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Later that day Harry had another meeting, one he had been looking forward to for a few weeks now. He smiled as Ororo popped in. She smiled in turn, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek before the two of them moved down the stairs and into the sitting area. She too had been looking forward to this for a while. Kitty met them there, bouncing from one foot to the other eager to be off. Charles had been waiting with her, chuckling at the girl's eagerness to be off to see her parents.
Harry smiled happily, as Ororo moved over to rub the young girl's head affectionately. "Got the directions?"
Kitty nodded eagerly, hugging Ororo for a second. "My parents're expecting us in a few hours. Normally the trip would take most of the day, but…" she grinned evilly, looking at Harry.
"Heh, challenge accepted," Harry said laughing. Saying their farewells to Charles the three of them moved into the garage where Harry got back in the Huayra, followed by Kitty scrambling into the expanded back seat, where she lounged sideways, then Ororo.
The three of them talked for most of the trip, covering what was going on at Hogwarts, as well as what happened with the Kree ship. Kitty was ready to move on to her next project, the protective emergency portkey type runic array for the arc reactors they were going to be selling shortly. They had to be good enough to teleport the things away if someone tried to damage them, but they also had to be energy efficient since there was no telling if the generators would be placed on ley lines, so Harry would have to go and recharge them occasionally. That could of course be covered as maintenance tests, but they still had to be pretty energy efficient since Harry couldn't be stopping in every day to all of them.
It was going to be a tough job for her, but Harry was confident Kitty would be able to do it, she had met every challenge, including what Kitty thought was the reason they were going to her parent's house. In the boot of the Huayra (which had of course been magically enlarged) was the runic doorway for her parent's house, which she had finally finished after helping Harry create more lie detecting wards. It wasn't activated yet, but the security measures on the doorway were ready to go as soon as her parents were keyed in.
About two hours after setting off Harry pulled off the highway and about twenty minutes later they were driving into a small community, drawing some attention from the locals who were out and about on their business. The Huayra was after all a striking car, but the people inside it would not be remembered afterward. This had nothing to do with Harry having hit them with Remember-me-not charms, it was just that they seemed to fade into the background in comparison to the car they were driving, something that amused Harry.
They drove up and parked in the driveway of Kitty's house, and she clambered out over Ororo in her haste to get out and ring the doorbell. Ororo and Harry laughed, following her and were greeted by her parents at the doorway. Terry whistled appreciatively at the car, while his wife and daughter shared a hug whose strength reminded Harry of the many he had seen Hermione and her mother share in his old life. "That's a lovely car, I've never seen one like that before, what's it's called?"
Harry greeted him warmly smiling and shaking the man's hand. "It's Pagani Huayra, extremely expensive and extremely fast and extremely high tech, all of which I like."
Kathleen rolled her eyes. "Boys with their toys, I bet you have to stop every fifteen minutes for gas in that thing."
"You'd be surprised." Harry said laughing with Kitty and Ororo.
Moments later they were setting up the runic doorway in a small, empty closet on the first floor. For all that it was unused however it was in a central location in the house, even if it's placement under the stairs recalled to Harry some of his worst childhood memories. Still, Harry approved of the location thanks to its centrality to the rest the house, a two-story house that was extremely well cared for, clean but not overly so, and with dozens of little family touches all over. There was warmth to the house, one he attributed to the family's closeness.
Once the stone arch was set up Harry handed over the presentation to Kitty, who walked her parents through the activation of it rather professionally, pointing to the places where it would need a drop of their blood, just a drop to key them in, and explaining what it did.
"It has two verbal passwords once it's activated, you just need to shout them out. The emergency one is just that, an emergency activation, that one can be activated from anywhere within ten feet. But you'll have to run through within seconds after you say it or else it'll shut down and won't pull any more power from its other end until one of us comes to reactivate it." Kitty said, directing her father's finger as it smeared his blood on a specific rune.
"To activate normally you'll have to stand in front of it and touch this rune." she said tapping a rune on top of the arch with a finger. "Now, let's put in your password."
"For the Pryde!" her father said laughing, shaking his head in amazement of his daughter's magical creation, and magic in general.
Everyone laughed while the runic doorway activated. Now instead of seeing the back of the cupboard through the archway, what looked like shimmering silvery water filled it. "Would you mind going through for a test run?" Harry asked.
"I want to make sure that it doesn't cause either of you any ill effects, then key you in on the other side so you can come back."
Kitty's parents nodded, their faces awed. After a moment's hesitation, the two of them walked through the runic doorway, followed by Harry.
Ororo stayed behind with Kitty, and they moved into the kitchen to prepare some tea. "So besides your runic activities what have you been up to? I understand you and Lance broke up?"
"We did." Kitty shrugged. "Frankly we were just moving in two different directions with our lives, so it made sense. And he wasn't, like, the love of my life or anything not like you and Harry." She elbowed the older woman's side with a grin but then Kitty went on more seriously. "I've been putting in most of my free time in studying ahead. Come fall I'll be skipping a grade and heading right into my senior year. I want to start working on more projects for Harry and for myself as soon as I can."
Ororo refrained from hugging the girl for the moment. The fact she was proud of that statement, proud of the way that Kitty wanted to shine so brightly however came through in her face and Kitty blushed a little looking away. "I presume your parents are okay with this?"
Kitty nodded. "Yep they understand, and are happy for me. They've been following the Magical Minds potion stuff ever since I told them Harry was behind it. Don't worry, I didn't tell them what they were or anything like that, just that Harry was connected to it, and they understand that if those are just the tip of the iceberg it's a major deal to be at all connected to it."
Ororo frowned a little at that but shrugged. She doubted that anyone would target Kitty's parents to get to Harry. Their thoughts were probably safe, especially if Kitty had been so vague about what the potions were. So long as the magical aspect of their work came out when they wished, that would be enough.
By this point they had finished gathering up the tea things and putting them on a table, and could hear the others coming back. Ororo smiled, and looked at Kitty. "You may be working with us much more closely than you think."
She licked her lips, suddenly nervous for some reason, but then went on quickly. "You see, Harry has been running some tests on the people in the Castle, including you, myself and many of the others. You know how Illyana is a magical?"
Kitty nodded, wondering where this was going.
"Well it turns out that humans in this dimension have a fundamental difference in comparison to his old home. There you were either magical or not, here some people have latent magical abilities that can be 'ignited' as it were through being close to either a high source of magic, or by first calling on magical sources of power for a time. Hogwarts and Harry are both high sources of magical power. When he looked at you a few weeks ago, we found that you, Kitty, have a magical core."
For a moment it didn't register, then Kitty began to vibrate in her seat with delight, her grin so wide it looked as if it was going to split her face.
At the same time Kitty's parents came in with Harry, their eyes wide at what they had just overheard while Harry simply smiled.
"But there is more," Ororo said hesitantly. "You see, well while you could take classes at school with Illyana, there is possibly, possibly another avenue open to you. You see, you and I have always gotten along very well, and there are such things as master and apprentice bonds in magic, which carries over into how those individuals act toward one another before they even, even make that relationship formal. Now, I am not quite done with my own magical apprenticeship, but…"
She was interrupted when a blubbering Kitty hit her, throwing her arms around the older woman and shouting happily, "yes!" into her chest. Ororo sighed happily, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, while her arms went around the young girl.
Harry shook his head. "As if there had been any doubt."
"Is this real?" Kathleen muttered. "This… I mean, does my daughter really have magic Mr. Potter?"
"Oh yes, I don't know how powerful she'll be just yet, but it's definitely there. Does that bother you?" Harry asked, looking at her in concern.
"Not at all." The older bushy-haired woman shook her head, Terry nodding beside her. "We're not exactly religious, and even if we were if this was what our daughter wanted, well, we would back her as much as we could."
Harry smiled. He dearly wished more parents responded that way to things like this, especially mutant parents, but at this point that was a pipe dream. Shoving that thought aside, Harry moved over to the table, looking away from the emotional Kitty to allow her time to get control of herself. "So, tea anyone?"
OOOOOOO
Betsy frowned, raising her head from the face of the brunette lying on the bed frowning angrily, feeling more powerless than she had ever felt save in the hands of the madman who took her eyes. "All I can tell after days at this is that she's in there," Betsy murmured to herself shaking her head. "There's something inside buried deep that is keeping her awake, keeping her body functioning at just barely the level to get by. How the hell did she do it? All the other people that Selene used lost everything that made them, well, them, even the other people who she had to let have some kind of personality to run their companies."
She stretched, looking around the room that had been handed over to Emma Steed on the Braddock estate. Her brother Brian hadn't been happy about that, but Betsy had insisted that a hospital was not the correct environment for this. The room had been done up in the way that Steed had her own room set up in her own mansion to make it seem more friendly, though to Betsy's eyes there were a little too many ostentatious shows of wealth around. The large Grecian statue of some male or other in one corner took the cake.
Betsy looked to one side staring through the outer wall of the mansion, feeling a familiar fiery aura at the outer edge of her awareness. Sending out a small tendril to it, she was greeted by a tendril coming out of the 'belsham-trees', something she was very happy about. Those trees her fellow telepath used as defense scared Betsy something fierce. "Jean, you're early!"
"Sorry, I needed a break desperately from my own job. Interviewing other engineers isn't nearly as fun as getting my own hands dirty. Still, I was able to find a project manager, and hopefully he'll be able to put together a good team moving forward to mass produce the arc reactor design. And once he proves trustworthy long term, I have a lot of little projects I need to hand off to them." Jeans telepathic voice came back, bright and clear, with a vibrant edge to it that Betsy had never heard in anyone else's mental voice, not even when she and her boyfriend had linked mind to mind.
"Whatever, I'm just happy to see you." Betsy said smiling. "I can't thank you all enough for rescuing me, or Reed for clearing my eyes of that damn feedback program."
"No worries Bets we're friends, and friends do things like that for one another."
Moments later Betsy opened the window allowing Jean to fly through. "I wonder if my own telekinetic ability will ever be that strong." She said thoughtfully and concentrated for a moment, her TK blade appearing around her fist before letting it dissipate.
"Don't know, I'll gladly tell you how to strengthen it, but as to your upper limit, your best guess is as good as mine." Jean said shrugging, before turning to look at the comatose woman on the bed. "Is this Miss Steed?"
"The vegetable formally known as, yes," Betsy said shaking her head. "That's a little cruel I know, but it's accurate at the moment. I don't know how she did it, but Steed buried some small bit of her mind deep enough that even Selene's powers couldn't get to it. Yet I can't bring it to the fore, that's why I called you in. Even if I don't agree with the government wanting to prosecute Steed, it's beyond cruel to leave her like this."
"Which is why you need my help," Jean said frowning thoughtfully. "Well let's see what we can do." She leaned over the other woman, putting her hands on either side of her face. A moment was all it took to send her astral projection into the other woman's mind delving deeper and deeper into the darkness there. She could tell there was something there, something deep but with the darkness all around her, she couldn't find any kind of trail to follow.
Betsy joined her a second later, and the two of them forged downwards. After about two minutes however they hadn't found anything, and the darkness creeping around them from the other woman's mind was becoming oppressive. Forty minutes went past, and still they forged downwards.
Eventually Betsy's astral projection, a physical version of her body that looked as if she had been painted purple, with small striations of white and red here and there, shook her head. "This is where I normally have to stop. If we keep going, we start to run into her primal fears. I don't know how, but her psyche is beyond that. It should be impossible, but Steed somehow did it. The problem is, I can't get through them."
Beside her Jean's astral projection frowned. Like her friend, her projection looked pretty much like her physical body, but whereas Betsy's was purple, Jean's was a blazing white, with motes of red moving along its surface. Oh, and she also had wings, they were kind of hard to miss. "Hmm, I don't know of any way to get around them, we could try to mask our presence somehow, hide from her mental senses, but I don't know how well that would work."
From her projection's fingers Jean shot out a small telepathic tendril deeper into the darkness of Steed's mind, frowning heavily when the two of them began to hear the noises of things moving in the dark. "Shit, nighttime terrors, childhood fears, and a lot of other crap in there. Not good, those kinds of things are as powerful as the person who believes in them thinks they are, double crap in this environment."
Betsy nodded, looking around them worriedly as the blackness seemed to be pressing in on them. "Like I said, this is as far as I can go. We could try to brute force our way through, that was my initial thought when I called you, but…"
"But what would that do to her mind when she comes to? Would her psyche simply retreat further under that assault?" Jean finished, nodding her head. "I'm afraid this is beyond me, Bets." Jean sighed, cancelling her probe, shaking her head. Let's get out of here, then I need to get you in contact with my old teacher, if anyone can help Emma Steed find herself, it'll be him."
Turning, the two women began to make their way back out of the comatose woman's mind. After a few silent moments passed, Betsy smirked. "So, you, Ororo and Harry? How does that work exactly?"
OOOOOOO
It was nearly full dark out as a young woman followed a small foot path up to a small rundown hovel. It was not quite a shanty house but almost, with nothing to distinguish it from any of the other houses around the small village one of many such in the troubled territory of India called Nagaland. And much like the house, the woman's appearance didn't cause any interest from the villagers going about their business all around her. This was a small village but this war-torn area they were used to groups of people coming and going. It was also quite off the beaten path even for India, which alas made it easy for a warlord to set himself up as the modern equivalent of a feudal lord.
The fact that the current 'feudal lord' didn't use armed troops or guns to do so was beside the point. In fact, this place had been ravaged so often that simply having a gang of murderous thugs wouldn't have been enough, every man in the village went around armed. The ethnic conflicts that had raged here since only a little while after WW2 saw to that. No, the current warlord used… other means to enforce his rule.
She entered the house where her mother was, then proceeded to move around the house, getting out bowls and plates for the meal the older woman was cooking. While she was doing this she talked quietly, not as if she was afraid of being overheard, but merely as if she was too tired to raise her voice further. "Well I got the job, we'll be fine, for a while at least." The quaver in her voice was almost unnoticeable on the last few words.
You would've had to be looking for it to hear it, which the tiny watcher that had been set on her was indeed doing. It continued to listen as the two newcomers to the village under the control of his master continued to talk normally. The tiny bat didn't hear anything that made it question the story the young woman had told the majordomo of the small keep that overlooked the town.
The young woman, Nalini, had run away with her stepmother when her father was going to turn the woman out on her own due to her blindness. This plus his plans to marry Nalini off to a man three times her age had been enough to make both women run away.
That of course happened a lot in India, arranged marriages and the father controlling the daughter's ability to marry was ancient tradition here. Girls however had become uppity in the past ten years or so. The fact that many of the colleges in India already offered classes to women had helped that along, and runaways like this were common enough, even those who didn't have any higher education or any education at all in this case.
Though as a foreigner himself, the master of the town didn't care one way or another. All it cared about was making certain that no exterior force knew of its little fiefdom. So the small bat continued to watch well into the night, then finally satisfied that the two newcomers were exactly who they seemed to be the bat flew off into the night.
As it left its position up in the tree tops nearby the old woman gave a slight nod of her head. Mystique sighed, nodding her head in turn but they still retained their low voices. "I was shown around the first floor of the keep while the majordomo interviewed me for the maid job. Apparently the second and third levels are only open to the 'special' servants, those who have been with the 'Milord' for a few years. I saw a few of them so I'll be able to pull off their likeness. I even heard a few of them speaking enough to get a handle on their accents and some understanding of their temperament."
Mystique was a shape shifter, but that really didn't tell the entire story. When Mystique shapeshifted she changed on the cellular level, literally becoming the other person in every physical sense of the word. That didn't instill her with all the other person's knowledge of course. For example, she could transform herself into Charles Xavier, but she wouldn't have been able to use his telepathy without understanding how he did. This extended of course to less important areas, such as mannerisms, accents and even the way someone moved.
However, that lack of knowledge could be solved easily enough by observation. Mystique had a near eidetic memory of faces and accents, and was an excellent mimic at them and physical movement. Within hours of seeing someone she could easily pass for a man or woman to any casual acquaintance, even friends sometimes. Raven had also become a good code breaker, was an incredibly adept sneak-thief, and had dozens of other skills including hacker to go with her physical abilities. It was why practically every spy organization in the world feared her, it wasn't paranoia, it was simply an understanding of her abilities and what she could do with them.
"I don't know his name, but I think 'Milord' really is a vampire. He's got at least four people up on the second floor, I heard their movements, all of them moving around like zombies, that particular tread of someone not quite in control of their own body. Possibly also that one young boy you warned me about. Give me another day, maybe two to study the layout of the mansion, then I'll be ready to move. Will that do?"
The mutant known to most as Destiny frowned thoughtfully, her mind looking through the possibilities of the future with all the skill and consummate artistry of a master pianist playing his craft. "Yes," she said finally. "We're no longer being pursued, though once we move to our next objective that will quickly change. As I said, a choice looms there, something about an upcoming rally of some kind in America, and a debate? That part is not set in stone as of yet, but it clearly has something to do with Senator Kelly."
"The mutant hater from Texas?" Mystique asked.
"Yes, but I cannot say which decision of yours will lead to what future, not yet." Irene replied, shaking your head and coming back to the here and now. "It will be up to you to make that choice or allow us to continue to wait until the wings of the owl can shadow us."
Mystique shrugged. "Back to the matter at hand now that we're closer can you tell me anything about this book that's in there?"
"Its power is immense, dark and ancient, all I can see is that it has something to do with magic. That is all, what I see depends on who falls for its blandishments. Luckily we arrived in time before the vampire could realize it was hidden in the statue. The sculpture itself is that of a man in a cape his arms spread wide, as if declaiming in front of a crowd. The book is hidden in an alcove in the foot of the statue, there is a small indentation right where the legs start to merge into the stone along the rear of the man. Press it in, and the alcove will open for a short amount of time."
Irene held up a bag lined with silk. "Take this with you and place the book directly inside." She ordered, looking at her lover with concern. "I have seen the futures where you hold onto it for too long Raven, you become much less than the woman I fell in love with. Whatever it tries to say to you, do not listen!"
Surprised at her friend's vehemence Mystique nodded, leaning down to kiss the older woman's cheek reassuringly. "I promise I'll be quick." Naturally of course Irene would not be going in with her. Irene had been an incredibly dangerous hand-to-hand combatant when she was younger, able to see her opponents moves before they made them, but Mystique would in no way endanger her friend by asking her to do that now. Besides, it wasn't as if Mystique hadn't fought vampires before, she knew what to expect and had prepared accordingly.
Over the next few days, Mystique took her time ingratiating herself to the keep's staff in various ways and even met the lord of the manor once. He was a tall middle-aged man with stern but not ugly features. He had a small goatee, dark black eyes, and slightly lighter than most around here, broad shoulders, and wore old-fashioned clothing yet with a certain panache that allowed him to get away with it without seeming to be a character in a movie.
His voice was deep, melodious, and if Mystique hadn't known what he was, she might actually have fallen for the power of that voice. That voice, and his piercing, powerful gaze was what had allowed him to hold sway so easily here.
But she did, and her mental defenses were such that the vampire couldn't get through. If Charles Xavier, the most powerful telepath the world had yet seen, couldn't get into her mind without Raven knowing a vampire certainly wouldn't get through. She pushed her exterior persona of a young maid in trouble to the forefront of her mind whenever she felt his attention heading her way. This allowed him to see precisely what he wanted to see, nothing more.
The evening she had decided to move soon came. It unfortunately had to be evening since Raven didn't want to fight the guards who were much more active during the day. Most of them were dupes, their wills crushed by the vampires. While she would have no qualms about killing any guard that got in her way, she wasn't willing to kill more than necessary.
Taking the guise of one of the guards she slipped inside the keep the moment that guard's shift ended as normal, nodding her head to two acquaintances of the face she was now wearing. Guards were not encouraged to talk while on duty, so her reticence raised no eyebrows. A moment spent in a bathroom allowed Raven to shift into the guise of one of the male servants, one of those who the vampire actually trusted somewhat. With her new disguise in place she then ascended the stairs.
Once on the second floor Raven debated which of her targets to go for first, but really there was no choice. The boy might have to be carried out, and that would be much tougher than getting the book.
With that in mind Mystique moved through the second floor of the keep towards the room she guessed was the treasure room. Three times she shifted her guise as she moved through the shadows of the keep, each time becoming someone higher up in the rank of the vampire's servants. Such was Raven's skills that not one of the other servants she passed even gave her a second glance. Thus unchallenged she quickly found the treasure room, picking the lock with the ease of long practice.
Inside in pride of place was the statue Irene had described to her in such exacting detail. It was but the work of a moment to find the switch she had described, but after that, things became strange. Sliding into Mystiques mind came not words but images, images of Raven wielding power.
Magneto's corpse laid out in front of her. Nightcrawler's father being tortured by dark energy of some kind for her amusement. Slaves of both genders bowing before her as she sat on a throne made of gold and jewels. Armies slaughtered by the power Raven suddenly wielded while behind her Irene and her children were safe and protected. Irene was shown dressed in silks, as she lounged on a beach somewhere next to Raven, her body young again. All she had to do was wield the power of the book, take it into her hands, open it and use the magic within…
With a start Raven shook her (currently his) head wildly, before quickly opening up her silk lined backpack, ignoring the images pressing into her mind. Gingerly she reached into the concealed alcove set into the statue lifting the book out quickly. For the bare second she held it before dropping into the prepared bag Raven realized with horror that the book was not covered by leather as she thought, but skin, and etched into it was the sign of an eight pointed star.
As soon as the book was in the silk bag however the images stopped, and Raven breathed a sigh of relief. "If I thought it would work I would kill you with fire right now, evil fucking thing."
Raven took a moment to gather herself, before exiting the room quickly, hoping that the vampire hadn't sensed the books power before she had stuffed it into the bag. Walking briskly down the corridor she went in search of the boy.
The boy Irene had described more than once was kept with the other people that the vampire was currently feeding on, all of whom had that barely there, mindless appearance of the mentally dominated. He was young, around eight or nine, but his mutation was already evident in the light purple of his skin, crisscrossed by white lines here and there. It might also be seen in the fact that he looked much more lucid than the other thralls around him, three young women all of them beautiful. Of course they're young and beautiful Mystique thought, shaking her head. Vampires, lotharios the lot of them.
When she entered still wearing the guise of one of the servants the boy tensed, looking as if he was ready to bolt. In response Mystique allowed one of her fingers to transform into its normal blue while she raised it to her lips. She pointed to the boy then herself and then indicated that they were getting out of there with a wave of her fingers as if they were running away through the air. The boy had first looked dubious, and Mystique allowed her entire hand to become blue. In response he looked down at his own skin then up at her again and then down again before he finally nodded, hope now gleaming in his eyes.
Mystique looked down at the manacles on his hands, then down at where they were tied to the floor before undoing that and pulling them up right whispering in his ear quickly in the local dialect. "Follow along as if I'm leading you to the vampire, struggle a little but not enough to break my grip, then if I tell you, run. The boy nodded gulping.
Moments later she was leading him out of the room and down to the first floor. They hadn't run into any servants yet but on the first floor that luck failed. Two guards were coming in just as they reached the front hall and Mystique cursed, wondering why they had changed from their normal pattern. In response she let the boy's manacles drop from her hand as she raced forward, her body shifting back to her base form as she went.
In response the two guards pulled their rifles off of their shoulders, mouths open to shout. They never got the chance. Mystique was in front of them, her hands flashing out to chop with lethal force into their jugular's crushing their larynx is and stopping them from shouting, allowing only a gurgle of sound to escape. She then morphed into a huge man, nearly the size of The Blob. Reaching forward she grabbed both of them in her arms squishing them and their rifles together so that they couldn't fall to the ground.
Raven looked around quickly before she moved toward a small sitting room nearby. Once inside she slowly allowed the bodies to fall onto the chairs within. Behind her the boy had followed her, eyes agape at her sudden transformation both into her normal form as she jumped forward towards guards and then into the larger form. Raven wordlessly urged him on and the two raced out of the keep quickly.
Once outside Raven pointed the boy out over the scrubland toward the meeting point with Irene, a small culvert along the road into this town that was a decent hidey-hole at night. Indeed the guard whose form Mystique had worn initially had come from there.
Suddenly a slew of bats appeared in the air above them before coalescing on the ground into the vampire's body. "I know not who you are stranger but did you honestly think I would let you get away? Such a fascinating power, you will be a magnificent thrall, even more useful than the purple skinned boy whose blood is so empowering."
Mystique could feel the little boy shaking against her and she shook her head. "Villains, they always have to be so dramatic." Without another word she threw a small dart of wood at the man, who caught it almost negligently.
By that time however Mystique had shifted into her own body, it's heightened strength and speed a necessity when fighting a vampire. "Keep going!" She shouted to the boy as she moved forward, her leg up and kicking. "I'll join you soon!"
The boy nodded, running around the vampire who was engaged with Mystique now trading blows. His face, which had been amused, now became more respectful. "Interesting heightened reflexes and strength well beyond human norm, though not up to the level of a specialist in that nature. Fascinating." His words were interrupted by a grunt of pain as Mystique brought her knee up into his chest, then her forearm around into his own blocking his return blow before pummeling his face with a hard right.
"Fight or talk!" Mystique growled, then ducked under a sudden lunge, grabbing his arm and throwing him over her back to slam into the ground, her other hand flashing to her waist pulling out another small wooden needle from a pouch at her side.
The man moved to block the blow but was too slow, and took the needle in his eye. He cried out in agony, smashing her away with a blow to the stomach that sent Mystique flying through the air.
Mystique however was much tougher than she looked, with the ability to control her physical body to the degree she did she could easily make her body tougher than a normal human body. It hurt, but it didn't take her out of the action and she rolled with it, coming back up onto her feet and rushing forward again.
The vampire growled pulling the bit of wood out of his eye, the wound already healing thanks to his vampire-given powers, but still blinding him in that eye for the moment which Mystique took advantage of, quickly circling to that side and pressing in. She flashed her hand in one direction, causing him to move in that way and opening him up to a kick that he didn't even see coming slamming into his shoulder sending him rolling.
As it rolled back upright the vampire's nails elongated as did its fangs. "I have had enough of this!" He growled charging forward.
Mystique met him morphing suddenly into one of the most dangerous hand-to-hand combatants she had ever met, one whose abilities all relied on his body: Sabertooth. Rather than overwhelming her with brute force, the vampire found himself matched and then exceeded, Mystique/Sabertooth clawing and ripping at him after catching one of his arms, forcing the vampire to remain in close.
Being a vampire meant he had insane regenerative abilities, but it didn't mean he was immune to pain, and it had been a long time since this particular vampire had fought anyone able to match him. He tried to get away, and that was the moment he made his mistake. The vampire tried to glare into her eyes to dominate her and Mystique faked faltering for just a second. The vampire seemed to have forgotten that his domination abilities hadn't worked on her previously, and allowed his guard to fall as he leaned in toward her neck eagerly.
Mystique/Sabertooth's hand came up between their bodies cradling another, larger bit of wood. Before the vampire could guard himself, she had slammed it into his chest right over his heart. The man screamed, then from the head down began decaying into dust.
Looking at the small pile of dust that had been her enemy Mystique shook her head, shifting back into her base form. "At least vampires make for neat enemies." She chuckled darkly then raced off, soon coming to the meeting point where she found Destiny and the boy talking in the native dialect. She smiled, then asked her friend, "Well, that worked out well, now where to?"
Irene smiled, pulling her arm from around where she had been hugging the young boy to her side. She then pulled Mystique into a hug, startling her friend with its strength. "Oh well done Raven! To throw off the books influence like that, to stay yourself, I am so proud of you, my love!"
It wasn't often that Ravene Alegamoria Callisa Darkeholme found herself fighting back tears of joy these days. Now, hearing the pride, the love in her friend's voice, and knowing how very few years remained for them, she did. Her own arms went around her friend as she shook her head, and when she spoke it was in a deliberately upbeat voice. "That thing showed me a lot of interesting things, but it never showed me the cost, and I've learned to be wary of salesmen who refuse to show me the bill until I've signed up."
For a moment the two of them stood there, holding one another, but eventually Irene moved back, addressing her friend's previous question. "Now, we go to Ansari Nagar in New Delhi, specifically someplace near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. We will need to wait for a time, but that is where the eyes of the wizard will find us easiest."
Raven nodded, and gently took the gaping boy's shoulder, turning him down the road to where she had hidden the Tuk-Tuk.
OOOOOOO
Sebastian Shaw frowned, looking over the newest business section and the notes therein. Harry Potter, the sole controller of Magical Minds, the UK-based rising star in medicine had bought several small-scale construction factories, all of which specialized in the energy sector. Then he had bought one of the problem children of the automotive industry, Saab.
It was a very eclectic purchasing list, and did not match with his seeming area of expertise. What was worse, Shaw now felt he knew why Emma had taken so long to investigate the London branch, it was certain that she was at least a business partner of this new rising star, and what that could mean long-term he didn't know. Shaw himself didn't have much in the way of assets in the UK, but what ones he did have he had already ordered into position to try to figure out that connection, and what they reported was odd to say the least.
Emma and Potter seemed to simply have a business arrangement. They didn't look to be even friendly with one another in public going by what his agents reported. But then how did Emma figure out that Potter was going to be such a big name before his new medicines hit the news? Could she have had an agent somewhere and observed that first field test, the one that happened right after the terrorist attack on London was foiled?
"That's the only explanation, unless, unless Emma has found an ally that she thinks can be of more use than is immediately apparent…" he mused aloud. "I know for a fact that Emma can be subtle, but how good is she at long-term planning? That Potter will quickly become the King of the London branch is no secret, though he would only be a mere bishop to any true branch of the hellfire club for now. Still, where did his new medicines come from?"
He knew Pierce was going crazy about that, something that amused him, and made his own moves against the man all the easier. Pierce had many holdings in the medical industry, unlike Shaw who had only a vague knowledge of that area. And of course Leyland didn't have anything in Britain, not even a few agents in the London branch. No, Shaw was on his own when it came to figuring out what sort of asset Potter really was to Emma, or what he could become in the future.
If he's allied with Frost he's certainly not an ally of mine, though if their public persona is fact, I might be able to drive a wedge between them. Doing that would be a win all around for him. It would break up a business relationship for Emma weakening her and it would get him in with Magical Minds, which was already growing beyond anything the medical world had ever seen before. Plus it would get him an ally in Britain.
I wonder if Emma sought him out to prepare for a move against me, or is she merely arranging her own attack against Buckman and Pierce? Despite how he had directed his intelligence apparatus to concentrate on finding Pierce's bolt holes and anything else about the other man's dealings that he could, Shaw was still aware of Buckman and something going on there. He knew it would be anti-mutant much like Pierce, but probably much more intelligently thought through, rather than the rabid animal that Pierce hid under his normal exterior.
a weapon useful against them could be turned against me, I'm not happy about that. Regardless of any overtures towards Harry Potter, I think I need to step up my own preparations to take Emma out of the equation. He frowned then smiled, remembering something one of his agents had reported about a few maintenance personnel on the Frost estate payroll. Little cracks, little cracks in her armor but only one was enough, something Emma had proven in her dealings with her father and older sister.
With that thought warming his soul Shaw turned back to Pierce's activities, and smiled thinly. It would take a few weeks to shut off all his bolt holes, but eventually Pierce would be left with nowhere to run, and his team would be ready to bring the hammer down on him personally. All of his teams, and he would make certain that Emma was involved as well, the better to weld her to his faction. After that, there would be time to turn his attention to Emma's erstwhile ally, and Buckman too.
OOOOOOO
Dr. Doom smiled behind his mask, always amused by the way Potter's owl watched him like, well, a hawk, though he felt certain that the owl would be offended by that observation. His mother tapped Doom's armored shoulder with a finger, shaking her head in slight amusement at her son's odd sense of humor. "Remember what we want out of this…" she murmured. "We can ill afford to anger Potter through discourtesy to his familiar."
"Yes mother." Doom said letting a little bit of the 'put upon little boy' voice enter his tone for just a moment. He was rewarded with a brief uptick of Cynthia's lips into a smile, which was what he had wanted. Having his mother back in his life had been most pleasant, fully worth the agreement he and Potter had reached for Potter's aid in rescuing her.
But what Cynthia said was true in any event, he did want something from Harry and he was willing to extend their treaty to get it. It was time once more to show the enemies of his nation that Doom ruled all, and that if any of his people died it was only at his command. Not to feed the ambitions of others.
Hedwig glared up at the metal clad man, still not having forgiven him for his attempts to figure out her mode of transportation, which even her Harry didn't do. Alas Doom had no eyes that she could get to easily, and she knew that attacking him would not be good for herself or for her Harry. Still, she wasn't about to trust him, and was happy that Harry didn't either. The portkey she carried was for the ship in orbit, which had been moved entirely around the planet from the hidden nest.
Harry trusted in all of the magical enchantments on High Note to keep it invisible, but there was no point in tempting fate, and he was not about to underestimate someone of Doom's intelligence. If there was any way to scientifically create a device that could see through a full strength Fidelius, Doom would be the one to find it.
She dropped the large piece of stone in her claws then backed away slightly.
"Interesting," Cynthia said crisply. Leaning over the stone her eyes flickered with all the colors of a rainbow for just a moment as she activated her mage sight. "Some kind of transportation spell which activates when we touch it, then acts as a sort of bridge or rather rope pulling us from one end of the spell to the other. Very interesting magic, I'll have to experiment with it."
Doom bowed his head in acknowledgment of that, though inwardly he knew that this was not the kind of teleportation that Hedwig used, which was simply much cleaner, neater and with fewer restrictions than any magical or scientific one he had seen. Still, he would leave his mother to look into this new magic. He personally was more interested in magical defenses at present, though even that was only half of his current interest. "Shall we go?"
"Oh yes, it's perfectly safe, there's no hidden trap built into the magic." At that Doom nodded, then reached over with one gauntleted hand to touch the stone gently as Cynthia did the same. Seconds later they were gone from his castle, only to reappear in what looked like a conference room of some kind.
There was nothing about it to indicate that it was on a ship, even a normal naval ship rather than a spaceship. Until that is you turned your head to view what must have been the exterior side of the ship from this conference room. There you would see that someone had used a spell to make it transparent so that anyone could view space from looking out the side of it.
Doom looked out over the vista and nodded in approval. "Magnificent." He commented then looked over at Harry who had risen from his seat as well as Phoenix and Storm. His eyes narrowed behind his metal mask as he noticed that Reed had also risen, not liking the fact that his old adversary was here. But given their agreements, and the fact that the Fantastic Four had apparently helped take the ship he couldn't argue that their presence was unnecessary.
"We like it." Harry said coming around the table with a faint smile on his face, handing Dr. Doom a glass of whiskey. Doom sniffed it then sipped appreciatively through his mask and nodded his head at his mother. She lifted one hand in a grand gesture and Harry realizing what she wanted bowed at the waist kissing the back of it before lifting up to look at them both. "Lord Doom, milady, welcome to the captured Kree vessel Hellion."
The two Dooms exchanged a glance, and Victor could tell that Cynthia was both amused and somewhat surprised that Harry was addressing them as if they were royalty. Very few people in the world outside Latveria truly understood that they were indeed its royalty. Doom had made Latveria the country it was today, and if anyone could claim its crown, it was him. It was one of the things that soothed Doom's ego when dealing with Harry.
Cynthia took a glass of her own and nodded politely as Harry moved back gesturing them into seats. "We have a bit of a presentation to go over, then we'll go into particulars and areas of control."
Doom nodded, biding his time for now. He would open up discussions on what he wanted from Harry after this.
With his guest's permission Harry went into what they had done to take the ship as well as the Sentry which had been destroyed. He then went on to describe what they had discovered upon the initial questioning of the prisoners, as well as the details they had discovered since.
"Essentially the Kree Captain's actions created a cascade effect in the programming of the ship. All the computers outside engineering were wiped entirely, we can't get anything out of them. The computers in the engineering room have lost nearly all their astronomical data, and never had anything history or society related, though it did have some information on their military. The ship can move thanks to the computers in engineering, but that's all. It couldn't even fire its weapons any longer."
The 'nearly' bit there might prove important later on, but Harry wasn't ready to share that idea just yet. Not until he knew he could pull it off.
"Interesting," Doom murmured tapping one finger on his glass which rang like crystal. He noticed that there were several bottles of the fire whiskey Harry had promised for their next meeting at the end of the table and smiled internally at that touch. Dealing with Harry was very gratifying, the man respected him, didn't seem to think that his kingly status was an issue, and acted cordially to him though obviously did not trust him entirely which was of course smart.
While Doom's ambitions might have been humbled somewhat of late, he could admit that to himself though if anyone else pointed it out he would destroy them, he was still Doom and thus a force to be reckoned with. "Have you worked up an order of battle, what classification of ship would this be in human terms? I assume you've already done a preliminary assessment of its weaponry."
Those questions he directed at Reed and Jean, who he'd gotten the impression was the chief engineer of Harry's faction. Reed responded, going into a technical spiel about the engines, in particular the gravitic field that allowed them all to walk in the ship as if they were on the ground, before handing it over to Jean to describe the weapons.
Essentially they were plasma weapons, short range, very powerful, grazers in sci-fi parlance, with the ship designed to get in unnoticed do its damage and get out. "I think we could do better in the design of the weapons, but the material they are made of, no chance. The collators in particular, which is some kind of artificial gem, used to actually fire the beam out of the weapons system is extremely tough and has amazingly high heat dissipation. In fact the rest of the system is what forces the time between blasts. It can't handle the heat as well. We could easily do better there."
"There are other examples of that. The stealth technology on this ship is centuries ahead of anything humanity can normally produce, though it's somewhat below what you or I could do for a one off design, but the materials it's made of are excellent." Reed said, not trying to butter Doom up simply stating a fact. He went on to describe the wavelength frequencies and many other things that went straight over Harry's head, with Doom supplying some questions.
Regardless of their personal feelings towards one another, Doom truly saw Reed as his only true intellectual equal. Or at least did until Harry came along. Not equal in scientific-based intellect, he thought taking a glance at where Harry was punching in some buttons to show something up on the screen, but in other areas, certainly.
After Reed finished, Doom turned back to Harry. "So the Kree's order of battle would be what exactly? What are we likely to see now that we have this ship?"
"Frigates like this would be used as commerce raiders essentially, and in close combat. Odd because I don't think I would use it that way. The armor on it is good, but even its own crew thinks that they aren't armored enough to survive in that type of fight."
"That actually could be because of how little individual lives matter to the Kree." Ororo replied. "I've spoken with our questioner and we've gotten the impression that the Kree military doesn't really care about their people. I will be very interested in what your sociologist friend makes of them Reed."
It had been agreed to omit Emma's name from any discussion with anyone not fully onboard with Harry's agenda. They were all certain that her involvement in the negotiations with the United Kingdom's government would come out, but she had been covered with so many spells at that point that her identity would remain a mystery even to someone like Doom. They wanted to keep it that way. To anyone who looked Harry and Emma had a business relationship and while somewhat cordial on the surface anyone who looked at the two of them could tell that they also disliked one another.
"Not even individual ships matter, unless they are home to elite forces. We've gotten hints of such, but none of the people we've been questioning, and we've used a magical truth serum as well to see if we could break the purebloods down, know anything about their elite troops except the names of a few units."
Doom and Reed both nodded then turned back to Harry who continued. "Like I said, it's a frigate, not even a light cruiser." He finished fiddling with the computer, and some images popped up. "I worked with a few of the prisoners, Mar'vell and a few of the other pale skinned ones were helpful at least. We had to use 3-D imagery to get this, but…" he shrugged "this is as close to a real ship type size comparison we can get at present."
On the screen appeared the Hellion. As they watched the view of the screen panned away from it and soon what had to be the next ship class showed up next to it, showing the size differences. "Two of them had worked on a ship like this, they called them Light Fists. I would call them light cruisers, and the makeup of their weapons, according to one of our prisoners who was a gunnery officer on board, matches. The problem is that the only difference between that ship and this one is the range their grazers can fire, and the type of armor, as well as very large particle projection cannons."
"So direct energy weapons dominate their weaponry?" Doom was skeptical of that. "Surely their military uses missiles, drones and carriers at least, and has weapons to protect their ships from said."
"None of the ones we've talked to know what a carrier is." Harry replied smirking. First weakness, he thought to himself. "Essentially, their scanning equipment is excellent, their lock on systems not so much. I've talked to all of them who have been involved with actual space battles against the Skrull."
That was actually the entire crew because this frigate had been involved with a campaign against them just recently. "Essentially, all their battles involve what we would think of as point blank duels after a battle of maneuver and position."
Harry shrugged. "I would've thought that war in space would be more like sub-warfare, stay hidden while you try to find the enemy as the enemy tries to find you, killing any you can and then move on to your next objective. But that's apparently not the way that it works."
"The Kree's scanning equipment is the reason for that." Reed replied, shrugging in turn. "While a ships scanning equipment can't reach very far, it is extremely good in the area it can cover, and the processing ability of their computers is phenomenal. I would assume that their computers simply kept on getting better and better, and missiles began to become simply a waste of resources given computer driven point defense. Then, once missiles stopped being used by anyone, they removed the point defense weapons but their systems remain far too good to be caught out. These races have been in space for longer than humanity has been around, for longer than even Cro-Magnon before us. I have no doubt they have reached that point."
"But that gives us opportunities, and I'll be working with Jean on thinking up ways to take advantage of them." Harry already had one way in his mind. He called it the Ravenspire, and the Ravens would pack one hell of a punch if Jean and he could actually design the things. That was at least a month in the future, but it would happen.
Doom did as well. "Mines would not be an issue, they would detect those but missiles might if the ships aren't maneuverable enough to evade them."
"Frigates and light cruisers might be able to avoid a few, but anything heavier wouldn't." Harry said tapping the controls again. "Mar'vell served on one of these, which we would call battlecruisers. They don't seem to have a class between battlecruiser and light cruiser. Battlecruisers appeared to be the heavy lifters of their fleet, they do all the jobs that light cruisers and frigates can't handle but which aren't important enough to designate ships of the line to. I imagine if they realize that the Hellion was taken we'll see a few of these come calling. Mar'vell couldn't tell me much about their armament, he is an infantryman so he didn't really care, but he knew it had at least a rail gun system, and seems to have changed up all the grazers for PPCs of far larger size, which is something. The size comparison is accurate at least. Anything larger, which they all acknowledge they do have, we only have names for: Dreadnaught, Doombringer, and Planet Crusher. Not pleasing names, especially considering their warp drives let them warp in so close to the planetary gravity well."
Doom nodded thoughtfully, already making plans. "You realize that to fight such as that, we will either have to have at least enough teams to assign personnel to each ship as they come in to take it out, or ships of our own to match them? That would mean an industrial sector in space to create those ships."
Harry nodded grimly. "For the first wave we'll have to deal with them just with our own resources, hopefully the scanning devices we've been working on lately plus the ones we've taken from this ship will be up to the task of finding their ships and then we can get our teams on board quickly. I will say they have nothing that a telekinetic or magic user couldn't handle if they were strong enough. My team could handle two maybe three of these in small groups."
Of course, that is with me at least going off on my own. Harry thought. And I haven't tried any long range magical attacks in space, I'm uncertain what could happen there. Still, if pushed I could transfigure a portion of the hull into glass or something, let the ship tear itself apart. But I would rather see if we could take over the ships, Earth is going to need them. Even with Harry's magic putting together a space based industrial complex would take time, and at present Harry had too much else on his plate to concentrate solely on that.
"The Fantastic Four could handle two possibly, though I will add a caveat." Reed said cautiously. "I've spoken to Ben, and the Sentry was obviously prepared for him. If that is true for the rest of their military they might have ways to combat us." Ben had reported that odd white beam that had hit him and hurt like all get out, despite his stone body. If they had a way to neutralize Ben's durability they probably had come up with ways to neutralize Johnny and Reed. Susan, going by how well her powers had worked during the battle to take the ship might be an exception, but not one Reed was willing to bet on.
"In the future however," Harry went on. "I'll be building up an industrial force in space. Eventually I'll want humanity to have our own fleet to match against any intrusion, but that will take months to develop even for me."
The problem was the drives of the ship and what it allowed the Kree and others out there to do, that is get right outside a planetary gravity well and then move in quickly. That limited what kind of defense they could come up with and what would actually work. A defense fleet would be ideal, but the intricacies of designing then building ships for that fleet were well beyond their abilities in the near future. Stationary fortresses and small, unmanned fighters that they might be able to do.
"I have developed robotics to a level that has surprised my opponents numerous times." Doom said leaning forward intently. "I would be willing to share the secrets of some of my robot designs with you, so long as you agreed that they would not be used against me and would only be used in space. Drones which can almost think for themselves and are able to do multiple tasks in zero gravity without issue, would help your ambitions in this area."
"And what would you want to return?" Reed asked sharply. Doom didn't even glance at him, his eyes behind his mask locked on Harry.
Harry stared back, his mind awhirl. Robots like those would indeed help tremendously. They could start creating that industrial sector immediately with such as that, or at least after he had built up a sufficient number of them, and Harry already had some industrial capacity. It would be relatively easy to switch his new factories over to robotics. That would shave off months of time, maybe even a year or two. But they weren't covered by the agreement between him and Doom, Doom having agreed to share any information he had with Harry in terms of space technology after all, and this certainly couldn't be said to be space tech alone regardless of Doom's caveat. "Would this be covered by our agreement?"
"That could be open to interpretation." Doom replied, not looking away from Harry's green eyes. "I could indeed offer them, and I will do so, so long as you listen to a proposal."
Reed made to say something but Harry held up a hand, not looking away from Doom. After a moment he nodded. "I'm listening"
Doom smiled. Harry was pragmatic to a certain degree, something Doom could respect. "Do you follow the news coming out of the former Eastern Bloc?"
Harry shook his head but Jean spoke up. "I noticed something on the morning brief from our spymaster. It was about a new terrorist group now operating openly in one of the countries there?"
"They call themselves the Fourth Reich, as if the third wasn't enough. It is apparently led by a certain individual from the past, or someone using his face." Cynthia interjected, scowling angrily.
"Regardless of if the Rote Schädel has truly returned or not, he has angered me." Doom said, his hands clenching around the crystal goblet which obviously wasn't crystal since it hadn't shattered under his grip. "Some of his terrorists have acted in my kingdom's borders, and I will respond in kind." That he had also sent a thief in to steal from Doom himself was also a consideration, but not one he was going to share.
"So you want us to turn a blind eye to this?" Reed asked calming down slightly. That he could agree to. None of the countries around Latveria were democratic or even had representatives on the United Nations Council. They were recovering countries from the fall of Communist Russia, and even though Reed didn't want to admit it, Doom would actually be a better alternative than the warmongers that controlled them now. Say what you would about his being a totalitarian dictator, the normal people on the streets of Victor's nation had a higher level of living that was the case before he took over.
"In part. I also want a trade agreement with you Potter, with your potions in mind." Doom added.
"So long as this Red Skull character is crushed, I'll agree to that," Harry said seriously. He had made time after first arriving in this world to do a brief overview on the history of this new world, and the name the Red Skull featured prominently in any book about WW2. The words 'atrocity', 'massacre', and 'horror' were always used in conjunction with those tales. "I don't doubt that other agencies in the world will be trying to do the same thing, but I can trust you to be more thorough than them, yes?"
"Of that you may be certain." Doom chuckled dryly, the noise sepulchral given his mask, as he nodded his head. Harry and Reed didn't realize it at that moment, but they had just handed all of the Eastern Bloc over to Doom to conquer as he rooted out the Red Skull and his terrorist group. That would cause problems down the line, but not right now. "With that agreed to, what exactly are you interested in in terms of the ship?"
"The various materials it's made of." Jean said promptly taking over the conversation. "As I said its weapons are interesting, but I bet we can do better, I know for a fact that we could easily exceed this ship's weapons range with gauss weaponry of some sort, and I've already thought of a few ways to create what they call PPCs, which a frigate like this doesn't carry. The shields are good, if down at present, and I'd also like to look into their space suits, which are light-years ahead of anything I've seen produced on Earth, almost up to the unstable molecule suits that the Fantastic Four use. Its engines too are extremely good, we'll want to look at them closely."
"That should be our first task then." Doom said thoughtfully. "I'll start with that."
"I brought up a computer system and a wireless router. We'll use these to input notes, and we can all look at them in real-time." Reed said, opening a small box that had been sitting on the floor next to him and handing out small PDAs. "If you have anything you need to share immediately, you can share it with everyone that way."
"Be careful though." Harry warned his face set seriously. "I have plans for this ship that include its engine actually continuing to work, so don't take it apart unless you can put it back together."
Jean flushed, knowing precisely what plans Harry had in mind, but her eyes also glinted eagerly. Storm too chuckled, tapping her friend's hand lightly.
"Is it just the three of us?" Doom asked his tone making it clear that was a good idea and that he would protest anyone else being brought in.
Harry and Jean exchanged a smile and a nod. "Yes it's just the three of you. Reed and Jean argued me out of the idea of bringing in other people for this just yet. I'll want to eventually bring in some actual ship designers, see what they can think up but for now that's not necessary. When I have my space based industry up and running I'll have to bring in other people to handle the design and abuse ships, but for now it's not necessary."
Alone, Jean couldn't possibly handle all the work on this ship in anything less than half a year. But with Doom and Reed also pitching in it wouldn't take them more than a few weeks to dissect everything aboard.
"Excellent." Doom said standing up. "In that case, I can begin immediately."
"If you do not mind, I would like to interview these prisoners of yours." Cynthia said standing up herself. "There are a few questions I have for them about how these Kree think and how that is different from how we humans do so, which you did not cover in your briefing Mr. Potter."
Her light tone of censure almost made Harry wince but he smiled nonetheless. Cynthia Von Doom was an interesting character, and he could tell where Victor got his attitude. "I will show you to them madam, we've kept them up here for now. We brought in food and other things of course, but we've had to deal with only a few issues there. The blue skinned ones have magical runic arrays on them to keep them from acting up now. None of them are willing to give their parole like the so-called half breeds."
"Interesting," Cynthia murmured, and then began to question him closely about his knowledge of runic arrays, as well as what language he used. With that the meeting broke up, though Doom made a point of remembering to come back later. Fire whiskey really was good stuff.