Chapter 161 - Chapter 37: A Hot, Cold War part 3

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Even as he and Hela began their work, these reports and more came in one after another including the explosion down in Genosha, reported to him by Dennis. As they did, Harry cursed and kept on cursing until Hela smacked him upside the head. "That is doing no good other than wasting breath," she said tartly. "You have better things to do with your time right now, Jarl Potter!"

"Right," Harry muttered, "right." Whether it was the light tap upside the head or the use of the word 'Jarl,' he was tracking once more. He looked at Hela and smiled faintly. "Thank you for the dose of reality there. We will have to see what we can do out there, but things first things first, let us deal with what we can here. As I was saying, we need to create a coven-based ritual array, I think. Whatever this is, it's attacking Gaia and the weather both, and unless Stephen knows some magic to counter it, we need to cut the connection between the will behind this spell and the weather. To that end, we need to help Gaia."

Since her ability to connect to the weather was based off her mutant power rather than magic, there was little aid the others could offer Ororo. But she in turn could aid Gaia, and Gaia, they could help. She would be able to take the magic they would pour into her and use it to combat whatever was being done to her, though it would undoubtedly be difficult, considering it seemed to be acting like some kind of sickness, attacking her through her own leylines, both ground and air types, judging by her haggard appearance.

"Agreed," Hela said crisply, moving into the center of the tower where she began to create a web of magic in the air. Arcs of magical power radiated out from her, and Harry quickly knelt down on the rooftop nearby where he began to write out a runic script in the stone as quickly as he could without making any mistakes even as he and Hela talked about what could be causing this. It took him ten minutes to create the first ring, a small, sliver of the full working, but enough to set the central catalysts within.

"Set Gaia and Ororo in the center, here," Harry said, gesturing Piotr forward with Ororo even as he stood up and took Ororo's arm himself. His voice was worried as he stared at his love, even as Hela moved over to gently touch her forehead and cheek. Ororo smiled as she felt that, and one hand came up to mix her fingers with Hela's, but she didn't actually look at the other woman, and white light could be seen flickering out from under her eyelashes as she concentrated on her link to the weather patterns of the world, fighting against whatever foreign influence was causing this cold.

At the same time, Cory returned with a communications device, and Harry clipped it to his ear. Tapping it, he said simply, "Get me Scott and Steve."

Sage was online already, having moved swiftly from the head of the Magical Minds headquarters up into High Note, where she was working with Pinoptes in order to get a handle on what was occurring. At the same time Emma, with MJ's help and Jean's, talked with various military and political leaders the world over, getting a few of the balls they had already prepared for this rolling. "Done," Sage replied instantly.

For a moment Harry smiled as Scott's voice as well as Steve's fought for his attention, shaking his head. I've got good people working with me, thank the gods. "Gentleman, I hear you both, but I can't understand you if you're talking over one another. I take it we're all of the same opinion, though, that we need to get in on this?"

Scott let Steve go first as the more senior leader, and the star-spangled hero replied simply, "I was out running when the ball went up and have since been accosted and called numerous times by a lot of people, both official types and regular bystanders. There's a lot of panic on the streets, Harry, but I'll be ready to go wherever you think I need to in a few minutes. Where should I be heading?"

"You're all on standby for now until I know where to send you, Steve. Once you're in uniform, though, I'd like to you to head over to the Pentagon. I need a liaison there, and that means you need to drop off a communications device there. I'll have Cory drop it off at your house."

"Oh, good," Steve said with a laugh in his voice. "I feared for a minute that you'd ask me to do it."

"That would be a monstrous waste of talent, Cap. Once you and whoever else you gather is ready, call me back, and I'll get you all up to High Note. We'll use that as our staging ground." Steve answered in the affirmative, and Harry switched his attention to Scott, knowing that Steve would gather whoever he could to join him without being told and would also brief them on what to expect. If there was anyone who didn't need to be babied when a world war called, it was Captain America. "Scott?"

"Sir, I have both X-teams already suiting up and getting ready, but, like you said we don't know where to go just yet. There's this business in Russia, all of the news agencies are covering it right now, and then there's Genosha and the violence getting worse there. I… It looks really fucking bad, sir. Both of them."

For a moment Harry wanted to waste another minute cursing, but he didn't. Sinister. Genosha has got to be that cock, playing both sides against one another again. "Agreed. We'll be going in armed for bear whatever happens. Get in touch with Pinoptes and Carol, they'll be in charge of getting you kitted out for this. I'll be giving you some targets as soon as possible, but I need to start setting up our magical response to this cold front of the Russians."

"It isn't a mutant power then, it's a magical attack?" Scott asked, sounding worried. "I thought between you, Hela, and Dr. Strange we had most of the magical side covered."

"So did I," Harry said with a sigh. "I don't know how they are powering it, but this has to be magical. There's just no other explanation. No mutant could build up to this without Ororo noticing and fighting it as soon as they started. But she didn't notice anything until less than half an hour ago."

Harry fell silent and then decided to go on, if only to emphasize the seriousness of what was happening. "And Steve, Scott, keep this to yourselves; don't even tell your teams about this one. But the goddess Gaia is also being affected by this. Her physical form is that of an old crone for some reason, and she is almost completely comatose. What that could mean for the world in general, I don't know, but it can't be good."

Both men cursed, understanding at least some of what that meant without needing to be told. At that Harry let them go and turned his attention outward again as he felt the arrival of Strange and the others. He looked over to the edge of the roof as Kitty phased through the roof, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked around before locking on Ororo. "Ororo!"

She leaped forward, and both she and the weather goddess would have fallen as she turned solid before smacking into the African woman in a move reminiscent of another barrel of bushy tailed energy Harry had known. He grabbed them both, however, steadying both girls as Kitty clung to her teacher. "Ororo, are you okay? Oh-my-god, this cold thing, is it attacking you? It must be; I mean, otherwise you would've…"

"Easy there, Kitten. She's fine physically, but she's fighting this whatever it is even now, so she can't really concentrate on pesky things like her body at the moment," Harry soothed, hugging both the older and younger woman, who had been busy the past few weeks forging ahead with her chosen task to skip grades and graduate this year from high school.

As he said, Ororo didn't seem able to reply verbally at this point. But she hugged Kitty and laid her head against Harry's shoulder even as she didn't open her eyes, the rest of her concentration on the war occurring within the weather patterns of the world, trying to keep further disasters from occurring with the sudden violent decrease in temperature. She was doing a good job, too, but the cold was still spreading even if it hadn't spawned the hurricanes, and violent storms it should have.

Kitty leaned back before darting in to give Ororo a kiss on the check and whispering, "We've all got your back, Ororo. Go get 'em, goddess!" With that morale boost given, she turned to Harry, her face serious as, behind her, Wanda, Dr. Druid, Strange, and Clea floated up over the side of the tower. "What do you need me to do?"

"Ah, and there we see both the willpower and the willingness to work that no doubt made my, that is, that made Ororo take you on as an apprentice," Hela said, looking at Kitty fondly. "We are attempting to create what is called a coven ritual, Kitty. When we are done, we'll be able to bring aid unto Gaia and, through her, Ororo."

"That sounds like an excellent idea, actually, as I am afraid my own magics are unable to tell me anything about this," Strange said with a faint frown, touching the large brooch at his neck. "Even the Eye of Agamotto cannot pierce through to whatever is behind this. I can sense the minds of literally thousands bundled up into it, but the how and the where elude me at this moment."

"Hela and I were talking, and we think it's hyper-dimensional in origin. Not other-dimensional, as that would have run into the magical defenses we put in place months back. But someone is beaming in magical power into whatever is causing this," Harry explained, scowling. "I'd held out hope for your Eye of Agamotto, but if that thing can't find it, I doubt anything I can do would be able to either, or Hela. It's…" Harry paused, looking over at the small, elderly, and weak form of Mother Gaia. "It's even taking over the ley lines, using them to move the spell along."

Clea looked at Hela, who had bristled at the idea of there being something she couldn't do before subsiding, as it was true, after all. The two of them hadn't talked or even generally been around one another very often, and rather purposefully. Clea was, after all, the daughter of a Demon Lord, and Hela was a goddess, one who served Death, and very, very few deities of whatever stripe liked to be reminded of the fact that even for them there was the Great Ending. And Death in turn didn't like anything that tried to deal with souls, removing them from the cycle of regeneration. Clea wasn't her father, of course, but she had spent most of her life in his realm, and there was still a bit of social paranoia perhaps between the two of them, certainly a bit of awkwardness, anyway. "Goddess Hela, can you not do anything in this instance?"

"I am afraid not. I have tried, but the domain of my power does not allow me any control over the weather outside mine own realm." Hela said with a scowl. "I could, mayhap, connect to the ley lines directly, but I would simply become either a battery of power to them or vice-versa without a spell betwixt it and I. Regardless, it would not serve any purpose."

"I can aid in creating an array that will allow us to affect the weather. If we use Ororo and Goddess Gaia in the center and use them as the catalysts for it, the impact will be even more than it would otherwise be. Is that the kind of tactic you were going to try?" Strange asked, looking on in interest at the runes that Harry and Ororo had been carving into the roof.

Harry and Hela both nodded, and Hela gestured to the mass of multicolored magic hanging above them, looking for all the world like a magical ball of string a cat had been at. "This is a coven connection spell mixed with several other things I thought up as I was working on it, including a connection into, but not out of, the leylines below the castle. It has enough open ends, so to speak, that we can all take part in it once we sink this spell into the runic array."

"Then let's get on with it," Clea said brusquely. "Direct us and let us get this done. Whatever this attack is, it is slowly killing the Earth. As I live here, that is rather irritating to me."

Even as the magic users went to work, though, Harry also had to juggle other things at the same time. But there, at least, he had Jean and Emma, both of whom were able to work as intermediaries.

With her permanent connection to Harry's mind, Jean was his most logical direct representative, and since she couldn't be in the field any longer, she was even happy to do it. Emma would serve as a physical liaison in a pinch, but at the moment she was speaking to Dr. Doom about what his plans were to combat Russia's push into the Ukraine, after which she would be rejoining MJ in talking to various governmental officials, especially those of their allies.

At Harry's orders now, weapons and materials had already began to make their way to Finland, Poland, and China, while the Custodes and their allied teams gathered in High Note. But where to send those teams was in question, and for that Harry wanted some input from the generals on the ground, or at least as close to that as he could get.

Instead of using any of the rooms in Camelot, Jean, with Douglas Ramsey, set up the observation and command room for this meeting. Since it already had a hard light system, the necessary communication equipment, and was going to serve as their staging ground, this made things easier. What wasn't easy was getting the various NATO generals to take 'the Phoenix' seriously in Harry's place when she refused to back down from their initial demands that she reveal herself, as Harry had months back. That took more than forty minutes and only ended when the first few reports of how badly the battles were going in Poland, China, and the Ukraine were going for the forward NATO forces.

Only Finland was fighting back at all, and they were losing ground and men, which was bad for the small northern country, although they themselves were remarkably upbeat about things. The Russians had lured a great many of the forward spotters and scouts into ambushes, using their shielded tank brigades as seemingly ripe targets to do it. It had cost them horribly, but the Russians were advancing into both Finland and around Finland into Norway. There, though, they ran into a massive fortress, a joint project between NATO, Norway, and Sweden, which was essentially a battleship-sized fortress on land with steel and stone armor fit to shrug off a nuke and several Norwegian regiments which made it their home. But elsewhere,the Russians were seemingly running roughshod over all opposition.

Watching one general after another go pale, Jean barely fought back a smirk. "I take it, gentlemen, that you have all seen at last the impact this cold front is having."

One of the American admirals, who had been glaring at his arguing fellows for a while now, nodded his head. "We have been getting those reports from the very fucking beginning, 'scuse my language, ma'am. And we haven't even seen the Russian super-powered groups in action yet save on the Chinese border, and even then it was only a glimpse. I think I speak for all of us here that we do realize we need help."

One NATO rep was going to argue, but the Finish and Polish generals glared him into silence. The American and Canadian generals also didn't look happy, but they hadn't been looking happy since this conference began. The sole British representative here, General Demontebanks, spoke up now. "I think we're all agreed on that point, yes. The question is, what is being done about this cold, and what further help can Magical Minds provide?"

"Wait, why are we talking about Magical Minds rather than the EDF?" asked one of the European reps Jean hadn't met before.

Emma's voice whispered into her mental ear. "General Konstasi, Lithuanian. They haven't been attacked yet, but they are utterly dependent on Russia for oil, which has stopped coming through the pipelines since the attack began. If Russia wants they could have the country capitulate in only a few weeks of this damned cold." Emma was feeling the cold in New York at this point and was not happy about it. "As to the man himself, he's a bit of a hack, really, and a philanderer. He also hasn't looked away from your tits and has decided that tonight's whore will have to be a redhead. Would you like me to do something about his ability to perform for that?

Could have told you that myself, love. I mean look at all those medals. The man really styles himself like a Generalissimo, doesn't he?" Jean drawled back. "And yes, please do. The idea of him even fantasizing about me at all makes me want to lobotomize him."

"Ooh, is that the hormonal imbalance talking or am I rubbing off on you?" Emma teased.

"Heh, maybe a bit of both, although as I recall it's been a while since you rubbed off on me, Ms. 'pregnancies are yuck,'" Jean shot back in possibly the dirtiest and most barbed repartee she'd yet indulged in outside of the bedroom.

Emma's astral projection doubled over in laughter and disappeared from Jean's mind. This, alas, left her dealing with Konstasi's original question, which in turn made her notice again where his eyes were, and that in turn made Jean just want to reach out with her TK powers and squish his head. Okay, so that was definitely the hormonal imbalance talking. And would be impossible too at this distance. Well…not without causing a lot of collateral damage, anyway.

Setting that pleasant image aside, Jean replied. "As to that, we have been talking with various governmental officials and representatives, and none of them agree that this is an extra-solar threat. As we do not have any proof of it being one, beyond the fact that this cold is clearly magical and they have their heads so far up their asses that they still don't like admitting magic's real, but…" Jean realized she was about to rant and paused, gathering her somewhat tattered self-control before moving on. "Anyway, the point is that the governments of the world have decided that, unless we can prove infallibly that the Russians are working with aliens, they would not look favorably on intervention by the EDF."

The Lithuanian wasn't the only one who looked pissed off at that, but Jean suddenly lost all interest in them as Pinoptes interrupted, his voice as mechanical as he could make it. No one wanted to deal with the added issue of the militaries of the world learning that Harry and company had a working AI. "Warning, multiple nuclear launches detected. Warning, multiple nuclear ICBM launches detected."

Jean turned away from the generals, waving her hands and barking out orders, "Mute all and then get me real time views of the nukes!"

With the satellites the world over acting like his own eyes, Pinoptes flared up a new series of images superimposing them to one side of where the images of the generals had congregated. Now, with all of those muted, Jean went on grimly. "Good. Thanks, Pinoptes." With the pictures' aid, Jean concentrated, and the image of the phoenix flared out around her, it's claws moving and passing through the walls of High Note once more as it had early on in the invasion of Poland.

To the people on the ground over the world over it looked as if fiery claws had just reached down from space, as had been the case earlier in Poland. They didn't burn, though, instead grabbing at the dozens of missiles which had launched from various bases in Germany, France and Italy toward Russia, these not being under Sputnik's control as the ones in Poland had been. Elsewhere, in Russia, still more missiles launched in automatic response, and even a few ICBMs came out of the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, launched at various targets on both sides as anti-missile defenses also came on line, far more dangerous defenses than had existed even a few years ago.

It was doubtful that more than one out of every five would have gotten through those defenses, but no one would ever discover that, because Jean caught them all. Oh hell, no! We'll not be having nuclear fire destroying millions of civilians whatever side they are on, thank you.

With her fiery claws grasping every nuclear missile thus far launched, Jean pulled them straight up, aiming them up into space. It was hard, a lot harder than it should have been given the raw power she had and Pinoptes continually updating the images on the screens around her. But due to her pregnancy Jean really had to force her control to keep up with the task at hand and nearly lost it several times when she had to reach down again to add still more nukes. It was hard, almost as hard as finding the Kree missiles in space had been, and draining, but she grit her teeth and bore through it.

Ironically, at that point it was mostly the allied forces launching them, not the Russians. After all, the Russians believed they had no need of nukes to take the territories they wanted and didn't want to ruin them either. There will no doubt be a lot of angry politicos out there, but I couldn't care less about that right now.

Once those nukes were in space she gathered them in one place and then somewhat gleefully tore them to pieces, leaving the warheads to gently float in space to be collected by some construction droids at a later date. Who knew, they might be useful, or at least the plutonium within them.

Once she was finished, Jean took a brief second to make certain no further nukes had been launched since she began their destruction, then turned her attention to the generals once more. She noticed idly that had taken a good hour and a half, but still more than a third of the generals and admirals remained on the line. Many of them had headpieces on their head, obviously having followed what Jean was doing while also keeping up with events at the front.

She watched them watching her for a moment, then smiled thinly as more than one of them bowed their heads slightly towards her, acknowledging both what she had just done and why. Demontebanks sent her a smile along with his nod and coughed delicately. "We were, I think, talking about what aid Magical Minds could offer without pulling in the whole EDF and making it seem as if the fleet is willing to involve itself in purely Terran affairs. But I believe that I also detected a hint of what might occur once you had incontravertable proof

"Yes, you did. Once we have the proof that the Russians are allied or being duped by an extraterrestrial threat, the EDF's charter will allow it to aid as best it can against them," Jean said, smiling at the older man gratefully, knowing he would be able to see it despite her face being covered by masks both physical and magical. "Further, Poland and the other countries we were allied with before Mr. Potter came out into the open will, by this point, have taken possession of some of our aid to them. These come in the form of high-tech weapons, particularly plasma-based weapons and gauss rifles. But we can do better than that, gentlemen." She grinned then. "How would you like to be able to bring forces directly from bases within your own countries into staging zones near the front lines?"

Moments after explaining about the doors and what they could mean, most of the generals who weren't close to the front lines broke off the communication, eager to get started in organizing their end of things. Jean then talked to the remaining generals, getting an idea of where and what kind of help they'd like to see. Done with them for the moment, Jean contacted Harry and found that he and the other magicals were now all engrossed in the magical side. The coven spell was finished and the accompanying runic arrays too. Now all of them were currently funneling the magic into the array, but the power of their opponents, who were also using some form of coven-based magic, was formidable, taking up all of their combined energy and still powering through, spreading the cold further. The effect was also spreading and now could be felt as far south as the Mediterranean according to Emma, who had been keeping Harry informed of what was going on along with Dennis.

At first the air forces of the world below the Mediterranean had been able to launch fighters and get them up into the Baltics and beyond, such as from an American carrier battle group built around two carriers operating in that theatre. Their fighters had mauled a few tank battalions moving along the opposite side of the Black Sea but had been jumped in turn by Russian fighter jets. But since then the visibility had closed in even there, and the Americans had lost practically all of their CAG (carrier air group) and were now unable to launch any more due to the fog. The Turks, who had joined with the American forces, had lost hundreds of planes as well, and so had the Russians. But it was clear the Russians had won that engagement.

But the admiral in charge of the fleet there had proven to be something of an inspired choice. He talked directly to his opposite numbers in the Turkish military and was currently disgorging all of his fleet's marines to join a large army of Turks who were preparing to face any attack coming in through Georgia. He also reported that he would then be taking his fleet into the Black Sea to link up with Turkey's fleet there to defend against any further attacks, though how effective they would be once the Black Sea began to freeze was anyone's guess.

With her connection to Harry fully opened, Jean let him speak to Cyclops and the other team leads who had gathered, including Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, who had joined her in the communications room. The rest of the hero teams were all mingling with one another in High Note's jungle, ready to split up into teams. All of them looked up as several hard light screens appeared in the air above their heads.

The only ones missing were Ghigau, Mystique, Morph, the team watching them, and those who were working with Harry at the moment. Heck, even Polaris had been asked to join in, though she had only done so under protest and pouted up at Jean's face in real irritation. Lorna felt she'd had enough combat to last her a lifetime already. Havok was there too and eager to get it stuck in even if he was shooting Lorna a few 'lost puppy' looks, which the green-haired woman was ignoring. Captain Britain was also there, dressed in his own Union Jack-like uniform.

With them were Hawkeye, who had willingly come out of retirement, E, Lance Alvers, Natasha Romanov, and the man Steve had introduced to Harry weeks back, Sam Wilson. He and the Black Widow both wore combat suits designed by Jean and Carol. The Black Widow's looked something like Carol's own Uzume outfit, but with a few special weapons and tools added to go with her Black Widow theme and preference for close combat. Sam's was a bulkier version with heavily reinforced shoulder mounts for missiles, a gauss rifle, and twin plasma pistols at his hip, along with a jetpack that Jean had devised by talking to the former villain—now prisoner—Vulture. He had even chosen a code name: the Falcon.

Iron Man was not there. Tony Stark had instead volunteered to lead the logistics aspect, bringing more material to the front in more traditional ways.

"All right, boys and girls, we're going in," Jean said, before scowling and going on more tartly. "Or rather, you all are." There were more than one audible *phew* of relief at that, and she glared around the room and into the pickup. "Does anyone want to say anything!?"

They all twitched, and more than one person both within the room and in the jungle backed away rapidly, and she nodded grimly. "Good. Don't piss off the pregnant woman, gentlemen. It never ends well. So here is what we're going to do. According to Emma, Dr. Doom says he can basically handle the thrust into the Ukraine entirely on his own. NATO in Poland and the Polish regular army are getting massacred, though. They were not ready for this. They barely had more than half of their winter gear on site, and, even if they had, most of those units are American and Western European. Only the units from Germany are at all prepared for this kind of fight, and they are scattered to hell and back, many of them having fallen back into national lines rather than remaining under NATO's command structure."

She turned to look at the star-spangled adventurer steadily. "Steve, Harry thinks we'll need you and your team there, a team of fast moving ex-military sorts, the kind of people that can work with those already on the ground and do it well. I'll also add that anyone who can speak Polish should also be included. But not yet."

Steve made to object, but Jean held up a hand. "At this point, even if you went in, that front's way too wide to make any significant headway just yet. You'll need to wait until the reinforcements are ready, then we'll send you in first to start building up some points of resistance." Steve grimaced, but knowing the size of Poland couldn't argue, and Jean turned to the pickup into the jungle. "Before that, Lorna, Rogue?"

The two women blinked, then stared at one another and then through the pickup at Jean. "Yeah, Red?" Rogue asked.

"You two are our fastest remaining flyers, and you're both heavy hitters too. I think you can do more to muddle the Russians plans in Poland at the moment than anything else. Lorna, your power alone can start dealing with the enemy's overwhelming advantage in tanks. Steve, Lorna will eventually see to your transportation too if I'm busy with something."

"Can I put my team together now?" Steve asked.

Jean nodded, and he chose the Black Widow, Husk, Carol, and Nikolai, both of whom spoke Polish, and for heavy hitting he asked to take Paige and E with him. He loaned out the Falcon to the Custodes in return for taking Paige.

"Good, solid choices," Jean said with a nod, turning to the others as Thunderbird nodded grimly, moving to stand with the others. "Scott, the X-Men are going to be sent in to help along the Finnish front, specifically the center of their lines, generally speaking." She paused as Harry relayed more information to her, the image of three house elves holding a large map in front of him and Dennis's voice in his ear coming to her for a moment, overwhelming her own physical senses before she could shake it off. "It's mostly irregular country up there—mountains, lots of woods—but they seem to have thrown in a lot of their better units up there too, and those include a lot of tanks and at least a few sightings of mutant-type special forces."

"What about Kazakhstan?" Steve asked, looking at the map that was on one side of the communication as his team gathered from out of the crowd. He would also be taking in Wolverine and his daughter, Laura, there. Given the terrain and the size of the area they would have to cover, that just made sense to everyone.

"Officially Kazakhstan is not even remotely allied to us and, in point of fact, was screaming that it will deal with the Russian infidels on its own. Unofficially, we're watching closely," Emma said as she came through the doors to one side. "They don't like mutants there any more than they do in Russia, and we've been dying for an excuse to get involved there openly. I know Wendy and her team have gone in there numerous times."

"Still, why is the Mole Man involved in this at all?" Scott muttered, looking over to Reed.

Reed stood up and moved to stand next to Jean. He briefly explained about the background of the Mole Man and the previous fights that the Fantastic Four had had with him. "I feel we should be the ones to handle that front." Next to him the Thing and the Human Torch both nodded. Even Susan's stand in, Thundra, also looked interested in that idea.

After a brief second communing with Harry, Jean nodded. "Do it."

"What about the Custodes?" Piotr asked, crossing his arms over the Juggernaut armor he was currently wearing, which was somewhat loose on him thanks to his being in his unarmored form. "Where should we go?"

He exchanged a glance with Nikolai and Laynia, though the girl didn't meet his gaze, simply glaring at the map with fury in her eyes. Nikolai, though, despite being estranged from his country, was as much a Russian patriot as Piotr was, and both of them felt almost physical pain at what their country was being duped into or convinced in some manner to do by those in power. Will it be worth it? No, he thought to himself grimly. Now it will not be worth it. I will make certain that my fellow Russians realize the folly of this.

"The Custodes are going to be severely under strength for a bit, with my condition and Ororo and Harry involved in pushing back this cold front. However, we've already asked the Chinese if they want some help on their end, and they've said yes. That's where you'll get involved. Amara, you're team lead."

The neo-Greek national straightened her shoulders and nodded grimly as Jean continued, looking over at one of the heroes in the jungle who wasn't allied with the Custodes before this. "Captain Britain, you'll be going in with the forces down in Georgia along with Falcon. You'll be alone for now, but your flying abilities should let you cover the whole front, and when Steve can move into Poland, we might be able to switch Rogue and Polaris down to join you. We hope that the skies will remain clearer down near the equator for longer than the rest of the fronts."

"Rather far from my normal stopping grounds, don't you know," the British nobleman said with a chuckle, but he nodded as did the American born African-American paratrooper. "Agreed."

"What about Genosha?" Scott asked. "What are we doing there? That looks to be a pure mutant/anti-mutant fight."

"Morph and Mystique are already there, and Banshee and his team are watching, waiting for a chance to call in reinforcements." Jean sighed. "We can't be everywhere no matter how hard we try, but I think that for now Russia's the biggest threat. If only because their war machine's going to be killing a lot more people than even live in Genosha."

Scott winced but couldn't argue the point, and they all nodded, the meeting breaking up a moment later. With High Note already above Eastern Europe, Steve's team would be first to be let off, with Polaris seeing them down to the ground. After that they would move over Finland, using primitive dropships that would just go basically straight down like a brick. They would have to abandon ship, but it would at least help them make a good first impression.

This left Douglas, Jean, and Emma alone, though of course Pinoptes was still paying attention. "Pinoptes, how many attempts to hack us have you stopped since the events in Genosha came to a head?" Jean asked.

"Several hundred. The mutant who is able to transfer his body into electronic form is persistent, but he cannot overcome my home field advantage, as it were," Pinoptes replied.

"That's not fun," Jean groused.

"Actually I think it means that while Genosha might be a trap designed to get rid of our Harry and the Custodes, Sinister knows he won't catch you there. That means we might be able to reverse a trap on them," Emma mused with a smirk. "Let me go talk to Xavier about the image inducer Kurt still uses while in public. If I can borrow it, and you for a bit, Douglas, I think we might be able to nip these attempts to kidnap you in the bud."

OOOOOOO

The first group of the Custodes Mundi to get involved in events were the X-men, something that Cyclops was rather proud of despite the means of their arrival. The makeshift dropship that they were in was nothing more than a large box which would never have been able to fly if not for Phoenix basically lowering them down halfway, then letting them go It wasn't as if they could control it very much—it had all the aerodynamics of a brick—but that was fine with Scott. "X-Men, is everyone ready?"

Warpath, Wolverine, Laura, Spyke, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Laynia, Avalanche—seconded to them for the duration of hostilities—and Havok all answered in the affirmative, if a little angrily in his brother's case. Alex had been in a right snit ever since Lorna had broken up with him, and the fact that no one had let him go with her into Poland, instead sending another flyer in the form of Rogue, had put him in an even worse mood.

They all answered in the affirmative, and, at Cyclops's nod, Warpath threw the heavy duty door open, as the dropship was still 150 feet off the ground. Since it was going to hit like a very large artillery shell, it was more imperative that they not be within it than anything else. That, and Cyclops had taken advantage both of that fact and that the X-men had been given access to all the Custodes goodies for a few months now.

"Go, go, go!" Cyclops roared. With that he leaped out, activating a small hover board that Carol had devised based upon the small-scale hover technology in Dani's boots. Behind him the others came, only Warpath and Thunderbird not bothering with the hover boards, instead just leaping out.

"Let's get it on!" Thunderbird roared, flaring his hands out to either side to slow his descent and then pulling a giant cannon off his back firing into the giant fucking marching army below them. That army was already scattering, but they had been clumped up here on a road through North Karelia, the easiest route for an invading army from Russia to get deep, seemingly into Finland. They had not been having an easy time of it, and that was going to get far worse right now, much further back from the front than the Russians had thought they had to worry about attacks.

Scott flipped open his visor to the widest setting he could and blasted down at a few tanks at what he felt was the outer edge of the blast radius. Six of them were blasted into pieces, crushed under the weight of his blast, and then Warpath hit more on the other side of the formation, with Thunderbird slamming down an instant later. Warpath missed his landing, slamming into and down into the rock below, but still grabbed and lifted the tank he'd been aiming for, hurling it towards another one. Thunderbird hit his target and tore the gun right off it even as his weight pushed it down, its treads shattering. A second later Thunderbird grabbed the turret, getting his feet under him and ripping it off before tossing it into another tank. Then he and his brother moved as one, massive war hatchets or knives in their hands, which cut through the tanks like they were paper. The two of them roared an Apache war cry, and then raced forward into the retreating tanks and away from the 'drop site.'

Before Cyclops and the others landed the dropship they'd just evacuated hit with a monstrous boom. Cyclops heard screams and cries for a second before all was noise and wind, and he clung for dear life to his hover board even as he heard Spyke shouting, "Oh my God, this ride is awesome! I have got to get me one of these!"

"I want to get a T-shirt. It will read, 'You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.' It will be the most fucking self-descriptive thing I have ever owned," Iceman muttered, clinging like grim death to his own hover board, using his ice powers to practically mold himself to it.

Laura was of the same mind as Spyke, as was Nightcrawler. Both of them were whooping in joy. Her father had abandoned his hover board to just drop, letting the wind of the implosion hurl him every which way, trusting to his healing factor and durability. Laynia, or Darkstar, had no need of a board and had simply flown high enough to avoid the event, then, as the winds and snow had been blown away, dropped back down until she could see once more, whereupon she started to attack her former countrymen with a viciousness that was slightly worrying to Cyclops as he began to take in his surroundings once more.

More importantly, the army, for that was the nature of the force below them, had been warned of the incoming dropship, but it had still gutted the force. Now to capitalize, Cyclops thought grimly. "Sound off, everybody, and then get it stuck in!"

"Wahoo!" Laura shouted, racing past Cyclops as he halted in midair, leaping down and onto a truck which had miraculously not been overturned, leaping in and finishing off the dazed and confused Russians within. Nightcrawler just bamfed straight down, lashing out with two pistols first and then switching to sword and machine gun a second later. He had grabbed those goodies at the same time Cyclops had grabbed the hover boards. Spyke too had grabbed weapons, adding to his long range firepower.

Havok was the last to sound off, and Cyclops made a note to talk to his brother again. There was a time and place for anger and being a lovesick puppy, and this was not it. Still, he joined the fight readily enough, his energy blasts cutting through a large group of infantry, hurling them every which way.

A second later the other X-Men arrived. As they did, Scott settled down onto the ground and continued to fire out blasts of his from his eyes even as he clicked on his headset and began to search through frequencies for the locals. Iceman proved that he had not only matured enough to be on the combat team but that sending him into Finland had been a masterful move, burying whole companies who had survived the impact. Above them Laynia rained down fire, cursing her target in a stream of vituperative Russian, her voice set on 'Howl'.

When he found the correct frequency, he began to speak, hoping they understood English, because he didn't speak Finnish, and none of them had thought to think about translations and the need for them when they began this party, unlike Steve. Crap, need to think about that in the future. "To the defenders of Finland, this is Cyclops of the X-men; we're here to help. Tie us into the local net. I think you're going to really like our opening shot in this war. Repeat, this is Cyclops of the Custodes Mundi, X-Men branch. We're here to help."

OOOOOOO

The sudden arrival of three Titanium men had proven to be the turning point on the Chinese front. Before they had shown up the Chinese had been willing to pay at a scale of three to one to try and push the Russians back, but when they showed up on the second day of combat that stopped very quickly. Nothing the Chinese had nearby or could get into the area could halt either one of those monstrous leviathans of man-shaped metal. They flew, or rather, jumped vast distances given the crudity of their rocket packs and arrived at the front, blasting through the best Chinese tanks, Major Li Qu's Huoyan-shetou, with an ease that was appalling, their titanium bodies completely immune to the energy weapons. Their own weapons, Gatling guns and lightning cannons, scythed through the Chinese tanks. At times they even closed and tore the defenders apart with their bare hands. Now the entire Northern Theatre command was in retreat, having moved all they could into the area and failing to stop the Russian advance.

That advance halted very abruptly as Colossus, Psylocke, Cannonball, and Magma, along with the armor clad Coyote (Wyatt Wingfoot), arrived on the scene. Though, they didn't arrive as precipitously as the X-men did, being carried nearly all the way down by Phoenix's TK powers rather than just halfway.

"Cannonball, Colossus, take out the Titanium Men," Magma ordered, her form shifting into her tectonic energy form as she spoke while her lover shifted into his Colossus form. "I'll concentrate on the advancing infantry, and between us, Coyote and I will take the tanks; aim for the biggest ones first. Psylocke, it would be a help if you could find some officer to telepathically interrogate. I find myself curious, and the bosses would no doubt like to know more about why the Russians want to make war on so many fronts at once."

"A most excellent management of resources, dorogoy (Darling). Never fear, we will do our part," Colossus said. They continued to fly quickly through heavy white clouds and snow for a bit, then visibility grew again and they saw the enemy below them. A second later Phoenix's TK grip, which had been guiding them all down in a small shield of air, dissipated from around them with a startling suddenness.

Of course the two Titanium man saw them coming and opened fire immediately with lightning blasts and Gatling guns. Cannonball was immune, his shield in place the instant he started moving. They might have hurt Coyote, but he had started teleporting downwards in short jumps. Psylocke was on Cannonball's back for now, putting him between her and the anti-air fire.

And as for Colossus, well, while the Titanium men had proved to be juggernauts in comparison to the Chinese armor, Colossus was actually wearing the armor of the Juggernaut over his own steel clad skin. He simply took their best shots and kept falling straight towards them, pulling out a gun of his own.

It was a short barreled plasma weapon of a very ugly, utilitarian design, a one-shot device that none of the other Custodes with him could even lift. It was something that Jean had come up with for Allied tanks, something smaller than the ones the Kree used, but the energy requirements were still exorbitant, and no one could lift the weapon itself and the additional rechargeable power pack. But Colossus didn't care so much that it would be useless after one shot so long as he could make that one shot count.

The Titanium man he aimed for ducked to one side as a beam of plasma, an angry orange, red, and blue, flashed through where his torso had been a second ago. Just because I'm in armor doesn't mean I'm stupid! he thought to himself. But then Colossus was on him, bouncing up off of the man's side and leaping sideways to crash with thunderous force into the second Titanium man, bearing him to the earth. "Let us see if your titanium can match my steel, comrade," Colossus said as he began to pummel the downed Titanium man, taking a few punches in turn, but the man's weapons were negated by how close they were.

The one he'd used as a springboard growled angrily and pushed himself to his feet, racing over to grab at Colossus, forgetting his own weapons for now as they had been useless against the armored mutant before this. Colossus turned and grabbed his arm in turn and then flipped himself back and up over the man before locking in a hold from sambo. The man grimaced as he could hear the armor of his suit beginning to creak, the servos whining, and thrust himself backward with his boosters, slamming Colossus down into the ground, trying to make him let go.

Nearby the last of the Three Titanium Men finished tearing his way out of Chinese tank and aimed his Gatling gun towards Coyote, who had just finished bounce-teleporting down. A sudden flare of near-searing heat on his leg though, caused him to glance down, and he saw that his foot had been hit by what looked like a ball of magma that was currently doing what the laser weapons of the Huoyan-shetou had been unable to do: burn through his armor, if very slowly.

"GAH!" Seeing a large blob of magma on your foot would make anyone react poorly, and the man hopped in one place, trying to kick the blob off while his armored foot heated to an incredible degree for a few minutes. A second later he was flattened by Cannonball smashing into him like, yes, a cannonball, hurling him up and away. "Fuck you, Amirikanski!" the man shouted, blasting his Tesla cannon point blank at Cannonball's seemingly exposed face. But the attack did nothing, and the next second they were plowing through several Russian tanks.

While the three Titanium Men were being occupied, Coyote started to pop around the place, firing his rifle. Magma slammed her hands down on the ground, and the earth started to tremble, throwing the Russian soldiers off their feet.

The Chinese, who had been in complete retreat before this, turned now and reengaged. Their tanks had been mauled, but the infantry, for all that they were using antiquated weapons and didn't have nearly the covering they needed to weather the current cold or the boots to weather the snow, still had the numbers and a will.

When they came close Magma had to stop her earthquake based attack. Instead she and Coyote turned their attention to the remaining Russian tanks as they tried to open the range on them. Neither let that happen, and one after another the tanks ceased moving, falling to Magma's tectonic energy and magma balls or Coyote's expertly placed gauss rifle rounds, which targeted their treads and down the barrels of their main guns. He could have been doing more damage if he used the magical enhancement on the rifle, but there was no need right now. Once the tanks were stopped in place, their main guns ruined or shattered by their own shells going off mid-fire, the Chinese could handle them.

"Damn you! You are Russian! Why do you fight for the yellow devils!?" the Titanium Man currently trying desperately to throw off Colossus's perfect submission hold shouted over his speakers.

"I do not fight for the Chinese; I fight for the right thing. What is going on here?! What has happened to Mother Russia that you suddenly think we need more space, of all things? Why, just why!?" Colossus shouted back before grimacing as a punch from the other Titanium Man caught him in the face. He stumbled slightly, and the man's Tesla cannon fired point blank, blinding Colossus momentarily, though the Juggernaut armor protected him even more than his own steel skin would have.

Still, he stumbled back just enough for the man he'd been trying to tear the head off of to throw him over his shoulders to slam into the ground, where he dodged a foot aimed to stomp on his head. He grabbed the foot and the knee of that boot and then began to twist until he was kicked in the side from the second Titanium man. That one now shot out wires which wrapped around Colossus's forearm and then spun, hurling him through the air. Yet even as he crashed to the snow-covered ground, Colossus was rolling, twisting, and coming back into a charge.

The two Titanium Men began to work together at that point, but Colossus was still pretty much immune to whatever they could do to him. The two of them were beginning to get desperate to figure out some way to put the mutant down when they heard something over their radios and quickly broke off, retreating to join the rest of the fleeing infantry and few remaining tanks.

Blinking, Colossus looked at their retreating backs. "Was it something I said?"

Magma made her way over the kicked up snow and ground of the battlefield toward her lover, looking around quizzically. "That did seem a bit faster than I expected. I wonder why?" With that in mind, she tapped her combead, looking around thoughtfully. "Psylocke?"

"I'm here, moving back to you from your left and front. I know why they're retreating, though, and I think we might need to look into getting out of here as soon as the Chinese have solidified their front," the purple-haired woman said as she moved over the ground between them, having used her powers liberally both to disappear to the minds of those around her and to probe those minds to see their secrets. "This whole attack on China was something of a feint. We've been suckered in!"

But in that first week of the war, the Russians weren't the only ones with surprises.

OOOOOOO

"And Mystique is sure it's Sinister?" Harry asked with a grunt audible even in his mental voice, somewhat surprising to Jean. But, given the strain Harry was under, carrying on this conversation while also pouring forth his magical power into the coven spell to try and stop the cold front from expanding further, it was a wonder he could complete a sentence in the first place.

"That's what she says. I believe her. Sinister wants to be on hand in Genosha whatever happens, and I think that he believes he can personally add something to his trap for us. Although if that trap is supposed to kill you all or trap me, there's no way of knowing, Jean replied, her telepathic projection literally vibrating with eagerness to get join the conflict, but Jean knew that that just wasn't going to happen, and she wasn't in any rush to put her unborn children in danger at this point either.

Harry couldn't even nod, but the impression of his affirmative response still carried over through their connection, and he turned his mental attention to Emma's avatar. Like Jean's fiery form, the cold clear crystal of Emma stood in the mental representation of his mind, brought there by her own mental connection to the two of them. While Jean's astral form looked a little diffuse since she was also checking up on the teams in the field, the ongoing logistics issues, and trying to organize more of a defense in Georgia and Azerbaijan against what looked to be a major thrust across the now frozen Caspian Sea, Emma's was firm and unyielding as she gave her full attention to this conversation. "And you're certain you neutralized that one asshole who was coming after Jean?"

"Oh, I am more than certain," Emma said with a chill little smile. "Jean might have reacted telekinetically to his assault. Let's see if his brain waves are immune to my powers. I'd wager the outcome will not be what he wants."

"I can't say I'm particularly happy about my image being used as bait, but I suppose that would make for a very silly argument," Jean groused, only half in jest.

"Yes, it would," said both her lovers.

Jean mock-pouted before smirking at Harry. "So, what do you want us to do?"

"Make certain he stays in Genosha." Harry said with a growl, perspiration appearing on his face in the physical world but continuing the mental conversation. "Put up an interdiction field around the entire bleeding place via technological means if you can!"

"Is that even possible?" Emma asked.

"It's possible," Harry said with a grunt. "Talk to Reed, or, better yet, get E back out of the fight at the front. Have him talk to the Black Panther about it. Between the two of them they should be able to put up something. And don't tell me the Americans don't have a fleet already moving to interdict Genosha."

"So we have permission to move forward with operation Bait and Switch?" Emma asked, gleefully.

Harry's astral projection visibly nodded at that, then Harry nearly lost his concentration on the coven spell as Emma's astral form kissed his own ardently before disappearing with a faint pop from his mind. He blinked then as Jean laughed and fumbled with the spell, grousing about sexy blondes and their inability to know what the phrase 'appropriate time' meant.

OOOOOOO

"Are you telling me that this rifle is supposed to put a round through a tank?" said the young man, disbelieving.

"Don't believe me, why don't we go out and try it? Honestly, would I be using one if I didn't believe this weapon would deliver, ey?" said the Canadian. "Why would I be out here hunting tanks with it? You think I got a death wish, ey?"

"Because you're suicidal," said the Finnish officer with a light chuckle, his mouth, and breath, invisible from under his head covering. They were hidden behind several dozen downed trees as groups of Russian infantry passed by them on skis. The Russians had quickly gotten over the fact that their initial massive blitzkrieg-like push had failed in Finland and had settled down into something of a slog far too quickly for the Finns liking. The Russians had then begun to split up their larger tank battalions into smaller squads, the better to reinforce their infantry, while the infantry dueled with the Finnish infantry and the scattered NATO forces.

The NATO forces, never that large in Finland since it had only recently become a member, had been in a complete rout since that initial blitzkrieg. Like the forces in Poland, they had been stationed too close to the border for where the Russians had truly begun to move.

But the Canadians who had begun to arrive in regiment sized blocks had stiffened the resistance very well and slowly began to encircle and wipe out smaller detached units of the Russians which had pushed forward deeper into Finland than the scattered Mannerheim fortresses.

The tanks, however, were still giving the Finns fits, though. The new hover tanks, those which had shielding and those which didn't, were just damned difficult to destroy. The small ones were very fast, despite the terrain, and the shielded tanks were able to shrug off anything beyond an on target shot from one of the fortresses' big guns the Finns had before this. And their accompanied artillery units, mortar teams and larger, were nothing to sneeze at either.

But the weapons that were finally getting to the front might well serve to push the Russians back conclusively.

The two men fell silent, staying still with the expertise of trained snipers as the snow continued to fall around them. They stayed still as three small hover tanks came through the woods, smashing trees down as they went, while behind those three one of the larger shielded varieties covered them with their heavier guns, the shield around it buzzing as the snow from on high drifted down onto it. And around both units,there looked to be about a full platoon of Russian infantry on skis, with more covering the rear.

The numbers, though, didn't scare the defenders. That had always been the way with the Russians. They could simply throw in more men than any other nation they'd ever fought could. That didn't mean they had a qualitative superiority, though, and the Finns were always eager to prove that point.

From the nearby woodlands came the crack of rifles followed by the louder plasma bolts, stitching up the incoming infantry from that side. This was followed swiftly by two of the tanks turning in that direction. Two squads of infantry also turned in that direction, firing back blindly for now while spreading out, trying to find the enemy.

The Canadian looked down the barrel of his rifle and firing into the banked back of the shield using tank. At that signal four more rifles all spoke as one, plasma weapons, peppering the shield at that specific point. The shield shrugged them off but then exploded as a man with a bazooka opened up from the other side. That was one of the weaknesses of the shields the Russian tanks could use: while it was on standby it had a limited amount of energy and did not do well when attacked from two directions at once with enough energy. And the Russians could not run them at full power all the time; they had to keep them on standby the majority of the time they were moving.

Now the tanks all broke away from one another, pushing deeper into the woods while the shield tank backed away, the infantry moving around it and outward to protect it, firing blindly into the woods. But the shield tank, while important, had not been the target of this attack.

Nearby the Finnish man shook his head and muttered a prayer to God that this would work and then pointed his own rifle at one of the smaller tanks. This one was currently chewing up the ground nearby, trying to kill the Canadians who'd already opened fire with scant success since they had already retreated. It was a very stupid infantryman who stayed put when a tank was looking for them.

His gauss rifle shot fired with a "Whoom-whunk' sort of sound, and he watched in shock as the tiny depleted uranium slug slammed into and through the cupola of the tank, killing the gunner instantly, and the Finnish man looked down at his rifle with renewed respects. "Not much stopping power but a lot of penetrating power," he said conversationally even as he hopped to his feet and ducked behind a tree before rushing away through the woods. "That was fun."

"Good, and it's about to get more fun!" his companion said, pointing to one side.

Laura and Nightcrawler were hiding there, and they flashed grins at the locals before disappearing, reappearing in the center of the largest group of charging Russians. Yes, the Finn reflected, it was both a good day and a good day to have friends. Pity the Russians don't have any.

Elsewhere the efforts of Magical Minds were also being felt. But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

OOOOOOO

Vindicator, the former leader of the now-defunct Alpha Flight, smiled and shook hands with Phoenix as, behind her, a large stone doorway was being set up in the center of a long runway. A small shiver of pride went through him as he looked around the military base outside Ontario as men moved out of their barracks and fell in for inspection, full winter camo gear on every soldier. While America began flexing its industrial muscle and preparing heavy duty winter gear, its own winter gear having been proven inadequate to the cold temperature being felt in Eastern and Northern Europe, the Canadians had shown that their gear was up to snuff, as well as their training, although it had taken days for them to be convinced of the necessity of working with Harry's Magical Minds group this closely and still more to organize their end of things. Still, whatever cold this was, they could deal with it, and thus they became the first NATO nation Jean had contacted about moving more troops into the combat zones.

"How bad is it?" Vindicator asked in a low voice as, around them, the men began to form up. To one side a young blonde-haired man he hadn't previously met was working on something on a computer, his back to Vanguard and Phoenix. It looked like some kind of logistics form, which made sense to Vindicator.

Phoenix grimaced. "Bad," she said simply, nodding and waving as a truck pulled up to one side. "The Fins are falling back to what they call the New Mannerheim line, but they lost a lot of soldiers defending their civilian evacuations. The Russians have since brought up lots and lots of well-trained infantry, and the fighting is getting nasty. The thrust into Poland has yet to stop, though Rogue and Polaris are doing what they can. The Russians are also still pushing into Ukraine and have already forced Estonia to capitulate. The Fantastic Four are on the ground in Kazakhstan but are having a lot of trouble getting through the terrain against the Subterraneans. Odd thing, though: from what Reed said the Mole Man should have retreated underground and let his troops fight it out or retreat with him underground where they could fight better. But they haven't."

Vindicator frowned, something about Phoenix's words confusing him for a moment, but he shrugged it off, turning to salute the general of the base as he hopped out of his jeep. "Sir, may I introduce Phoenix, a field commander of the Custodes Mundi and one of the four highest officers of Magical Minds." He turned back to look at Phoenix quizzically. "Have you decided on a name for your nation or whatever it is by this point?"

"Ahh, no. It's not exactly in our top ten at this point. We'll probably have everything else set up for the Nation then have a vote about it or something silly like that," Phoenix replied as she looked over the runic doorway as it activated, creating a brief shimmer in the air which disappeared quickly. As did the house elves who had done the activation. With none of the magic users able to get away, it fell on the house elves to do it, although she knew it exhausted them for some reason.

Kitty and Harry had long created a reserve of the runic doorways to be used in an emergency. This wasn't precisely what they had had in mind, although Harry had been thinking about it for a while now, ever since he'd seen a report from Dennis about the kind of weapons that Russia was beginning to arm its latest tanks with. So they were now using them to ferry troopers to a base in Finland, one near the city of Lahti. The Canadians, with their winter warfare expertise, would fit in very well with the Finns, who had already begun to rearm their reserves, Finland having mandatory military service, with the weapons Magical Minds had been stockpiling for this moment.

That didn't mean that everyone had truly understood what was going on here, as espoused by the Canadian captain in front of Phoenix at the moment. His face was suffused with red, but underneath that the woman felt that this was a man who rarely if ever smiled and did not do well with surprises of any sort. "So let me get this straight, I'm supposed to take my entire company through this doorway, and…we'll be somewhere else on the other side? Despite the fact I can actually see the other side, sir, are you out of your mind, or is this just some weird joke?" The way the man said the word joke make it sound almost like an epithet.

"That was borderline insubordinate, Captain Frederiks," said General Carmichael from where he had just shook hands with Phoenix and Vindicator, smirking just slightly at the man's red face. "But I will let it slide for now. Suffice to say that this is going to work. I've already been through one of these doors myself not all that long ago." Carmichael had not been chosen out of a hat for this. He had been first recommended by Vindicator, then had been among the Canadian officers brought up to see Fortress Mars.

"Unless you really think that you can do more good for the war effort cooling your heels on this here base than…where was it again, my dear?" he asked, turning to look at Phoenix. He knew, of course, but he wanted it said aloud for the benefit of the captain and the other officers gathered around them.

"The doorway is linked to one of the Finnish bases," she said. "The war in Finland has become one of small to medium unit combat, fast movement over hard terrain and a lot of artillery. The Russians have seemingly pulled back their tanks entirely by this point. The Ukraine front and Poland are both still very much a war of movement, or, should I say, a war of one side moving, and the other side running the hell away as best it can, dominated by the Russian tanks."

Her acerbic tone came over quite clearly, and the captain growled irritably. "Okay, I still don't get what the door is about, though. How can it…"

"Magic," Phoenix said sharply. "Believe it or not, it's magic, but even so we don't have time to spare on this, so could we get a move on, please?"

The captain scoffed, shaking his head and turning to his commanding officers. "You honestly can't think that whole thing about Harry Potter being a wizard is the truth, can you, sir! He's just another kind of mutant, that's all."

Phoenix looked at him and then over at the colonel who had chosen the captain to be the first one through the doorway. "Colonel," she said pleasantly, "you had, what, three hours to find a perfect candidate to lead the first company through these doors, and this is the best you can come up with? Either the efficiency of the Canadian Army has been greatly exaggerated, or you're trying to prove a point. Which is it?"

"Let's just say that the good captain has been a little too vocal about certain anti-mutant propaganda being taken as fact." The colonel was a large, only slightly overweight man, and he now began almost glaring at his somewhat shorter subordinate, who actually quailed a little.

Still, he replied gamely. "Sir," he said stiffly, "I'm well within my rights as an individual to have a personal opinion."

"Have them, yes. Voice them when you are a serving officer, no. Not when they get in the way of your duty to your nation or to the allies of that nation. Get a move on, Captain. You have precisely five minutes to get your company through that doorway, or else I'll be talking to your replacement," the colonel said, smiling thinly.

The man continued to sputter for a moment, and then Phoenix looked at her watch pointedly. "Four minutes, twenty seconds now," she said with a smirk.

As the man now raced off, the colonel turned to his general and the two super-powered heroes. "He really is the best to push through. Not very aggressive, but damn good at organizing. He'll set up a receiving line over there, have the weapon switch out organized and transportation to the front too. He even speaks Finnish; did a stint with some of their units in a peacekeeping operation a few months back. But damn is the man inflexible."

With that he saluted and marched off, leading a few other officers away to get the rest of his forces ready. The general watched for a few minutes as the first men moved towards the doorway, their faces saying they thought this was some kind of hazing the general was forcing them to do before they disappeared from Canadian soil to reappear at the chosen destination. With that Carmichael nodded and moved off, leading his aides back over to their jeep. They had more work to do, after all.

Just as the first company of infantry began to move through the now glowing doorway, the young man to one side that the Canadians had not been introduced to shouted for Phoenix's attention. "Here he comes!"

Douglas Ramsay was an omni-linguist. He could, thanks to his mutant power, speak any language he had heard even once, write any language he had read even once, perfectly. He could even use it to understand computer code, and this was what he was doing now. The mutant who could pass through cybernetic media couldn't do so without creating a kind of 'wave' in the code that Douglas could, with his ability, see coming. Pinoptes had been the first to realize this, the 'wave' only being visible to him at first since he too rode the code of the computers he was connected to. Once it was pointed out to him, though, Douglas could see it, almost like he could understand someone speaking English with a heavy Scottish brogue.

"Thank you, Douglas. I was wondering why I was detecting a female mind from a piece of grass over there that didn't seem to have anyone actually standing there," Phoenix said, her tone shifting into that of an entirely different woman. She turned in that direction just as something blasted out of the grass towards her. Vindicator thought that the girl suddenly visible there flying towards them like a tiny rocket greatly resembled Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

The young woman flying like a large bullet towards Phoenix was codenamed Thumbelina by her fellows among the Mutant Liberation Front. She was often looked down on for her mutation, which allowed her to shrink while also magnifying her strength, and her lack of endurance. She could sneak around extremely well thanks to that mutation, and she had been working with Pipeline, a fellow MLF member, the same one who had failed before.

They weren't alone, though. There were two more. The side of the nearest hanger-bay exploded outward, and a large mutant who stood as tall as Colossus rushed towards them. Behind him a fog began to grow out of the buildings shattered wall, door and windows, swiftly moving outward.

The nearby infantry reacted, of course. They took the man under fire and pulled away, but the man just grunted, taking the shots as his skin seemed to change in appearance, his weight seemingly increasing at the same time, his feet leaving indents in the concrete as he rushed forward. They also fell back from the mist, because they were not stupid and had been trained in gas warfare.

Unfortunately for all these attackers they were not facing Phoenix, her telepathic powers now nearly uncontrolled, nor was this attack a surprise. Rather, they had fallen into a trap.

As Vindicator blasted out an energy bolt form his hands towards the incoming mutant and rushed forward to meet him, he saw Phoenix fade out of existence just as the screen the blonde teen had been working on glowed. A man appeared there, leaping over the boy and reaching for her even as the image of Phoenix faded.

The woman, a blonde woman, stood there instead. She was somewhat shorter than Phoenix and wore a white outfit that left her shoulders bare but nothing else, and, before the man could touch her, he just collapsed, like a puppet with his strings cut. A second later his eyes rolled back and she turned, her hand flashing out. A visible blade of some kind of energy flashed out from her forehead along the line her fingers were pointing. The energy intercepted the Tinkerbell look alike, and she screamed, falling out of the sky.

Before the young woman with fairy wings could hit the ground, Douglas caught her, holding her gently, while Diamond reached out telepathically, shutting the young woman's mind down despite what looked like some kind of electronic defense against her power.

"Shit!" The large man who had been rushing towards her backed away now, turning and running away, but with an eye-roll Diamond reached out almost gently and just…cut the connection between his brain and his body telepathically. The man fell, and she turned, frowning as she looked through the mist. "Hmm, interesting. That mist seems able to somehow block my ability to find the individual behind it. GAH!"

She flinched back as a nearby machine gun on a jeep opened fire into the building. A squad then moved in under that cover, moving into the building. A series of shouts and shots rang out, and the mist abruptly began to break up.

Vindicator huffed. "Damn, but that was rather scarily impressive and somewhat off-putting. I thought I was supposed to be the surprise here. And who exactly are you, miss, and what was this about? Some Russian Force trying to disrupt our reinforcement operation?"

"Call me Diamond. I'm not normally a field member, but with Phoenix indisposed, I stepped into her shoes," Emma Frost replied. "A quick question, can you hold these young people? I imagine they are part of the Mutant Liberation Front, not a Russian force."

"And why do you think that?" the general asked. He had ducked for cover behind his jeep, watching as Diamond dealt with her attackers. He too had been somewhat terrified by the ease with which the woman, some kind of telepath, perhaps, had dealt with the attack and wondered if there was any kind of defense against that. Still, she's on our side at the moment; that's a question for later.

Smiling thinly at the general's surface thoughts, Diamond replied to the question he had actually voiced. "Phoenix has dealt with other kidnapping attempts before this, and all of them have come from a man we know as Mr. Sinister. He is the leader of the Mutant Liberation Front and the one who has caused the outbreak of violence in Genosha. Speaking of which…"

With that she turned away from the general and flipped open a communicator. "Phoenix, we're done here. Tell Admiral Stein part one of Operation Containment is a go."

OOOOOOO

In his bunker on Genosha, Sinister bit back a curse as the beacons on Pipeline, Thumbelina, Lifter, and Mist Mistress didn't move, while the one for Mist Mistress flat-lined. The others were still alive, but it was clear that Pipeline, at least, had been dealt with somehow. It was a trap, he realized. Phoenix must have been ready for them somehow. Damn it. I should have anticipated that. Perhaps some technology from Richards allowed them to capture Pipeline or cut him off from a computer. But it seemed the perfect chance.

Even as he had launched this attack on Genosha, Sinister had known that it would take something truly monumental to get Subject Grey out where he could deal with her. He had still launched the assault, though, believing that he could quickly create circumstances in which he could deal with the Custodes, knowing many, if not all, of their powers, including Potter's magic, thanks to his long term planning here in Genosha. Yet he had wanted to circumvent that because he had no idea what the rest of Potter's allies would do, even while the rest of the world were concentrating the Russian situation.

Unfortunately for Sinister's plans, Harry was in no position whatsoever to become personally embroiled in something like that. Indeed, once Jean had told him about the Black Panther and his overtures to her to aid Genosha, he jumped on it, fully willing to further bury the hatchet with the man.

So now Sinister was dealing with incoming forces from the African country of Wakanda under the Black Panther. They were mostly regular troops, but they had high-tech weapons to go with energy shields and vibranium based artillery. They were quickly disarming any of the locals they fought, both mutant and non, and were trying to create a peace-zone, calling for leaders from both sides to come to the table and talk. But with Sinister in command of the communications grid that wasn't going to happen. Still, it was a worrisome sign that Sinister's throw of the dice was not going as well as he had hoped. Perhaps I should indeed retreat.

Retreating and trying again was looking like a very, very good idea. But Sinister was, alas, about to get two pieces of information that would tell him that he had waited too long.

OOOOOOO

While most of the United Kingdom's smaller fleet had mostly gathered in the Norwegian Sea, the American fleet had long become the main peace-keeping force in international waters. Even as submarines, destroyers, and other, smaller ships were slowly broken off their parent units, they were able to create a cordon around Genosha. They hadn't been able to stop the MLF from getting there, but they had already stopped several groups from nearby Africa from fishing in Genosha's troubled waters.

Now, as Jean passed on the word about the attack on Diamond, two missile cruisers launched specially designed EMP, or Electro-magnetic pulse missiles, their payloads significantly upgraded by Reed Richards, who had fallen back from the Kazakhstan hunt for the Mole Man for now. They exploded in the air over Genosha, and the lights went out all over the island, which was only about the size of the Dominican Republic.

Then their own marines launched, and several relief ships also moved to land in the island's ports. They would be under orders to help the Black Panther try to control the violence. They would find themselves almost overwhelmed, and the MLF and locals would fight them just as fiercely as one another, but Sinister no longer could escape through technological means.

And as for mutant-generated means…

OOOOOOO

Mystique and Morph smirked internally as they moved through the Mutant Liberation Front's headquarters. Both of them had taken on new forms, Marauders Riptide and Harpoon. Both of them were covered with tape made red with blood, very obviously badly wounded looking but still game, and that and their identities gave them enough of a gravitas to move around the base easily.

Soon they were within the small compound that the Marauders who led this band used as their command center.

Prism, the crystalline like Marauder looked up as they entered, his eyes widening. "What the hell are you two doing here?! You're supposed to be…" That was as far as he got before Morph's arm elongated into a spear and slammed into his chest, bursting out his back and shattering his body into hundreds of pieces which fell with a tinkling sound to the floor of his office.

The kill was quick, clean, and as quiet as the two could make it. That was the reason why they had decided to invade this particular base, after all. If they had tried this on Blockbuster or Malice they would have been able to take anything the two shape-changers could have dished out in a short amount of time, and that wouldn't have done anyone any good at all.

Mystique quickly moved to the computer the man had been working in front of, cycling through several pages. Even on a tiny island like Genosha, there had to be a way to keep track of various supplies, troop movements, and so forth. And Sinister, who was directing the MLF from somewhere else on the island, had been very cagey about his one, truly irreplaceable resource: the mutant Gateway, his only remaining teleporter. The two of them were hunting Gateway now, having broken off from the group of MLF troops they had been a part of, presumably dead after the first clash with the Genoshan military. After all, who had thought they would have those mechs of theirs? Over the past week they'd been moving to this point, to finding out where Gateway was or would be soon, but even with that work, they'd taken a big chance here.

Luckily, it had paid off, and Mystique grinned viciously. "Yes! He's going to be here! The next jump through will deposit him and supplies along with four more MLF members from Asia. It looks as if they hadn't responded to the initial call, being in the process of planning out some major computer-type heist." She scowled though. "These look like tough costumers, though, the kind we won't be able to put down quietly, at least judging by their codenames. If we can keep up our charade, one of us becoming Prism and the other staying as Riptide, I'd guess, we should be good. If one of them knows Riptide or Prism enough to spot something off…"

Morph nodded. "Want to call in Banshee and his team?"

Banshee, Anne-Marie Cortez, or just Cortez, and Neophyte, along with one of the Custodes, had always been nearby as the two shape-changers infiltrated the MLF. They had not contacted them for very long since that initial heads up months back, but both shape-changers knew they had gotten onto Genosha shortly after the civil war here had started. They had even been joined by Frenzy, who hadn't left the Savage Land since the battles against Magneto and the two former Brotherhood's ex-compatriots.

After a second Mystique nodded. "I think we need to."

About an hour later the two of them were waiting in the special room where Gateway ported in with the four Asian members. That was when it started to go into the crapper. One of them, a young man with a truly impressive Mohawk and two pins through his nose, locked gazes on both and backed away, shouting, "They aren't who they look like! Take them!"

The other three quickly moved forward. One, a massive man that looked like a Japanese version of the Blob, if somewhat shorter, moved forward, roaring out in anger, his massive ham-sized fists thrusting forward with palm strikes. "Dosukoi!"

"Ooh, someone's played too much Road Warrior! You think you're J. Monda, huh?" Morph said, shifting into his own battle form, his hands shifting into fists and punching the palms of the other man away before spikes flashed out from his chest in an effort to force him away. It worked, but when those spikes hit the man simply took it, being uninjured and trying to grab Morph in a bear hug.

The other two also attacked as the door behind the two shape-shifters opened, revealing two more guards who rushed forward, one of them looking like a vampire, of all things, but with tanned skin. The other was a pyromancer who instantly began to cover himself in fire and flame shooting out a blast towards the back of Morph, who screamed but wasn't able to get out of the way, trapped in the large Blob-lookalike's arms.

At the same time one of the two Asians, a young woman with black hair down to her rear and the form of a ballerina who had the same Japanese look as the other man beside her lashed out, grabbing at the air above her head with her hands before pushing them out towards Mystique. Some kind of energy glowed in her veins for a moment, sending sparks from her fingers which ignited into a tongue of flame that roared out towards Mystique. At the same time the other man stamped hard on the ground of the specialized room, and a bit of it just disappeared. The next second a huge strobe of light flashed in Mystique's face, blinding her.

But even as she was blinded, Mystique dodged the flame attack, diving into a roll diagonally from the flame strike. And while her body faded out of Riptide's form, she simply gave herself bat-like hearing for a moment to pinpoint her targets. The one boy who had blown their cover was moving back to Gateway. Gateway, the old aborigine, was simply standing in the open portal, doing nothing: not teleporting out, not helping, he was simply watching. The young man raised something in his hands toward him, but a slim pistol Mystique had hidden on her (she might not be able to use the fast combat morphing that Morph could, but she could change 'patterns' easily enough) barked, and the man fell to the side with a gasp. Oh, good. He's not bulletproof at least.

"Shit, Hawkshaw!" the man with the blinding power shouted, but before he and the woman could do anything, the wall to one side suddenly sprouted several bodies as Neophyte phased the rest of the strike team in. Cortez was the first fully through, her hands glowing with pink and red energy. She blasted at the large Blob boy, but he shrugged off her assault, and she twisted, ducking under an attack from the other Japanese woman, ducking into and powering over her into a judo twist that snapped the other girl's arm followed by a blow to her head that sent her right out.

Then Neophyte released Banshee, who raced forward, a sonic scream aimed towards the door and the two guards there. Neither of them had any defense against his sound-based powers, and they screamed, their hands rising to their ears before the physical force of the sonic boom hit them, blasting the pyromancer's fire out and hurling both of them out the door. Elsewhere in the small base, though, the rest of Prism's squad had been roused and were racing in their direction. Banshee took up the door and launched several screams in either direction, but he shouted, "We're running out of time here!"

Frenzy, too, raced forward, ignoring the strobing flares of the man who had been standing next to Anne's opponent to slam a fist into him that caved his chest in and flung him backwards to land limply against the far wall. Then she leaped on top of the last opponent's back, bounding the back of his head and neck. Sumo tried to shake her off, and then Mystique was there, leaping up onto his side like Frenzy had, but instead of attacking, she thrust something under his nose.

It smelled horrible, like festering milk in the sun or something, and Sumo couldn't stop himself. He gasped and flinched, opening his mouth. Mystique's other hand came up, stuffing something into his mouth, and Frenzy, realizing what the shapeshifter was up to, slammed the man's jaw shut.

A second later, the giant mutant flung them both off and dropped Morph as his hands rose to his throat. "GAAHH!"

"What was that?" Frenzy asked almost conversationally as she hopped to her feet.

"A kind of hot sauce that makes everything offered on the open market seem like mere oil in comparison," Mystique replied, also jumping to her feet, locking eyes with the aborigine Gateway.

He looked back then gestured with one hand towards his throat, where a collar showed clearly. He didn't speak, but the look and gesture was eloquent, as was the next one he made towards Hackshaw.

Before Mystique could move, Neophyte reached down and grabbed the remote. "Come on, we need to go!"

"Through the portal," Mystique ordered. "Take that remote and let's go. We can figure out what is going on with it and the control collar or whatever it is later."

Gateway nodded and gestured them forward, indicating that he was fine with that idea, and Frenzy reached down, picking up the burnt but already healing Morph. Banshee launched a few more screams in either direction, then turned, and together the group escaped through the portal, taking with them the last teleporter Sinister had access to.

On the other side of the portal they found themselves in a small, extremely rundown apartment somewhere. Once the portal closed behind them, Mystique looked at Banshee, nodding. He smirked back and pulled out his communicator. "Phoenix, this is Banshee. Requesting pickup. We have one wounded and one semi-prisoner. Request you send us someplace not secret for now and let us figure out the semi part of that statement. But we have verified that Sinister is now trapped in Genosha. I repeat, Sinister is trapped in Genosha. Unless he can run the American blockade, he's not going anywhere."