If you want to help me financially, you can do it on
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Harry winced at that, wondering if that was the case, but didn't argue as he put the finishing touches on the gravlax. These were small sliced salmon fillets marinated in a cognac mix, and they were to be dipped in a kind of mustard sauce.
"For my part, I wish Reed would own up and get us in touch with the Inhumans! We need to approach them," Emma said with a sigh. "They could be a major help, but they're so bloody isolationist I don't want us to approach them without the Fantastic Four acting as liaison, and they won't act in that manner. It's not like we don't know where they are, already!"
The Inhumans apparently lived in a sprawling complex on the dark side of the moon, protected and cut off from the rest of the universe by means that Harry and his people couldn't quite figure out. It was like someone had taken a dimensional gateway and stretched it into a bubble surrounding the settlement: you couldn't get in, and those within couldn't get out.
Harry and his people knew it was there and even could see vague shapes through it, but his magic couldn't figure anything out about it, and Reed refused to allow any of them to use scientific methods to probe it. That had nearly caused a fight to break out between Reed and Doctor Doom, which Harry had been forced to mediate. It had not been pleasant.
"Reed thinks that the Inhumans are too isolationist as a society to even let me speak to Black Bolt. I think we could offer them something in return for technological aid. You know, getting even trained naval men,…"
"And women," Emma interrupted archly.
"And women, yes, up to speed on space combat and the Kree technology is tough. I don't even want them in a combat role," Harry complained. "I want them as teachers and trainers. There's a vast difference between running the systems of a ship, even after reading the manual, and knowing how they actually work. I want our work force to be as educated as possible. Ororo and I are in firm agreement on that point. But Reed won't do it, fearing Black Bolt's response and the idea of creating another enemy."
"I take it as a sign that wisdom and brains are two different things," Hela said with a laugh. "But then again, one needs only to look at old One Eye's adventures to realize that. Yet do not judge them too harshly. Could they help? Certainly. Is it right for them to help? That is a different matter entirely. Perhaps they have good reason to remain isolationists, reasons that would affect us just as much as they."
Hela then changed the subject, leaning forward as Harry finally sat down, ignoring the meal in front of her for a moment to pin Harry with her eyes. "But there is something more important we need to talk about that deals with Reed Richards: Franklin Richards and his growing power. It might be different from my own brand of deity-based power, your magic, or anything similar, but it is mighty. Energy and matter manipulation on a level that is worrisome, especially in one so young with a mind so unformed. He isn't just using telekinesis, Harry. Franklin is doing something far more fundamental.… Almost, almost warping reality. We need to start training him."
"He's barely a pre-kindergartner," Harry said mildly, but then sighed. "Yesterday, Reed told me that Franklin had changed the matter of his entire bedroom into glass so he could stare at some of the pretty birdies perched on the window sill better. Before that he had deftly sent all of his peas and other undesirable foods straight into Reed and Ben's faces without the need for the items to cross the intervening distance." As his listeners chuckled, he smirked rather ruefully. "I agree he needs training."
"Exactly. Madame Harkness is a formidable woman," Hela said, showing some respect for the ancient sorceress. "But she does not have enough power to train or even restrain Franklin should he be become recalcitrant."
Harry frowned then looked at her thoughtfully. "Hela, are you offering to train Franklin yourself?"
Hela slowly nodded, eating some of the gravlax almost absentmindedly, a smile crossing her face before she replied verbally. "I may not be a seeker and purveyor of knowledge like 'Grandfather' Odin. But, given the youth's power, it must be one of us, and you already have an apprentice. So yes, when Franklin is old enough, I will take him as such. Until then I can teach Franklin a few mental exercises, and, between the two of us, I think we can create spells which will work to inhibit Franklin's power until his mind has grown to the point where he can control it and knows when to do so. As it is, his power is controlled by his whims, and that is dangerous in the extreme."
That was still more than Harry had expected Hela to commit to. After all, taking on an apprentice was supposed to be a full-time job, something Harry often felt guilty about, considering Illyana and the fact he could only give her three hours a day, and even that interspersed between hour-long segments. The fact that Illyana had a non-magical education to pursue salved his conscience somewhat, but not all that much. Further, he was aware of what a goddess like Hela could truly teach someone like Franklin, whose growing power was indeed worrying.
"I'll talk to Reed and Susan and Madame Harkness. Harkness will probably go for it, but Susan and Reed will take some convincing to make certain that we're not doing anything that will impair Franklin's mental growth," he said, smiling thanks at Hela's suggestion.
"Reed Richards, the family man," Emma said with a smile. "The mind boggles. Then again, even if he is the quintessential absent-minded professor, mad scientist, or whatever, he's leagues better than my own father was."
Looking down at her meal, she scowled angrily. This would be the first Christmas where she wouldn't have to deal with her parents, which was a good thing. But she would miss her older brother, Christian, keenly. "Cordelia was always an irritant when we were growing up, a constant threat to my position even if she wasn't actually doing anything. You know about my older sister, of course, and my father. But my brother, I miss him. Christian was so gentle, so kind, but he was also…weak." She stabbed down a bobbing piece of sausage with her spoon, growling as it moved away. "And, in the end, Christian died simply because it was a way my father could attack me without doing so physically and thus weaken his own position."
"What about your mother?" Harry asked softly. "Has there been any progress with her?"
"She is fighting the help we've tried to give her to accept for her alcoholism," Emma said flatly, her voice leached of all emotion now. "Over the past few months since we forced that on her, there hasn't been a single sign that she wants to become sober again, and she certainly hasn't made any effort to reach out to Cordelia or myself."
Hela reached out, taking Emma's hand and squeezing it gently. "She is making her own choices. You must live your own life lest she drag you down with her. Too many in Helheim are from both sides of that ordeal, and all were filled with needless regret. And you still have your younger sibling. Your relationship with her is somewhat normal between human siblings, I understand."
When Emma nodded, Hela went on. "So your family situation was no worse than my own. Or, rather, what I thought was my relationship with them all was. That past history that made me so bitter and angry at Loki Truthbender was not the reality, but even the truth isn't exactly all sweetness and light. My father was apparently an…interesting character and wouldn't have won any awards for fatherhood, according to my mother."
Sigyn and Hela had talked several times since that first moment they had been reintroduced, though not as often as Hela would have liked, given the fact that they couldn't break the stasis crystal surrounding Sigyn's body or figure out a way to remove her soul from where it was hiding within Dani's blood. After the third time, Dani had started to show signs of mental strain, showing that her body couldn't take Hela pushing her spirit out into it.
"But for the longest time the only one of my family I ever got along with was Fenris, and he was rather limited in his mental faculty. Then.…" She smiled towards Harry. "Then this one and you stepped in, reuniting me with my mother and slowly proving that what I knew was false. While normal healers were valued among my people, one such as you who can reconnect family members would have been even more highly prized, my Seidr man."
Harry shrugged, taking first Emma's then Hela's hands and kissing their palms. "Family is important to me. Although being a father was something I didn't expect to occur as it did, if ever. I just knew I wanted to make my own family, you know? You can't choose your relatives, but you can choose your family, and that's what I did."
For a moment all three of them were silent, then, with a start, Hela took a dainty taste of the soup, which had remained untouched in front of her as they talked. Then she smiled approvingly. "This lapskaus tastes precisely how it should taste, Harry. Well done. As did the gravlax."
Surprisingly, Emma also enjoyed the meal though she wasn't a big fish person, and the talk moved to happier topics, including what Jean was turning her hands to now that she couldn't be out and about. She had decided to go forward with the idea of creating her own car, taking the chassis of a Bugatti Veyron and creating something altogether different inside.
Emma moaned about it, shaking her head and mock-whining that her old 458 was going to be left in the dust before smirking, her eye alight with delight. "On the other hand, I have seen pictures of a new McLaren that is coming out, and that might be worthy of becoming my new car. I think I've deserved an upgrade for a long time. Although my Ferrari has served me well. The only race I ever lost was to Harry, here, when we first met."
She smiled, taking another bite of food. "He cooked for me then too, you know," she said to Hela as an aside. "It was the first time any of my dates ever tried that."
"Ahh, I take it that it worked out far better for you then than his first attempts to cook for me did," Hela said dryly, then she looked over at Harry. "I would hope that you would not take all the domains of the womenfolk under your craft, lest we find ourselves with too little time and start plotting—what is it your supervillains always crave?—ah yes, 'world domination.'"
"Huh, and here I thought we'd already accomplished that. I could have sworn I crossed it off my bucket list," Emma said mock-quizzically as Harry laughed and Emma smirked at her own witticism. "But that brings up an interesting point, Harry," Emma said, setting her spoon down and locking eyes with Hela before looking over at Harry. "Firsts and equality."
At that cue Hela's lips shifted into a more tender smile as she reached over, clasping Harry's jaw lightly and turning his head to face her fully. "You asked me a question several months back, and I told you that I would give you my answer after the United Nations business was done. It is done for a given value, and I believe it is time to answer that question."
Harry's eyes widened, then he reached up and tenderly took her hand in his, pulling it away from his face to kiss the back of it. "I wait with bated breath for your response, Lady Hela," he said softly.
"Your courtship has won my heart and my hand, Harry Potter, and I offer them to you freely. Do you accept them?" she asked softly.
"I do, and I give you my own back," Harry said firmly. "It might not belong solely to you, but it does belong to you and has for some time now, my lady goddess." He then smiled whimsically, and, with a gesture of his free hand, a box appeared from under the bed, moving through the air toward them. It was large, about a foot in length or so and at least four inches to a side.
"And we will all continue to strive to be worthy of one another and for the treasures we have thus shared," Hela replied, one eyebrow quirked as she watched this, anticipation rising from within her. Yet her own hand was also working, opening a small rift to her hall out from which appeared a box, about as long as it was wide, yet not very deep.
Harry smiled, not looking away from Hela's eyes. "All of my ladies wear a gift from me, both practical and something to signify our connection. Each of them is different, and something I've labored over in each case."
With a theatrical eye-roll, Emma raised her hand, where a ring gleamed. Physically it wasn't much, simply bands of vari-colored gold of all types intertwined with blue gems. Magically it was easily the most powerful of the items he'd created, with dozens of protection spells. "They can be a bit too gaudy, but they are nice enough," she drawled.
Opening the box, Harry gently reached in and pulled out a vambrace, a piece or armor designed to protect the forearm. It was matte black, matching the armor Hela wore, but here and there along its length were deep-set jewels: emerald, opal and ruby. There was also inscribed runic work visible along its length, spells of defense, mostly, with a few other little surprises.
Gasping in delight, Hela held out her hand and allowed Harry to clasp the vambrace around her right forearm, smiling in delight at the feel of it, the inside of the vambrace somehow lined with silk, smooth and soft to the touch. She then held it up to her face, staring at both the magic and the physical item. "It is amazing, Harry. Thank you. I will treasure it." Then she shook her head and smiled. "Yet the exchange of gifts goes both ways in my culture, my Seidr man."
She held out her own package, which Harry took, opening it slowly. Inside Harry found what appeared to be, at first, a simple cloth bracelet. Yet the leather was marked by several bits of gold and black thread—thread, Harry realized, which matched Hela's hair color perfectly. And somehow Hela had worked actual gems into the cloth in such a way that they merged into it magically.
That was impressive in itself, but that bracelet was so magically charged that it equaled Harry's promise gift to Hela. A visible sign of this showed even to Emma as Harry looked at it, showing a view of Camelot from the outside, then from the air, then, after a brief blink, Fortress Mars, before shifting into the Savage Land and then going on to show images of Harry and Hela together with the other ladies.
Slowly sliding it on, Harry let his eyes tell Hela how pleased he was with her gift and then leaned in and kissed her. This was not the chaste, lips-only kisses they had shared, no matter how passionate. This was a full lip lock, an attempt to merge their mouths into one, and within a few seconds their tongues were tangling together, first in Hela's mouth, then in Harry's, and then back again. It was several moments before Hela pulled up for air, gently pushing Harry back into his seat. "But equality," she said, breathing heavily, "means different things to different women".
It took a moment for Harry to retain his senses, and, when he did, he surreptitiously shifted himself slightly so the two ladies could not see the physical reaction Hela's kiss had just caused. "I, ahem, I, I see," he said, trying to sound normal despite a growing urge to take Hela and head to bed right now, and not to sleep. "You have decided on the weddings and such things? As a man, I know that I don't have to have anything to do with the weddings except to say, 'Yes, ma'am,'" he said with a gleam of humor in his eyes offsetting his desire, which grew more visible as he went on. "Now the wedding nights, those are groom's duties."
Both women surprised themselves by blushing at that and the look in his eyes as he let his eyes rake down each of their bodies. Emma, in particular, was shocked that she was able to blush at something like that given what she and Harry had done together since becoming a couple, not even including Jean and Ororo's contributions to their carnal activities.
But despite her blush, Hela replied gamely. "If you expect to be the one doing all the work that night, Harry Potter, I suggest you think again. But yes, we have decided on the wedding ceremonies. Emma will be the first to marry you."
"Over my strident reservations at first," Emma said dryly. "But, considering that our business alliance has come to light, I don't think we're going to be able to make any more mileage from keeping our friendship secret. So I agreed. But it will be a small one," she cautioned. "No more than twenty witnesses and family. I've never been one of those women who have dreamed about an extravagant wedding, and if we were to have it at all out in the open it would slowly start to be the social event of the season," she said caustically, almost spitting out the words. "Jean will stand as my best woman, of course, with Ororo and Hela as maids of honor."
Harry looked over at Hela. "You're not going to officiate? Ororo said that was one of the ideas you all were talking about."
"I will officiate over Jean's wedding, which will be the next one planned. Father Garnoff has agreed to officiate Emma's. Indeed, he said something about it being about time," Hela replied with a smirk. "But Jean's wedding with you will be an even smaller affair. And it will happen right on the heels of Emma's. A New Year's wedding, a most auspicious time for such things. But those children of yours will be born in wedlock, Harry Potter, no matter how barely," Hela finished sternly.
Then Hela looked out into the distance and shook her head slowly. "I have begun to feel the power of those two souls within her. They will be extremely puissant. We will need to be wary of them as toddlers and babes as much as we are of Franklin. But I suppose with the number of house elves around, we will at least be able to deal with much of what they can contrive, better than the single one you assigned to Madame Harkness to help her with Franklin."
"Ororo will be the one to have a large public wedding, down in Africa somewhere. It will be a major social event, possibly as a sign that the African Defense Organization has come so far by that point, possibly just as a social occasion," Emma said, shrugging. "And then Hela's will be last."
"But," Hela took over with a tart smile on her face as she stared almost challengingly at Harry, "I will be the only one of the four to go down the aisle a maiden still. I am setting that as a rule now, Harry Potter."
Then she looked away again, down at her hands. "…It is very important to me as a woman and as a goddess that that be the case. Our wedding will be more elaborate in many ways than the others' as well, hand-fasting as well as many other things from my own people's wedding ceremonies. Again, I feel that is important."
"I agree. I agree with all of it, although, to be fair, Hela, I don't dread your wedding half as much as I dread the public version with Ororo. That just screams overblown to me, but I'll go along with things for now." Then he smiled a wicked little smirk as he leaned over the small table towards Hela, kissing her hard on the lips before pulling back to wag his eyebrows at her. "Besides, going down the aisle a virgin leaves room for many things."
It was the first time that Emma had seen Hela do a full facial blush, visible despite the fact that she still wore her mask, even here. It was worth the wait, she reflected, and she decided to capitalize on it. When Harry pulled away, Emma leaned in, kissing Hela in turn and for the first time. For an instant Hela stiffened in shock, which allowed Emma to dominate the kiss for a time, but then Hela got over her surprise and began to kiss back just as ardently, and Emma caught the thought, Oh, dearest Emma, you think you can lead here? That is positively adorable!
When Ororo joined them later that night, there was no hesitation there, and Hela kissed her just as ardently as she had the other two, and would later do the same with Jean when she came back from Fortress Mars. This was her way of showing that, while Harry was her primary focus and reason for joining this relationship, she did love the other three in her own way.
That night marked the first time Hela slept in the same bed as Harry and the others, minus Jean for that night, though Harry had already enlarged the bed to make room for Hela. And he had been right several months back: It truly was the most glorious sleep she could ever recall.
Shaking his head to escape that memory, Harry looked up as MJ ushered in two men of Middle Eastern descent. They represented a few medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies in Turkey and Iraq and wished to purchase MM supplies but couldn't quite pay for it at the cost that their home countries would otherwise have demanded. Harry was sympathetic, but he wondered why they wanted to speak to him in person. Still, the fact that they came from those countries at all and were supposedly respected there had made Harry want to speak to them in turn.
"Gentlemen, please, sit," he said, gesturing them into chairs and smiling at MJ. "MJ, make sure that Sage is following up on that one ship we have off Somalia again, would you? I want to know the instant those pirates give me an excuse. Then I think it'll be time to head up to the soiree, correct?"
"Right in one, Boss," MJ replied with a grin and a mock salute. "I'll be ready to hobnob and, more importantly, turn men's minds off whenever you want me to, no special powers needed."
Chuckling, Harry waved her off then turned to the two men, who were also smirking, not taking the gorgeous young woman's words seriously, though perhaps they should have. MJ used her looks occasionally to do that very thing, after all, and could turn it on and off as easily as Emma could. "So, Mister Sabir and Mister Livauq, what can I do for you?"
"First of all, we must apologize for the deception, Mr. Potter. We are indeed representatives of several hospitals in Turkey, but, at the moment, we are not here to meet with you about your Magical Minds products. Rather, we wish to talk to you in your position as head of the EDF," one of them said, holding up his hand as Harry's eyes darkened and then for some reason darted over their heads. The man went on unhurriedly. "I represent the Turkish government, and this man, who goes as Mister Sabir at the moment, represents a majority of the Kurdish people."
Eyebrows arching in surprise, Harry tapped a small button under his desk and, an instant later, could feel Jean and then Emma in his mind as he relayed this. "I see. And what would you ask of me while I'm wearing my EDF hat, as it were?"
"Turkey would prefer to be a homogeneous country, and the Kurds want to have self-governance, as I do not doubt you already know. There have been numerous clashes between a terrorist organization called the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê to fight for that freedom, and.…" Livauq, which was almost certainly not the man's name, gritted his teeth before admitting, "And I have to say that our own military are rather excessive in how they have responded to the PKK's atrocities."
"Such a nice way to say they too are guilty of war crimes," Jean remarked sassily.
"True, but this could be a good step to solving that issue in a nonviolent manner," Emma thought, already seeing where this conversation was going.
Harry had already spotted that same thing, and he nodded. "I see. And you wish to talk to me about colonization, repatriation?"
"Exactly. If there is a place on another world where we can create our own nation, that would solve a lot of problems here," Livauq replied.
When Harry's eyes slid to him, the other man shrugged. "We have no wish to continue to fight one another, yet we also wish to have our own nation, to have the right of self-determination, and we cannot get it on Earth. Not without war. Allah willing, with your help we can find another way."
"That is an interesting concept, and I am willing to talk about it, gentlemen. But two points: One, regardless of anything else, any colonization attempts would be months in the future and expensive for all concerned. And two, how exactly are you going to convince me that you deserve to be allowed to set up humanity's first colony?" Harry asked, leaning forward.
OOOOOOO
Sinister smiled, leaning back. It had taken over a month, but Genosha was ripe for his plans, everything within ready, just waiting on his word. He had also come up with several means that might work to cripple his magical powers, which, coupled with his existing technology, meant he could handle the so-called World Guard if they fought on territory of his choosing and didn't bring in the rest of the world's militaries. And for that, thanks to my contacts in Russia, I now know precisely when they will start their invasions of Finland and Poland.
For a moment he paused, his lips quirking into a frown. Why Finland, though? Croatia, Poland, fine, they were part of the old USSR, but why Finland? The best my agents can determine is that there's some new mineral they've found there, but not why it's so important or even what it is at all. That's bizarre, but considering Russia's buildup and the fact that NATO's on the move too, I should be able to use that as an opening for my own movement in Genosha. That is the most important thing, which means I might finally be able to turn things to my own goals.
Scowling, Sinister looked over several notes that were stacked up to one side. A few were from a few robotic spies he had emplaced around Xavier's mansion to watch the comings and goings there. Not too close, since there was some magical defense up that slowly began to erode their programming, but close enough to know that Cyclops had not been out of the mansion since the UN meeting.
Oh, Sinister knew that Summers had been out and about. He had appeared on TV numerous times at the head of the X-Men, going after the Reclaimers, protecting a pro-mutant rally, and fighting mutant criminals the police couldn't handle across two continents and several island chains. Even giving a few impromptu public statements afterward. But he hadn't ever left the mansion in such a way that circumstances could be created so as to let him meet Madelyne Pryor. And the two times Sinister had tried to create an opportunity where they might meet had failed simply because Scott hadn't been leading the team when those events occurred!
Weeks of psycho-conditioning to create her new personality and instill Subject Summer's image into her brain so as to activate her powers and make him interested in her. Days of finding the precise timing, the look, and the perfume to shut Subject Summer's mind down and make him madly in love with Pryor regardless of any previous romantic feelings towards anyone else. And all of it for nothing because of Subject Summer's sense of duty and random chance working together to keep them apart!
Sighing, Sinister typed out a recall order and sent it out to his retrieval team. This attempt had failed utterly, so Sinister would go back to his preferred method when the World Guard attacked him in Genosha: retrieving Subject Grey and the children she carried. Even a straight clone like Pryor would not have the spark of the Phoenix entity within her that Subject Grey has, which makes her so much more powerful than she might otherwise have become. And comparing a child of her body and that of a magic user to that of one with Subject Summer's DNA will simply be fascinating.
OOOOOOO
"Damn, Boss, you clean up good. Well, except for that abomination you have around your neck," Lorna Dane said as she walked into the private suite of rooms Harry and his ladies had on Fortress Mars. He was dressed now in a decent blazer and good shirt and pants combo along with a tie that he had rather foolishly let Illyana and Melody pick for him.
It glowed. It sparkled with tiny sequins, it was orange and green and pink in places, and Harry sighed as he pulled it off to gently hang it up on a peg. "I think Illyana actually transfigured it from another of my ties. So as a test of her skills and mental acuity it's actually quite impressive. But yes, I know it looked horrible."
So saying, he pulled out another tie from thin air, conjuring it into being with an ease that made Lorna blink. "Can conjure up a tie, but can't make it appear tied around my neck," he muttered, turning to a mirror. "Anything new you want to report? I can see you're ready for this evening, and I return your previous statement, my dear."
Lorna smirked, looking down at herself. She was dressed in something like a cocktail dress, a dark gray color that set off both her pale skin and dark green hair to good effect. Her hair fell to her shoulders in loose, bouncing ringlets, and a small necklace was around her neck. "Thanks, but you're not my type, Boss." With that out of the way and knowing that Harry had just meant his words as simple compliments, she went on, shaking her head. "Carol's people got the third gun battery up and running again; it was an electronic issue just like the last time. For my part, I've finished hollowing out another cavern with Wanda. And you know we did final checks on the surface of the current expanse of Fortress Mars yesterday."
Nodding, Harry looked at her reflection in the mirror as his hands worked at the tie. "No problem with the dry dock's doors?" When Lorna shook her head, Harry smirked. "Excellent. In more amusing news, have you had a chance to meet with your bank account manager yet?"
Harry had worked hard to get all the 'specialists' who worked for him their own bank accounts, just like with the Custodes. They were not only doing something they wanted to, they were being paid for it. Harry thought of that as just another source of motivation, and it wasn't one he wanted just his normal personnel to have. That and a place in his new country whenever it was fully set up.
"No, not really," Lorna said with a shrug, gesturing around her with both hands. "I've not even been back to Earth since that job to fix the Eiffel Tower." She laughed then, and Harry had to smile at the difference a few months had made from the angry, twitchy, and depressed young woman Lorna had been before and after the battle against Magneto to now. "Seeing 'Gay Pari' was nice, but building this Fortress with my mind and my own powers, that's been just glorious."
"Ah,…" Harry said, wincing internally. That probably meant that Alex's recent clashes with Scott and Thunderbird had nothing to do with chaffing under their leadership and had everything to do with being in a relationship with a woman who he only saw when he made the effort to come to her on Mars. I wonder if she's tried to break up with him and he's just not gotten the message, or if he's just being mopey and moody. Ugh, teenagers. Glad I never was one.
The tone of voice made Lorna look at him sharply. "What? What's the problem with my accounts, Boss?"
"Oh there's no problem with them, so to speak. But, well, you know that most currency is based on the gold standard, right?"
"Yes,…" Lorna said slowly, her eyes narrowing.
"And that you get a rather large percentage of that metal from any you find,…" Harry said, turning now to look directly at Lorna, who's eyes had just started to go wide at the implications. With a smirk he clapped her on the shoulder and then headed for the door. "Well, congratulations! You are now the richest woman on Earth, possibly to ever live. Just don't tell Emma. She would take it…poorly."
With that he was out the door, leaving the green-haired woman to gape after him. "Wh, what? Just, what?"
The meeting Harry was on Mars for was to be held in the atrium, and Harry smiled, watching as Ororo led in some of his guests to join the others already sitting down with him. Next to him, King William smiled wanly, staring all around him. "I must say, I have seen your halls in Camelot, but this is something else altogether, Harry."
Duncan nodded, looking around in something approaching awe. "You just call this the atrium, really? That's, that's…underwhelming to the reality."
Nor were the two Brits alone in their awe. The senators and Chinese representatives being led in by Ororo and Lorna, who still looked a little off-balance, to join their fellows also were looking around them in awe.
The atrium was a massive cavern set high up above the main base that was Fortress Mars, about a third of the way up the stump of Olympus Mons that had been left after Harry and Thanos had fought. There was an entire wall seemingly open to the world beyond, the backdrop of the surface of Mars providing an austere sort of beauty. A series of large raised daises thrust out of the cavern's walls. They hung over the cavern's actual floor, which was covered by a monstrous botanical garden grown by a young mutant named Marisol Guerra from Mexico.
Wendy and her team had had a bit of an adventure extracting her, but nothing they couldn't handle, despite the fact that Marisol had almost refused to come with them at first. It wasn't until Stinger had agreed to take her family with them that she had agreed to be rescued from the drug dealers who had threatened her life.
She and her family were living on Fortress Mars for now, being paid for her work via access to Ororo's educational system and money, which they were setting aside for when they returned to Earth. None of them wanted to stay on Mars, though they were happy enough there. Marisol was determined, though, to use her powers to help as many people as she could, and she felt she could do better on Earth than here.
Marisol had provided the plants, although that had been actually the last part of this project. Lorna and Wanda had created this space between them, hollowing it out of the solid granite of the mountain. Then Harry had stepped in and used his magic to transfigure the wall. With that and a few mirrors outside to shine in direct light occasionally, the plants would thrive even when Marisol left.
"And this isn't a weakness in the defense of the fortress?" Duncan, William's son, asked. "I mean, that, that looks like glass, but it can't be, can it?"
"Hah, no. It's transfigured granite. We're actually several dozen feet into the side of the mountain here. I crafted the spells so that it appears to be glass. I even was able to create it so it is like a magnifying glass, almost, but retains all the properties of the stone it was."
"Further, the Scarlet Witch and myself have been at work on the surface of Olympus Mons and elsewhere," Lorna said as she guided the two Chinese men into seats before sitting down herself. Around them were several other round tables where other dignitaries and workers who had been part of this project sat conversing quietly. "The surface of Mars above the fortress and out to a kilometer in every direction has been covered with the same kind of compressed steel the Kree use in their warships and then further hardened with the Scarlet Witch's magic."
Since Mars didn't have its own nervous system of ley-lines, Wanda would have to renew those spells every week or so, but the toughening spells Dr. Strange had told her actually stuck, as it were, better than the ones Harry knew. Of course, unlike Lorna, Wanda had a lot of demands on her time back on Earth, including, to Harry's surprised bemusement, a budding romance with Kurt. But even so, several hours every week wasn't much to ask of her, and she'd been paid well for her work.
"This is…a beyond impressive edifice you have created, Mr. Potter," said one of the Chinese men, looking around keenly. "Indeed, it is as impressive as a living space as it is a fortress. And it is so good as one of those that I am very thankful it isn't mobile."
"I can't take all the credit. The vision of it might have been mine, but it was built by other people's hands. I might have lent my magic, but that's all," Harry demurred. "What you see here, gentlemen and ladies," he said making a point to nod towards where Germany's representative sat. "Is a sign of what mutants and normal, intelligent, skilled workers with access to technology can do if they work together."
Under Carol and General Murphy's direction and a month of work from thousands of willing hands and a near equal number of Doom's worker bots, Fortress Mars could now live up to its name and was getting stronger all the time. The droids from the secret time-enhanced space had all gone to work immediately expanding the fortress from the surface, digging out tunnels and adding gun placements and underground missile bays, etc. Those guns couldn't traverse, and they could be plugged, but they could not be destroyed unless the attacker cracked the very planet, and, with the mirrors in space to bounce power off of, they could work very well. They were like monstrous barrels, but the barrels were buried underground.
The human workers then followed up, creating the actual guns, the missile factories, the wiring, the lighting, and thousands of other little things. Work went on round the clock, and even now work was continuing in various areas, expanding the fortress aspect of Fortress Mars. But, as it was, fully twelve thousand workers lived up here under the joint command of Carol and the General. The vast majority of them had already decided to go from simple employees to citizens and had brought in their families, adding nearly twice again to their numbers.
They'd also added another problem to Harry's attempt to create a government for them all, but at least by this point there was a light at the end of that particular tunnel.
Looking up, he smiled as Mary Jane led in Steve, Betsy Braddock, and a somewhat spare looking African American man towards them from the entrance. Both the newcomer and Steve were dressed in formal dress uniforms, joining Carol and more than a few others like Whitaker and Duncan in that along with several others scattered throughout the crowd. And is it just me, or has Betsy been spending a lot of time around Steve whenever she can contrive it?
Betsy was supposed to be here since she was acting as Carol's secretary and civilian go-between. Carol did not understand or very much like kids and other dependent sorts and had no desire or interest in being politic when talking to them. She'd also proven to be very good at finding people after a few cave-ins, which was one of many dangers of the work going on here. Using her telepathy, Betsy found the minds of the injured and then worked with the house elves and workers to get them out before they could suffocate.
But her coming onto the platform with Steve was a surprise.
As Harry stood up to greet the newcomers, Steve smiled, clasping hands with him. "Harry, good to see you in person. Haven't been able to do that in three days now." He then smirked mischievously. "I hope I wasn't too hard on you the last time we sparred?"
Harry laughed, shaking his head. He had asked Steve to help him train himself in hand to hand, and, unlike Shiang-Chi, Steve was both physically capable of keeping up with Harry's reflexes and more than stubborn enough to sit on him if he felt Harry was attempting to get out of it. So, twice a week, come what may, the two of them would meet for sparring and training, with Harry taking very much the worst of it without access to his suit or the use of his magic. "No, nothing like that, but you know how little my time is my own these days."
"You were the one who wanted the job," Steve replied unhelpfully.
Harry blinked, holding up a finger, then as he thought about all the steps and ways life had changed to get him to where he was, to create everything he had created. At no point had Harry sat up in bed and decided, 'Oh, I'm going to create country today,' or, 'I want to be the head of an Earth Defense Force.' But instead of saying all that aloud, since it would have sounded far too much like whining, Harry sighed. "It was more like I saw a job that needed doing and that no one else was doing it in the right way. Everything sort of spiraled out from there, I suppose."
Shaking his head, he looked at the man next to Steve. "Would you like to introduce your friend here?"
"Sam Wilson, sir," the man said, holding out his hand. "I understand from Steve that you're looking for troopers to step up and join some of your special forces teams."
"I suppose you could call the X-Men and the Custodes that," Harry replied with a nod, looking the man over again. "But you'll forgive me if I ask what your background is that Steve would recommend you."
In fact, Harry had indeed asked Steve and others to look around for likely candidates to add to the X-Men and the Custodes. With the amount of territory they had to cover, the two main combat teams were becoming quite stretched. None of the new influx of mutants they had rescued or the new team of X-teens at the mansion were ready for real combat, though the latter had begun to step up on simple rescue missions and others. But one area they needed a dedicated team for was assault: close in base or ship combat against prepared enemies. They had the people for it, but if they pulled those people from other teams—Thunderbird, Betsy, Carol, Wanda, and Sam Guthrie under Thunderbird's command—they would leave holes in the original two teams. The Custodes wouldn't miss Betsy and Carol overmuch since neither were primarily combat personnel these days, though Paige's presence would hurt, but Scott would be losing his second-in-command and the first person Scott and Harry felt could have stepped into that role. So adding another person who could be a leader of the team and could also add some more military training would be a good thing.
"Sam's a paratrooper, but a…very special kind," Steve said, handing over a file while, around them, other delegates began to arrive.
Nodding, Harry moved over to the edge of the plateau, resting against the railing as he read, blinking at one of the pictures in the file. "Huh." That looks an awful lot like the suit the Vulture used. We'd wondered what had become of him,. Guess the American government might have cut a deal with the man. Well, since he hasn't shown up on our radar since, I'd say more power to the old bloke. Given the fact that the Vulture was older than even Destiny, Harry doubted he would be around for very long.
Looking up at Sam, Harry asked, "You ever use this gear in combat? It says you've seen combat, of course, but not if it was with this suit." The suit in question was a flight suit of some kind with wings and what appeared like a gun strap of some kind, though the guns looked very high tech. The file also said that Sam had tried out for NASA but had been rejected, and that he had been a sergeant in the Paratroopers.
"Two of the ops were drops performed by the Special Paratroop team," Sam said gamely. "Another was a SHIELD operation. I was one of their agents at one point."
Nodding, Harry kept reading as people kept coming out onto the plateau before blinking. "You punched your superior officer?"
"Ah, yeah." Sam looked sheepish as he replied, even going so far as to look away as he hissed, "Fuck, I didn't think that was in there, Steve!" To which Steve just shrugged and made a get on with it gesture to his friend. "Um, he was a bit of an asshole. Don't think his name would mean much. But he made one too many jabs about me being from Harlem and my rough background for me to stand. I sort of organized a time for the two of us to meet in one of the gyms for a boxing match, and floored him with a single combo."
"And, instead of doing what any reasonable officer would have and simply back off or have you reassigned, he pressed charges. What a big girl," Harry said, looking over at Steve, who nodded. "Didn't Fury know about this? And, speaking of, what is going on with Fury now? I haven't heard about him in two weeks."
"Nick didn't know, I don't think, although since Sam was kicked out of SHIELD before I was thawed out, I can't say for certain. Sure as shooting wouldn't match with what I know of the man," Steve said, still sticking up for his old friend. "As for Nick himself, he's still under house arrest. I understand from those I've talked to that he'll remain in house arrest for at least a year while serving as a special councilor at need. Then he'll take over the UN's anti-terrorist branch."
Harry nodded at that, but his mind was on the man in front of him as he thought about what he had just read. "Well, your background and experience speak well of you, but let me ask you, did you volunteer for this?"
"Yes, sir," Sam said, nodding his head, making Harry smile somewhat crookedly. Being called sir by men and women near his own age always bothered him a little. "Frankly, I've been cooling my heels for months and been itching to getting back into things, especially in the air. I took a look around, and I've got no desire to be a little cog in the big machine again. Better to be a medium sized one at least and have some say as to what your part of the machine does."
"That makes sense." Harry looked over at Steve, who looked back steadily, and Harry nodded again. "All right, since Steve's willing to vouch for you," and you got through the portals without any alarms going off, "I'll introduce you to Cyclops. He needs a new second in command and also needs to start integrating non-mutants into the X-Men. If you and he get along, you're in. For now I'll introduce you to Carol, our local trouble-shooter and one of our space experts, and Thunderbird, the man you'll be replacing on the X-Men."
With that Harry led Sam over to another table, sitting him and Steve there before moving back to his own table, exchanging a smile with Ororo as he raised a glass in the air. Looking around, he saw MJ sitting with a group of carefully chosen reporters and a few cameramen, the last people to join the gathering. When the redhead nodded, he smiled slightly. Showtime. Harry held up a hand and clicked his fingers, sending out a bright spark that grabbed the attention of the hundred or so people sitting all around him, and his smile widened. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I hope that you all have enjoyed your day of exploration and that what you have seen today shows you that your resources and people have been put to good use. Through their sweat, brain power, and time, this Fortress has come a very long way from what it was even a bare month ago. Together, humanity can.…"
From there Harry went into his prepared spiel, sending a brief smile towards MJ, who, unseen by her table-mates, was smiling and making a get on with it gesture as he finished. "Today we culminate the second stage of making this Fortress the linchpin of our defense. We make it into more than a fortress, we make it into a port. But what does a port need? It needs a harbor, a runway and…a dry dock."
At that cue the view out on the surface of Mars began to change. As people on this plateau and every other one in the atrium craned their necks to see, two huge slabs of ground began to quiver and then slowly open, the edge of the new gap disappearing out of sight from everyone within the atrium. Even the sides of the dock were too large to be seen soon.
Designed and built largely in the last month by American and Chinese workers, backed up, of course, by two hundred robot workers, this was the dry dock Harry had just been talking about. Work wasn't finished on it, of course—they were still expanding the interior of the monstrous dock even now—but even so, it was a momentous milestone for those gathered here, a sign their countries' contributions had not been in vain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the first Mars dry dock. The dry dock where the first human built extra-solar spaceship will be built. Until the design of that ship is final it will be…" Harry trailed off as again something new was added to the image.
Everyone here had heard about and even talked to the Kree prisoners occasionally. They knew about the ships the Kree had used in their attack on Earth. But few there had seen any of the ships, and certainly not the massive, kilometers long ship that had just descended into view. "The dry dock will be home to the Kree dreadnaught Devastator before it is revamped, repaired, rearmed, and christened the Warspite. This ship will become the flagship of the EDF Home Fleet. After the meal, you can speak to your table's waiter if you want to receive a tour, and he will get in touch with those who can arrange it. This, ladies and gentlemen, just as much as the atrium all around us, serves as a visible sign of what we humans can do if we all, despite our differences, work together. Thank you, and I hope you've both enjoyed the view and the meal."
With that Harry sat down to a loud series of cheers, and he felt the link to Jean open up. She and Hela were in a private room nearby. They could have joined Harry and Ororo at the table, but Ororo had become Harry's public second-in-command, and Jean's own powers and those of her twins had begun acting up, creating an aura which made protective spells and even illusions difficult to cast on her. At the same time, Hela wanted to keep out of the limelight as much as possible.
For all that her powers were acting up ,though, the link between Jean and Harry was as strong as ever. "That went over very well, love. I have to wonder how Russia and the other countries will take the reports about Fortress Mars, though.
With Jean using her telepathy on her as well, Hela joined the conversation at that point. "Russia will make of it what they will, something like, 'western militarization of space brokered by the capitalist masters of America.' For all that Russia is not technically Soviet anymore, the rhetoric has not changed over much. Still, their opinions matter not at all to Fortress Mars so long as the so-called free world understands this fortress is for defense and not for our own aggrandizement. No, what we need to be aware of is internal morale and that of our allies, not enemies. This move is for them. Leave concerns of our enemies for another day."
Harry replied in like manner. "I don't see Russia as an enemy so much as a dupe, but for now there's little we can do until a way to spot the aliens hiding among them is found. For now, ladies, I need to get back to the party. I'll see you both at home."
"Shouldn't Admiral Powers have been here?" Steve asked an hour later. Most of the diners had left, eager to be shown around the monstrous Kree warship, leaving Harry, Steve, and a few others behind, including representatives from both China and America, which was somewhat surprising to Harry.
"They've got to want something. Is Betsy picking up anything?" Jean asked.
Harry sent back a mental no and was about to signal Betsy to see if she could read the surface thoughts of the men and respond to Steve's question when he overheard a woman at a nearby table. Since the atrium was a major draw for everyone who lived on Mars, the moment the tables had cleared of his guests other people had come in, eager to enjoy the view. Harry supposed he could have ordered this plateau held clear, but he didn't want to create that kind of distance between himself and his men and women.
The speaker was a young woman, some kind of welder or other in engineering. A scowl on her face, she muttered to her companion, "How can they be so gauche as to smoke like that in public?"
Harry looked around and found that not only had William begun to smoke a large cigar, but that Sam and Steve had both pulled out cigarettes. William and Duncan had struck up a conversation with Steve, Sam, Carol, and a few others sitting nearby listening intently, while Harry had been listening with only half an ear and talking with Ororo about Kitty and her progress. She was getting good enough with magic that she could be trusted to learn combat spells if she so wanted, but Kitty had shown no inclination towards those, opting instead to study healing spells and a lot of the charms Harry used.
Before Harry could say anything, William waved a gnarled hand. "Milady, I am over eighty years old. My eyes are failing me, my body aches from head to toe with rheumatism, my heart gives me conniptions, my knees ache every time I have to get up out of a chair, and I can barely remember what it was like to go to the bathroom without issues of one sort or another. Smoke will be the last thing that will kill me."
"As for me, I can still remember all too well a time when these were currency to us troopers in Europe." Steve said, holding up cigarette. "I remember one time I traded three cigarettes for a full four star meal in Paris once. The meat was horrible, but the bread was decent, and the wine good too. Another time I traded a sniper rifle and four rounds with it for a full pack. The smell, you see, would help you block out the smell of…other things, and, unlike our pay, the cigarettes were good wherever we were and whatever we were trading for." He smiled apologetically at the woman. "I'm sorry if it bothers you, miss, but some habits are really hard to break."
Sam, on the other hand merely smirked at the woman and blew out some smoke towards her, smirking. Harry decided that he rather like Sam, 'the Falcon.'
"In answer to your question, Steve, the admiral would be here, but he's running a training game with the ten ships we've been able to crew so far. We've nearly repaired all the ships we've captured, bar the two dreadnaughts, but training is slow."
"We're not going slow," Murphy replied irritably. "It's going as fast as it can, but there's only so much training we can.…"
Just then a harsh red light began to buzz around the Atrium and in every other room and hallway of Fortress Mars. Harry leaped to his feet and was halfway towards the doorway leading out into the rest of the fortress by the time one of his guests asked querulously, "What's wrong? What's the light about?"
William rolled his eyes, amused that his son and Steve had swiftly raced after Harry and the others, even if he wasn't technically on duty or even a soldier any longer. Can take the man out of SAS but not the SAS out of the man. "I believe, Senator, that this means that trouble has come knocking once more." Sighing, he leaned back picking up his cigar. Running around like that was for younger people, after all. "If we were in danger here, no doubt we would be told about it. I suggest we all just sit back and wait for news."
OOOOOOO
Badoon Fleet Lord Patriarch Sasskhanna, a distant and young nephew of the Crown Royal, smiled as his fleet came out in formation in the Sol system. "The Kree are fools to pull back their fleets as they did and leave this prize. So many strong ones, so much fresh blood that can be added to our Empire. It will be glorious!"
Around the Badoon royal, his command crew cheered and bent to their instruments eagerly.
The news that Earth had produced hundreds of individuals with powers and abilities beyond the norm made the planet both dangerous and valuable. The Badoon had no real equivalent, making them even more valuable. They had created monstrous cyborgs as heavy troops, but that was the only equivalent. Yet they did possess means of fighting such powers, having clashed several times with the Shi'ar Royal Guard and others.
Sasskhanna had been given leave to attack Earth with his personal retinue to see if he could add it to his personal holdings before a full war fleet could be gathered to claim it for the Crown Royal. This consisted of thirteen ships, though the Badoon did not use the same ship types as the Kree or the Skrull. They preferred large, monstrously heavy ships about half again the size of a Kree battleship, but not quite up to a dreadnaught, as their sole capital ships whatever their chosen task. These looked like a series of concentric, ugly seeming spheres, each of them larger than the one before it in both height and width.
The things positively bristled with weapons, but even those weapons were not quite the same mix the Kree or Skrull used. Due to the fact that they preferred a single ship size, the weapons were modular for the most part, a ship able to be assigned the weapons it would need for any specific mission. But, then again, there was one weapons systems the Badoon made heavy use of that was not modular and which had made even the other three superpowers wary of tangling with them. That and the fact that they had no issues with using nuclear weapons to make life-sustaining planets radioactive wastelands.
Sasskhanna reflected on this fact with a wide grin on his reptilian face. What other, weaker races called wastelands, his people could not only survive in, but thrive. Hah, whatever the primitive humans did to make the Kree back off will not work on the Badoon. And if they do not submit, I will simply bombard them from space until their whole race is smashed back into the stone age. That would be a pity, though. Human women are supposed to be nearly as beautiful as Kree women and far less flimsy than those Shi'ar fowls.
Unfortunately for the Badoon, they couldn't hide a hyperspace jump, and their sensors were just as good as anyone else's. His smile slipped off his face as their own sensors began to tell them about the Sol system. "What is this!" he snarled, glaring up at the tactical screen, on which a Badoon ship took up half the bridge. "How did the humans build up to this level of industrial capacity?"
"We do not know, Fleet Lord," replied one of his officers servilely. "But it appears obvious why the Kree had decided to cease their efforts to guard this sector of space from us."
"Yes.… They cannot allocate enough fleet assets to crush this odd race," Sasskhanna mused, then nodded, his equilibrium restored and having decided the way forward. "Launch seventy percent of our kinetics towards Earth. Use the remaining twenty percent on the various assets we can see elsewhere." Most of these assets were around the fourth planet from the sun of this system, but there were a few other targets elsewhere in the system, including what looked like a fully operational hydrogen harvester over one of the gas giants. Destroying that is regrettable, but this system has gone from being a prize to being an enemy, and we cannot leave any strategic asset in place if we can help it, just in case we are forced to retreat.
The kinetic bombardment systems of the Badoon were special. Instead of simply launching giant rocks like most did, their systems launched prepared shells which could enter hyperspace for brief periods of time like communication drones before coming back out. They retained the speed they had going in, adding further kinetic energy to the impact they caused to the target.
If even three of those get through, the human issue will be dealt with and all that will remain will be their space assets and whatever specially-powered individuals are off planet at the time of destruction, Sasskhanna thought. Not the conquest I was hoping for, but I should receive some recognition for stopping another extra-system power from appearing on the galactic sphere.