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With that, Danielle decided to turn her attention to the ongoing battle nearby. Moments later, she was looking down at a fight occurring in a busy street. Amusing her, while a lot of people had run for cover, others were sticking around, taking pictures of what was going on. Idiots. You all deserve the Darwin award for being complete wastes of space.
However, her attention was mostly concentrated on the three combatants. Spiderman, as she had supposed, was one of them. He was busy dodging around, trying to both defend himself and protect a few people around him from the indiscriminate attacks of a giant spider robot. It was at least two stories tall and loomed over the street, one of its feet stuck through a car whose car alarm was still going off. Around it, several others have been crushed, and the buildings had all been damaged as well. From its eyes came lasers, occasionally from all eight smaller, thinner beams that lanced out in multiple directions simultaneously, while the two main eyes fired a stronger beam.
Fighting alongside this giant robot was some kind of strange amoeba-like creature. It was orange with black striations in a few places and a single blue highlight within its core. As Dani watched from above, it stretched to one side, blocking a blow from Spiderman intended for the back of the robot, then tried to wrap itself around him.
But Spiderman kicked off the back of the giant spider, gaining distance and then using his web-shooters to swing away. He got in front of the giant robot again to try and use his webs to blind the thing. Yet the amoeba creature stretched itself, its body leaving its feet behind as it pushed itself towards Spiderman once more, forcing him to dodge.
Spiderman's Spidey Sense was working overtime right now, and it was the only reason why he hadn't been by one of the lasers, let alone captured by the amoeba. Now he dodged another attack from the giant robot, leading its main beam into the way of the amoeba, but the amoeba halted in place, the beam passing directly in front of it, causing Spiderman to scowl. "Oh, now that's just not fair!"
Deciding she'd seen enough, Dani held up Sigyn's Gift, which changed into a Bow in her hand, as she pulled out one of her explosive arrows. She was about to aim for the amoeba first but then saw the spider creature twisting around, lashing out towards Spiderman as he avoided the amoeba by ducking low. This had brought him within range of the robot's front legs, and Spiderman was hurriedly dodging this way and that, trying to use his web-shooters to gain some distance. But the amoeba also got into the action again, leaping up off of the back of the giant spider to land behind Spiderman, reaching for him once more.
Yet what had stopped Danielle was another problem. One of the back legs was about to also hit one of the idiots observing everything. This one had crouched behind a car, but the car had just been stabbed through by another one of the robot's legs, and Dani judged that in a second, it would be hurled to the side where would undoubtedly crush the man who had been hiding there, and who was currently frozen in fear.
About to take a hit from the spider robot to use his web-shooters to pull the man out of harm's way, Spiderman watched in shock as the leg disintegrated under the arrow shot from on high, dropping the car right where it had been originally. He was still almost hit, but thankfully, his Spidey Sense sent him rolling forward and then back into the air, the roll having given him enough space to use his web-shooters to pull himself back up into the air and out of the way of the spiders slashing legs. He nearly paid for this a second later by almost taking a smaller laser beam face. A last-second twitch of the head saved him. "That was a close one!"
The spider robot had other things to worry about. Having identified a new threat, it's turned some of its eye-beams on Danny, who dodged this way and that across the rooftops for a moment, shooting back occasionally. But the armor on the spider robot's body was much tougher than its legs, and her explosive rounds didn't do anything.
Time to switch weapons. With that thought, Dani sheathed Sigyn's Gift to her thigh as a dagger, then reached into her combat pouch, pulling out her gauss rifle.
Spiderman avoided the attacks from the amoeba only to stare as Dani did this, only coming back to his danger at the last second, dodging another attack even as he spluttered, "How the heck! Oh right, she's got access to magic. There's nothing unusual about pulling a giant freaking sci-fi-style rifle out of her pouch. It's magic. That would get really annoying over time."
Danielle fired, the gauss bullet slamming into and through the side of the spider robot's head. Instantly, the laser beams cut out, and it seemed to sag before quickly pushing itself back up to its feet, moving towards her in a deceptively fast gate.
"Oh no you don't!" Swinging low once more, Spiderman disconnected from the line he had been using a moment ago, rolling underneath a strike from the amoeba. Spidey shot out a web from both shooters capturing several of the spider robot's legs between them.
As strong as the spider robot was, it wasn't strong enough to break his webs. Those legs were no longer moving under its commands, and the fluidity of the robot's movements immediately stopped and turned back towards him.
The amoeba grabbed him from behind, but Ghigau shifted targets, putting around from her gauss rifle shot through the thing's head, right behind where Spiderman's head was. He could literally feel the course of its passage, yet the shot simply came out the amoeba's other side to bury itself in the concrete, doing no damage. The hole in the amoeba quickly filled in, and Spiderman found himself being drawn back into the thing despite his best efforts to pull himself free.
He looked up at his Spidey sense went off again, and the robot lifted one leg above him.
Dani leaped down from on high, crashing into the head of the spider creature with all her weight, having canceled her hover boots for a moment. Switching back to Sigyn's Gift, she shot an explosive arrow down into the damaged segment of the spider robot's neck. The head exploded, and Dani leaped off to land behind the amoeba. Another arrow came up and was shot into the amoeba, which instantly began to freeze under the impact of the freeze arrow, a little trick that she and Harry had talked about when she was creating various arrows for her quiver.
The creature twisted its legs and head around a full 180 without any effort, reaching for the arrow in an attempt to pull it out, forgetting Spiderman for a moment. This allowed him to turn and punch into the thing, his hands then opening to grab at a small cylinder within. With a grunt of effort and no small amount of pain as the amoeba's insides tried to crush his hand in turn, Spiderman shattered the canister.
The canister must have been working as some kind of body control, or brain maybe. Whatever the case, Spiderman's destroying it caused the amoeba creature to collapse, its substance quickly beginning to dissolve on the pavement.
But to Spiderman's astonishment, his Spidey Sense was still going off. Looking around quickly, his eyes lit on the body of the spider robot, and his danger sense went into overdrive, jangling at him so hard that he twitched in place for a second before shouting out, "that thing's still dangerous. somehow!"
Danielle immediately began to skate towards a few of the onlookers, who had come out of their hiding places thinking the danger was over. She leaped towards them, barreling into them, uncaring of the weight of her armor as she pushed them back into cover behind a large transit van.
Meanwhile, Spiderman had raced towards the robot. Grabbing it from by its front, where the head had once been, he heaved it up into the air with a grunt of effort, then hurled it upward. The spider robot had barely reached the sky above the nearby buildings when it exploded, damaging the nearby buildings severely.
This also sent shrapnel and bits of burning wreckage everywhere, including onto Danielle as she lay on top of a man and a woman, grunting under the impact to her back. When the impact stopped, she turned her head slightly to look upward, then pushed to her feet before turning her armored head to glare down at the civilians she'd just saved. "Perhaps next time, the appropriate response to a dangerous fight between a supervillain and a hero would be to run away, or if not, hide inside a nearby building? Not stay to try to take pictures or just gawk at the action."
Sighing, she turned away, racing towards a nearby building. She ignored calls from behind her, including a few that were actually quite smart, asking if her presence there meant that the world guard was now going to be back in Spiderman or if he was actually now a member of them. After all, that was Spiderman's decision.
After grabbing up the cylinder, and a nearby camera that had followed the action from on high, Spiderman joined Danielle, where she was observing the building again. "Sorry about that. I hope my villain of the week didn't wreck your stakeout."
"It did, but that's all right. I still might be able to get something out of this. But what was all that about?" Dani inquired as she indicated with her hand that Spiderman should help her up to the apartment. "Those were two extremely different robots, but they seemed to be working together against you. Did you perhaps pass off an evil robotics competition or something?"
"You laugh, but with my kind of luck, there probably is some kind of evil robotics competition that decided capturing or killing me is precisely the correct criterion to use when deciding who the winner is," Spiderman answered tartly, setting her down inside the apartment.
"If you need help, you already have the means to communicate with the world guard, Spiderman." Danielle gave his nom de guerre a particular note, indicating without saying it that she knew his secret identity, which caused Spiderman to stiffen a bit. "I think you would be able to do a lot more good with just a bit of backup."
"Um, so… now what? Er, were you at least able to overhear anything?" Spiderman inquired, trying to change the subject as as he looked away from Ghigau looking around the room in confusion.
"No, I wasn't. But I have other skills, much like those web-shooters of yours. Are those natural or from some kind of equipment?"
"Equipment, if they were natural they wouldn't be coming out of my wrists," Spiderman quipped, smirking at the gagging noise from the armored Custodes. "I can change the chemical makeup of the cartridges inside my web-shooters, which are stored in my wrist. Actually, that's part of the reason why I am thinking about your boss's offer. The chemicals I need for my web solution are kind of expensive."
"Send us a bill for them, and we could probably get those chemicals for you in bulk," Dani chuckled as Spiderman set her feet on the ground, and she looked around the place. "That's one of the best things about being a Custodes, above the training. When our Jarl says no expense spared, he means it."
"Jarl,? What do you think you are, a Viking?" Spiderman quipped.
"Heh, or something," Dani replied, looking around a faint frown on her features.
This clearly wasn't an apartment someone lived in. There was no furniture but a bar to one side and a single, albeit comfortable chair in the center of the room. Through another doorway was a similarly sparse bedroom, with only a small cot. However, there were a few things she recognized built into the roof and floor – small speakers on the floor and a hologram projector set into the roof. This was paired with a series of controls set into the chair's armrest.
What was also obvious was that the messenger or whatever he was had taken the time to destroy those same devices. The chair was smashed, several segments of it seemed to be missing, and the speakers and hologram projectors had all been stowed in. I guess he didn't think he could keep this setup a secret once the apartment complex brought in a construction crew to repair the damage.
With Spiderman watching from the window, Danielle placed her hands on the chair's back and concentrated. Her power of psychometry pulled out the images of what had just occurred here and all around the room, images of what had just been occurring appeared. Thankfully, there seemed to be a lot of emotions in the air, fear and annoyance from the man in the chair. That fueled her power and enabled her to reconstruct events.
Sound was beyond her, but at least she was able to see what had occurred from the side of the man in the chair, which included the faces of those he was talking to, regardless of the fact they were holograms. Two of them she recognized. One of them was the Silver Fox, the man who had warned Emma of the attack. The other was someone she had recently seen in the news somewhere. She couldn't quite place where, but he was some kind of businessperson from the southern US. The others she didn't recognize.
The memory played out, the meeting going for about forty minutes. The man in the chair seemed to be giving a report for most of that, then some questions were asked, the heads of the various gang leaders turned to one another, starting to argue back and forth. The man in the chair stayed silent, the fear visible in his face for a bit. This was exacerbated a moment later by the attack from the robot spider hitting the apartment's outer wall.
The gaunt-faced man hopped to his feet and moved to the window, staring out it for a moment then back. As Dani watched the man's afterimage spoke to the holograms, a decision was reached, and the man ended the conversation, rushing out of the room after smashing the chair and everything else. In his hand, the sallow-faced man held what looked like a black box, and Dani wondered idly what it was.
Hearing the click of a camera behind her, she smiled over at Spiderman. "You realize none of this is going to be admissible in court, right?"
"Maybe not, but if I ever see these guys, I'll know to be on the lookout for trouble," Spiderman retorted.
"Point." Danielle nodded, turning her attention back to the heads around her. "And you did place a tracker on his car, right?"
"Yep, right before that amoeba attacked me and forced me out of the area around here and right into the arms of that robot spider," Spiderman grumbled.
"Good. In that case, I think we've done as much on my side of things. Thanks for your help, Spiderman. If you want to follow up on the local angle, call us, and we'll help however you want. For my part, I think it's time I check-in with the rest of my team."
OOOOOOO
While Emma wished to lash out at the criminal organization that had decided it was strong enough to attack her, Emma had a lot of other duties on her shoulders with Harry gone. Not so much Ororo or Jean. Jean was, before her pregnancy, mostly acting as the Custode's weapon's designer. That wasn't actually needed any longer, although she had also worked as a go-between for the various science and engineering teams working with the EDF. Ororo was head of the growing educational department that handled the dependents of the workers on Fortress Mars, Camelot and the Savage Land, but that mainly ran itself now, thanks to Pinoptes.
One of these things was sitting in on a meeting on a series of meetings on the military side of things. Steve was involved in some of these and had a point he wanted to bring up, so he came over to her mansion via a runic doorway early. "Have you heard about the new law that is being thought of in the House of Representatives?"
Emma frowned, thinking. Mary Jane said something in passing when Emma had got in touch with her a few hours ago, but… "I'm afraid I've been out of the loop due to my injuries and concentrating on the Potter Enterprises side of things."
Steve looked quizzical at that, and Emma waved her hand airily. "Well, what else am I supposed to call the Savage Land initiative, the EDF, the ongoing mining operations in orbit, Fortress Mars, the ongoing efforts to pressure various nations on equal rights for mutants and so forth?
"The Potter Movement? The Space First Program and its hangers-on? Huh, there really isn't a single term we can use to cover all of the diverse goals that Harry and you all have been shooting for, can we?" Scott murmured, leaning back in his chair scratching his chin thoughtfully. He was only going to be part of one of the meetings later, but since it was the first one, he too had come over early, wanting to be briefed on the Custodes' response to the attack on Emma. "The Pro-Humanity Movement, perhaps?"
"That will do as well as anything else for the overall label. But you were saying, Steve?"
"There is a law called the superpower registration act that's on the floor of the House of Representatives. It isn't gaining all that much headway yet, but I wondered what all of your positions will be," Steve opined. "To my mind, it sounds too much like profiling."
"Agreed, even without looking at the particulars of the law itself. And it would also give the government a little too much power," Scott added. "And I'm not just saying this as leader of the X-Men. Everyone knows that besides Alex, I don't really have any family to threaten, and at this point, the mansion is a castle underneath its bland exterior. But that kind of thing could still make a lot of problems for other members of my team, Spiderman, a few other heroes heard of. Something fist?"
Steve shrugged. "I know who you mean though I haven't met him. Yet from what SHIELD knew about him, he seems to have a level head on his shoulders, at least. He's not the only one out there, though. Not everyone can be as open with their private persona as Captain Britain or I."
Everyone heard the dry note in Steve's voice, which amused Emma greatly and caused Scott to chuckle a little. Captain Britain took his persona as a lord and defender of Britain a little too far occasionally, and he was also a rather large Captain America fanboy at the same time.
"Harry doesn't like the idea of trying to use his money to back one or other political party beyond his pro-equality stance and anything that will get in the way of the Space Defense Force. I think we could safely say that this kind of profiling is a little too much like what the late, unlamented Senator Kelly was attempting, so we can step in and throw our support behind its opponents," Emma went on dryly.
"That's a horrifying thought. With so many of our powerhouses galivanting off after Galactus, I certainly wouldn't want to tangle with a revived Sentinel program," Scott shivered. Thanks to Emma and Harry, they had taken the Sentinels and their Master Mold entirely off-balance, and before they could build up their numbers, but it had still been a hard fight.
"I'll get with Nick and our own spymaster to make certain that someone isn't attempting to revive that program," Emma agreed. "Was there anything else?"
"Yes. Are you, or rather, Sir Neyland-Smith hiring?" Steve smirked slightly, shaking his head as he mentioned the Potter group's spymaster. "Natasha, that is the Black Widow, has decided that the FBI just isn't interesting enough, and she wants to work with the Custodes some more." Steve chuckled. "Unlike Hawkeye, who's basically retired from active service to take on a training role. Heh, I still can't believe the guy's married and has a kid to boot!"
"Some secrets you try a hell of a lot harder to hide," Scott also chuckled. "He was a great influence on Lance. Is there any sign of him wanting to join the X-men or the Custodes?"
"I don't think so. Avalanche is happy to be going to college and working part-time with the FBI for now."
"Well, I think Dennis would love to work with Natasha. Beyond Mystique and Morph, we lack somewhat in terms of competent field agents of our own. Most of our information gathering is based on computers and contacts," Emma mused.
"Is Mystique ready to get back in the field? I, I heard about Iris. I even sent my condolences, though she didn't reply. And what about Wolverine? As much as his persona is a bit over-the-top, there was one point where he was one of the Allies' best agents," Steve suggested.
"I doubt we'll need field agents for this operation, but Mystique has said she's ready to, as she put it, get back in the saddle."
"The weapon X thing was personal for Logan. Beyond that, Wolverine might be willing to maybe take on an odd job here or there, but he's enjoying getting to know his daughter, and, though you haven't heard this from me, he is shacking up with Shanna and Fatale in the Savage Lands," Scott answered. "They're trying to keep it secret for some reason, but Laura told me about it."
"Huh. Learn something new every day," Steve murmured, shaking his head with a smile. Then again, that sawed-off ass has always had a way with women. I've never understood that. Shaking his head, he went on. "But tell me more about what you all are going to do about this whole Maggia thing. I'm kind of annoyed they were able to rebuild after SHIELD, and the Avengers hammered them so badly."
"We'll be turning over copies of the faces we saw in Dani's illusion to Fury. Some of them we already know to be non-Americans, and those we will be going after personally." Emma answered.
Scott indicated that he would want to be involved in the discussion on that score once they had a target but also felt he had to point out that the Potter Movement didn't have agreements with every country out there. "Heck, we're not even well-liked in some of them."
"Regardless, we will attack any target of opportunity we discover," Emma said firmly. "The Maggia need to be shown there are much bigger threats than they wish to tangle with."
From there, the discussion moved to other matters, mostly dealing with the educational side of things, the second class of X-men, and a few other minor matters. Then, the trio traveled via the runic doorways to Fortress Mars. Emma, in her Diamond persona, talked with General Murphy and Carol about logistics and also some ideas which had come out of the think tank for advanced weaponry. Meanwhile, Scott and Steve spoke to Admiral Whitaker about training exercises and prepared a tutorial on boarding tactics against both powered and nonpowered opponents.
With that done, Emma went on a survey of the nearly finished work on the last of the captured Kree ships. Crewing those ships would be something else entirely. There, Admiral Whitaker joined her, giving a presentation he and the officers who had already served in the battles against the Badoon and Shi'ar had created. Afterward, Emma gave the okay to adding more redundancy to the captured ships - the Kree didn't believe in secondary bridges - and on looking for ways to cut down on the number of crewmen necessary to run each of them.
Satisfied with the work in space, Emma traveled back to Earth to her next two meetings.
Emma strode out of Magical Mind's teleportation room and down the few flights of stairs to her office here, or rather that of her Diamond persona. Inside the office, Emma found her next meeting waiting for her, along with Mary Jane and Pepper Potts. "Ah, excellent. You brought your smarter half along."
Tony Stark rolled his eyes as he stood up from where he had been trying to get MJ to let him access the room's computer. "Excuse me, but who is the genius in this room? I think that would be me. And it's my expertise that you all want to use to create another war machine."
"Which you have shown yourself imminently capable of. Even if you can't point them at the right target," Emma replied, smiling thinly. "Whereas we have a much better track record of that kind of thing."
"Tony's grateful for the chance to be useful. Believe me when I say that he has been wearing a rut in his palace in Hawaii," Pepper Pots interjected, causing Emma to smile.
"Palace? Pepper, please, that modest place? It's only four stories and isn't nearly as large as a few other mansions I could name," Tony argued back dramatically. He did everything dramatically.
"Above ground sure, but below ground? You have at least five more stories of stuff underneath your house, Tony. And I note that you didn't mention anything about going stir crazy," Pepper reported, taking his hand in hers and squeezing gently.
That seems to calm Tony down a little, although he was still looking at Diamond with a bit of distrust. A second later, the reason for that came to light. "I know you're a telepath like the Pheonix, only your telepathy is your primary power. Be aware I took an EKG of my brain before arriving, and I am protected by technological means against any kind of telepathic assault. I won't be turned into a puppet or whatever."
So at least some of his ongoing issue with Henry is perhaps the fact that he distrusts telepaths? Well, in that, I can hardly blame him. "Very well. I wasn't going to try to control you, but would you like a test of your technological defenses? The only one who has developed some form of ability to keep those of our ilk out entirely is Doctor Doom, and a large portion of that is the fact that he is just that mentally powerful."
The blow to his ego that created led to Tony rather foolishly saying, "Fine, do it. I think you'll find my…"
He paused as a small box on his waist went off with a loud beeping sound. A second later, the AI Jarvis's voice came out from a tiny speaker set into its side. "Sir, I am detecting a change in your mental status, please advise, or Operation Retrieval will be activated. Note, Operation Retrieval will be launched regardless in five minutes unless the multiple callsigns are given, and your EKG is taken and sent to my web."
"That's fascinating, but it didn't stop me from getting inside. The rest of your plans though might," Emma admitted, pulling back slightly. "You played me."
Tony shrugged. "I wanted to show off, and you thought you could use my ego against me. But if people do that often enough, even someone like me will be able to figure it out. Now," he said as he tapped in a series of commands on his little black box. "I'm going to need to step into a bathroom or someplace to perform an EKG on myself, so let's get this meeting over with.
"Four minutes 10 seconds," Jarvis supplied.
"What could Jarvis do from Hawaii? Literally half a world away?"
"You'll find out in three minutes," Tony smirked.
Rolling her eyes, Emma waved a hand languidly. "Fine. Yes, we'd like to commission you to build weapons for us. Specifically, we want you to take charge of creating suits which could be used to drop troopers from orbit."
"Mass-produced? That's not my scene anymore," Tony protested.
"No, but designing it is," Emma rejoined.
"And what will the suit be used against?"
"Alien threats."
"And who will it be used by?"
"A corps-sized force pulled from various nations. All of whom have agreed to provide troops already."
"And you don't think someone's going to walk off with it? Like they did with the whole Ironman knockoffs, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man and a few others I could name from Japan and China?" Tony scoffed. "You can't be that naïve."
Once more, Emma rolled her eyes. "I assure you I am not. And have you noticed any of our technology getting into hands when it shouldn't? Magic is good for many things, as you can attest to, Mister 'I had to implant a somewhat radioactive battery in my chest to survive'." When Tony scowled, Emma went on in a less confrontational tone. "I will remind you that this is a chance to repair your reputation not only in our eyes but in the eyes of the public. Perhaps if you do a good enough job, we can put pressure on the American government to end your house arrest."
"As fascinating as this is, and while I believe now that Tony at the very least is not being controlled overtly, you only have one minute left before Operation Retrieval is executed," Jarvis reminded everyone.
"The bathroom is four doors down to the left," Emma advised. "And if you attempt to snoop Tony, I will remind you your technological defenses don't keep me out, so you can be assured I can keep track of you just as easily."
Watching Tony leave, Emma shook her head and looked over at Pepper. "I see that being incarcerated has had no effect on Tony's ego."
"Heh, you are preaching to the choir, sister. I think it's actually had the opposite effect. Too much time alone has allowed him to spin his mental wheels. I've only been able to see him once a week for the last month, you know. Before that, he had a limit on how many visitors and how often he could have visitors in a month." Pepper scowled a bit. "You could have gone to bat for him before this, Diamond, you and Potter both."
"Yes, we could have. But you also have to remember that Tony built those Hulk Busters, and the rest of that Army, not just to be used against hulk, but Harry as well." Emma supplied thinly. "I rather think that a period in the timeout corner was the least we could hope for."
Pepper scowled but eventually nodded. "You've got a point, I suppose."
Tony soon returned, and he and Emma continued to trade barbs for a while, but eventually, Tony agreed to head the new weapons design program. Anything that he could do to both protect Earth better and get the heck out to mingle with other people sooner, he would do happily.
This meeting, of course, segued into the next: speaking with Sam, Steve, and several other military officers in the headquarters of Magical Minds.
As soon as Emma entered the office the two men were waiting in, Sam spoke up, saying, "You know I've never run more than anything larger than a single company, right? Now you're handing me an entire training program for what amounts to at least a corps-sized fighting force."
"But one that is built entirely around your own specialty, that of jump troop warfare. Albeit on a larger scale, yes," Emma admitted. "But with the home countries of the gentlemen sitting around this table and Harry all providing troops for it, I think the orbital drop Marine concept is a good one. So we need to start building the bedrock for it now."
The other men at the table with Sam all looked at one another, suspicion and interest plain in many of their faces. These men were representatives of parachute troops from practically around the world, some of them coming from experimental groups like Sam's original team and others from storied parachute regiments. They had all been told to participate in this briefing by their parent militaries, and now they understood why.
"Who are we going to answer to?" Asked a British SAS captain, his tone mild but his face stern. "While my government has no issue with troops leaving our service to serve in the EDF, or retired individuals signing up with you, that is a far stretch from training combatants whose primary purpose will be to attack terrestrial targets."
"The EDF is a force that controls the orbitals and can bombard the planet from space, and you are going to quibble about dropping Marines," the Russian man muttered, shaking his head.
"Gentlemen, if Potter alone wanted to wipe out the Earth, he wouldn't need the earth defense force to do it for him, as I'm certain that everyone at this point is well aware of," Emma answered harshly, still dressed in her Diamond persona. "If you cannot trust us at this point to have the best interests of humanity as a whole and Earth as a whole, then perhaps your governments did not choose the right man for this job."
"We still would like reassurances that the men and women we are training, who I assume will be pulled from our various services, will not be used against our governments whatever issue might occur between them and Potter." A German man said firmly.
Emma nodded towards Mary Jane, who stepped around her and calmly pleased a folder on the desk, pulling out sheets of paper, and sending them to each man. "This is the written remit of the Orbital Drop Marine Program. Yes, you all will be trained to drop from orbit on terrestrial targets. But only when extraterrestrial threats have been recognized and pose a threat to the world around them."
The Russian leaned forward, a scowl on his bearded face. "And if we faced something like what my country did recently? An extraterrestrial threat hidden behind human faces?"
"In that case, the ODMs will only be used against the aliens, not their dupes. Only in recognized and clear signs of extraterrestrial threats,' Emma repeated herself.
"you should also know, gentlemen, that this is also a waiver. Everyone who joins this unit will sign it and be bound by it legally," MJ warned.
These men were all soldiers, and they understood that their superiors had already signed off on this. So it didn't take too long to shift the discussion to the nuts and bolts of the matter, assigning training zones, talking about the level of participation each nation would contribute, a timeframe for when training could begin. And finally, why she had met with Tony: The creation of the ODM's suits, combat suits that, while not as idiosyncratic and lacking in any kind of magic, would in the main match those of Ghigau, Coyote and Uzume's own.
All in all, Emma reflected, passing by Tony as he entered the room with a salesman's smile and a personal computer, this has been a good first day back.
OOOOOOO
The star system that the Custodes and Starjammers had previously chosen for meeting up once more was a slightly out-of-the-way system, but one which could be reached by several Shi'ar star systems, systems which were home to three different races. Two of those races were among the most recently 'annexed' by the Shi'ar.
Of course, recently was a bit of a misnomer. Even the latest species to be discovered and brought into the Shi'ar Empire had been consumed over eighty years ago, and that race was not one of these three. Yet, it took centuries to truly beat down any feelings of independence or hatred of the yoke among the conquered people.
Because of this, this system had become home to a large and growing community of exiles made up of people from those conquered races after their amalgamation into the Empire. Corsair had no idea what they had hoped to achieve when he had told the Earthers about it, but regardless, the Shi'ar had found it and wiped the system clean of life a hundred and twenty years ago. Since then, pirates had come and gone, only to draw more naval ire into the area each time.
The last time that had occurred was 10 years ago, so by this point, most people had forgotten about this place. It was only because of Cho'od that Corsair even knew of this place. Otherwise, it would have been simply another number on a star map.
"I'm reading one gas giant, some wreckage around its northern pole, but otherwise, its rings are minimal," Jean reported, she and Reed pouring over the sensor log of the ship. "Two other planets, both nearer to the sun, in close orbit with one another. They could be a decent source of heavy metals since we're reading some more wreckage on the surface of one of them and in orbit. The sun is yellow, solid class G temperature. "
"There is also quite a bit of debris further out near a few asteroids that seems to have been caught but not pulled in by the sun's gravity," Reed added. "They are currently almost directly across from our entry vector. I would estimate this was the main population center of the system… and it was massive. Several dozen kilometers wide, larger by far than any single orbital construction we've seen in the Shi'ar Empire. I wonder what it looked like…"
"A base made by exiles and rebels from several very different races?" Jean hummed, her face thoughtful, and the others all fell silent as well, wondering about the strange amalgamation that might have existed here in the past.
"I am more wondering why," Ororo answered. "Why they came here, what they wanted to do, what they were in fact doing. The last members of three conquered races willing to strike out on their own in order to be free? How much of that has been romanticized? How much was real? What was their society like?"
Harry chuckled wryly. "Anthropological musings aside, where do you think the Starjammer is hiding?"
"I would assume by the asteroids at the out system. Easier to run from there," Hela opined. "Alas, history also shows in that debris that it is also easier to attack if you know where to go before you arrive."
She was proven correct, as sensors showed the Starjammer coming out from within some of the debris. "We're being hailed," Douglas reported.
"Put it up on the screen," Harry answered.
A moment later, Corsair's debonair mustache and the rest of his face appeared on the screen. A taut look was in his eyes, but it went away as he spotted his son at the back of the Explorer's bridge, and the image shifted outwards to show the rest of the pirate vessel's bridge. "I take it that you succeeded in your mad scheme then, Potter?"
"If it worked, it obviously wasn't mad. Both I and the two voices in my head agree on that," Harry replied with a grin, causing Jean to break out into a bout of giggles as Hela and Ororo rolled their eyes. "Still, dealing with Galactus wasn't the only issue we had to face. Have you heard anything about the fallout from that? Deathbird decided to launch an attack while we were prepared to take advantage of D'ken turning on us to attack him in turn. It made everything more tumultuous."
"We actually haven't heard anything, although it does make sense. Do you have any idea which of the royals launched this virus that has destroyed the Shi'ar Empire's… well, Empire? No communication, no ships being able to jump to hyperspace or even move, all of their computer systems no longer working…" Cho'od questioned.
Corsair shook his head. "Whatever it was, it nearly caught us too. Hell, it would have if not for Forge realizing what was happening and cutting us off from the local computer network, and then performing a hard reboot right after."
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked guilelessly. Thank you, Emma, and all your lessons about politics and the need to lie with a straight face.
While the Starjammers had been told about Harry's plan to do away with D'ken if they got the chance, only Forge had any idea about the virus that would be their Parthian shot at the Empire. At the time, Harry and Ororo had jointly decided that telling the pirates would serve no purpose, while Harry was concerned that the nature of the virus would be too much for even the pirates, with their smoldering joint hatred of the Shi'ar race, to be okay with.
Judging by the apathetic looks on the Starjammer's faces, though, that didn't seem to have been needed. Indeed, Hepzibah and Raza were viciously amused by it, while Cho'od looked a bit saddened but resigned. If that is, Harry was reading his expression correctly. Of course, since the alien was a giant freaking lizard with a face like a gecko and a mermaid combined into one horrid whole, that was anyone's guess.
"Whenever we exit hyperspace, our computer automatically updates itself via any nearby the navigational computers. It's an automated part of any normal star faring ship's programming. But as we did, we experienced a series of massive shutdowns. Luckily, Forge spotted the problem and cut us off from the source, like I said. After that, we were forced to switch to a copy of your operating system that he provided us," Corsair nodded over to where Forge was sitting in one of the other chairs next to Hepzibah.
"With the new operating system running the ship, we were able to get underway quickly enough. But from what we saw, the Shi'ar Empire's own communications and computer network is turning against itself," Forge commented.
"We jumped into a few systems on our way here to see what was going on and saw the same issue everywhere," the Mephitisoid added, a feral smirk on her face. "Heh, I think that the Shi'ar Empire's pride in its computer network and 'semi-organic operational system' has come back to haunt them."
While he hadn't heard that term before, Harry decided to ignore it, instead exchanging looks with the rest of his bridge crew. The son of an ambassador, Douglas shrugged innocently, giving away nothing, while Reed studiously continued to look at the readings for the system.
It was Hela who spoke up from the rest, her tone one of mild interest. "Actually, we did see something like that. The fighting on the surface was dying down, and Deathbird was trying to escape after Lilandra reorganized the defenders on the ground. But as we were leaving, didn't all of those ships stop moving?"
She seemed to run through a series of recordings from that moment, none of which had been doctored. That would've defeated the purpose. By the time the Explorer was able to get those readings, the virus they had uploaded into the central control room had done its work, so there was no need to further muddy the waters.
Standing at the back of the bridge, Alex seemed about to say something, but whatever it was, he seemed to think better of it shaking his head. He understood why even his father and his crew wouldn't be told about the real source of the virus which had brought down the Shi'ar Empire's computers. Alex didn't agree with it, but he understood. And Alex also understood that he tried to tell them the Fidelius spell wouldn't allow him to do so. His own mind would rebel against the attempt.
"That's disturbing. Could it be some last gasp from D'ken?" Corsair questioned.
"That would certainly fit his profile," Harry said with a frown. "I couldn't say personally, but he did seem the type to believe that if he couldn't rule something, it should be destroyed."
"He is. Believe me, he is," Corsair growled. "And he is dead, yes? You all said that would be your goal if he acted true to form and gave you the opportunity after you beat off Galactus. Which…" Corsair's lips twisted, "You'll note we're not asking about. The fact you lot are alive shows that you succeeded, as impossible as that might seem."
Now Alex spoke up, at last, stepping forward to gain his father's attention. "Deathbird launching her own attack didn't do anything to stop us from taking advantage of the fact that D'ken was going to betray us. He tried to get away when the fight turned against his loyal troops, and I ran him down and killed D'ken myself."
"After that, we decided to retreat when we could. The outcome of the battle was still in doubt at that point, but Deathbird seemed to have lost her bid for power and was retreating from the Shi'ar's capital by the time we had reached the hyperspace limit," Hela added.
Corsair smiled, and some tension in his face, lines of repressed anger and grief, seemed to disappear as he smiled at his son. "Thank you, Alex. I would not have wished that on you, but having that closure, that is, that is a vast relief." Then he shook his head. "Do you think we can link up? I think this calls for a celebration, and I'd rather like to talk to my son a bit more. And I'm sure your battle against Galactus is worth a drink or a hundred."
"You have permission to come aboard. We can share what happened with the Emperor and Galactus in comfort, but…" Harry frowned thoughtfully, playing it up a bit as if this had just occurred to him. "If this phenomenon is empire-wide, I might have a proposition for you…"
Corsair looked intrigued at Harry's words, then nodded, and the two ships moved to link up.
Hepzibah walked into the Explorer's cafeteria about forty minutes later, carrying a large crate of multi-colored wines. "Hail to the conquerors!"
She set the crate down and then pulled out one wine that looked like the same orange vintage Deathbird had served Harry and Hela, tossing it over to Alex. "For your execution of the piece-of-offal-in-command. I know Corsair had fond dreams of doing the deed himself but having his son get do it seems to be just as cathartic."
As Alex fumbled to catch the wine, Hebzibah moved forward, making room in the hatchway for Forge as she hefted the crate up, moving to where Hela, Thundra, John and Ben sat at one table. "That was undoubtedly the catalyst for the chaos we've seen. Seeing all the lights go out all around the Shi'ar Empire, that warms my heart immensely! At last, the Shi'ar are getting what they so richly deserve!"
Hela chuckled at that and gestured the alien woman to sit next to her, gesturing to a few bottles of wine from Earth in front of her. "Please, come and sit. I presume you at least brought a few bottles of your own? We can compare vintages."
"Do you have some of that cheese? I found it to be quite tasty the last time I was aboard," Hepzibah answered, sliding into a chair across from the other woman who waved her hand at the plates on the table, which did include cheese, much to the white-furred alien's delight.
All around the room, the pirates began to mingle with the Custodes and their allies, asking questions about the battle against Galactus and against the mad Emperor. Many of them wondered how he had attempted to betray the humans and how it had backfired. They all knew he would, but D'ken wasn't a fool, so he had to have tried something particularly underhanded to fight a group that had beaten the World Eater.
Indeed, Jean and Forge were the only two not discussing what had happened since the two crews had parted. Instead, they talked about the changes Forge had made to the Starjammer, and what he had learned from working on the ship.
Amusing Harry somewhat, Deathbird's attempt to launch a coup simultaneously as D'ken betrayed the Earthers was seen as a sideshow to many. Yes, she was feared as a fighter, and if she became Emperor, they would certainly not have had an easy time of it. But to everyone aboard the pirate ship, Deathbird was simply just another part of the Shi'ar Empire, and their hatred for her did not run as deeply or personally as with D'ken.
While Corsair had lost his wife, Hepzibah's entire race had been eaten over centuries as a delicacy. Indeed, her own family had been served as a meal to the royal family when she was young, with only her surviving because a particularly greedy governor had not informed the Emperor that there was another Mephitisoid still lived and had wanted her to grow up, so there was more to eat. Cho'od's race lived in slavery, too dangerous to give rights to, to useful to kill off like Raza's race, who had died battling against the Shi'ar, man, woman and child. Indeed, it had been D'ken who led the Shi'ar to conquer the Saurids and wipe out Raza's race.
To say they were happy that D'ken had died in such a fitting manner was to understate things tremendously. To say they were happy to see the Shi'ar Empire now collapsing, due, they thought, to some last gasp of the mad Emperor, was, as Cho'od put it, "Cosmic justice on a scale that would almost make me believe in a destiny-controlling deity like you humans occasionally profess to."
Harry, Ororo and Jean talked with Cho'od and Raza for a time, letting Corsair and Alex get reconnected. While Ororo and Cho'od controlled the discussion on one side of the room, talking about the various races that were part of the Empire, Corsair had Alex go through the entire action from the moment they turned the ambush on itself party to the moment Alex killed the Emperor.
As the wine and food started to disappear, Alex and Corsair came over to join the conversation, and Harry felt it was about time to put his offer out on the table. However, before he could, Alex spoke up. "Harry, Sir, you remember that offer you made? Well, I've decided I want to stay with my father and the Starjammers."
Jean looked up from her own plate of food, frowning. "Are you sure? If this is about Polaris and your 'feelings' for her, then I gotta say, going to the ends of the universe to get away from the girl who jilted you is taking it a step too far."
"I did offer him the opportunity Love," Harry interjected gently. "I doubt his feelings for Lorna are any part of this decision."
"Alex has matured a lot in the past few weeks, love. But, trust me, if I thought he would leap at this just to get away from Lorna and her obvious interest in Steve, I would never have offered it," Harry continued mentally down their permanent link, causing his redhaired lover to shrug mentally, not having spent as much time around the younger Summers as Harry had during this mission or even before that.
"Thanks for that, Harry, and you're right. Lorna isn't factoring into this. Although," Alex chuckled wryly, scratching at his hair. "I will say that getting away from Scott's shadow kind of is? I want to have the chance to prove I can be just as good a leader as he can, and back on Earth, there's no way to do that. You already have more than enough team leaders and lieutenants to go around. Out here, maybe I can make a name for myself. And I also just want to be with my dad. Can you blame me?"
"Not for that last point no," Jean answered, still looking at him thoughtfully despite Harry's words. "Scott's never tried to overshadow your accomplishments, you know. And I think he would be heartbroken if you just didn't return without a word."
"I'll record something, I guess," Alex said with a shrug before wilting somewhat under the jaundiced looks from both Ororo and Jean. "Honest, I will! Heck, you two can look it over for me if you want. But um, we've never gone into all those touchy-feely moments, and we're not exactly close anyway. Not like warpath and his brother."
While his lovers continued to give Alex disappointed female glares, Harry wasn't overly concerned, not hearing any sadness or jealousy in Alex's voice as he spoke about the Proudstar siblings. "While I think letting at least Jean, or maybe Ben if you think Jean will be too harsh a critic, see your recording, I am fine with the idea of you staying with the Starjammers. I'm the last person to get in the way of someone getting to know their parents again. Corsair?"
"I'll be happy to have my son aboard. I'm proud of the man he's grown into, but a few meetings like this isn't nearly enough time to get to know him, and I want to. I'd even ask for Scott to come and join us, but I understand that isn't going to happen." Corsair joked before punching his son lightly in the shoulder when Alex gasped in mock-betrayal, clutching at his chest.
Chuckling at the two, Harry shook his head. "He's the leader of the X-Men, one of our subsidiary teams, which puts Scott pretty high up in our command structure and has a semi-serious relationship with Rogue going on. So no, that's not going to happen," Harry answered dryly.
"Maybe if Scott still had the stick up his ass he did when Harry first showed up, it might be a good idea. I figure you could probably have worked to remove that. But that operation's already been accomplished," Jean giggled, leaning into Harry's shoulder.
Ororo shook his head her head. "That's unfair, love. Scott had a lot of expectations heaped on him unnecessarily. The fact that he eventually rose to meet those expectations and set aside his pride and ego while doing it is a sign that he too has matured into a fine young man."
"Whatever, Scott's still too regimented for my tastes," Alex grumbled, although he didn't argue the point.
At the same time, Jean caroled, "You know that's not an argument against him having a stick up his ass at first, Ororo."
"Setting that aside," Harry said loudly over the laughter that this had produced, with even Ororo joining in ruefully, "I have a proposition for you, Corsair."
Corsair looked at him in question, and Harry gestured him to sit down with Raza and Cho'od before using a nearby computer to pull up a hologram of the Shi'ar Empire, which swiftly began to shade in segments. Watching this, Cho'od cocked his head thoughtfully. "You are marking out territories where other races predominate the local populations."
Harry nodded, then began a presentation on what he wanted the Pirates to be the front man for. He made it seem as if he had E work on it during the party for Harry, but otherwise, it was the same plan that Ororo, E and Harry had thought up over the past few days.
As soon as he understood that he was basically offered the chance to become head of some kind of aid group designed to help the various races of the Empire, Corsair began to object, as did Raza. "Now, hold on a moment. There are a lot of problems with this. For one thing, we're pirates, so who is going to listen to us at all?" Further, where are we going to get the supplies? And third, how are we going to transport it! Even for a single system bringing in enough aid would mean dozens of trips back to Earth. The Starjammer's a warship, not a transport vessel."
"And more importantly, why, by the fiery anus of the universe, would we help the Shi'ar get back on their feet!?" Raza growled, seemingly enraged by the very idea. "Let the feather-skulled, vile scum die!"
"Because we are not talking about helping the Shi'ar. A few individual Shi'ar may benefit from this, but we will be helping the disparate races the Shi'ar have conquered. That is why we will be targeting those areas where other races make up the majority of the population. If we, that is, you in this case, make it clear that your help is incumbent on the locals not attempting to reach out to the Empire, then those races will not do so," Jean answered.
Ororo followed up a moment later, her tone firm and unyielding. "I refuse to paint all the races of the Shi'ar Empire in the same light as the Shi'ar themselves. Just because they were powerless to change the Shi'ar's policy or resist amalgamation into the Empire does not mean they share their conquerors' morals and beliefs. Seeing those races as simple extensions of the Shi'ar, not letting them have the opportunity to prove they can be more than that, would make us as bad as the Shi'ar.
That statement nearly threw Raza over the edge, his hand reaching for one of his blades at the insinuation. But Ororo simply stared back at the angry cyborg, more than willing to match the man with blades if he wanted that. But eventually, Raza backed down.
"We're sitting in a star system where people of three different races once came together to flee Shi'ar oppression," Harry said softly. "They died for it eventually, but they tried to uphold the ideal of freedom for their races. How many other oppressed races out there will jump at the chance to make their own way in the stars without the Shi'ar?"
"What about the Shi'ar military ships?" Cho'od asked calmly. "I will admit that the various Shi'ar garrisons on many planets controlled by other races might not be a problem, but the fleet was always predominantly Shi'ar."
"Those ships can't move, power up, or do anything. We saw that for ourselves, Cho'od," Hepzibah interjected as she came over with Hela to join the conversation. Despite the amount of wine she had drunk – several bottles worth – her voice came out clearly, and there seemed to be a fire in her eyes. "This idea has some merit. But I am wondering where you think we could get the goods we would need or even how we could transport them, as Corsair pointed out."
"Many of the goods are already in place. What one planet has in abundance, another might need. And I know you all know enough about the Empire to know what goods should go where. That's how any economy works. What you will need help with is transporting it." Harry smiled dryly, waggling his fingers, letting a few magical sparks appear there. "But between Stephen and me, that's an easy task," Harry opined.
"The Shi'ar's planets are mostly self-sufficient anyway. They aren't all going to die Raza, as much as we might want them to. But rebuilding their Empire isn't simply a matter of the Shi'ar not dying, or removing computer cores or what have you. It will take time. A lot of it. They'll have to build the tools to build the tools," Cho'od reminded Raza. "Remember that the virus infected the base operating system."
"Exactly. And by the time the Shi'ar regain the stars, who's to say what will be there to welcome them? If enough of the species the Shi'ar had taken over have also regained space on their own and maybe even banded together, do you think the Shi'ar will be able to rebuild their Empire?" Hela intoned.
"And if we help the other races get back on their feet, get back in communication with one another, who is to say what could happen?" Cho'od mused.