest floor.
It reminded Dani of a few movies she had seen use this kind of landscaping before, Christmas movies for the most part. If Santa or someone wearing an elf costume shows up I'm going to shoot them, she thought to herself. Danielle was not a fan of the whole Christmas scene to put it mildly, far too commercialistic for her tastes.
A few moments later she frowned, kneeling down to observe the prints on the ground again. Here they crisscrossed several others, visible only because of the snow. One of them was obviously a rabbit of some kind, another looked like either a badger or some other burrower, hard to tell. Probably a badger she decided from the size of them, but those weren't the paw prints that were bothering her. No, that was the paw print that looked like a wolf's, only much bigger than it should have been. It was obviously a wolf print, but one that was as large as a grizzly bear.
"That's a little worrisome," she murmured, shaking her head. "Still, a Wolf wouldn't bother a human even if they were that large, not unless it was really hungry so long as I stay away from it anyway." It had nothing to do with them being noble animals or anything of that nature, it was simply that humans would be tougher prey than other animals, and wolves were smart about that kind of thing. They always went for the easy prey, simply because that allowed them more energy for other things.
Looking down at the tracks Dani noticed another one, this one looking like a large mountain lynx, and she nodded. "That'll do." Hunting a predator was much more interesting than hunting a prey animal regardless of what kind. Besides, those look much fresher than the reindeer I've been stalking.
With that in mind Dani began to follow the lynx tracks, moving through the woods as silently as before, letting the natural sounds of the woodlands cover every move she made.
She didn't know how long it took before she caught her first glimpse of her prey, but Dani found the lynx, a male, sunning itself with eyes closed on a tower of rock that jutted out from the rest of the Woodlands around it, seemingly oblivious to the world save for its ears moving. She very carefully moved around the small clearing that the stand of rock was jutting out from, trying to find the best angle for a bow shot, then when she found it went still. For several moments Dani let the flow of the woodlands come back, erasing what little presence had been created by her trek through it.
Then she slowly raised her bow, sighting down the arrow at her target. The large lynx hadn't even known she was there, a mark of pride for any hunter, before the arrow hit it right in the neck killing him instantly.
Danielle stood up, moving forward towards her kill shaking her head. "Strange, I would've thought it would've been warier around here given the size of those paw prints I found." Regardless, she went about the brutal business of stripping and carving up her kill quickly, then gathering wood for fire. There was a trick to making a fire in the woods so that it didn't create any smoke, one Dani knew of thanks to her grandfather.
It was as she came back with the firewood that Danielle realized that she was being watched. No, she thought to herself calmly laying down the wood and reaching for her bow. Not watched, stalked, but by human or animal?
"If you wish to partake of my food come ahead," she said aloud causing a silence through the woodlands. No, she realized the woods had already been silent, not a good sign. Now she was really wondering about this dream.
Could I have dream walked without realizing it? She thought to herself, or has someone else entered my dream? There were signs going both ways, her transforming staff weapon pointed to this all happening in her head, but everything else said otherwise. Besides, I've dealt with most of my fears thanks to Jean's training, and not a one of them would be stalking me through the woods like this. I'm the hunter, not the other way around!
"You are very brave for a mortal far from home," said a snarling sort of male voice. Somehow she knew the voice wasn't actually speaking English, but this dream or whatever was translating, which was good enough. "These are my woods, only I may hunt here and no man may come here nor woman either." The voice added after seemingly moving upwind of her.
"I did not know it was yours, and I apologize." Dani said staring around her but now her bow and arrow (another one having appeared on her bow after she fired the first) was ready. "Other than that, I'll simply say I don't know where I am. I thought this was all a dream. Even if this is your land, the rules of the hunt are clear. Again, if you wish to share my kill, show yourself."
"Hah." The voice said now with you sharp sort of humor in its voice. "I think not. I could gobble that whole and still be hungry. And I am always hungry, no I think I'd rather…!"
At that moment a massive wolf, possibly the same one whose tracks she had found, so large he seemed almost the size of a bear, barreled out of the woods to Danielle's right. His jaws were open, reaching for her but Dani had been ready. Turning around quickly she loosed her arrow which smacked harmlessly off his fur. She scrambled to the side but still felt the wolf's claws raking one of her legs as she did so.
Danielle knew better than to stay still. She dodged, her mind reaching out to her weapon transforming it into a long dagger. She then pushed off with her good leg, going into a roll across the ground to dodge another lunge from the wolf. Her hand came up holding the dagger, trying to stab it into the wolf's side, but its fur was like armor, and Dani's blade skidded off. She whirled around as it tried to jump at her again, her fist out and hammering its nose causing it to whine in pain for a moment.
Realizing she had no real chance against this massive beast Danielle took the break this gave her to run off through the woods, trying to ignore the agony of her leg. The Wolf came after her, none of the natural wolfish grace in its movements, now enraged by her punch to the nose. It burst through two trees and was on Dani before she could put any real distance between them. With a thought her weapon changed again to a spear, and she tried to slam it home into the wolf's side, but again it's dense fur acted like armor, and she merely pushed the wolf off its line of attack slightly.
Again the thing wheeled unnaturally quick trying to bite her, but Dani dodged aside, putting her back against a tree for a moment. The thing laughed. "HAHAHA…. nowhere to go little rabbit!" he taunted then lunged again.
Dani jumped upwards, clearing the thing's jaws by a bare inch. Her weapon transformed again at her thought back into a bow and arrow and Dani quickly pulled back on the string, landing on the wolf's long snout and with the arrow point a bare inch away from its eyeball. "This… game… of yours is about to turn deadly," she said gasping in air. "I, I might not be able to stop you from eventually killing me, but I can cost you an eye right now. So, since you, you seem to actually have a mind in there somewhere, let's call it quits shall we?"
With its mouth open as it was, it's front teeth had sunk into the wood of the tree behind Dani and with Dani actually sitting on its snout the wolf could only glare at her. "Besides," she said shaking her head. "Are you so incompetent a hunter that you have to kill me? Surely someone as big and capable as you could get its own meat?"
"I haven't tasted human before." The wolf murmured, his voice nearly unintelligible stood thanks to having its jaws stuck open. "I thought it would be interesting. You're certainly quick on your feet little human, though you are very far from home."
"That's nice, now do we have a deal or not? I don't take your eye and you stop trying to kill me?"
The beast growled, licking the air, the smell of the girl's blood almost driving him into a frenzy. But the wolf liked having two eyes, he didn't want to only have the one or else someone was going to make a comment about him trying to emulate Old One-Eye, and that just wouldn't do. Especially since I'm not about to get wisdom out of the trade, the wolf thought to itself chuckling harshly. "Very well little human, we have a deal. Remove your arrow, and I'll remove my fangs."
"Your oath on it." Dani said grimly, not showing any of the pain her leg was in, made worse by the way she was sitting on it at present.
"I sweat on my name of Fenrir that I will not try to eat you."
"Or just kill me," Dani prompted.
"Or kill you," Fenrir muttered looking a little irritated.
Danielle sighed letting the bowstring slacken, removing the arrow from the string and jumping down from her perch on Fenrir's snout, crying out when her wounded leg took her weight. "Fuck!" The weapon in her hand once more changed to a staff, this time on purpose so that Dani could hobble along. "L-let's get back to my kill, I don't want some scavenger to have taking it while we were busy."
"You still offer me food even after I try to kill you?" Fenrir asked, now calmly moving along her side. One eyebrow was raised in a rather human gesture.
Dani shrugged. "I'm not about to eat that entire thing, why let it go to waste?"
"You are an interesting human," Fenrir said shaking his head.
Dani however was frowning looking at Fenrir. Now that its voice was under control and it wasn't trying to sound nasty, she could tell it was young. The voice was that of a barely teen boy, deeper and stronger than normal of course given the wolf's size but there was something about it that said that this wolf wasn't actually all that old. "How old are you?" she asked bluntly as they came into the clearing.
The Wolf growled a little moving over to her killed and grabbing a haunch off it. "10 summers." it mumbled.
"That would make you rather old for a wolf, but not for a hu…" she paused as the beast began to growl. "Supernatural being." Dani said quickly having quickly changed what she was going to say.
Fenrir laughed, sounding even younger for a moment. "You have no idea where you are, do you? This is the land of Ásgarð, I am Fenrir, son of Loki!" He spat that name as if it tasted bad, but it was enough to give Danielle the clue.
"How in the hell have I dream walked to Ásgarð!?" she groaned aloud, sitting down with relief sticking out her wounded leg. The gash on it was long but not deep and was still bleeding, prompting her to rip off some of her shirt to use as a makeshift bandage.
"How should I know?" Fenrir asked, shrugging his shoulders eloquently. "I am not a Seiðr. How am I supposed to tell you how to use your magics?"
"I'm a what?" Danielle asked.
"That's what that weapon of yours means. Or at least I think so." Fenrir said nodding her head at it where Danielle had set it down next to her, now looking a little confused. "It isn't as if I've met many of you before. Actually I haven't met many people at all before, except for my siblings, and the occasional crazy Æsir. The Vanir at least are smart enough to stay away from me. There was my friend Tyr but…" he snarled a little, looking away, and for just a moment there seemed to be grief and loneliness there.
Dani frowned at that, not happy that someone apparently this Loki person had allowed his son to roam the forests without supervision, regardless of his shape, and whoever this Tyr person was also to blame. She didn't know anything about Asgard except a vague memory of some kind of class she had that covered Viking raiders, though she thought that Balder, who Mr. Potter had informed them he had met with was supposed to be from there.
Still, there was no way Fenrir was the one to bring her here, and there was something else bothering her now that she could see the wolf up close. He was just on the edge of sliding from healthy to too thin for his frame. So instead she asked, "So who taught you how to hunt?"
"No one taught me to hunt!" Fenrir stated, looked a little affronted at the very idea. "I'm a wolf, such things come naturally to me!"
"Hah, wrong answer wolfie." Dani said, chuckling and lightly pushing at the large wolfs shoulder. "You might have the physical skills, but how to use them any mammal needs to be taught. Cubs learn from their elders in any pack." Dani deliberately did not use the word parent there, since it seemed a touchy subject.
"And if you don't have a pack that leaves trial and error, never a good idea. Especially with someone your size, and you're a magnificent specimen." She added hastily, lest Fenrir take offense. "But I don't think you could sneak up on most normal prey could you?"
Despite her diplomatic words Fenrir still looked like he was going to take offense, but then he laughed. "Hah, yes, especially since foxes and other small game wouldn't fill me up. I can't sneak up on reindeer or moose anyway. Mountain cats don't seem to know what to make of my scent, and bears try to fight back, but they make good eating."
Dani laughed as well. "Hah! Well, I can give you some tips to get rid of your scent and moving quietly if you want."
Turning his head from his food Fenrir looked at Danielle closely. This reminded him of better times, when he was younger and when Tyr, an Æsir who was a master of dogs and hunting, spent time with him. He had tried to teach Fenrir how to hunt, but it hadn't taken much. Fenrir knew that was because he couldn't concentrate too well, despite his size he hadn't grown up mentally to match, and at times he would simply become so angry at even the slightest insult, playful or otherwise. Yet that was before that, that blasted prophecy of Ragnarök had been made.
He hesitated, studying the human girl closely then nodded. There was something about Dani that made Fenrir want to trust her, not her magic, something about her presence. "I, I guess I could hear what you think you know about hunting and correct you. Just to help your own skills of course human."
Dani chuckled, shaking her head, but didn't call Fenrir on his attempt at prevarication. Instead she began to go into some ideas that Fenrir should have learned already, how to move quietly, how to not leave so many tracks or spore around, and other things. That conversation went on until the lynx, which Dani had been skinning as she talked, was done. Once she was certain Fenrir had a better grasp of his abilities, Dani looked around, frowning slightly as her wound pained her. "How do I get home anyway, how did I even arrive here in the first place, do you know?"
"That would be because of me." A new voice stated, causing both Fenrir and Danielle to turn and stare as a woman suddenly shimmered into existence in the clearing. "Though why you appeared here is a question. I had hoped to summon you to my own realm of Hel, but for some reason you found yourself here. A mystery to be sure, but one that is best dealt with at a later date."
The woman bent down in front of Danielle, placing a hand on her thigh for a moment. Her wound began to slowly heal as Fenrir shook itself glaring at the woman. "Sister Hela, what are you doing here? You never leave Hel, not willingly."
"I do if something demands it of me," Hela replied, shaking her head. "As I said I tried to summon this one to me, I wish to speak to her on a matter that does not concern you brother, but for some reason my spell went awry."
That was the honest truth too. Hela had been astonished, almost worried when her attempt to pull Moonstar's psyche into her realm failed to deliver her. It had left Midgard but had not arrived in Hel, instead going up to Asgard rather than down to Hela's own realm. The directions of course were unimportant to the reality, the spell was simply shaped by how The Vanir and Æsir viewed the world.
What was making it confusing was also that her previous assumptions about the girl were not only wrong, but frankly idiotic when Hela thought further about it. The Valkyrjawere choosers of the slain that was all. Why Hela had thought Dani might have been descended from them, or why that would even matter, was beyond her. It was almost as if… That thought faded away the moment she tried to concentrate on it, and Hela turned her attention back to Dani.
No, it was obvious the girl had some of the völvaor seiðkonur in her, given her ability to actually control the astral projection of her mind despite having not been the one to set it forth, and her obvious abilities with Fenrir. Fenrir was not known to be very talkative or welcoming of anyone, especially since the prophecy of Ragnarök, and his place in it had become known but here he was sitting peaceably by her after only a little violence.
And since he was not a mortal animal that could not be explained by her 'mutant' powers (Hela thought of them as blood gifts) since an empathic ability would not get through the mental defenses Fenrir, like all the children of Loki regardless of their outer shape, possessed. Or perhaps some of the landvættir survived in Midgard and have blessed the girl, giving her some measure of protection to go along with her blood gifts?
But is that the only reason my spell failed to bring her to me? There was something else there, something… deep, hidden inside this mortal girl, but Hela could not see what.
"Why exactly did you want to speak to me, goddess?" Dani asked respectfully. She wasn't a religious person normally, but you only had to be in the presence of Hela to tell she was far more than the woman she seemed, much like Gaea.
Hela smiled. "A simple matter for you, young one. I wish to speak to your jarl, Harry Potter." Dani frowned a little at the 'jarl' statement vaguely recognizing it as meaning leader in Norse or some other ancient culture. But upon further reflection decided it actually made sense on several levels, so let it go while Hela continued.
"Yet not only do those wards of his keep me out, but I cannot appear on Midgard, or Earth as you call it, without Lord Odin's approval for he controls the Bifrost."
To one side Fenrir growled, his lips peeling back to show the teeth that had very nearly ripped Dani apart scant moments ago. Hela smirked at her much younger brother. But her eyes, hidden behind her half-mask flashed with some hidden emotion of her own. "Needless to say we by-blows of Loki have as little to do with dear 'Grandfather' as we can."
Hela had long loathed the way she was pushed aside and relegated to Hel, the land of death given over to those who die outside of battle or in dishonor. The leavings in other words. Odin himself took those who died honorably or notably into the Einherjar via the Valkyrja. It was a cold land, a harsh and snow-filled land of harsh storms and mists, totally unlike Asgard, and she had lived there since she was young and first given the task of being their god.
In retrospect, the job itself was fine, after all if she had never been given it she would never have met her Lady, and it was true that the job did require a certain set of thought she found easy, no Æsir or Vanir would be able to. She often wondered if that was why Loki slept with her mother, a giantess, in the first place. But it was the fact she had been pushed aside, forced to live there, almost banished from Asgard that had always bothered her.
And her brothers were seen more as beasts than godlings. Jormungundar had stopped caring quickly, but she knew it had bothered him before he became so large he couldn't remain in Asgard (the land, not the city) at all. Fenrir too was mostly ostracized save for Tyr, and even he had turned his back on the youngest of Loki's children when the prophecy of Ragnarök became known.
"I see…" Dani said, now keeping a wary eye on Fenrir, ignoring a slight sense of wrongness that had hit her mind at the word grandfather. "But why me?"
"I do not know." Hela turned back to Dani, her head cocked to one side as she examined the mortal girl. "There is something about you, some kind of magic or power that calls out to me, a touch of the Seiðr which interferes with my power in some fashion, but not enough to overcome it."
Fenrir too looked at Dani, then the wolf nodded it's head slightly. "That is true… I sense some scent, something oddly familiar…" He shook his head, and turned back to his meal, as if he had lost his interest in the conversation.
"Sooo…. You just want me to tell my jarl, I mean Mr. Potter to sleep outside his wards?" Dani asked.
"No, I wouldn't be able to call forth his psyche as I did yours. Instead you will tell him I wish to speak to him, then you will give him this." Hela gestured and suddenly her hand held a small quartz crystal, which she handed to Moonstar. "Tell him to break it, and then he will be transported to where we may talk."
"But, um, forgive me, but if this is a dream walk, how am I supposed to bring that back with me?"
Hela chuckled, her dark purple lips twisting into a smirk. "Child I am a goddess, spirits and souls are my domain and dream walking as you put it is nowhere near as limited as you think. If I say you are able to carry something back, then you will do so." So saying she raised her hand which flashed green and blue for a moment.
The next instant Dani was being woken up rather rudely by Paige smacking her in the head with a pillow. "Get up girl, it's pushing noon and I'm not missing any more tanning time! Huh, where'd you get that cool cloak?"
Dani growled a little, pushing the pillow away opening her eyes only with great reluctance, running one hand through her hair, which she had let loose from her braid when she went to bed. "What cool cloak?"
She stared down at the fur of the lynx from her dream lying on top of her in place of the blanket, which she must have kicked off during the night. As she sat up, Dani dislodged a small quartz crystal from where it had been laying in her other hand. "Um... yeah, I think the beach might have to wait for a while yet…"
OOOOOOO
When informed of the Asgardian goddess Hela wishing to speak to him, Harry first took Dani back to Hogwarts to run a full medical on her, magic and scientific. Discussing the dream, he found no hint yet at her growing a magical core, but it had only been a few weeks since she had moved in, so that didn't mean anything. Still, he promised to look into Asgardian magic, though he doubted he would find anything. Norse runes didn't exist in this dimension, or at least the Asgardians hadn't left anything behind for humans to study. Until then, Dani could start to learn some more advanced occlumency techniques with Jean, that might be able to help her if she did develop magical abilities.
Surprisingly Dani was fine with that, and also declined to have her new scar healed further. She called it a badge of honor, much like others she had taken on hunts with her grandfather, and wished to keep it. The lynx skin went on her wall in the castle.
They went over the rest of the meeting, and Harry agreed with Dani that there was something wrong about how Fenrir was treated, if he really had the blood of an Asgardian in him. What was even more disturbing to Harry, he had looked extensively through the library here in Hogwarts and not found even a hint of Norse runes, their magic or anything else about the Asgardians or how they retreated. There should have been something, but there wasn't and that worried him, it was too complete to be natural. He had asked Stephen to look into it, but the Sorcerer Supreme was busy as well at present.
In regards to meeting with Hela, Harry reluctantly decided to put it off for a time, there was just too much else he had to concentrate on right now, and he really, really did not want to get further involved with the Asgardians without doing a lot more research into them than he had been able to do up to this point, something Jean and the others agreed with. With that decided, they all delved into their various duties.
Two days of hard work later, Harry, Jean, Emma and Ororo were all in the dining hall early-morning local time to watch the business report for the day on the hard light screen. The old, balding man on the screen droned on in a voice fit to put an ADD child to sleep, but his words were important enough they could overlook that. "And now the news that everyone in the medical community has been waiting for: The new medicines coming from the rather 'amusingly' named UK based company Magical Minds has been cleared for sale to the general public. Reports indicate that millions of pounds worth of orders have already been flooding in, and the owner of the company has pledged that he will be able to meet the first round of orders from already prepared stock. For those who do not know…"
"And we're in business, real business!" Emma laughed, her eyes alight with eagerness. Of course all of the previous agreements for sale of Harry's 'potions' were made contingent on delivery. Now that the hospitals who ordered them could actually take them, that would sky rocket Harry from one of many in the Hellfire Club London Branch to the king of said branch in a matter of hours.
Emma grabbed up a bottle of champagne popping the cork expertly before pouring it into four small crystal goblets that Harry had donated for this purpose, handing them around after they were full. "Cheers." She laughed again, throwing her blonde hair back as they all drank the champagne. "So now that we have money to burn, what are we going to be doing with it?"
"Several things," Harry said shaking his head. "Jean is going to start putting together a team to work on the arc reactors, and we're going to need to buy some manufacturing ability to start creating them. I've got a meeting in a few days with the king about that already set up. Thanks to Hedwig we've already exchanged a few letters, and he's all for switching over from traditional generators. Provided that we can ensure that they can't be turned into giant bloody bombs like an atomic reactor."
"The Orihalcum that they're made of should keep that at a minimum, but Kitty's already working on a sort of emergency recall thing in case of damage, and Reed has a teleporter function that can activate if someone tries to remove it," Jean replied.
Reed had been a massive influence on Jean since first introduced to her engineering skills. He seemed take delight in guiding her being that very rare bird of genius, able to identify genius in others and cultivate it without feeling threatened himself.
"Then I'll want to put together a think tank to look at the Kree, but it'll have to be people we trust. If you three agree, I think we'll stick Banshee on that once he joins up with your input Emma, as well as Reed's acquaintance." The man had gotten back to them, and had already presented the college he worked at with his notice, but wouldn't be free until the current summer classes let out.
"We don't need another field operative at this point, though he'll be able to join us for said at need. Right now we need someone who is able to look at that society and figure out how the Kree are going to react to Earth suddenly, not becoming a superpower, but at least able to defend itself."
Harry was certain that they could beat off any task force even if the Kree sent their special forces, but his team couldn't cover the entire planet. If they sent in multiple forces with the simple order of slagging Earth down to the bedrock, Harry and his people could delay the inevitable but they couldn't stop it. Not at least without public support of all the various heroes and villains out there, and even given their deal with Dr. Doom that wasn't going to happen.
After that with about forty minutes to kill before their next appointments, Harry took Emma and began to show her around the castle, showing her the areas she hadn't seen yet. He started with the training area, which won an appreciative 'hmm' of approval from her but no more. Emma wasn't a frontline combatant after all, and had no desire to become such.
"And what is this room?" She asked, moving down the hallway quickly.
"That is the Room of Requirement," Harry replied, smiling faintly. "One of my pride and joys actually, the work of four lifetimes to initially create, and for me several weeks' worth of runic work to recreate here."
"Another training area?" she said disparagingly.
"No, it's what the label says on the box, the Room of Requirement. Any room I need, this room can provide, or at least a magical facsimile."
"Truly?" Emma murmured. "And how does that work?" Her eyes were alight with interest and she was staring avidly at the door.
Harry shrugged, and moved forward walking the prerequisite three times in front of the doorway thinking of his treasure room. Not the actual Vault, that was a different section altogether. It only held a few items, the gem they had taken from Selene's last cache for one and two other things, one an item from Selene's final cache, and the other from Dr. Strange.
It wasn't a horcrux, but what it was eluded Stephen and he had wanted it to be kept in a safe spot, while Harry was unwilling to see what would happen if he tried to drain it. It was called the Crystal Skull of the Ghost Rider. Harry hadn't asked what it was, and frankly wasn't at all interested in finding out.
The regular treasure room would be more than enough for what he wanted right now. He had heard about Emma's reaction to Jean showing her the second cache Jean had sacked, and was interested to see what would happen now.
Her moan at what was revealed when they walked in was quite erotic, more than he had actually expected. She stood still in the doorway gazing at the art pieces lining the wall, the jewels and gold laid out here and there, all the figurines and other knickknacks lining the walls. Their magic had been drained, adding some more knowledge to Harry's store as their power added to his own, so right now, all of them were simply pretty baubles, good as emergency cash reserves.
He watched with a faint smile as Emma moved around the room, dragging him with her, occasionally turning to give him a smoldering kiss as she found a particularly expensive piece of art or something that was simply fantastically expensive looking.
They soon came upon the rose that Harry had created so many months ago, and she stared at it. "Did this come from Selene's cache as well? It's magnificent."
"No actually, I created that one, conjured it up as a test of my magical power. I didn't remember it was in here, huh." Harry mused, staring at the intricate rose, made of gold, several dozen types of jewels and precious stones.
He watched as Emma's eyes widened, until they looked fit to fall out of her face before she turned and kissed him ardently on the lips. She pulled back after a moment, gasping. "Why in the hell are you screwing around with potions then?!"
Harry shook his head, trying to clear it of the cobwebs her kiss had caused before answering. "There's actually a magical law called law of monetary conservation. What it boils down to is that while I can create something like that, I couldn't use it as a form of payment or place it in the bank for that reason without severe magical consequences. I'm not certain if those consequences would be to my magic itself, or to me in the form of simply horrible, horrible luck until I removed it, but the precedent was clear in my own universe, and Stephen informed me that it was much the same here."
She leaned down looking at the magnificent, giant rose that Harry had created, shaking her head slowly. "That doesn't make any sense to me, but I'll take your word for it."
They moved on, with Harry showing her the classrooms, the other additions in areas where she'd not been before, as well as Jean's workroom "What is this?" Emma asked, looking at the hover boot prototype.
"A hover boot, Jean designed it from our last team action. We told you about having to rescue Betsy? Well Jean played scavenger as she should afterward, and those were what she came up with."
Emma froze again, looking at Harry intently. "Hover technology? How good is it?"
"Very good, though you'd have to ask Jean for the particulars."
"The boots run on batteries, which have to be replaced every few hours, anything larger would need a larger energy source." Jean replied, poking her head up from where she had been working on finishing up another design, this one was for the team helmets. She didn't want to hand anything to do with their team over to anyone else, but she desperately wanted to get started with reverse-engineering the Hellion to the nth degree
"Doesn't matter," Emma said shaking her head. No, I was thinking of simply hover cars in general. That would be magnificent technology."
"Really?" Harry said shrugging. He hadn't looked at it from a commercial perspective before, but it made sense he supposed.
"Definitely." Emma replied firmly. "I don't think they would ever be as big as your potions, but it would definitely be a very healthy chunk of cash."
"Interesting, though I wouldn't sell the hovertech itself…" Harry mused, tapping her hands gently with his as they walked on. "Did I read correctly that the car company Saab is up for sale by the way?"
"It might be going on the sale block soon yes, why?" Emma asked.
"Well that would solve that issue and get us a ready pool of engineers and mechanics for Arc Technologies, and we could use their design people to create a whole new line of emergency vehicles. After all, hover cars could get to the scene of an accident or emergency much faster. And Saab is already known for designing very tough, safe cars."
Emma laughed quietly. "An excellent idea, why didn't you think of that earlier?"
"Hey, I'm still feeling my way in this whole business thing, at least I'm not offering you a commission for pointing me in the right direction." The two of them laughed, and continued on their way to a luncheon where Harry cooked the two of them the meal before teleporting Emma back to her mansion where she immediately began to go through her companies' programmers, looking for a few she could reassign to a new project elsewhere without people asking too many questions.
OOOOOOO
The next day, Jean began interviewing new engineers for Arc Technologies using the Magical Minds headquarters and the lie detecting arrays. At the same time, Harry's money crunchers worked on purchasing a few factories that could be repurposed to create their arc reactors and his lawyers were busy buying Saab, which was indeed on sale. While this was going on, Harry had a meeting with Scott in New York. This was something they had set up during their guy's day and he couldn't get out of it at the moment since everything was in a holding pattern concerning the ship in in orbit, and he had yet to do any research into the Asgardians.
Even Doom was unavailable at present. He had replied quickly to Harry's letter via Hedwig, but he had to clear up his schedule before getting back to them with an appropriate time for him to come up and help investigate the ship. He was however interested in working with them on the ship and gleaning what he could from it, even up to agreeing not to engage in more than verbal battle with Reed.
That was a real shocker, but it matched what international news said about Doom having mellowed recently. No-one would make the mistake of ever calling Doom one of the good guys, except possibly in his own country, and he certainly had some imperialistic tendencies in relation to his neighbors. But Dr. Doom hadn't tried any world domination scheme or attacked the Fantastic Four since they had gotten his mother back, which was a plus. Who would've thought Victor Von Doom, one of the most dangerous men on the planet, was a momma's boy?
The meeting was in New York, and Scott wanted Harry's help with two things. For one, it was his and Rogue's first monthly anniversary after becoming an official couple, and Scott wanted Harry's advice to how good a gift he should get for her. Was a rose or a dozen roses or something of that nature appropriate, could it be a gag gift, or some small item of apparel? Scott was really at sea about these things, not that Harry was any real help other than telling him that he should stay away from clothing, his taste in that was abysmal. And definitely NOT a gag gift. Harry could sense Kurt's suggestion at work there and cut it off at the pass.
The other thing Scott wanted Harry's input on however was much more serious, and he broached that subject while the two sat in a pizza joint, their conversation covered by one of Harry's subtle Notice-Me-Not spells. "We have the new teammates moving into the mansion in two weeks, the professor wants them to get acclimated to life in the mansion before school starts. I'm just wondering how to treat them. A few have already stated they have no interest in joining the team, though they do want to learn how to control their powers. And a few others I need advice on how to go about integrating for one reason or another."
"I'm going to need a little more information than that." Harry murmured, biting into his pizza. He frowned, wondering why the heck New York style pizza was supposed to be so good. He much preferred the Chicago variety.
Scott nodded, pushing across a thin folder he had been carrying in his backpack. Harry opened it up, looking at the picture of a blond haired girl who was blowing up a large piece of bubblegum as the picture was taken, either deliberately or by accident was uncertain. "Tabitha? Hmm…I can see why you might be worried about her but…"
"Oops, sorry, didn't realize that profile was still in there. She just agreed a few days ago to come to the mansion, and I must have forgotten to remove it." Scott waved his hand. "I'm not worried about whether or not Tabitha will fall back into her old ways, I think that was mostly her father, and we have a restraining order out for him. Frankly if I see the man I'm going to zap first and ask questions later. Professor X might be a little more diplomatic about it, but I'm not the professor. No, it was the next two in there I wanted your opinion on."
"Warren Worthington, oh the third, I note." Harry shivered. "Ugh, what a horrible thing to do to your child!"
Scott laughed. "Yeah, the rich do that kind of thing for some reason. Warren might be as rich as Emma. He's at least in that same sort of social circle, you know, old money? Anyway, I'm wondering specifically if I should let him get settled in before knocking that chip off his shoulder, or knock it off right away."
"You're assuming he has a chip on his shoulder?"
"Professor X is very thorough about these things." Scott said simply, smiling faintly. "Trust me, if the professor says he's an egotistical prat, to use the British idiom, he is."
"I would tailor it to his powers of course, and yes right away for that sort of thing. You can't let that kind of entitled attitude stay for long once he gets to the mansion, it'll eat away at team unity and cause friction with the current team members in particular, since they have proven themselves and earned their places in no uncertain terms. I doubt Spyke or Rogue for example would put up with it, and Kurt would probably prank him so badly he might run away."
"Both of them are looking forward to the opportunity to be my tools for said reality readjustment, yes." Scott replied dryly.
Scott had decided to share the new student profiles with the rest of his team, wanting to get their feedback on them. Kitty had bowed out, not having the time to look at them, but Spyke, Rogue and Kurt had all given him decent input. But most of it was for how to incorporate the newcomers into their ranks and what kind of exercises they could do to learn about their powers.
"So right away it is. The next one though I'm not certain how to handle at all. You see Thunderbird is coming to us already a blooded warrior of the Apache."
"That must be his codename…" Harry murmured flipping pages until he found the relevant picture. He remained silent for a few minutes as he read the report. "I see. Apache, a follower of the old ways, and it says a blooded warrior. It actually says that, how strange. So you're thinking he's not going to be happy to simply be learning about his powers?"
"I'm afraid he's going to be arrogant in the way that Warren isn't, as in having an actual reason to be. His younger brother isn't so big a deal, he's not experienced. When I first read their profiles, I was thinking of making John team lead for the new group, but then I met Sam, and he's impressed me since."
"Ahh," Harry said nodding his head. "You want my help to figure out what you should do between them."
"If I'm going for someone who I like and trust, it would be Sam all the way," Scott said with a nod. "But he's a little too self-effacing, and his first instinct in even combat scenarios we've run in the Danger Room is to ask for orders or follow the group. I want the team leader to be able to act independently and generate said orders. Sam could do it, he's got a good tactical mind and he's personable and intelligent, and I think he'll be a big hit with the newcomers just as he has been with the rest of my team, but he doesn't put himself forward."
"And you're worried that Thunderbirds attitude will not mesh well with the rest of the newcomers. Arrogant, used to acting on his own, intelligent yet opinionated." Harry murmured having finished reading, impressed and concerned in turns with what he saw.
To give himself time to think he changed the subject for a moment. "Incidentally, are the renovations on the mansion worked out? I've only been back for a few minutes at a pop, and I haven't been in the basement at all. I wish I could've convinced Charles to move to where the mansion'd be over a ley line so that I could add my own defenses, but that didn't happen."
Scott smirked a little. "I actually stuck Kurt on the problem, he's got a devious little mind, emphasis on the devious part. I don't think it's infallible, no defense security could be, but it's a lot better now than before."
Harry nodded, and turned back to the conversation. "I would set up a competition between Sam and John. Pull John aside with Sam on the first day, set them both down and tell them what you're thinking. Be honest about each of their shortcomings, see what they think about it, then see how they do in command situations."
"Even asking that question could be a test. Can they take criticism?" Scott said nodding his head. "Do they both think they can become team leaders? Or if I decide that Thunderbird can't and Sam should, will John be able to back down and be a team player? But if both do well, who do I choose?"
"Well that's why you're wearing the big hat Scott. Give it time, I trust you'll make the best choice when it comes time for it," Harry said shrugging. He became more serious after a moment. "How are things, mission wise I mean?"
Scott shrugged. "The team's kept in shape, despite not having had the Danger Room to practice in for so many weeks. Logan's long gone, which is a good thing, there was a certain amount of tension between him and I after the fights against those ninjas in Vietnam. We're all looking forward to the newcomers, and to the transfers from your school. Xian and her mother are fitting in well enough, though Kurt is still having issues with what he saw when he and the professor rescued them. Xian is still afraid of her own power, but the professor is handling that."
"In terms of missions, we've had more than a few, anti-mutant sentiment is definitely on the rise, but other than the Friends of Humanity it thankfully isn't very organized. A lot of it is more violent than I could wish, but not as much as it could be. There hasn't been any sign of Magneto lately, which is good in the short term but..."
The two men shared a telling glance, and Harry nodded. Magneto should've never gotten away. If those planes hadn't been there attacking the asteroid base and if the asteroid base hadn't represented such a huge resource, I'd have chased him down then and finished him off. But Magneto was a threat they would have to deal with if they wanted to maintain peace between mutants and non-mutants. "And no one else's stepped into the void to organize mutants against humanity? What do you do on these missions anyway?"
"I let loose Kurt for the most part if we arrive as the mob is forming or attacking a mutant." Scott smiled grimly. "Beating them up would only prove their point, humiliating them and showing that we could have done a lot worse however sends a different message. We make the Friends of Humanity a laughingstock for now, though that might bite us in the ass in the long term for some of those thugs. Still we're ready for it if it happens, I just wish we weren't seemingly missing so many mutants. With Jean having left with you that only leaves the professor at the moment able to get the most out of Cerebro and he can't use it 24/7 with his own work and with the extra work he's doing with Xian. Alone, Cerebro is a major resource, but it isn't perfect."
"Tell me about it." Harry groaned rolling his eyes, then went into the issues the Big Book of Students had.
Nearby a well-dressed middle-aged businessman sat, with his hat on his head seemingly to keep the sunlight off his face, which looked as if it had been badly sunburned recently. He also wore sunglasses, which covered the fact that his eyes were not eyes at all, but recording devices locked on Scott Summers and the person he was meeting with.
Elsewhere in the city Mr. Sinister leaned back in his comfortable apartment, tapping his fingers together as he looked at the recording. Even through his cyborg's eyes, the picture of the man meeting with Subject Summers was indistinct. Worse, the information he was getting by the audio receptors on his cyborg could pick up from where it sat was fragmented and not very interesting except for the one sentence that said Subject Grey had left with the man. It was interesting and rather telling that despite his best efforts to implant a subconscious infatuation for Subject Grey in Subject Summers the youth didn't seem to have a problem with Grey being away from him.
What was worse, he could tell that this man was using a magical spell to create the effect surrounding him that made his image so indistinct rather than a scientific one thanks to the energy readings from his cyborg pet. "Not good," Sinister murmured, stroking his small goatee for a moment. "Not good at all, there can be no doubt of it now, it's not just Munroe having new powers, what I had discovered previously of her lineage that was understandable, but this is something new entirely."
Sinister was running out of time and he knew it, he had hoped to have the baby of the perfect mutant, the mutant supreme to raise as his weapon against his 'benefactor', but that didn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Not unless he removed this man, and Sinister doubted that would be very easy. Magic was an area he had never delved into because he lacked the talent for it himself, and those who did guarded it jealously.
"I'm afraid it really is time to call-in an old favor. One must use a sorceress to fight a sorcerer after all, and Morgan La Fey owes me." With that he typed in orders to his cyborg and turned away, determined to get on the next flight out of New York to Europe. Finding Morgan would be difficult, but he knew where her haunts used to be, hopefully that would be enough.
Back at the meeting Scott and Harry had finished up, with Harry helping Scott to hammer out the details of the kinds of competition he should foster between Sam and John. Now they were heading back to the car park where Harry had parked his Huayra. He smiled, looking forward to the trip back since he only rarely got to drive his car these days. He wanted to make time at least once a week for it, but there were so many demands on his time that it just wasn't happening.
He said so and Scott commiserated. But as they were walking they were interrupted by a loud crash and screams down the street. They both looked at one another, sighed, and moved in that direction. As they walked on Harry clapped a hand on Scott, covering them both with modified Remember and Notice-Me-Not charms. They exited the side street they had been on onto a main street, where a bank was in the process of being robbed apparently. Spotting the action they both stopped, staring.
There stood a giant of a man almost as tall as Colossus, wearing a rhino outfit of all things. It seemed to augment his strength almost as much as Colossus' metal form did him, since the man had just blasted out of the side of the bank seemingly with ease. On its shoulders it was carrying several tied together bundles of cash or something from the bank's vaults.
Fighting him was the Spiderman that Harry had been told about a few times. He was dressed in a blue and red suit marked with what looked like webs all over it in black. He was also talking as he dodged around his larger opponent. "Come on Rhino, you know it's after hours, banks don't do business after four, it's a rule. You're just going to have to wait in line like everyone else!"
"Buzz off spider!" The man shouted, trying to grab the smaller, much more agile man in his huge hands. "We've done this dance before, you know you can't stop me!"
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again that's the Boy Scout motto. Or at least one of them, I was never a scout actually so I don't know. It still sounds appropriate. Besides I've proven I don't have to stop you to… stop you, okay I'll admit that was lame but you have to come back at night to get my best stuff." The Spiderman responded, ducking under the blow grabbing the arm and flinging himself into the air like the world's best gymnast as his hands flashed.
Something came out of his palms, or was it his wrists? Whatever the case, what came out was small bits of sticky webbing. These impacted the Rhino's cheeks as he turned his head quickly to avoid getting them in his eyes. The rhino growled, grabbing at a street lamp pulling it out with a crackling fizz of electricity when it broke out of its stand, swinging it wildly at Spiderman.
By this time most of the bystanders had run away, and after throwing up a few invisible Protego type shields here and there to protect the few that hadn't run Harry turned to Scott who was watching the action with a jaundiced eye. "So, does Charles think Spider-boy's a mutant or what?"
"As far as we know he isn't." Scott said. "He's an idiot bantering like that while he should be taking Rhino down hard though. What about the bystanders? Spider-man's 'make Rhino mad' plan seems to be working, but what if someone gets in the way? He's being way too arrogant of his own abilities."
"Good point," Harry replied. "Shall we?"
Covered by Harry's Notice-Me-Not the two moved forward following the action as it moved down the street until Scott had a clear shot at Rhino's back. Instantly Scott flipped up his sunglasses, his energy beams lancing out to slam into Rhino's back at about forty percent power. The man yowled falling forward and rolling with the impact, his suit charred slightly as he looked around wildly. "Where the hell did that come from?!"
"I don't know." Spiderman said, suddenly appearing on his back with his hands full of webbing which he stuck over the man's head before quickly wrapping him up, his hands stuck to his face with extra adhesive webbing. "But I'm not about to go around looking gift horses in the mouth. This spider isn't a fool. Sorry Rhino."
"And now can you actually get him out of that suit?" a voice said from nowhere.
Spiderman looked around wildly. His Spider-sense hadn't gone off, which was a good thing he supposed but his sense of hearing should have at least been able to tell him someone was around.
The voice asked impatiently. "I asked you a question lad, can you get his suit off?"
"Er well, not really." Spiderman looked around. "Um, it's kind of bonded to his skin or something. What's going on here? How are you invisible, mystery voice?" He smirked, visible even through his mask. "That must make you a hell of a lot of fun at parties."
"You'd be surprised." The voice said dryly no closer than it had been.
By this point Rhino had surged to his feet and was trying desperately to pull his hands away from his face where they were stuck with Spiderman's webbing. He wasn't having much luck yet, but he was slowly gaining headway.
Harry, who had covered the entire area with a Muffilatio to keep his voice from being overheard by the bystanders that were still around (New Yorkers, in Harry's opinion, had the survival instincts of concussed lemmings) raised a hand lightly tapping the larger man's chest causing him to flinch back and try to kick him but Harry dodged the blow almost negligently. "Huh, he's right, the man's suit is bonded to his skin. Ah well, an example it is."
Hitting the man with a Petrificus Totalus, Harry backed away slightly. "Ahem, Mr. Rhino, you can hear me correct?" He weakened the spell just slightly over the oddly dressed robber's head so the man could speak through clenched teeth.
Curses in Russian answered him for a second, but the Rhino then switched back to English. "When I break whatever this is holding me, I'm gonna…"
"You're going to do nothing." Harry cut in grimly, his tone cold. "What you are going to do is turn yourself into the police, do your time in jail and try to live an upstanding life from now on. Truth be told Mr. Rhino, you're not really on my radar at all. You're no threat to me and mine, if you were you would already be dead. You're little crimes here don't really matter much to me, the only reason I stepped in was because I was in the neighborhood and you and Spider-boy…"
"OY! It's Spider-man, mystery voice!" Spiderman said, now staring straight at where Harry was speaking from. "I get enough flak about my costume as it is without weird invisible people joining in!"
Harry shrugged, calling up his Magia Erebea at five percent just in case, then finished what he was saying. "You and Spider-boy seemed to be a little too evenly matched for this to end quickly and without civilian casualties. If such had happened before I intervened, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
His voice became colder with each word, until Rhino was beginning to have flashbacks to when he dealt with the Russian mob and met an ex-Spetsnaz. "You would be dead. Which is precisely what will happen if you don't cooperate with the authorities and ever cross my path again, understand?" Harry was willing to let the justice system do its job, but if it couldn't or if someone subverted it, well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. He smirked. "If you do, just say argh…"
The Rhino scowled, but something in that voice told him the man speaking to him was perfectly willing to kill him if the need arose, so feeling stupid he responded in the affirmative. "Argh…"
"Good. Have a nice day, I'm certain we won't have occasion to speak again." In the distance Sirens could now be heard. "Wow their reaction time sucks." Harry murmured and Scott grunted agreement, already moving off.
Harry followed him, leaving Rhino under the effects of the Petrificus Totalus, which would wear off in a few hours. Probably.
"Hold on Mr. Mystery Voice. I don't know who you are, but that threat wasn't exactly the act of someone who plays nice with others. Just so you know, if you try to do that, I'll take you down too." Spiderman said, trying to track where the voice was, and having very little luck.
"Really?" Harry said groaning a little. "You really think that you could, when you can't even find me right now? Besides, how many times have you thrown Mr. Rhino back there into jail? How many others have you done the same thing for, only to see them back on the street months or even weeks later?"
Harry turned back, facing Spiderman squarely, his voice intent. "Sometimes lad, having the power to do something means making the hard decisions, and that means the decision to take a life so you can save others, to step outside the law to preserve those it is truly meant to defend. When you are faced with that choice, to take a life to save another, I hope you have the courage to do so. And if you don't and if your enemies know that, you become an enabler, part of the problem. I hope you realize that. You're not perfect, you can't protect everyone by wearing kids gloves."
With that Harry walked away joining Scott and leaving behind a suddenly much less certain spider.