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Ironically enough as the humans were debating about the merits of one alien race to another, one of them was in the process of being conquered. War had come upon their capital taking them all unawares. An armada twice the size of the defending fleet lead by a single ship the size of a gas giant roared through, heading for the planet. Smaller ships spread out, engaging the defensive forces. At the same time, a massive gravitic device activated, meaning no ships could leave to bring back reinforcements. The locals were on their own, and it was not enough.
Within an hour the last defending ship died, as one of the attacker's monstrous spaceships slammed into it. A gargantuan vessel, it just plowed through the only half as massive Skrull flagship, pushing into orbit over the Skrull's homeworld of Tarnax 4.
An instant later, the troop transports following it through the shattered defenses slammed into the atmosphere, heading down. Several of them were hit by defensive fire as they came, but the shields on them held, even against the massive planetary base defense fortresses.
But, perhaps all of that could've been seen as a sideshow. For the main attack came on the palace. A portal appeared there and at the head of a massive army of Chitauri, Thanos appeared.
The conclave of potentates that ruled the Skrull had retreated to a small bunker at the onset of the battle but had not tried to spread out or move further, trusting in their fleets. That trust had proven false, and now they flinched away in shock, as the entire left wing of their bunker was destroyed, and the mad Titan strode through the rubble over the bodies of some of their fellows who had been on that side of the bunker.
He looked around, one purple eyebrow rising as he stroked his chin with his hand. All of them could see the horrible wounds that covered him and his face, the burn marks covering most of his body, the missing arm, which had been amputated just below the shoulder. And yet, here he was, larger than life, staring at them with those intelligent, penetrating eyes. Thanos, the Mad Titan, one of the powers of the galaxy, who needed no army, who was so far above them he could be likened to a god. Twice before the Skrull had dealt with Thanos, both times appeasing him with technology and services. Now, now he had come to them for an altogether different purpose.
"Is it not customary for the conquered to kneel?" He intoned in that deep almost sepulchral voice. "Kneel or die is the phrase I believe."
The potentates were no one's fools. They didn't even look at one another, they just knew how this had to go. Hard, or soft, that was going to be it. With Tarnax 4 in his hands, Thanos had his throat on the Empire and had several Grand Fleets worth of troops in this single system besides. No, there was no way to fight this, not from their capital anyway. The Grand Governors might protest things, but against Thanos, any rebellion from them would no doubt see them dead in short order.
And as one, the potentates decided they would rather live. Without any further instructions or discussion, they all went down on one knee, bowing their heads. "T, the Empire is yours, Lord Thanos," one of them stammered. "Glory to the Conqueror."
Thanos smiled. And at that moment, it was the most horrifying thing any of the Skrull in that room had ever seen. Once more, the potentates, normally an arguing, argumentative and highly divisive lot, shared a single thought: And woe to the conquered.
OOOOOOO
The funeral for the dead EDF troopers held in Fortress Mars was barely over before Harry had decided on the team that would be going with him. First were the easiest choices: Reed was coming, along with Johnny, Ben Grimm, and Thundra. Thundra insisted on being included, wanting to go into battle alongside her lover again. From the Custodes, Harry was taking Ororo, Hela, Emma, Nikolai, and Amora. He wanted Emma along for when he was dealing with the Shi'ar. Nikolai's powers might be of use against either Galactus – a low probability – or his herald. Amora's powers thought could be a nasty shock for Galactus if they caught him mid-feed.
After some discussion and thinking hard about it, He decided to not take Dani along. During a planning session at the lunch table, Reed informed them that Galactus, their main target on this mission if not their only one, would be immune to her empathic psionic powers, whereas he agreed that Amora's powers might interrupt the 'transmutation energy flow'.
Dani was pissed about it but didn't argue. Piotr did when told he would be remaining behind, But Harry didn't want to take the entire Custodes with him, and Piotr reluctantly agreed to stay behind. Harry had also hoped to convince Ororo to stay behind, but she would have none of it, despite the low probability that her mutant powers would have any effect on Galactus. She argued back there was her magic to consider, and her powers would work just fine on Galactus' herald and the Shi'ar if they proved hostile. Harry attempted to then argue that she should stay and be his spokesman, but she shot that down to with, "At the moment there is no large scale project or doings that I could act as spokesperson for. No, I am going Harry and that is final."
To replace the large Russian and to give Ben some aid in the hand to hand area, Harry co-opted Warpath from the X-men. He also decided to take Alex Summers, taking the younger Summers brother off of his older brother's hands, much to the relief of Scott. Harry felt maybe some more personal instruction from him and Ororo would get the young Summers over his issues with being under Scott's command and Lorna having moved on from their relationship when they were Hellions.
"I also convinced Dr. Strange to come with us. Actually, convincing didn't take all that long. Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with spells that can work on Galactus, even if he has an inbuilt magical resistance like Thanos had. Oh, and Hedwig will be coming with us too," Harry said with a small smile for his familiar.
He, Ororo, and Hedwig had come over to the Baxter Building that afternoon for another meeting this time about the Ultimate Nullifier. They found all four members of the FF in residence along with Thundra. Susan was a little farther along than Jean in her pregnancy, and despite, or perhaps because it was her second time had been having an even worse time of it. If not for the house-elf Sara, who Ororo had asked to look after the FF, the whole team might well have been quite frayed at the edges. That, and very mild calming potions from Madame Harkness.
Now though Susan sat between her husband and her brother, blinking in surprise. "Why? I mean, Hedwig's a lovely bird, very intelligent, but what could she possibly do which others couldn't? And, well, why is Hedwig even interested in coming along in the first place?"
Ororo smiled, reaching out to gently ruffle Hedwig's chest feathers. "She seems to have taken it poorly that the Shi'ar people are evolved from birds."
"As for what she could do to help, well, I think a demonstration is in order," Harry said with a grin. "You have teleportation blocks up here right?"
"Correct, scientific energy shields I have devised to block both scientific, temporal, and magical means of instant teleportation into the Baxter Building. You know that you had to teleport into a specific room because of it this very day, and you've helped me test them before," Reed said, his brow furrowed. "Why?"
Harry smiled, and then, Hedwig disappeared. She reappeared an instant later, flying down to land on Ororo's shoulder, butting her head against the silver-haired woman's.
As read looked back at him in shock, Harry smiled, shrugging his shoulders. "Hedwig's ability to teleport is unique. Even I don't understand how she does it, despite spending several months a few years back trying to figure it out. Even Dr. Strange has issues stopping Hedwig from going where she wants to go."
"Ah… well, so long as she does not use this power for evil, I suppose I can make an exception in my no teleporting policy. In any event, I believe we should move on to brass tacks. If you tw, er, three," Reed corrected himself, glancing at Hedwig, "will come with us, we can show you where I keep the Ultimate Nullifier."
The scientist seemed nervous, and Harry fought back a smile. It was evident that the idea of the Ultimate Nullifier being magical had done nothing to alter Reed's fear of the device. If anything it had heightened it.
Reed led the way not into his laboratory as Harry and Ororo had suspected, but to his and Susan's bedroom. It was a two-story room that had apparently been redesigned in some ways to be more comfortable for Susan. The dressers and bookshelves Harry somewhat remembered seeing were gone, replaced by a large ergonomic chair with controls to allow the user to change its shape to be more comfortable or help the woman out of the chair. The second story looked to have been filled with plants and a wall removed to allow for a large window. The bed too was larger and seemed to be made of two distinct sides.
In among all this was a single bedside table that, while it seemed to fit in with the rest, also stood out to Harry's eyes because it was bolted to the floor. All of the FF moved toward it, and as Ororo and Harry watched, Reed stretched his hand down underneath it, his hand flattening and squishing out underneath the table, palm uppermost. "It's a palm reader, but it's made for someone who can stretch as I can. Each layer of security is like that, designed so that only one of us could get past it. On top of that, there's a series of verbal questions after the first four security checkpoints."
Harry watched as the top of the table popped up in two places, its movement so seamless that it looked almost as if the metal molded itself upwards. Susan then took her turn, placing her finger into a thumbprint reader, while using her power to create a thin blade of an invisible shield, sinking it into a hole and then corkscrewing it around to push a tiny, unseen button. "Mine is thumbprint and invisibility powered. If someone tries to push that little button with anything in the visible spectrum, the trap activates."
"What would've happened if someone tried to and failed?" Ororo asked.
"This room is connected to the negative zone's portal, which if it goes haywire, creates what amounts to a localized antimatter explosion."
Reed caught Harry's shocked look and he shrugged his shoulders. "I take my security seriously. I doubt even someone like you would be able to survive that."
Not without some lead-up time anyway, Harry thought, shaking his head. Oh, Harry suspected that after his most recent power-up he wouldn't need much in the way of time to prepare, a rather startling thought for a young man who still could all too easily remember being defenseless and weak. But he would still need that time if he wanted to walk away from or contain such an attack. Hmm… I wonder how I would do that? A pocket dimension like a space expansion to suck in the antimatter somehow? Or just focus on becoming durable enough to survive it. Again somehow Harry knew he could do so, he just wasn't sure why he was so certain.
Johnny followed, cutting his finger and letting a DNA sample flow into a small analyzer when another segment of the almost innocuous bedside table popped open. Then he had to create a flame under a heat sensor at precisely the right degree in under ten seconds. Johnny was sweating by the time he pulled back, grumbling and shaking his head. "I hate that thing."
The Thing snorted. His was easy. He just had to stick his craggy thumb into another reader on the side of the now almost entirely unfolded table, then answer a few questions. These were about their pasts, simple things from their childhood or earliest adventures that no one beyond the FF could have known.
Finally, a panel popped open on the side of the deformed bedside table, and Reed reached in, pulling up a small device. The main portion of the device was a little larger than Reed's palm in his normal size. It had a thin, barely an inch wide, and had three bits coming out of it. One was at the top forward corner of the device and was curved, tapering to a thin scoop-like top. Halfway along the main body's top was a small switch of some kind. At the front of the device, or at least pointing away from reed's wrist, was the third bit. It looked like a tiny joystick almost.
Reed put the device on the top of the table and all for the Fantastic Four looked at it, then up at Harry, their faces all showing apprehension, a whole lot of fear. All four of them all too easily remembered the adventure with Galactus and the Silver Surfer. Harry conjured chairs for them all bar Susan, who moved over to her ergonomic chair while Harry kept staring at the device, bringing one hand up to his eyes to create the Mage Sight spell on his eyes as Ororo began to do the same. "By the way, you never mentioned what happened to the Silver Surfer."
"I noticed that too," Ororo said. "You said you had convinced him to aid you but…"
Reed winced. Galactus was quite cruel to the Silver Surfer. He realized that the Silver Surfer loved two things, one, traveling the space lanes, and two, interacting with people. Interacting with people was something new, which he had developed thanks to…" Reed looked over at Ben.
"Thanks to Alicia," Ben said some supplying the word easily. He and Alicia had broken up amicably after all. Even so, he did gloss over his own reaction not the events at the time, not wanting to admit he'd been furiously jealous of the attention the Silver Surfer paid Alicia, or how she didn't seem to understand why he and the Surfer were fighting. "They met and talked, and she somehow got through the silver-skinned ass."
"To repay his betrayal, Galactus used some kind of device to change the energy he had given the Silver Surfer to change him into his herald. Now the Silver Surfer can't come close to any spatial body that is larger than himself, without the energy he gives off at a constant basis causing a chain reaction in the atoms of that spatial body, akin to simply creating a vast super-nuclear explosion."
"Ouch. That is cruel. It makes the punishment fit the crime, but it is still quite cruel."
Leaning over the device, Harry examined it with his Mage Sight which indeed glowed to his sight, bright and pulsing with energy, a LOT of energy. "Well, it is magical. Very much so. And it works on… I want to say God tier magic too." Gingerly Harry raised his hands, looking over at Ororo who nodded and began to create a magical sphere around them.
At the same time, Harry began to use a spell that could let him see the various levels of magic on the thing like separate layers in a cake. After second, the spell took, and the intrinsic magic of the thing appeared. With two fingers he spread them out like he would a hard light screen in order to see the smaller details of a runic script. Which worked very well here, because the magic within the device was based off runes too.
He said so aloud then went on. "It's in a language that I've never seen before, but even so, I can make out what at least two of the Runes do." He set it down, frowning. "This bit here," he said pointing to nothing as far as the four Fantastic Four members were concerned. "That looks as if it's something to do with the soul. Or at least the rune seems to bear some resemblance to the main soul rune from Norse, Egyptian and Latin runic languages. I've always found it fascinating that that particular rune is so alike one language to another."
"Strangely enough, it reminds me of something that lady Gaia showed me when I was learning her magics," Ororo murmured back, still staring at the revealed array. "That bit there…" she pointed to one dull brown glowing rune, that was I the center of a tiny spiderweb of black and intensely glowing blue runes. "It, is that an equivalency rune?"
"An 'if this, then that' kind of thing," Harry supplied for Reed. "Think of it as magical programming code. And… yeah, it is. Hmm... Not quite connected right off the bat to the soul portion, but it's there."
"So it is magical," Reed said, quietly breathing a sigh of relief. "That thing frustrated me for months, before…" He blushed, and Susan smirked. It wasn't a salacious smirk, and it wasn't anything large, but conveyed a certain sort of smugness that caused Ororo to break out into giggles and hold out her hand for a low five to the other woman.
The man looked amused at Reed's expense before Harry shook his head staring down at the device. "Yes well, setting that aside it is most decidedly magical. In fact, I think it's the most magical device I've ever seen." Fuck me if the thing doesn't seem to contain more power than all of the crystals we've found from Cytorrak's pantheon. It could even be as powerful as that crystal I drained from the shapeshifters. I could drain it, but it would certainly not only push me across the line into divinity it would probably toss me over that line with all the power of a trebuchet. There would no coming back, I couldn't, I don't know if I could even dispel the magic fast enough.
Harry frowned, shaking his head. "I don't think I'm even going to take this along," he said abruptly, gesturing to the device "From what we can tell this thing works on souls and equivalency. What it is equivalent to, what that could possibly mean, I have no idea. I don't doubt this device will destroy its target, but the cost... I just don't know. It could be life force. In which case we could kill Galactus and possibly denude entire solar systems of life at the same time. Including all of us. I just can't tell."
"We should examine the magic of it in bits and pieces to figure it out but I think Reed, that we will have to be very careful, lest we run into the same trouble you had: unable to test to see what it can do for fear of the very same thing," Harry muttered.
"Let us copy the images onto paper, and then you can lock it away once more," Ororo ordered. To say she was leery of the device was putting it mildly. The two magic users got to work on that, copying each rune onto a single paper, vowing to ask Hela and Gaia about them later. Hela hadn't come with them, busy with her own duties as Goddess of Niflheim, but perhaps the two goddesses could at least give them a starting point.
When they were done, Harry turned to Reed. "Well, with that avenue of exploration shut down for now, what else have you thought up to deal with Galactus?"
It would turn out later that Gaia and Hela could not help when it came to the magic in the Ultimate Nullifier. Hela didn't recognize any more than Harry and Ororo had already. She only said the whole thing was "Touched with my Lady Death's power, not blood magic but sacrifice, willing and unwilling. I cannot tell more about the actual enchantment then that."
Gaia was even less helpful. The instant she saw the various runes laid out randomly in the runic testing room in Camelot, she got into a shouting match with Harry, telling him he needed to destroy them without telling him why. Gaia clammed up about what they did or could ever do, going so far as to disappear, ignoring Ororo's calls for the next three days.
However, that didn't mean that work on preparing for this mission stopped. Far from it in fact.
Later that same day, Harry convened a meeting between his runic experts: Hela, Kitty, Ororo, and Dr. Druid. He'd asked if Dr. strange wanted to be involved but when the project was explained Strange had negated the idea, saying "I have no special knowledge of runes as you use them, nor enchantments that can do what you wish. There could be in enchantment though, that could be twisted to this purpose, or rather turned on its head."
Strange smiled a wintry little smile. "Most of the time individuals are looking to become gods, not remain human after obtaining that level of power. Still, I will search for that. And as for your request… yes, Harry, I will accompany you on this mission against the World Eater. If nothing else, it will be fascinating to see you go all out in terms of power rather than relying simply on your versatility."
Harry had left Steve to it, knowing also there was the simple fact that Steve just wasn't much of a people person. Dealing with a live-in girlfriend and apprentice was pushing it already.
After gathering his magic fellows, Harry smiled as Kitty plopped into the sofa next to Ororo, leaning her head up against the other woman's shoulder for a moment, as Ororo chuckled, and hugged the girl. Harry raised an eyebrow, and she shook her head, before gently pushing Kitty to the floor so that Harry could slip sidle into the sofa next to her instead.
"Oh, I see how it is," Kitty huffed, but there was laughter in her eyes as she sat up, leaning against the front of the sofa between the two lovers as she peered up at Harry expectantly. "What have you got for us today Teach?"
Harry smiled at her irrepressible manner, and then looked over at Hela as she entered. Hela sat across from him in a chair next to Dr. Druid and he began. He explained his meeting with Gaia, something that Ororo and Hela of course already knew about, first-hand for the one secondhand for the other. But it was a tail that Kitty and Dr. Druid hadn't yet been told.
"So I have come to the conclusion that there needs to be some kind of, of way to shift myself from simply a human being which I am now, to the level I need to become in order to get stronger. Dr. strange is looking into enchantment, long-term spellcraft that could possibly funnel the magic into a certain 'shape' which would let me continue to imbue my body and reserves with power but not irrevocably shift my soul or mind into the that of a new magical God. But I'm wondering if there's some kind of runic array we could create, that could do the same thing. That could aid in the shift from human, to Titan without me losing any ability with the actual magic."
"…That's a tall order Teach. Um, are you thinking that we'll be able to do this by the time you want to leave to face off against Galactus?" Kitty asked hesitantly, wondering if her runes teacher and boss had gone crazy.
"No," Harry said with a sigh. "No, I know that we don't have enough time for that unless… well. There's the time chamber, and we might be using it for another project soon enough. "But I wanted this started even before we learned of Galactus. I think, given what we've learned, that with the team we can put in the field and all the preparations Reed has been making just in case Galactus appeared again, we can face him. But, who's to say that he'll be the strongest enemy we'll face? Who's to say that there won't be a time when we'll need that power."
"The Mad Titan is still out there, still alive," Hela said shaking her head. "And still much enamored with My lady, Death."
"What?" Dr. Druid asked. He was a reticent, somewhat standoffish man at the best of times, but he spoke up now, puzzled. "Are you implying that he is a mass murderer? That would seem redundant to me."
Hela's green-painted lips twisted under her mask, and Dr. Druid had to look away with a faint blush. One of the reasons why he was even more reticent than normal around Hela, was the fact that he found her immensely attractive, and in no way wanted to imply anything in that direction through word or deed. "I mean that he is literally enamored with death. My Mistress told me, in her own fashion, that he has tried to woo her in the past."
"I don't suppose you could ask her for any more hints then Gaia gave?" Kitty asked. She was uncertain about the actual relationship between Death (and wasn't that a scary concept, Death being a person) and Hela. But surely if Hela was close to the lady in question then it could be possible.
That uncertainty was why Hela didn't bite her head off. "No, I cannot. Death might be as you would term it, all-powerful and all-knowing, but she cannot act on her own without doing so in payment for some task, done un-looked for. To do so would break the great rules that guide all things. Indeed, even the Phoenix Force is limited to how it can act if to a far lesser extent due to its ability to choose Avatars."
"Makes sense," Harry said with a grim nod. "And I wouldn't want the answer to be simple anyway." He looked over at Ororo. "I got the distinct impression that Gaia basically challenged us to find a means through this little trial on our own."
"That was my impression looking back on it. It was subtle, but she gave us just enough cheese for us to try to get out of the trap as it were."
Hela frowned, cocking her head. "Are you sure?"
Harry shrugged, waving one hand. "I'll show you the actual memory of the meeting between us, I think she let the whole mad Titan thing fall very deliberately but I'll treasure your opinion. For now, let's see what we can figure out."
While Hela was surprising herself by blushing at the idea of her opinion being treasured, Kitty conjured up a piece of paper with nary a blink, setting it down on the ground, as she began to write out ideas. "To my mind, we need to examine four different areas here. First, we need a power source. That Crystal we still have, is it still powered?"
When Harry nodded she checked that topic off. "We also need to do some experiments," she intoned linking that to the next word. "From there, I think the idea would be to create physical and energy siphons so that when you next come close to that line, the power you're taking in won't go right to your soul but your physical form first instead of your body being effected only by blowback or whatever the term should be."
"I disagree," Dr. Druid said instantly. "We need to work on the mental aspect. In terms of protection, siphoning off power from his magical reserve right away is important but directly in protecting the mind and emotions from being changed."
"That seems to be more an enchantment than something we could create a runic array to do," Hela said instantly.
Ororo shook her head. "No. Recall that Harry created this necklace for me," she explained, touching the device. She had never, not one day since Harry had given it to her, taken it off. She touched it now, her fingers running through it as she looked at her lover, her husband in all but law with affection in her eyes. "Something like this, only reversed, a defense against anything trying to change him on the emotional level rather than connecting to something on that same level."
Harry nodded. "That was my thinking too, but I also agree with Kitty, something that can siphon the energy I take in, from directly entering my soul to instead empowering my body is a must."
Kitty switched up her list. She'd had the mental thing as the fourth, but really all of them were just as important as one another so the numbers given were not really important. "Are we talking runes inscribed into your body? I know you did that with the flight array, but wouldn't this interfere with that?"
"I may have to actually move that array entirely if we do this, but considering that Hela can fly, if not as gracefully as Ororo," he teased winking at the Asgardian goddess, "I don't see that big a deal there."
"Loathe as I am to admit it, but our Seidr Man is right," Hela said, scowling and wrinkling her nose at Harry's mention of the fact that she wasn't as graceful a flyer as the other woman. "And I would've thought you would have learned by this point Harry Potter that comparing one woman to another is never a smart idea."
Harry laughed, and his eyes practically smoldered as he kissed Ororo's check while still gazing with smoldering eyes at Hela. "When comparing diamonds to rubies my dear, do either truly suffer in the comparison?"
"Smooth," Kitty laughed clapping her hands as both women blushed, and the discussion continued.
By the time dinner rolled around, all four of them were certain of what they had to do, what the enchantment portion of it had to do, and how long it would take. How long it would take would be of a very, very damn long time, but it was doable, at least on the surface. Experiments were going to be tough to do, but even so, knowing it was doable was half the battle. And later on, Hela agreed that lady Gaia had indeed dropped that Mad Titan comment, very, very deliberately.
However, Kitty's initial idea of how long this would take was very much born out. They had barely an outline of what would be needed, let alone a solid plan or the start of the runic arrays. And there was no way in hell that they would be able to do this by the time Harry and the others left, not even in the time chambers. There was simply too much design work to be done before getting to the testing phase, let alone creating a final product Harry would be willing to bet his humanity on. They would have to rely on the rest of their preparations to deal with Galactus.
Later that evening Harry and Hela had a much less fun meeting with the lawyers and lawmakers Harry had ordered to create the laws and regulations for his new country. Even though they had finally gotten it into their heads the fact that magic not only existed but basically did away with the need to have defense lawyers and so forth to a very large degree, they still hadn't quite grasped the idea that this was going to be in Empire.
Yes, there would be elections. Yes, many of those elections would retain high office. But Harry wanted to retain his position as Emperor of course and wasn't willing to let them make the budding Empire into a constitutional monarchy. Those would limit his ability to get things done too much. And Harry's refusal to budge on this point was a major issue for the lawyers for various reasons. Still, they were in his employ and eventually bowed to the inevitable instead of making Harry fire the whole lot of them.
He also had to once more walk them through the various ways magic could make their lives easier and then inform them that no, one law would not fit all. Safety laws, gun laws, and other such laws would need to be different from one colony to another. Fortress Mars had stringent laws on personal weapons. The Savage Land only cared about if the individual using them was the one who bought it and could do so well. Housing laws, land ownership, and business grants were another issue, but Harry, with the help of Emma and Hela worked through it all until the lawyers were once more back on track.
"Although, it would really be a help at this point if you could finally choose a name for this Empire you're building," one man mused, recovering some of his humor from the verbal beatdown Harry had to do in order to make the lawyers understand where their limits lay.
The next day, Harry was back to work on preparing for the mission against Galactus. This first came in the form of another meeting, this time in the X-mansion.
"Hello Forge," Harry said to the Native American man who walked through the doorway to the Xavier mansion, holding out his hand to the man. "You do prefer to go by that name right?"
"That's right," the other man replied, smiling thinly at Harry. "I understand I have you to thank for getting me out of that agreement with the Beltway bandit company that I was working for? You'll note even now I am not telling you its name." He smiled, showing quite a lot of teeth. "It was amazing how they began to pull their hair out though a few months ago. We were ordered to basically tried to figure out a way to get into space without you knowing about it, and every time I told them it couldn't be done or asked them why the hair-pulling was multiplied tenfold. It honestly became a farce near the end, when the scanning ability of your AI somehow leaked to us."
Harry had allowed that information to leak to the American government in the hopes that it would stop programs like what Forge had been working for. He hadn't considered though that most of those programs would be occurring in the civilian sector rather than government-run laboratories. So it had taken a while for it to filter down to Forge and the people who were holding him in contract hell. "Well, you're free now to work with us if you want, and I take your very presence here to indicate you do?"
"That's correct." The other man's smile morphed from a toothy one to a much more honest smile as Harry began to lead him not to sit back down with Charles who had been waiting for Harry but to an open area behind the sofa. "I want to work on spaceships, even warships at this point. I have so many ideas I've been working on, but none of them would've worked because we couldn't get out of the gravity well without a lot more resources then they were willing to allocate to me. I hope you don't expect miracles on shoestring budgets."
The fact that Forge actually had performed miracles on that budget wasn't said. It might be true that the last few projects that Forge had been working on for the company who had somehow garnered his services had never gotten off the ground, but he did perform miracles in various ways. A series of underwater laboratories, fully designed in automated, with all the bells and whistles anyone could ever want both defensively, and structurally. An entire infrastructure for several Native American reservations, which Harry felt was the way Forge had actually been convinced to work with that company in the first place. How that company had such connections to the reservations was still a minor mystery to Harry, wonder that the Native Americans already working for Harry had no idea of either. But they did, and Forge had done tremendous work for them.
Of course, it wasn't his design ability that Harry was interested in at the moment. That would come later. No, Harry needed speed right now, and for that, Forge's technopathy would be a godsend.
In answer to Forge's question Harry simply laughed. "Trust me, the budget is never going to be an issue. Resources and manpower might be, but not for the immediate future. Now, a first question: do you have motion sickness?"
"Wait, what?" Forge asked before Harry gripped his wrist. The next second, the world around them disappeared, replaced by a long hall with a series of rock arches. That was about all Forge could see before he began to collapse to his knees.
Harry caught him, and held him still for a moment, letting Forge get over his initial reaction to the teleportation. "Sorry, being teleported takes people like that sometimes."
"Next time, warned me," forge growled trying to pull away from Harry only to find that his feet were not quite obeying him yet.
"That wouldn't work, if you tense your stomach, or try to prepare yourself mentally, it actually makes it worse we've found," Harry replied with a sigh. "But look at it this way, using the runic doorways is a lot simpler. With them, you simply stepped from one place to another."
He didn't say it aloud but going through teleportation like that was actually more of a rite of passage than any actually necessary thing at this point. There was a runic doorway in the X-mansion after all. But everyone had to go through teleportation at least once, in Harry's opinion. And at least I use the port keys instead of Apparating him.
Forge still grumbled, but after a few seconds got his feet under him.
Harry led the way through the doors, to the one marked Fortress Mars, and then activated it, by tapping the correct rune, the view of several other arches disappeared, to be replaced by a large receiving area on the other side, complete with chairs and tables. There were a few people there already, but only one of whom Forge recognized. Reed Richards stretched out on one chair, and when that man stretched, he put his whole body into it. The others were two women, one a little closer to middle-aged than the other with blonde hair to the younger woman's green, talking quietly to one another a bit away from Mr. Fantastic.
They all looked up when the door activated, and Harry gestured forge through. Hesitatingly a moment, the mustachioed man stepped forward through the curtain of magical energies out the other side. He didn't even stumble as he came through and turned, staring at the thing for a moment on the other side until Harry coughed, and he hastily moved out of the way. Harry then came through afterward and looked around quizzically. "Kitty?"
"Wait a sec I'm here!" Came a voice, and Harry turned to see Kitty running pell-mell through the runic archway behind him. He caught her as she stumbled, intercepting her before she could slam into both himself and Forge. "Sorry," she said breathlessly, "lunch with the parents went long." She turned, waving hello to Forge, then skipped over to Carol and Lorna, hugging both of them in welcome. She hadn't seen both women for a few days, both Lorna and Carol for their own reasons preferring to be in space most the time.
Not to Harry's surprise, both older women returned the younger girl's hug, smiling happily at seeing her. Kitty was basically everyone's friend at this point, although she was still closer to Ororo than anyone else. And amusingly enough, it wasn't just Kitty, but her parents seemed to have the same kind of friendly atmosphere to them that just made everyone want to be around them. Her parents had quickly become the den parents for the entire school, despite the school growing tremendously in size. It was always heartwarming to see kids who had lost their parents or had been kicked out of their original families due to the rotations opening up to the two non-powered Prydes.
By this point, Forge had turned his attention to the far door, and Reed was talking to the man quietly, explaining where they were, and about Fortress Mars in a very broad manner. Read to didn't realize what he'd been asked to participate in here, but he would learn soon enough. Harry moved over to the girls, offering Kitty a hand. "Shall we?" The time chamber was as much Kitty's baby anyone's, after all.
Kitty grinned, and linked arms with Harry, leading the way through the fortress. As they once Harry fielded a lot of questions from Forge of course, which he answered, even as base personnel came by going moving around the base on their own missions, stopping to salute him when they saw him. Harry didn't bother to reply to them, simply nodding his head, getting weary her and weary air with every salute. He was not a fan of such punctilio at the best of times, and Harry knew that Steve and Carol had convinced the base personnel to do this to him occasionally just to get under his skin.
Eventually, the group was within the environs of the time chamber. There, Harry conjured up a few chairs and a table for them in the corner, while agreed and Forge were gaping at the giant robot construction facility. It had grown over time as Lorna, Wanda, and the droids themselves worked on it, five percent of the continuing output of the facility on continual expansion. It was coming to a point where Harry would have to shut it down in order to go around and reinforce the exterior in order to stop it from caving in.
When everyone was seated, Harry spoke. "All right, as you can see we are in the industrial heart of the ongoing efforts to create a true space-based industry. That work is going to be put on hold however, for what all of you and myself will be working on. Before we begin, realize that we are in a time chamber. Time in this room goes much slower than in the rest of the galaxy around us. Because of that, a day outside equals around a week in here. Not exactly, but close."
Forge made to speak up, but Reed stopped him. He shook his head at his fellow scientist, and forge boggle, before raising his hands as if to say all right fine, 'I won't try to disprove the madman statement'. He also noticed that both Lorna Carol and Kitty all looked as if they'd heard this before.
Instead, all three of them were worried about what else Harry had said. "What do you mean that work is going to stop? What project are you going to have us working on, Boss?" Lorna asked.
"I mean that all of the droids that were scheduled to finish construction and chamber in the next five days will instead be remaining within the chamber. Because what we are going to be doing, is designing the ship. The first spaceship designed by humanity to go beyond our star system. And you two," Harry went on, looking pointedly at Forge and Reed, "will be doing much of the design work. However, not all of it. This ship is going to incorporate both technology and magic. Technology for the engines, internal power, the scanners. The weapons. Magic for defense, and for various other things." He smirked suddenly. "Such as space expansion charms, lots of them."
For that first day and a half, work was quite slow on the actual design phase of the ship, with Harry and Kitty fielding a lot of questions from Forge, as Lorna and Carol and Reed got time to work. Read already had a few designs for various systems that he would like to see placed on the ship but had not gone full hog and begun to design a capital ship. Then again, the ship Harry wanted them to create wasn't honestly a capital ship. It was more a courier vessel, fast, agile, with little in the way of weapons. Instead, it would be the people aboard who would be the weapons.
Three days in that time chamber had been enough for Forge to fully understand what Harry had meant when he said that magic would be able to see to the defense and to see examples of the space expansion charms. With that, the technopathy-using mutant got to work alongside Mr. Fantastic. The two of them had several arguments, while Harry and Kitty, with the occasional help of Ororo stopping by for what was for her every other meal, and was for them something different, got to work on creating the giant teleportation ring. After all, once the ship was built they'd have to get it out of the cavernous space.
From there, Kitty and Harry began to work on what would become the outer shell of the ship. Stone, heavy, massive slabs of granite, which wouldn't have looked out of place sticking out of a mountain face on earth. These were then molded together via magic, before being allowed to rest in their new formations. With that done, the two of them went to work on putting the runes on the interior, where those slabs would connect to the metal framework already being built to one side.
In this, Forge proved exactly why Harry had wanted the Technopathy mutant working for him. He was able to use his abilities to manipulate electronics and metalwork to speed up the work on the ship to an insane degree. Because of Forge and the initial designs of the engines from Reed and Harry's magic, after what amounted to only three weeks of in chamber time - long enough for Lorna Kitty Carol and the others to be going a little stir crazy and for everyone but Harry to feel as if their minds were being strained or scratched from the inside.
The ship at first wasn't actually all that much to look at. On the outside, it was about the size of a World War II destroyer, although the shape was nothing like one. It was a wide, tapered spear-point with the tip of the spear-point spreading out further to look almost like fangs. Those were the only two weapons the ship had, powerful Maser cannons much like the secondary weapons on Fortress Mars, or like the primary weapons on a Doom Bringer or World Breaker. Whatever they hit would know that it had been smacked, but they were almost secondary.
At the back of the ship were two engine pods, completely separate engines. Both of them were the same type, hyperspace engines, but whereas a normal hyperspace engine would need a bit of run-up time to power itself back into hyperspace, this way, the ship could smoothly switch from one to another, speeding up its travel time through hyperspace immensely. Those hyperspace engines were also far more efficient fuel wise than any of the Kree designs they'd seen, although not quite up to the standard the Shi'ar ship had. Yet given the distance they would have to travel it would eat refined hydrogen fuel like no one's business.
But that like in other areas, was where magic came in. Because the inside of that ship was a good deal larger than the outside. A good deal. As in every single compartment within that ship had been magically enlarged. Not only was the tanks for the ship larger on the inside than they were on the outside, but everyone going on this mission would have their own room, or thereabouts anyway, there was a huge area for exercising. A large cafeteria, complete with a massive storage facility of its own, scanners that would not have been out of place on a capital ship, and many other things.
Defensively too, the ship had been magically enhanced to an incredible degree. The outer stone of the ship had runic script etched into it in thousands of different places, toughening the outer shell of the ship to an incredible degree. On the inside, those runic arrays could be further enhanced by Harry, via a central command center, where he could pour his own magic into them. There were a few other surprises within as well, things that even for Harry were kind of experimental on the magical side of things, but he and Kitty, and Hedwig, who's teleportation was a part of it, believed that they would work. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to see if they worked on this mission, but if they did they need a few surprises, they were there.
In other words, while the ship didn't have the offensive punch to really get into any fights, it had both the speed and the durability to get away from anything. It had the capacity to bring the troops to the Shi'ar Empire in relative comfort, and then get them home again. Quickly. That was all that Harry cared about. Forge's histrionics on how inefficient it was in several ways failed to get through to his happiness at finally being able to leave the dilation chamber behind.
Not that he was alone in that. The three girls, all were ecstatic to finally be leak able to leave, despite the fact that Harry had basically created a very decent little living quarters for them right there in the chamber. Read too was anxious to leave. Being in a time chamber like this was just hard on the psyche of those involved, even magic users, if to a lesser extent. Indeed the only one who wasn't was Forge and that was because his perfectionist side was pushing out the 'itching in the brain' feeling. But he was dragged along by the others into the ship, which then flew through the teleportation ring, appearing out of the teleportation ring in orbit over Earth.
Luckily Harry had called ahead, so Pinoptes did not have the technological equivalent of a heart attack at their sudden appearance. A few ravens on maneuvers nearby hadn't gotten the memo and literally flinched away from the ship for a few seconds before their IFF signature came through. "And with that gentlemen, ladies I think that we can call the first ship of humanity a success. "Unless of course, you two think we should test out the hyperspace engines?"
As the three women glared at them, read hastily shook his head and forge rolled his eyes. "No, they will work as advertised no fear."
With that done, Harry docked with High Note and officially told his five fellow designers that they were now on a two-day vacation. Forge would report to Carol and Fortress Mars at the end of those two days to start working for them in whatever capacity he and Carol thought best. Kitty, Harry knew was going to make a beeline for her parents down Camelot. Lorna would probably find Steve or perhaps Polaris, one of the two. Carol was no doubt going to find the nearest wine bottle, and curl up somewhere with a romance book, her preferred method of relaxation.
Harry went in search of his ladies. And during the search, he would quickly become shocked at what he found. Because he and his group were to the only ones who had been busy during the 4 ½ days real-time Harry spent in the time chamber…
OOOOOOO
With Harry busy in the time chamber, that left Hela, Emma, and Ororo to keep things moving elsewhere.
Outside of her educational reforms/construction of said, Ororo acted as spokesman for the EDF and for Harry's various businesses in conjunction with Mary Jane. The two of them worked closely together to combat and then utterly eviscerate the negative news that the Daily Bugle and a few other news agencies attempted to put out, painting the EDF is the aggressor, or attempting to poke holes at the very idea that there were aliens out there.
It was an incredibly easy task it had to be admitted. Despite what people like Jameson might have thought, the public was not stupid, and everyone knew it by this point that there were aliens out there and they hadn't yet met a friendly one. Or at least, not as a race just yet.
Emma handled the business side of things, although, by this point, Magical Minds and its subsidiaries ran like clockwork. She didn't have to do anything for them, whereas she did still have to be hands-on for her own businesses. Given the fact that she was still dealing with a few managerial level people who had been working for her father before her, that was going to go on for a little while yet. She also oversaw a few more construction teams heading into the Savage land to help build up the infrastructure there.
The highlight of this was when Emma and Hela helped open up the first true paved road from the Citadel into the lands of the Savage land primitives with She-ra and Logan. Wolverine had officially joined her tribe at this point along with his daughter, who he was oddly enough, getting along quite well with now. And with her former partner too, although in her case, their relationship was not that of a father and daughter.
And even Hela was somewhat not only with her duties as goddess of Niflheim but with the military side of things and as she put it "continuing to stand over those foolish law-givers with a whip in hand to make certain that they are not making more work for everyone involved." Although as much as she complained about it, that aspect really wasn't taking up much for timing longer. Harry's personality and sheer charisma had done its work again in interacting with them. There was still a lot of annoyance on the part of the lawyers who came from America and Canada in that he had completely vetoed any laws that would limit his own powers outside of judicial actions, but they were getting over it.
This left Jean to her own devices and at times alone entirely. It wasn't deliberate, it was very much simply a product of everyone else being busy. But more often than not, Jean was on her own for at least the mornings and afternoons of the five days Harry spent in the time chamber. She could still feel their connection through that odd shift in time, but with his own time sped up so much, they couldn't actually communicate down it. It was still enough to keep her telepathic powers at bay, for which she was immensely thankful, but it wasn't exactly good to seek out comfort. At night Ororo and Emma were there and were both godsends, even Emma overcoming her dislike of the pregnant form to hug and generally cuddle with Jean.
But this wasn't enough. This wasn't enough for a very simple reason: once more, Harry the love of her life, Emma Ororo, and even Hela, all of whom she loved more dearly than she had ever and expected to love anyone, we're going into danger without her. She couldn't resent her pregnancy, not any longer. Indeed, she took a quiet joy most days, when she wasn't consumed by worry for her lovers. But this was a danger that was far beyond anything ever faced before. Harry might've downplayed it, but they really only had three weapons to use against someone on Galactus' level. Harry, Dr. strange, thanks to their magic, and Reed Richards's brain thanks to the amount of time that had passed since Galactus had attacked Earth.
Jean's thoughts turned on this point throughout those five days: the idea that they needed her now more than ever. Against any other enemy, and Jean knew that Hela's abilities and strengths could have made up for much of her own absence. Against someone on this level... the Asgardian goddess was immensely strong but not physically. Magically she was decent enough, but even she admitted she wasn't as strong magically as Strange or Harry.
But for all her hormonal imbalance due to her pregnancy, she was very much someone who when faced with a problem, got to grips with it instead of simply whined about it. As such, she decided to reach out to the Phoenix. She didn't honestly know if the creature could help, but she thought it might. If not to somehow help protect herself, then to maybe allow Jean to pass off some of her powers to one of the others? The how of the Phoenix helping was sort of modeled in her mind, the fact was, that Jean hadn't actually talked to the Pheonix Force since that one time after finding out she was pregnant. She could feel its presence occasionally in her mind but hadn't reached out to turn.
She did so now. On the third day of Harry's being inside the time chamber, Jean ordered Pinoptes to remove the construction droids from the latest hollowed out asteroid, which had been tugged into Earth's orbit. There she floated in the center of the opened area, taking up a vague lotus position, or as much as her body could form at the moment, as she closed her eyes, her powers flaring intermittently out around her, breathing in slowly and easily through the helmet that she was wearing. With her self-controls so badly degraded, Jean wasn't willing to take any chances that her powers would cut out and she would suddenly find herself without air.
How long she meditated, concentrating on creating a single bit of flame in front of her, calling out to the Phoenix Force, she didn't know. At first, she couldn't really detect any progress, but she felt the meditation calming her. Over time her worries and annoyances and the various pains of her body slowly faded away, until she was simply a floating piece of soul staring into the flame. Then as she still meditated the flame rose up and consumed her.
The crackling of the flames was much louder suddenly, and Jean opened her eyes. Or rather felt she opened her eyes. When she did, Jean knew that she was no longer in her actual physical body, rather her mental projection was somewhere else. It was rather easy to do into action to make considering everything around her was FIRE.
This wasn't like any kind of normal fire, nor was it like that of a sun. All the colors of a rainbow, everywhere at once. Jean knew instinctively that here, that was very far indeed, but it would still not be far enough to see the end of this plane of flame. And she also knew that every flame she saw represented more than just a bit of an ever-living fire. A soul, a life, a world, a star system, the death of them, the life of them, the rebirth. Ever renewing, ever-changing, ever-shifting with the times changing from one to another, but always there. Always growing. Each of the various pieces of varicolored flame represented all of that.
it was glorious. It was terrifying. It was awe-inspiring and so vast and larger than she was that a part of Jean wanted to curl up and just try to block out the image of how small she really was in the great scheme of things. But she didn't. The soul of Jean when you got right down to it was not one that would be cowed like that. So she simply took in the view, her jade green eyes flashing with the light.
"I see you are over your snit now?" She heard before soft, velvet wings enveloped her from behind. Jean turned and found herself face to face with the Phoenix Force once more. Only this time, the Phoenix Force had decided not to appear as a giant fiery bird. Instead, she looked like a Swan made an, or perhaps a harpy, Jean wasn't as well read on fantasy monsters as she wasn't science-fiction. She had wings instead of arms, and claws instead of legs, but her face and body were that of a woman, although of course everything was still made of flame.
"I suppose I am," Jean murmured, turning her eyes down to her stomach and patting it gently. "I don't…" she paused. "I am looking forward now to becoming a mother, but the whole birth process…"
"You're not the first woman in existence to bemoan that particular fact. Nor will you be the last," the harpy or swan woman replied, stepping around Jean so that they were facing one another. Her face and eyes were lit up with the latest seeing Jean, and Jean couldn't stop a smile appearing on her own face and the two of them simply looked at one another, before the Phoenix shook her head. "But you are not here just to get in touch with me as it were. Even you Jean Grey would not willingly try to force your soul into a higher plane of existence just to apologize to me for your intemperate comments."
Jean raised an eyebrow, and the Phoenix laughed. "If it would even occur to you to do so in the first place," she added gaily. "Oh Jean, do you have any concept of how few people, even among my past Avatars, would try to take me to task? Would even talk back to me? Still, say your piece. I find myself curious as to why you are here."
Realizing this was her cue, Jean quickly outlined what was going on, starting from the appearance of the new aliens in their system, then Gladiator, before going on to describe why they had come, and Harry's decision to help the Shi'ar against Galactus. She saw the Phoenix Force twitch at that name, but that was nothing in comparison to her reaction to the idea of Harry draining the Ultimate Nullifier. For the first time in their association, Jean could almost detect shock and fear on the Phoenix Force's face, and then relief when she heard that Harry had decided not to drain the device.
She was tempted to call the Phoenix Force out on it, but of course, the Phoenix sensed her thoughts and cut them off with a shake of her head. "No, I will not answer any questions about that device, where it came from or anything similar. I will not, because I cannot. Do you understand?"
Jean paused, then slowly nodded. She knew that the Phoenix Force, like Death, was a force of the galaxy. A sentient force, but still a part of the galaxy and a necessary part of how it ran, and as such there were rules that she had to follow had to obey in order for everything to keep running smoothly.
Before she could speak the Phoenix Force stepped backward, a smile on her face now. "Still, it is good to know that Harry realized the dangers and that, much like when he was faced with ascending to godhood, which many of us who dwell above and beyond the normal plane of existence have felt, his basic humanity held him back. Praise be. The last thing the universe needs is another God of magic especially one without a pre-existing portfolio."
"So you are here to request some means with which to help Harry and your other lovers on this dangerous mission," the Phoenix said going on quickly before Jean could question that comment. "Normally, I would be constrained by the rules as to how much help I could be, beyond making you my avatar in the first place. After all, the reason why I have Avatars is to let them act in my stead if need be already. But in this, I believe there is a loophole, old business that you can help me to clear up."
Jean made an interrogative noise, and the Phoenix turned to the side, making no gesture or move that Jean could see. But suddenly there appeared a picture there, an image of a still life photograph. It showed a massive fist holding in its hand a sword of equally immense proportions. It looked something like a claymore, it's blade even wider than that, oddly reminding Jean of a sword she'd seen in an RPG game once.
"Eons ago, when the Shi'ar were just starting to spread out from their homeworld, I found an avatar among them, their second royal prince, a young man named Rook'shir." The Phoenix Force sighed. "That was my first and only time choosing a male avatar because it failed miserably. He went mad within a few months, and began to siphon off my power, to manipulate me." Again the Phoenix Force paused, looking at Jean. "You must understand, I don't choose my avatars to simply act in the real world on my behalf that is in fact only a secondary purpose given how few times I actually give them orders to act. I choose Avatars because as the embodiment of life and rebirth, I need to have a connection to the material plane, I need to know what it is to be alive, to have those emotions feelings, yearnings."
For some reason, when the Phoenix Force said the last word Jean blushed, twisting her head away as the Phoenix cackled. "Exactly! I need to feel those, so that I do not become an unfeeling force of destruction, forgetting the aspect of rebirth that is part of my very being." The Phoenix sobered abruptly, shaking her head. "But Rook'shir, his connection to me began to corrupt. He took pleasure and joy in pain, in death, and having my power in the first place. He was eventually overcome, but Rook'shir left behind this blade. Which he was able to imbue with much of his own fragment of my power before his death."
"It's still out there isn't it?" Jean asked as the penny dropped. "Among the Shi'ar?"
"Exactly. Worse, I have sensed its reactivation. The power of that fragment of my strength was locked within the blade, and then could not be unlocked for eons, but someone has not only picked it up but has figured out a way to activate that power. Not entirely, they're not able to use my power all the time, but even so, it is disturbing. I'm getting flashes of... call them dark desires. The need to destroy, a joy in taking life. It is distressing."
The image to one side enlarged, and Jean gasped. "That is, that's Galactus' Herald! The Shi'ar call him something the executioner I think."
"Indeed?" The Phoenix Force was surprised by this news, and very worried. another first and one that did not fill Jean with joy, to say the least. "I could tell that he was using my blades somewhere within the Empire, but to have them actually be connected to Galactus? That is disturbing, beyond disturbing. A being with both my own power and that of Galactus running through think? Such a being is a danger to all life, perhaps in the long run even more so than Galactus. For all of his destructive properties, Galactus has never enjoyed causing pain, and he routinely allows his Herald to lead him away from civilized worlds or to even not find worlds for long stretches of time. But this Executioner, he enjoys what he does and with my power as well as Galactus he will be all too good at it."
"Okay, I understand why you would be able to figure out a loophole, that would let you help us more than you otherwise can, but how are you going to help us," Jean asked, frowning. "You just said you were not able to act in the material plane without an avatar so…"
"Ah, but I do have an avatar. You. And, this issue that is keeping you from acting in my stead in this, was also caused by me. Ergo I can also affect you and your body, and the two lives growing within you to a certain degree." With those words, the harpy suddenly disappeared, replaced by the original phoenix, its eyes flashing like twin novae.
Suddenly Jean gasped, then gasped again, as the Phoenix Force's power lashed out at her from every angle at once. The flame of the Phoenix Force within her burst like a damn suddenly, enveloping her entire person, and in Jean's mental projection does all almost, she could still retain her form but it was more ghostlike than solid now, and she watched in shock as the two smaller flames within her, which she knew represented her unborn children were slowly removed from the greater flame of her own body.
She could feel her body's sudden emptiness, and then her body reforming being reshaped back to how it was before her pregnancy, as her two twins appeared there, as they had looked in the last ultrasound. "I will keep these two here, both their souls and their bodies. Have no fear. They will remain separate, inviolate, protected in a pocket dimension that none but I can reach." The Phoenix Force had shifted instantly back to its harpy form and now her expression shifted to one of wry sadness. "I'm afraid however that you will experience quite a lot of pain when your mental projection as you put it returns to your body. A lot of pain. And the reverse will also be true when you have finished this task and I place them within you once more."
"I think I'd deal with that kind of pain with a cheerful grin on my face rather than going through this whole gestation thing," Jean quipped, as she felt her mental projection once more solidifying after the operation was accomplished. She held back a sudden tremor then and asked the question that she knew Harry would demand an answer to. "Will this affect the babies?"
"No. The Phoenix Force replied easily. I can see your concerns, and with magic, Harry's concerns are fully justified. Using magic on the body of a pregnant woman, especially as far along as you are, would've been dangerous. Magic has odd effects on unformed minds and bodies. But you are my avatar and I am the power of death and rebirth. Babies like this are my purview in a way, or close enough. My power will not affect them unduly, never fear. Even if this is the first time I've tried this I knew it would succeed. Again, because you are my avatar, the first to ever become so pregnant during your time in such."
There was a fierce possessiveness and delight in the Phoenix Force's words and face as she gazed at Jean. And she realized suddenly the Phoenix Force had been enjoying her pregnancy even more than Jean had after getting over her initial annoyance with it.
"Yes," the Phoenix Force said, reading her mind easily here in her realm. "I am the force of death and rebirth, but you are the first of my avatars to ever give me the feeling of being part of birthing new life. Delight is too small a term. Amazing too docile hell. Fantastic comes closer but is still not enough."
The Phoenix Force laughed gaily, and Jean found herself grinning along with it until the Phoenix Force slowly sobered shaking her head. As she winced. Jean could see something in the distance change, some flames being snuffed out, and not replaced. "But my price is as I said to find that blade. Destroy it, I care not how. But it must be removed from your plane of existence. That is my price for this act, and I will read in place your children within you when you are done agreed?"
A part of Jean was tempted to ask if she could just keep them until it was time to give birth, but she knew it would work that way. No, this was for Jean's cross to bear even if she hadn't made a conscious choice to become a mother. The Phoenix Force wouldn't agree to it, and Jean knew it. "I agree," she said formally.
"Then go with my blessing my avatar," the Phoenix Force intoned before wincing visibly. "And remember what I said about your body being in pain please."
An instant later, the field of flames disappeared from around jeans mental avatar and she found herself back in her body, where she discovered that the Phoenix Force had not understated things at all. She screamed aloud in her helmet, before starting to grind her teeth instead as every bone and bit of her ached. It was as if she had gone through the entire pregnant process, and then several months of getting back into shape all the agony that would have entailed squashed into an instant a very painful instant.
Later, Jean would realize that she breathed in pain there in the center of the hollowed-out asteroids with none to hear her agony for about an hour before she could finally get out the words to ask Cory to pop her to High Note. The little house-elf appeared, stared at her in distress, and instantly whisked her into the master suite in High Note, where he plied her with both food, and pain-relieving potions while wildly asking what it happened, but Jean couldn't really answer for a time, too busy both eating to relieve the agony of suddenly all that energy being expended, and the pain medications.
Ororo Hela and Emma instantly heard about what was going on and canceled whatever they were doing to check in on her, becoming shocked at the changes, although Hela when everything was explained to her, once Jean could speak without mumbling her words, understood. "Deals like that always have a hidden caveat. Although in this case it wasn't hidden at all, the Phoenix Force actually told you what to expect, but it is still a price to be paid."
However, thanks to Ororo's healing spells, Jean was actually soon on her feet, gleefully putting her body through her paces again despite the ongoing pain of doing so. "After all, I won't have this for long, so I might as well enjoy it now."
By the time Harry and their new ship exited the time chamber Jean was completely healed and ready to go. This was the site Harry's saw when he arrived in High Note, Jean flying towards him down a corridor, were splendid in her Phoenix uniform, without any sight of her pregnancy. "Hey babe," she said with a laugh as she wrapped herself around him, feeling his arms first simply flopping there in stone just don't shock before going around him. "Guess what? It turns out that the Phoenix Force is a little more flexible than we ever thought she might be in what she can do to help me get through this pregnancy thing…"
"Don't get me wrong my love," he whispered lovingly as the two of them cuddled in bed that final night before they were due to leave. "I thought you were gorgeous even when you are pregnant, but I know it wore on you quite a bit."
"I know Harry, and I don't well I've been saying this a lot lately, but I don't regret being pregnant longer. But I do regret the limitations put on me. This way at least, for this one mission, those limitations are gone. And of course, she said rolling on top of him, her legs on either side of Harry feeling his hardened length against her there are other considerations too aren't there?"
Harry laughed, pulling her into a kiss as he murmured down there telepathic link "I love you, Jean."
She replied in like kind, and the night passed as it should between lovers.
However, with Jean once more able to take part in missions, a few changes were made to the team. Emma decided to stay behind. She would join the initial triumvirate, of Sage Carol and Steve, and keeping everything running in the solar system. Anything she could do telepathically Jean could do, even if she was a little rusty, and of them all, only Hela had a better grasp of all of the different projects and goings-on. Well, her and Sage, but Sage was already part of the triumvirate, which now became a Rule of Four.
Jean also convinced Harry to bring along Betsy, who she felt with her own limited to telepath he and telekinetic powers, could be useful against the Shi'ar. Hela agreed with this, and every then decided to expand that aspect of the mission. He would bring along Morph and Natasha, who had recently agreed to work with them thanks to Steve and Dum Dum's recommendations, in order to handle any espionage activities they needed to handle against the Shi'ar. He did not decide to bring along mystique, as she was still in grieving for her old friend Irene. And Harry had no wish to disturb her.
Despite all these changes, the ship, christened the Long Voyager, was fully stocked prepared for its journey on time. After a final round of farewells, the team boarded the new ship, ready as they could be to face their greatest test yet.