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Blinking, Vorlus shook his head even as he pulled the bag of holding Guardian had given him, where he kept the possible Megingjörð when he wasn't examining it. "Um… no, I don't think so. Oh, there are a few stories about one being involved in Ragnarok, and another of one who is supposed to circle the known universe, but all those date to after the Christian missionaries had begun to win over large numbers of the local population. It's believed among researchers that it and the sheer number of other lizard and snake type monsters introduced in that age were created by the Christians, just a way to show how evil and vile the Asatru religion was in comparison to the Christian faith. Of course given what Christians at the time did to so-called sinners I don't think they had any room to talk."
That's it, the ouroboros circling the world. That matches the image on the medallion… "Do you have a name for the snake circling the world?"
"We have no idea of the full name, only that it begins with Jor."
Jormungundar, the brother Hela didn't like! Harry thought, grinning in triumph behind his mask. And I suppose if your adopted son had anything to do with hiding your body from you, you would be well within your rights to be angry as Dani reported Sigyn was the first time they met. The question then, is why Odin wants us pointed in that direction? Does he know about Sigyn or is there something else hidden with, or possibly in, Jormungundar? Still regardless the 'overgrown eel' is a target now, if I can figure out a way to Asgard without being called there…
Taking the pouch from Vorlus, Guardian nodded his head at the older man. "Keep me apprised of any new developments Doctor."
After his discussion with Vorlus, Harry then apparated to Magical Minds to deal with a few issues on the business side of things that couldn't wait and to fill in Sage on what Dennis and Mystique were up to. Like them she was relatively in the dark of this possibly new enemy out there. With no computer network to access she couldn't' hunt down whoever this knew enemy was, and there wasn't enough data yet for her to see any pattern.
Sage also briefed him on the ongoing counterespionage activities on the business side of things, which was nothing much. He also met with the doctors of his medical think tank and talking to the chief doctor making certain he and his assistants, who would take over the hospital side of things, were ready for the influx of patients who had already begun to sign up for the new prosthetics. This left Doctor Rao in charge of the ongoing research side of the think tank.
While he was back up in his office and looking over some notes from Carol for a meeting scheduled later that day, Jean returned, walking through the doorway as if she hadn't been missing for the entire day yesterday grinning at him. "Hello, Harry."
Harry smiled, pushing his work aside and his chair back but before he could stand up to hug her, she simply plopped down in his lap her arms going around his neck. Harry's hand snaked up into her hair, pulling her into a very thorough kiss. Pulling back he shuddered slightly, his hand moving slowly the small of her back around to her stomach.
"Hello to you too love, and to you two babies," he said gently, patting her stomach lightly. He noticed as he did that her stomach had at last begun to show her pregnancy, a small curve to her stomach that hadn't been there before.
"It has begun," Jean said somewhat morbidly patting the hand over her stomach lightly. "I wonder if you'll think I'm so attractive when I'm as big as a blimp. I know Emma will have issues then, regardless of how our having dealt with her emotional response to the idea of having kids."
She smirked then, hopping up and down lightly on the growing reaction to having her in his lap. "Though I guess that is a few months down the line."
"You'll still be beautiful to me my lady," Harry said nuzzling into her neck as he sent wordless feelings of love and affection down there link.
Harry felt Jean shuddering his arms, and felt her reply both as a whisper against his lips and in his mind. "Gods I love you Harry Potter!"
"I love you too Jean Grey," he thought, as they kissed once again. Then Harry sighed reluctantly pulling back. "Unless we want to take this to its logical conclusion right here, I suggest we stop."
Jean actually seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, her pregnancy already starting to mess with her metabolism and hormones. But she eventually sighed and nodded, reluctantly getting to her feet. "Carol has some interesting things to show you up top, and we received Doom's gravitic trap device late last night. Have you decided where you want it emplaced?"
"Mars," Harry said with a shrug. "It's a dead world now, might as well use it after all."
Jean blinked at him then laughed. "Harry! If you are thinking about using Mars, why're we diddling around with little asteroids?"
"Because the little asteroids can remain in orbit around Earth with only slight impacts to its tides, Mars can't. Mars will be an excellent defensive installation when it's finished, but as it is, even if it is finished, Earth will still need some local defenses," Harry replied simply.
Jean nodded, frowning. "Right, don't expect your enemies to always fall for the same trick, forgot that."
"Do you want to just hop back to Camelot and then up to space or do you think we can spend some time driving?"
"Just the two of us, or can Ororo and Emma get away?"
"I'm afraid not," Harry said with a shrug. "Emma is interviewing several of the Hellfire Club members who have business interests in Asia. She has some kind of plan there she wants to discuss with me, and she's getting all of her ducks in a row before our date this evening."
"Good," Jean said with a nod. Jean and Emma had actually spent more time together over the past few week or so then Emma and Harry had, and she knew that the other woman's taste in dates differed from her hers and Ororo's. Jean liked to have her dates out in space or just the two of them with a home-cooked meal or something like that. Ororo liked going to the theater occasionally, and explorative dates, where they went to new places or saw new things, with the food provided by one or the other of them. Emma on the other hand liked ritzy restaurants, high society stuff. "And Ororo?"
"Ororo's going to be busy with the kids all day. Did you hear that extraction teams found twenty more kids yesterday?"
"No," Jean said blinking, "I haven't heard that."
Harry nodded, getting out of his chair and taking her hand news, leading her towards the doorway. "We did, I'll fill you in on some of the other things you missed yesterday, as well as what we found out at the Althing, which wasn't much, but… well, we did receive some new information from a unusual but certain source."
Jean nodded, and followed him out of the room. She was thinking about how to get him to agree to let her to drive, when she stopped, smiling as she saw MJ and Wallace walking towards them.
The other woman's eyes widened, noticing how Harry and Jean were holding hands, as well as seeing the faint outline of Jean's stomach, visible just under the blouse she was currently wearing. I thought he was with Ms. Munroe!
Winking at the other woman, Jean held out her hand to MJ, who shook it quickly as her boss began to talk to Harry, telling him about a few ideas they had about how to enhance the company's public relations appearance the two of them had come up with over the past few days. There hadn't been much of a backlash from the attack during the press conference, but several countries were now making noises about how they should refuse to be railroaded by a private sector company into making societal changes just on principal alone.
The fact that those changes were actually good things for their own citizens seem to have been lost in the 'moral outrage'. Most of those countries were second or third world countries of course, but Germany had unsurprisingly also got in on that bandwagon, and there were politicians in America who were lambasting Harry for not being willing to sell to America just yet, especially with his new prosthetics, though his offer to war veterans had gelded the public's outrage there.
MJ didn't care about that right now she simply stared at Jean, then allowing her eyes to flick down to Jean's stomach, before pulling her down the hallway slightly and leaning in to whisper. "Are congratulations in order? Or…" her eyes flicked to Harry. "I mean, I thought he was with Ms. Munroe," she said aloud, her voice a bare whisper even Jean had trouble hearing from right in front of her.
"He is, we are," Jean said with a chuckle. "It's complicated."
"Ahh," MJ said, frowning slightly. "You're all aware then, I mean it's…"
"it's a real four way relationship," Jean replied. Though it might become a five way one soon… Jean frowned at that thought. She had sensed the spurt of concern and anger when he mentioned the Althing, and she worried there hadn't been any progress on getting in touch with Hela.
"Four way Jean?" MJ questioned, then shrugged. "Okay, I'm not going to go there and I'm not going to judge. As long as the individuals are happy I don't care."
"An excellent attitude to have MJ," Jean said with a grin.
MJ wasn't a virgin, nor was she a prude or religious. Her parents neither of whom she got along with, hadn't been religious, and she saw no reason to pick up with that 'drivel' as she put in her mind. And she was a former runway model, and older than Jean to boot, of course she'd had sex occasionally. MJ couldn't see herself sharing a man let alone being into a girl, but again wasn't going to judge.
The two women turned as MJ's boss said "…and young MJ here has some interesting ideas as well, ideas that are out of my area of expertise."
Harry nodded, turning to the two ladies, smirking at their shared hair color for a moment before concentrating on MJ. She smiled, walking back to him and holding up a portfolio of her own. "There are a lot of alternative methods to help your public relations image which aren't part of the normal PR department Mr. Potter. For example, appearing on talk shows and online discussion boards where our workers can ask questions of you and vice-versa. "
"But you have to be careful about where in public you appear, since the paps will find you." Wallace said. "Then too, if it's there's a lot of people around, there will also be a lot of witnesses to what you actually say, so they can't distort your words. Ms. Watson has put a list of talk shows together that have already reached out to us."
"Are any of those talk shows owned by Paris News Network?" Jean asked.
"I'm not certain," MJ said. "One of them I know is, but there are two others that might be owned by a subsidiary. They're all in America though and I think we should start here in Britain first, with one of the local shows. Mind you, when you say local here it's actually international for the most part. BBC is after all an internationally recognized network."
Jean leaned over MJ's shoulder, then grinned and pointed down, "Oh hell yes! Sign us up for Top Gear!"
Harry cocked his head quizzically and Jean grinned. "It's a show about cars which does interviews with celebrities after putting them in what they call a reasonably priced car to do laps around a racetrack!"
"Oh, yeah that could be fun," Harry said with a grin. "And I bet a lot of the audience would probably die of envy if we turned up in my Huayra. But what about security at these events?"
"That's a point," MJ said with a nod and a frown after her boss waved at her to answer. "But we can always ask for security at events like those. Being seen publicly, that's more of a concern, but if you're quick, hopefully no one with violent intentions will be able to set up anything."
Harry frowned for a moment thinking, then smirked evilly all right. That's actually not a bad idea.
"What are you thinking Harry?" Jean asked telepathically, her tone wary.
"Well, if whoever is out there trying to instigate mutant human war is at all intelligent, they have to know that Harry Potter is a major proponent of human mutant equality. Taking him out and being able to blame it on one group or the other would be a major coup."
"So you're going to go out in public and paint a target on yourself and hope someone bites?" Jean said frowning again. "I don't like that, but then again, you continually wear your crisis suit whenever you leave Camelot anyway so I guess it makes sense."
"And you won't be with me on those missions," Harry said firmly. Jean was about to protest, but the look in Harry's eyes stopped her, and she subsided, pouting a little as she ended the telepathic discussion.
"See if we can set up that Top Gear thing MJ," Harry said, handing over responsibility for that to MJ quickly, then turning back to her boss. "As for those public statements and appearances, I'll agree to the first two, but I don't think the rest are important enough for me to make personally. Get back to me with five different times for both, and I'll pick out the ones which work best for my schedule."
"Of course,"Wallace nodded his head quickly after which the group broke up.
Jean however looked back at MJ, who was staring at the two of them thoughtfully. "She picked up on something there," Jean murmured as Harry and she entered the elevator.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, frowning as he covered them with a Mufilatio. The elevators were bugged, though of course those bugs belonged to Magical Minds. Still, it was never good to get into bad habits.
"I think she noticed something when we fell silent, for that little bit or maybe my pout, I don't know. She's really good at noticing body language."
"Wyatt told me the same thing, and she spotted those androids the other day.." Harry said thoughtfully, leaning against the back of the elevator. "Interesting. You think she's hiding something?"
"Not that," Jean said with a laugh, shaking her head. "MJ's precisely what she says she is, a model who wants to get out of modeling and into public relations, and frankly I think she's doing a great job. You know that a lot of those ideas they just shared came from her right?"
"No I didn't know that," Harry answered, frowning.
"MJ was broadcasting it a few times during your discussion withher boss. He's amazing when it comes to organizing stuff including announcements and news conferences, but he doesn't have as good a handle on technology as she does, and he also doesn't seem to be getting a good enough to handle on how personable you wish to seem whereas she has grasped that quickly."
"Interesting, but not important. The important thing will be to see who bites on this little trap of mine. But for now you should probably check in with Ororo and Emma, you didn't come home last night after all."
Jean nodded and twinned her arm with his even as she reached out for Emma and Ororo through the telepathic connection all four of them shared, marveling anew at said connection. It was so wide and so powerful and so constant it was always surprising to Jean that other telepaths couldn't find it. She and Charles had talked about it once when it had first formed between her and Harry, and Charles had said it seemed as if the connection was simply on a lower bandwidth to the rest of the astral plane. He couldn't even feel it while he could find her, Emma and Ororo's minds.
Emma hadn't been worried about Jean having felt the connection of course and being able to look at it whenever she wished. But like Harry Ororo wasn't a telepath, and couldn't initiate dialogue through that pathway. Despite that Ororo replied promptly, actually pulling out of class to respond as she and Harry got into his Huayra, racing out of the Magical Minds parking lot.
Jean chuckled, leaning back in her chair as she and Ororo talked about the previous day, and about well nothing at all really, simply each exchanging wordless caresses of love and affection, Jean taking heart in the bone deep joy that Ororo took in teaching children, and in Jean's own pregnancy. At the same time she felt Emma was in Camelot, and she wanted to talk to them, her growing satisfaction with a job well-planned, and her own love for Jean and Harry coming through the link.
She was finished catching up with her lovers by the time they passed London. She laughed, looking up the window. "You know, I thought for a moment that you were already putting in motion that plan to make yourself a target right now, but at the speed we're going?"
"Yeah they'd have to catch us first," Harry said with a grin, gunning the engine still further as they weaved in and out of the scant traffic on the road at this time of day.
Douglas, and two of the kids were waiting for them in the main hallway as Harry and Jean entered, having done the normal pull off to the side of the road shrinking and then teleporting in thing that they had to do to enter Camelot's environs. Harry cocked an eyebrow at the two kids, smirking at them. "And what do you to think you're doing?"
"Heading up to see Pinoptes," said Jesse, grinning at Harry. All the kids, well most of the kids, liked Harry, even though they didn't see him up nearly as often as Melody and Illyana, his daughter and surrogate daughter, did.
Douglas elaborated. "Pinoptes has have begun to teach the kids some lessons of his own, computer programming for the most part, and history too, which seems to be one of the weaker points of the teachers here."
Harry nodded, clasping the younger man on the shoulder. "In that case, why don't you three get some lunch first, Emma wants to talk to us, and we'll be busy with her for a few moments."
As the trio walked off Jean smirked, linking her arm with Harry's before turning their feet towards the Room of Requirements, where Ororo and Emma were waiting for them. At Emma's request the four of them viewed the memory of the party with Hela from all three of their perspectives, while Emma moved through the party like a ghost, smiling here and there, but most of her attention on Hela herself.
"You will be taking me dancing tonight Potter," she said, smiling as Ororo and Hela began their dance, shaking her head slightly. "Not so much sensual as just below flirtatious," she mused. "Courtship, what an amusingly medieval concept."
Harry frowned looking at her, and before she he could even form the words however she shook her head. "I'm not jealous Harry," she said with a laugh looking over at Jean, who laughed too, her arms around Ororo as she pulled the white-haired African woman into a hug. "They just don't get it do they?"
"It's more like they can't logically get used to the feeling." Jean said. "Harry, we're telepaths, we are always connected. That highway in your mind, it's always there, or at least it is if we're within the same solar system. We feel your emotions your feelings all the time, all we have to do is concentrate on it briefly. That's why I knew you were interested in Hela before you consciously realized it, that's why Emma isn't jealous, because your love for her hasn't faded at all."
"Oh," Harry said, feeling somewhat foolish. "I do have to remember that don't I?"
"Both of you do," Jean said looking at Ororo in her arms who nodded rather sheepishly, before enjoying the kiss that Jean laid on her lips, before moving over to Emma. The four of them remain there for a time, simply moving through the memory and exchanging kisses and laughter as they watched the team have fun after the battle.
Ororo and Emma remained there while Jean and Harry left to grab Douglas and the two kids, before heading up to orbit. Jean showed Harry the gravitic trap system Doom had dropped off, and he, Carol and Jean hammered out the initial construction plans.
That started an argument between him, Carol and her chief designers, who were not happy that Harry was pulling off so much of their industrial capacity to work on that, but Harry was adamant. "I want the gravitic trap done in two weeks at most, that's why we need so many bots working on it. We have to think that the next Kree response is coming soon. We don't know what it will be, and the gravitic trap is the only thing we have that will work just as well regardless of the response's size. I don't want us caught flat-footed."
"But what about our defenses? It won't do any good if we pulled them out of hyperspace someplace else and can't do enough damage, or are you saying that you and the Custodes Mundi will be able to do that?" Carol objected.
"We probably could if they came out in a small enough space," Harry said with a shrug. "But no, I have another plan there. Once the gravitic trap is set up, Ill set up my own bit of the trap.
Jean looked at him, tempted to enter his mind and see what he was thinking of, but sensing that he wanted to keep it as a surprise for now.
After staring at Harry for a bit Carol shrugged. "You're the boss, so I won't argue. She glared at a few of the scientists who would have anyway, and they subsided reluctantly. "But are you sure you'll be able to get the parts to Mars?"
"That's why we're up here now," Harry said with a shrug looking at Jean, who nodded her head.
Teleporting from there to Mars was more energy intensive than doing so to any place on Earth of course, but Harry was able to do so even with the sheer tonnage of the stuff they had to transport more easily than the time he, Emma and Ororo had teleported out to the returning Hellion. Once there Harry spent a few moments exploring the formerly red planet as Jean set up the construction droids orders, making certain that they were reprogrammed for the local gravity, and had the plans in place. The remains of Olympus Mons would be the center for the gravitic trap, as well as its shielding, and several other things.
After that, she joined Harry, staring around the ravaged planet, encased in her own bubble of air. "I wonder what kind of metals and other things we could find if we started digging here?"
"Probably a lot more than we would find in any of the asteroids we've been using," Harry said, "But unless you want to spend a lot of time just working on that, we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way, which will take months to set up. Besides at the moment raw materials isn't our bottleneck, the construction and industry side of things is."
"Yeah no," Jean quipped, shaking her head. "Not my idea of fun. Although, if we find any new mutants who have powers over metals or other things…"
"The young clone of Magneto," Harry said with a nod. "Amelia and Una told us they should be ready to decant him next week."
The medical examinations of the boy had come back mostly positive, but he did have several small metallic circuits embedded in his skull, and one over his heart. Their purposes were unknown, but Amelia wanted to remove them before waking the boy out of his cryogenic sleep, and she couldn't do that, even with her powers, without damaging the boy's mind, so they had to set up a major medical procedure to remove them.
Then too, there was also the boy's mental age and makeup to consider. Emma had observed the boys mind, but couldn't make heads or tails of it, the cryogenic sleep having shut down everything, the boy wasn't even dreaming, there was literally nothing there for her to see yet.
"Come on love, let's head back." Harry said, staring out over the planet he had ravaged, literally killing any chance of it being life bearing if it ever had such a chance, during his battle with Thanos. As he thought about that purple monstrosity he shivered slightly, before shaking it off.
If Thanos survived he'd be back Harry knew, but not for a while yet. Best not to borrow trouble there when there were so many other issues going on. Course that doesn't mean I won't continue to fight the simulacrum of him in the ROR every week, he thought drolly it as Jean took his hand and they teleported back to Babylon.
OOOOOOO
A precarious peace reined in the halls of power in the Kree Empire. Ronan the Accuser had backed down from his demands that the Supreme Intelligence be removed. In return the Supreme Intelligence had agreed to postpone, not give up, just postpone, its efforts to bring in more light-skinned Kree into the pure blue-skinned race. It knew it had to so as to revive the race on a genetic level, but the society was not flexible enough to allow it for now. Not with the greatest hero of the light-skinned Kree apparently turning traitor.
The two factions still differed however on how to address that treason. The fact We'hnt had not been heard of meant his flotilla had been possibly wiped out. Earth was becoming an irritant. To redress this Ronan wanted to send a full battle fleet, and the Supreme Intelligence wanted to send a battleship squadron. The Supreme Intelligence won out for the most part because pulling a full battle fleet away from the front facing the Skrull would have been madness.
Despite all logic to the contrary however, Ronan still pushed for that large a fleet to be sent, and made no bones about who knew it. The Supreme Intelligence however refused to budge on this, knowing how delicate the balance of power was on the warfront, and having no understanding of the danger Earth posed.
So three battleship squads were pulled out of patrolling the inner systems and attached to a single Planet Crusher. Earth would die, and with it the traitor and the human race. Not the outcome the Supreme Intelligence had hoped for, but the only one it could allow for now in order to retain its control over the Kree.
OOOOOOO
That evening, while Jean and Ororo spent the evening with the kids, Harry used the runic doorway to Emma was, where he found her already dolled up in a slinky black dress.
"I see you're dressed to kill, quite literally love. I think anyone over 70 who saw you in that dress would probably have a heart attack" Harry quipped, shaking his head.
"I'm always dressed to kill Harry," she said smoothly, her hands going to the back of his neck and pulling him down into a kiss. "So what've you lined up for us?" she asked, not bothering to pull back from the kiss as she asked the question telepathically.
Harry chuckled then pulled back to look down the mansion's hallway and she shook her head pulling back now. "Don't worry, the security cameras are off, and all you'll have to do is appear outside the gates for a moment. My sister already knows what's going on, but I don't think I want my security team to know just yet. None of them have mental defenses after all, and my own version of those devices isn't far along just yet. Even if I use the versions we found on those SHIELD agents it would cause issues, in particular if SHIELD could track them somehow."
Harry kissed her again, deliberately messing up her lipstick before pulling back with a laugh, disappearing with a pop to reappear in the air above the mansion before flying off slightly to a nearby parking lot which he knew was not monitored, taking out his car and driving to Emma's mansion within moments.
A moment later, Emma exited the mansion, frowning heavily at him as she sat down in the passenger seat. "You messed up my lipstick."
"You fixed it easily enough," Harry said mildly. "Besides, that's not last time your lipstick is going to get messed up this evening."
Emma laughed, and Harry turned their car around, exiting the Frost property after once again passing through checkpoint. The guards on duty nodded at him then frowned. "No security ma'am?"
"Not close in no, Sandman is following along his own car, he'll be outside while we dine.
"And inside while we are at the dance club," Emma sent telepathically.
"Dance club?" Harry asked in the same manner.
"I told you we'd be dancing tonight Potter, did you think I was joking?"
"No, I just thought we'd be doing that when we got back from eating. So are we dancing before eating or what?
"Eating first of course," Emma replied, her mental tone now rather sharp and almost eager. "You'll need the energy."
"Have I ever given any sign that I lack energy?" Harry asked, tapping her thigh right below the cut off of her dress as he drove his car away from the Frost estate with the other.
"Not at all, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to test your endurance," Emma said aloud with a laugh, and Harry chuckled, before putting both hands back on the wheel.
They were soon at the restaurant Harry had booked them at an upscale place which specialized in Asian fusion which Emma had wanted to try. Harry, currently under his Weatherby disguise, walked in with Emma on his arm, and was promptly seated, the majordomo recognizing Ms. Frost easily from the news of the attack on her a few months ago.
The two of them were promptly shown to a table, and left with the menus. For a few moments they made small talk about the restaurant then got to business. After setting up a small, low powered Muffilatio, Harry relayed what was going on in space, as well as his concerns that the Kree's next response, then what he had discovered at or after the Althing.
Emma nodded listening intently then shook her head slowly and Harry suddenly felt something in his lap. Something small with wiggling toes. "You need to concentrate on the here and now Harry, you can't do anything about when Kree will arrive, so put them out of her mind, you've already assigned your best people to the job. We still need to work on enlarging our power base here on Earth, hunting down whoever is involved with the flare-ups of norm/mutant violence, and enlarging our political and social base."
Taking a quick glance down into his lap Harry saw that it was indeed Emma's foot that was now kneading his crotch slowly. Trying to keep his voice under control he cocked his eyebrow at her. "I take it that part of this dinner was to discuss your plans in that direction? Political, social or economic?"
"Economic and social, though in the long run perhaps political," Emma mused, her voice and upper body showing no sign of what her feet were doing.
Realizing that too could play this game, Harry slowly shifted one of his shoes off his foot, bringing it up Emma's leg slowly pushing aside her dress as his foot wound its way upwards.
He was rewarded with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes, and Emma's toes began to wiggle further in his lap.
"I want you to contact the Mandarin," she continued aloud, still somehow able to keep any sign of their ongoing game from her voice and face.
Harry frowned cocking his head. "When you say contact, who are you speaking about?"
"Your Harry Potter persona," Emma replied simply. "While your Guardian persona would definitely get his attention, I do not believe that it would set the right tone for this. You see, despite being a crime lord, the Mandarin is an important political and economic figure in China. He's been behind several of their newest breakthroughs in technology, specifically the anti-smog technology, which given their growing industrial base was a necessity. "
Emma shook her head slowly. "It is because of him that Hong Kong is now smog free, along with several other provincial capitals. The systems are expensive, and take months to put into place, but once they are they literally suck the smog and hazardous waste out of the air. In time I think they will become a major export for China, though at the moment the rest of the scientific community can't seem to get past their designer's history and admit they actually work."
"I see," Harry mused, frowning thoughtfully. "I'll see what Dennis has to say about him. I think we still need to assign someone to the Asian continent entirely however, their society and governments are so different from Europe and America after all. We have a few Japanese specialists Dennis has been able to work with, and there we've made major inroads, but not China."
"Good thinking" Emma said, and her toes twitched in his lap, caressing his growing appreciation of her attention before she too twitched lightly as his own foot reached her crotch in turn.
"My concern there is that he is after all a criminal, a gang boss yes?" Harry clarified.
"There are different kinds of gang bosses Harry. As far as I've been able to learn he doesn't deal in drugs or people. Extortion, racketeering, money laundering gambling, theft, that kind of thing, oh and alcohol. In some provinces the sale of alcohol is apparently limited by law, and he does a brisk business there."
She shrugged when Harry looked at her askance. "Don't look at me, the Chinese government is very odd times. That whole one child rule for example, and the fact they actually enforce it in places."
"Yes, that one is certainly at the top of my list of weird things." Harry quipped, his smile going very tender for a moment as his mind went to Jean and her pregnancy before returning to the here and now. "Any other economic concerns or dangers rearing their heads?"
"None that we haven't discussed before," Emma replied then smiled politely at the waiter who came by with their appetizers and a sommelier. She talked to the sommelier for a few moments even while her foot continued its ministrations, and Harry could only shake his head in amusement at her ability to both multitask and put on a public face while he concentrated on other things entirely.
"By the way," he said, as the waiter left and the two of them dug into their meal, their below the table fun forgotten for a moment. "Do you know were being watched?
Emma paused between one bit and the next, sending out her power in a brief pulse. She found several paparazzi sitting at a nearby table, a camera which was no longer working. But they wouldn't have roused Harry's interest enough to actually mention them.
Then she found a table of four men and three women. Two of the women were watching them closely from the other side of the table as the rest of that table engaged in some kind of discussion she couldn't overhear. Their interest in them though was plain and she frowned for further as she couldn't find their thoughts. More androids? AIM perhaps? No, one of them is human. That's interesting.
Setting her spoon down she spoke quickly and easily, once more nothing in her tone or body language betraying her. "Yes, that's an interesting question, Osborn might have sent them. Certainly one of them thinks he was ordered to by someone Norman uses for his dirtier dealings. A few of them are androids however. And I don't know if Osborn has that kind of technology."
"I don't think AIM is strong enough in America now thanks to the Avengers and SHIELD to send that many androids out after us."
"Not us, me. They don't know Percy Weatherby is at all important, though they might understand that you are a go between myself and Potter. They know you're dangerous though, your cover as an ex-SAS operative is still holding out thanks to William and his government helping it along."
"Good. Then they won't be too surprised to lose their entire attack group." Harry commented.
"And how exactly are you going to justify that?" Emma asked with an elegantly raised eyebrow.
"I'm an ex-SAS operative, and your bodyguards Sandman should be well known by now. I want one of the androids heads intact however. If we can link that's to Osborn, or Osborn in turn to AIM or someone else, we can set SHIELD on them."
Emma's smile disappeared at those words and she shook her head. "Harry, that's something else I wanted to talk to you about."
Harry frowned, his frown deepening when Emma actually removed her foot from his lap. She hadn't been moving it in a bit, but hadn't removed it before now. Yet evidently this was much more serious than the other topics they'd discussed had up to now, including the possible attackers still watching them. "All right, what is it?"
"It's not the Avengers or Captain America that concern me," Emma said waving that thought off with one hand as if it was of no consequence. "They are a decent enough team, but they don't have the skills, numbers or even the support that you have created for the Custodes Mundi. No, it's Nick Fury that bothers me. I am afraid that if his paranoia about your growing power base gets to be too much, he might start actively acting against you."
"Have you ever met him?" Harry asked, more to buy than anything else as he thought about her words. He had after all met Fury more than once, if briefly.
"No, but I've read everything I can about him, trying to get a feel for how he could react. Harry…" she said slowly. "You've undermined SHIELD tremendously across the world. Before you appeared on the scene, SHIELD was in the process of amalgamating literally every known and a few black op 'unknown' intelligence agencies. But then Britain pulled out then France, then Ireland, then a few other countries. And even Canada, which was already amalgamated into SHIELD in many ways, stopped the process. But that's not all."
She shook her head. "Indeed, if it was just that I wouldn't be worried about Fury. No, the fact of the matter is you have been successful in stopping the threats that SHIELD was supposed to be able to. He is looking redundant, almost second rate. And you're not at all connected to any existing power structure, nor do you consider yourself bound by the laws of any one nation. Put those things together, and you become a paranoiacs nightmare. And he is a professional paranoid."
"I'm well aware of that," Harry said mildly, shaking his head. "I've met the man, I know a little bit about how he thinks."
"Yes a little. Don't think that means you'll be able to predict how we will act in the future. I fully expect him to try to move against you in some fashion, to see what your response will be to it, and use that response against you in turn, especially after you returned those two agents to him in such a cavalier manner. That was a slap in the face if ever there was one." Emma cautioned.
"So what do you suggest we do?" Harry asked.
"Nothing overt, just be very careful in the future and draw up plans just in case. We're still trying to create a real independent espionage service, he's already got one, and he can match us in every way in terms of connections to others."
"There's more to your concerns," Harry said simply, his hand reaching over the table to take her hand. "Nothing you've said so far comes as a shock, and it certainly isn't dangerous enough for you to be so concerned right now."
Emma nodded I was going to get to this eventually. "I've mentioned before that Stark might be doing, so I won't mention it again. But, despite what Steve told you I think that's still going on. Worse, SHIELD has access to some kind of advanced technology, an energy system or something. I've seen reports of prototype weapons being tested on a few army bases that had been shut down recently. I think some of them might be tough enough to take on one of the Custodes Mundi in those combat suits of yours."
"So he is going to be more dangerous if he takes the field against us." Harry said thoughtfully. "All right, I'll keep that in mind, but the only thing we can really do is just keep on marching on. If we don't do anything to really call for a response from him at least we'll be able to retain the moral high ground. If our conflict ever becomes public that will be necessary."
"That puts whether or not to start that conflict in his hand," Emma said, not accusingly, simply commenting.
"You think we should act against him?"
"I don't know what to do here Harry. SHIELD is a big ass target, and in a way it would be even tougher to fight them then it was to take on Shaw and his group, at least there we had actual goals in mind and could cut the head off the snake. Here we wouldn't, and they're to spread out to it for one of your decapitation strikes."
"That's all we can do then. However," Harry said glinting evilly. "You mentioned keeping my mind on what's going on here on out, which means we should probably move against Osborn if we can."
"Oh yes. That should be relatively easily and most of it will occur in the realm of the business world," Emma said coldly. "He thinks himself a shark, but he doesn't seem to realize there are bigger dangers in the depths."
"That was a good analogy," Harry said laughing.
To their surprise, the people intending to attack Emma did not strike as the two of them exited the restaurant. They trailed them of course from a distance, but didn't attack them even when they exited Harry's car and went into the dance club Emma had decided would be the second part of their date.
Inside Harry and Emma took to the dance floor, and if over the next two hours their bodies spent more than a few seconds not grinding against one another Harry would've been intensely surprised. Dancing as flirting was an art form, and Emma was a past mistress at it. By the time they left club Harry was ready to throw Emma over shoulder, teleport back to Camelot and ravage her for the rest of the night.
And of course it was at that moment that the attackers tried to move in. Six small robots of some kind popped into the air from out of several parked moving vans down the street from the dance club, zooming through the air towards him, green electrical energy sparking from them towards Harry and Emma.
Harry grabbed Emma, ducking down with her behind another parked car, as he pulled out a gun from his waist.
Emma looked at in shock. "Where did you get that?"
"Bag of holding," he murmured, pulling it out and firing up at the strange discs. "Those discs…"
"Osborn tech." she said drolly. "That green energy gives it away. He's been trying to come up with some kind of weapon that could break into the security sector to combat the weapons we've already been developed there."
"Good to know." Harry said then fell silent as he began to squeeze off controlled bursts downrange at the strange airborne discs, wanting to stay in character for any nearby cameras. Like the paps who were currently hiding near the entrance to the dance club with the club's bouncer.
Behind him he felt more than heard Emma reaching to into her purse where she pulled out a communicator. "Sandman, are you nearby?"
"Yeah boss lady," said Sandman's voice. "I just dealt with three of those people that were trailing you, dealing with the others now. Can you and your date take on those discs?"
Before he could finish Harry had downed two of them, then surreptitiously waved a hand. When he opened fire on the four remaining, something seemed to go wrong with their movement programming and they crashed into a building further down the street. Smiling Harry scanned the rooftops for a moment then moved cautiously out of cover. "Should we remain here to wait for the police or not?"
"Not, let them come to me tomorrow. We can tell them we were worried about further attacks, then when they start to try and link those discs to Osborn no one can say I pointed them in that direction. Take that one man in custody for now Sandman, we're moving back towards your position. As it is, this was but a bump in the road, and I refuse to let it ruin our date." Emma said getting to her feet and moving down the street quickly.
Harry nodded and the two of them raced over to his car which was of course undamaged. There was no way anything set to stun would be able to get through the defenses he'd put on it. After making certain the paps had been left behind and no one else was observing them he tapped the car gently with one hand he shrunk it down to fit in his pocket.
"Interesting," he said, understanding the implications just then of there not being anyone around. "They rerouted local traffic both foot and car-based so they could take us here."
Sandman's voice from behind him made Harry turn. "I noticed that while you two were making the beast with two backs on the dance floor in there. Or was there some other couple in there that was, and I quote 'having sex with their clothes on'? You two made an impression apparently."
"No that was probably us," Emma replied blithely, smirking evilly at the prisoner Sandman held in one of his arm. The sand in his arm covered him from head to toe in sand harder than stone. In his other hand he dangled three android heads. "Hmm, what should we do with you?"
"Now let's see what you can tell me," she purred mentally, her power flicking out lightly into the man's mind. Unlike the few other times she'd done this, she wanted him to remain alive and unaware of what was going on so simply passed him by physically, even as her power to work on them.
Soon she had everything she could take from the man, and nodded to Sandman surreptitiously, saying aloud for the prisoner's benefit. "Dump him somewhere Sandman, we'll let the authorities handle this as well as figuring out how they were able to reroute local traffic like that. I'm not about to take the law into my own hands…"
That was of course a bald-faced lie. But since Osborn seemed unaware of her powers when she moved against his holdings this man knew of it would come as a complete surprise.
"Is Osborn the sort to be able to lash out like this again?" Harry asked as the two of them quickly moved away from the scene of the attack
"No, he won't attack me again like this, frankly I'm surprised he did so in the first place. Right now however we're going to continue our date Harry." She waved Sandman off, ordering him to return home while Harry, at her gestures re-shrunk his car and the two walked off.
"Where to?" Harry asked smiling.
"The top of the Twin Towers." she said with a laugh and a look in her eyes the meaning of which set his blood to pounding once more.
A second later the two of them stepped into an alleyway and while under cover of a Notice-Me-Not Harry picked Emma up in his arms, and flew into the air. As they rose over the nearest buildings Emma leaned up, pulling his face into a kiss, though Harry couldn't give his all into the kiss needing to watch where they were flying until they alighted on top of one of the Twin Towers.
He set Emma down and she smiled looking around moving to the edge of the rooftops and staring down onto the city below. "Did we just come up here for the view?" Harry asked, having a very good idea that was not in fact the case. "It's nice, but…"
"Oh no Harry," said Emma, reaching behind her neck and undoing the small knot that held up her dress, letting it fall to pool around her feet before stepping out of it. Now she only wore panties and a very small, very lacy bra.
The sight awoke Harry's response which had fled during the short clash just now, and he moved in, one hand trailing down the side of her face to take one of her nipples, visible over the bar, in his finger before trailing further down. "You have an exhibitionist streak, love?"
"Oh quite a big one," Emma said with a laugh, leaning up quickly to pull him down into a kiss before leaning back, still speaking as she interspersed her words with kisses along his jaw line. "It's always been a fantasy of mine Harry to come up here and make love to someone under the stars, with the entire city going on below none the wiser."
Harry nodded, but nonetheless quickly set up a few spells to block anyone from above. That was his last conscious thought for a while as Emma once more pulled him down into a deep kiss, one of her legs going around his waist.
Moments later, as they finally moved on from the foreplay Harry felt Emma's attention divert for a brief second before returning to the task at hand with even more fervor. "What is it?" he murmured into her ear before biting down lightly, causing her to buck up against him.
"We've got a bit of a voyeur. Someone is hiding over in the stairwell, and she's now peering at us through the door. Leave her be love, I don't want to wait any longer." Emma sent telepathically, her connection with Harry pulsing with pure need for a moment.
Harry frowned, but when one of her hands snaked into his trousers, his ability to argue went out the window.
Sometime during the activities following that moment, another voyeur showed up, swinging his way over the rooftops to land on one of the corners nearby. Spiderman was so surprised at the sight of the two lovers going about their business that he nearly fell off his perch, only his spider-like reflexes saving him. He gulped, trying desperately to tear his eyes away from the action for a moment, trying to figure out where his quarry had gotten to.
But before he could, the two lovers noticed him. "Do you mind lad?" Harry asked, slowing down and lifting his face out of Emma's blond locks to glare at the spandex-clad hero. "We're a little busy here after allLLL" Harry broke off, grunting as Emma did something, clamping around him like a vice. But despite her protests he turned his attention away from her fully.
"U, uh I, um, I don't er, I don't suppose you saw a woman clad in a black and white suit did you? Er, she's remarkably fit looking and um…" Spiderman trailed off, all his normal insouciance gone for the moment, utterly bewildered and out of his comfort zone.
"She went that way," Harry said pointing randomly. "You two don't need help down from here do you," Spiderman asked trying not to look at Emma, who was as naked as the day she was born save for a pair of panties clinging to one ankle and a high heeled shoe dangling from the other.
"Not a bit of it, now why don't you go away you little voyeur," Emma growled, waving him with a languid hand.
"Excuse me, I'm the freaking Spiderman lady, I'm more at home up here then you are. Certainly got more right to be up here than you two freaking exhibitionists!" Spiderman shot back, his balance coming back online.
"Your words would have more of an impact if you hadn't remained silent as you watched us for so long," Emma said with a laugh, pulling her dress over to cover her upper body.
"Let the little hero be love," Harry said with a chuckle, the absurdity of the moment getting to him over his chagrin at the interruption. "Kid, what are you even doing out here?"
"The woman I mentioned is a thief, she stole something from a museum downtown this evening."
"And a thief like that is the most important thing going on in a city this size tonight?" Harry asked shaking his head. "Priorities kiddo."
"What's with the kiddo thing?" Spiderman growled, wondering why he was simply standing there jawing with these two exhibitionists, though the one with the emerald eyes looked kind of familiar. "You can't be that much older than me, and I doubt you have any experience to…"
"Age is immaterial to true experience." Harry replied loftily, ignoring the Emma's giggle at his sententious words. "And how does the heroing work pay these days?"
Spiderman laughed harshly. "Being a hero pays?"
"Of course, the Avengers are paid by the SHIELD aren't they? And Mr. Fantastic is paid via his patents for the Fantastic Four. Why I don't doubt even those new ones, the Custodes Mundi are paid for their work." Harry replied. "Certainly I was paid when I was part of the SAS."
Spiderman actually grumbled a little, shaking his head. "Yeah well I'm not that bright and I don't work with the team."
"You could you know," Harry said seriously.
Spiderman cocked his head, frowning heavily behind his mask. "Who the hell are you?"
Harry smirked, knowing that their Recognize-Me-Not was working. "Guardian at your service." He said, surreptitiously letting that spell fall as he cast a quick Illusion spell over his features. Spiderman would remember Harry as looking slightly older than his normal self, with blonde hair rather than black, and blue eyes rather than emerald ones. A scar down one side of his face completed the image. No one looking at that image would be able to match it to Harry Potter, his Weatherby persona or even the bits and pieces of Guardian that had been seen after the Thanos incident had so thoroughly wrecked his mask.
"Oh," Spiderman said, caught rather flat-footed by the sudden change, and the admission of who this person was. "…Are you offering me a job?"
"No," Harry said with a shake of his head. "The Custodes Mundi is full up at present, and besides which I don't think you're the type to want to leave your city behind."
Spiderman nodded and Harry went on pulling out a communication mirror from his bag of holding and tossing it to the boy. "So we'll just open a line of communication and maybe aid if you're interested. Don't use it for anything less than something threatening the entire city, or life or death for you. And I don't mean a crime wave when I say that. I also don't mean just physical threats, a virus that could release a plague, someone mind controlling people, that kind of thing is what we deal with, big-time threats to the world in general, not just people."
"Why's that, and what kind of help could you give me if I decide to ask for it?" Spider-man asked suspiciously. He wasn't stupid, and knew the Custodes had an agenda, and he hadn't yet decided where he stood on the whole mutant question.
"Well for one thing we could pay you like the hero business was a real job," Harry said with a laugh. "And two, we think that people should be a allowed to police themselves, we won't step in on things at that level."
Spiderman scowled, but tucked the communication mirror into his belt and turned away. "I'll think about it, but do me a favor though? Don't come back here for your exhibitionist games. I don't think my heart can take this."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Emma said with a laugh as Spiderman without further ado swung off over the skyline. With him out of the way she turned to the stairwell. "You're welcome Ms. Voyeur."
"Don't act like you didn't enjoy it," another woman's voice replied from the stairwell into the tower. A moment later a woman covered from head to toe in black spandex, with white fur here and there and wearing a mask appeared. Her hair looked almost pure white, and her body was undoubtedly attractive, though with Emma right next to him, Harry didn't really care one way or the other about it, though he was amused to see two obvious signs of the other woman's own arousal poking through her suit.
"You knew I was here from the beginning, and still carried on regardless. It was one hell of a show though, I don't suppose I could rent your little boy toy could I? This cat has some itches that need to be scratched right now." The woman asked with a hopeful tone.
"Hell no," Harry said holding up his arms in an X while Emma simply laughed. "Not a chance. We will however give you at the same communication mirror as we did Spiderboy. In your case though, we'll be in touch with you rather than the reverse," Harry finished with a grim little smile.
"Blackmail? You could capture me now but you're asking for a favor in the future." the Black Cat said, catching the small mirror Harry threw her easily. "At least it's a compact size very nice."
"You're welcome," Emma replied dryly. "Both for that and for letting you hide out from Spiderboy."
The Black Cat chuckled at that, since Spiderman really did act like a boy most of the time. But her eyes were serious as they locked on Harry's.
"We might require your services at some point. Just because we're the good guys doesn't mean we don't sometimes occasionally need to break the law. When we need a thief we'll get in contact with you. Don't worry we'll also pay for the job, this is just to open up a line of communication with you."
The Black Cat nodded, and with a final glance their way turned and leaped off the roof in the opposite direction Spiderman had gone.
Harry finally broke down laughing as did Emma, shaking her head before reaching for him. "Now, where were we?"
OOOOOOO
A few days went by, with the work on the gravitic trap proceeding quickly now that Harry had consigned so much of his orbital industrial capacity to it. Thanks to the agreements he had made with various Hellfire Club members, his non-orbital industry also continued to grow slowly but surely, but it still wasn't as large as he could have hoped for.
With Phoenix now officially off the team given her pregnancy, Harry had turned the team over to Magma and Dani, who had evinced the most potential as team leaders. He and Ororo still joined the team once every day for training, but for the most part they let the training to the team, busy as they were with other things.
Ororo continued to help the teachers, as well as help the retrieval teams organize themselves further with the help of Nikolai, who helped in their training along with Shiang Chi. She conducted several more interviews, bringing in two more teachers, both of whom like the others moved into Camelot. She also occasionally helped on the business side of things, more to be a sounding board than anything else.
For her part Jean threw herself wholeheartedly into Carol's think tank, as well as the various Earth-based engineering parts of her job as the chief engineer for Arc Technologies.
The Custodes were not actually engaged in any kind of crisis for those two days. They sometimes joined the retrieval team if the initial group sent felt it was warranted, but other than that their training proceeded apace. AIM didn't make any further attempts against MM, and no one else seemed in a position to take offensive action against them either, while Mystique, Morph and Anne Cortez started their own mission. Yet even that was a peaceful affair.
It was X-Men who had the most interesting missions over those few days…
OOOOOOO
Along one wall of the Danger Room Cyclops leaned against the wall alongside James Proudstar as they watched the next class of possible X-men be put through their paces. James had a scowl on his face while Rogue threw several of them, including his brother around like kindling and Sam put Warren Worthington the Third, whose call-sign was simply Angel, through his paces in the air.
The newest arrivals codenames were Iceman, Angel, Boom-Boom, Jubilee and Angel were joining Laynia, Wanda, Lorna, Alex and the Xians. Of the teens, only Iceman and Wanda had been offered positions on the X-men going forward. Lorna had yet to pass Charles' psychological evaluations, and Alex had no desire to serve without her while Laynia had no desire to go into the hero business at all just like Xian Co Manh. The other newcomers had too many question marks for Scott to want them out in the field.
Boom-Boom was a girl who had originally been an acolyte member but who had been jailed for a minor case of theft before the recruitment process ended. Charles had scooped her up afterward as the Brotherhood had pulled in their cells. Her general attitude and rather laid back way of viewing other people's property worried Scott. Her power to create small explosions would obviously be helpful, but not something he'd want on every mission.
In a way Jubilee suffered from the same problem: her powers were interesting, but not helpful enough to get over to problems Scott had with her. For one thing she was young, only just turned fourteen, younger by a year than even Kitty had been before starting. And for another she had a severe problem with training at all and taking instruction, not a good sign for her ability to work well with a team.
Angel's codename was an easy one, almost forced onto him by his mutant power of having large white wings with which he could fly. Warren had acted as a sort of vigilante hero down in Charleston for a time before Charles contacted him. He had some skill, but he was arrogant, a playboy and opinionated, coming from an extremely rich family.
On the other hand Bobby, "Iceman" was a cheerful extrovert who got on famously with Kurt and responded well to instruction. He was also a bit of a pervert, but the girls could handle that well enough. His powers over ice were incredible and hopefully useful.
Nonetheless all of them would receive training in how better to use and control their powers so long as they were here, hence the exercises. Said exercise caused Scott to wince now as Iceman's ice wall was shattered by a boulder and he personally was sent skidding along the ground a second later by a kick from John Proudstar. "Situational awareness and some close combat skills are a must…"
"Hmmpf, Bobby at least is game enough to keep getting up. Jubilee didn't even try, and Boom-Boom is far too prolific and sloppy with those explosive balls of hers." James commented.
"True, we have our work cut out for us. For now I…" Scott broke off as Charles' words echoed through their heads.
"X-men please assemble in the hanger bay. We have a situation, a group of mutants is attempting to break into a bank vault in Austin Texas. Two of them appear to be of the super-strong variety, and have begun to fight off a police response. No deaths have been reported yet, but I think the X-men should step in."
"Roger that Professor, you heard the man team." Scott replied and a moment later the team had assembled and were boarding the Blackjet, Rogue, John, Sam, Kurt, and Scott. Evan was with his parents, and they had decided to leave James behind to lead the newcomers in their exercises.
"Boom-Boom and the other's aren't going to be happy they got left behind, the first mission we get sent on since they moved in and they get left behind." John said, shaking his head as he took the copilot's seat next to Scott. He was learning how to fly the jet, but it would be a while before he was qualified on it.
"No way, even in a fight like this I refuse to bring anyone along I can't trust to follow orders and work together. You and your brother proved yourselves before I took you in to the Savage Land campaign, they have to do the same." Scott replied, to which John nearly visibly puffed himself up, which increased as Scott went on in a droll tone. "And that'll no doubt take a lot longer in their cases than it did in yours."
Rogue stuck her head out of the main sitting area into the cockpit at that point, as the jet roared unseen over the daytime sky higher and faster than any commercial jet could even track them, unseen by any radar. "So what's the plan Scott?"
"It'll depend on the terrain when we get there. If we have to fight them in the city, we'll have to find a parking lot or something to force them towards. Sam, that'll be your and my job. Kurt, you're on defense." In this case defense meant protecting any civilians and getting them out of the way, a job Kurt took seriously despite his normal attitude. "When they're away from people and buildings, John and Rogue, you'll bring the hammer down."
In that they were actually in luck. The bank being robbed was in a strip mall with a large and somewhat empty parking lot, and Kurt got to work immediately popping down and grabbing any civilian in the area and popping them away from the gunfight.
The mutant gang in question were not shouting slogans or anything like that, they weren't doing this as a show of mutant supremacy. This was a group of mutants using their powers for criminal gain, nothing more, nothing less.
One of them was a massive mountain of grey stone, looking almost like one of Harry's golems, standing as tall as John and apparently just as strong. One of them had just hurled a police car away down the street as the Blackjet pulled into a hover in the air above the scene, still hidden under both tech and magical camouflage.
Another was a thin, tall looking Hispanic man who was possibly the leader of the group. At least he was the one carrying the bag of loot over his shoulder, which in circumstances like this usually denoted who was in charge. His one free hand flashed and flared with yellow energy firing toward several policemen who had taken cover in a few doorways here and there. It struck with as much power as one of the plasma rifle blasts.
The other was an even larger bastard with a somewhat hunched over upper body and a small head on massive shoulders. He also had the most ridiculous small glasses perched on his nose. As Scott watched, he charged through the gunfire from several SWAT team members hiding around their truck, his intent clear: he would just barrel into the truck and crush them underneath. The problem was there were three wounded policeman hiding behind that truck, and Scott doubted they could be moved.
"Rogue, John, take him out!" Scott shouted, pointing down from where he had taken position in the open hatch of the Blackjet, the plane's autopilot having taken over. "Sam, take out the man with plasma hands then see if you can hurt that Thing-lookalike!"
As the two strong men leaped out to land in front of the charging man Scott lined up a shot on the fourth mutant in sight, who apparently could change solids into liquids with a touch going by what he had just done to a parked car which he had heretofore been hiding behind. The red beam of energy struck him in the chest with concussive force, hurling him backward, unconscious before he landed.
With that man down Scott turned his attention on the plasma hands man, taking him under fire as he tried to turn his attention up toward these new combatants. Sam barreled down, smashing into the man with a punch at near sonic speed, which blew his lights out before barreling into the rocky mutant. That one rocked back on his heels but was able to push Sam up and off target after a second, and Sam flew on, coming back in a loop.
John landed, cratering the concrete of the parking lot right in front of the charging mutant. He ducked underneath the other fellow's outstretched arms to catch him around the middle, whereupon he performed a perfect German Suplex, smashing him headfirst into the concrete. The man, who was remarkably top heavy, his body almost distorted in a way like someone who had taken too many steroids, broke out easily, smirking at John. "Sorry man, but any attack like that on me just makes me stronger!"
Rogue landed right on his back, locking in a choke hold with both arms around the man's throats as her legs struggled to do the same to his distorted upper body. "Then all we gotta do is not attack you like that right?"
The man reached up and tried to tear the far slighter Rogue away, only to find that she was actually significantly stronger than him. Having been sparring that morning with the two Proudstars before the new teens were put through their paces, she was at full power thanks to her permanently absorbed Shaw's mutant power.
"Yes, thanks for telling us that, idiot!" John growled ducking under a blow from the man, grabbing his wrist and pulling him around and into a hold with that arm hyperextended behind him.
The man desperately pounded the ground with his free hand, trying to wrench himself around, but no matter how strong he was he couldn't break John's hold or Rogue's. Nor could he fight back having his circulation cut as it was thanks to Rogue, and he soon collapsed.
Rogue and John turned to help deal with the others only to find the rocky mutant throwing up on his shoes as Scott slowly cut into a damaged car to get a few trapped drivers out while Kurt perched nearby, grinning down on the rocky mutant impudently. The police in the area were already racing toward them, their guns still out, and Rogue wondered if they were going to fire on their saviors.
Before they could decide to do that or not however Scott finished with his work, and a single wide area beam from his eyes smashed out into the golem-man's face knocking him back and out easily. "X-men, we're done here. Leave some of those reinforced cuffs for the police and let's go."
With that they left, leaving behind a group of confused and rather irritated policemen and four unconscious mutant criminals. Though if the police were irritated about being saved by mutants, or the fact they needed saving in the first place, was up in the air.
The next mission was a humanitarian one, a tornado had torn through a town in Nebraska. Thousands of houses had been smashed flat and hundreds of people were missing. The X-men showed up at the disaster relief headquarters and pitched in following the local volunteer's orders, their various abilities making the job easier and saving lives. During the mission at Scott's orders they made no statement to the press, not that this was difficult considering how busy they were, but they were filmed practically from start to finish.
Afterwards they left still without making any political statement, letting their job do the speaking for them. This self-effacing style won the mutants more public support than any amount of speech making might have, and it had a distinct effect: the Mutant Registration Act was shouted out of the House of Representatives, and a new law, the Mutant Equivalent Rights Act, was begun. Though it would take a while, America as a whole had slowly begun to move toward on mutant/human equality despite whoever was still trying to stir up trouble.