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Jean rested for about an hour up in High Note, spending time with Melody and surprisingly enough rediscovering her childhood love of Disney films. There was something in particular about the Jungle Book that she liked, though hearing Melody sing along with 'I wanna be like you' might be the reason for that.
After the movie was over she bade Melody farewell with a hug and a kiss on the cheek then left the forest area, and went into the control room, changing High Note out of its current orbit and over to the Middle East. It was slightly more difficult than the previous movement, since there were several satellites from major world powers dedicated to staring down over this particular hotbed of unrest. Still, she was able to guide it through the detritus in Earth orbit eventually. Once the giant asteroid coasted into its new orbit, Jean stood up and stretched, "Once more into the breach."
With that she went into the docking area. She spent him few moments to simply floating up out in space before siding again turning her head down towards Earth and zooming down into the atmosphere. About 20 minutes later Jean was through the atmosphere and again flying nape of the Earth, though the scenery this time was markedly different than the rain forest. After a moment Jean pulled out her communicator. "Hogwarts this is Phoenix, I'm moving towards the second target, can you guide me in?"
Sir Dennis's voice answered her quickly. "Roger that, are you sure you rested enough?"
Hopefully Jean said shrugging. "We'll see in a bit, but my powers come back to me pretty quickly." Indeed, while her body was still sore and she was still dealing with some after effects of mental fatigue, she could tell that her powers were already back to full strength. Must be a Phoenix thing, she thought to herself laughing internally.
With the old man's help she was able to quickly guide herself to the target area though there she ran into another issue. "Great just great, right next to a terrorist base."
"That's an assumption Phoenix," Dennis replied, "though it's probably a good one given the fact you're on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan."
"Whatever, going in silent now." Jean was soon floating in midair staring down at what looked like a small but extremely well hidden terrorist camp set into the hills and mountains of Afghanistan. It was up a small ravine, set into the mountainside itself, with absolutely no flat land around it. Yet that hadn't seemed to stop the terrorists from setting up what looked like a gun range, and there were about 10 of them outside taking potshots downrange. Several more lounged around the entrance to a cave system of some kind, though Jean of course couldn't tell from this angle how extensive it was. But there were three or four more caves of similar nature all around them, and all of them had seven or eight terrorists lounging around outside.
She frowned thoughtfully. If Selene set up the same defenses here as she did in the other cache, then I might not be in any position to fight them afterward. Best hit them now I suppose. Jean felt a little queasy about that, after all these guys were just regular humans and there was no way they could fight her and expect to win, not without taking her by surprise and that wasn't going to happen. Before she became the Phoenix maybe enough bullets in the air flying towards her could have overwhelmed her telekinetic power, but not faster bullets gave her much more trouble, a Vulcan cannon for example was something she was not looking forward to facing in the future, but handheld rifles, pistols and machine guns , no chance.
Maybe I can just scare them off Jean thought, looking around. Then she stopped and turned back, noticing another terrorist had just come out of one of caves. That is a face I think I recognize.
She zoomed closer hovering right above them trusting in the dissolution ward Harry had placed on her costume to keep her from being seen. The man was swarthy with a beard, but other than that he had a very nasty scar running over his forehead from right above one ear and to his opposite eye. That scar was the reason Jean remembered him. She had seen it on the news recently, this face and a name (which Jean couldn't remember) connected to some kind of bombing of a US embassy in Africa or some kind of attack on a school somewhere in Russia? Regardless, she knew the UN was after him.
With that she knew what she had to do. She frowned a little not liking to use telepathy like this, but it was much easier than killing them. With that thought Jean reached out with her mind, gingerly touching each of the terrorist's minds, trying not to delve too deep but creating a small, tiny surface connection with each of their minds then shoved her power down that connection with all the speed of a punch to the jaw.
Their brains shut down for the moment, knocking them all unconscious. Every terrorist in sight slumped to the floor one after another all around where Jean was still hovering in the air. There were some outcries from within a few of the caves, and dozens more men came charging out. Jean realized that the caves were much more interconnected than she had thought but another wave of telepathic power shot out, and each of their minds shut down as soon as they came out of the caves.
A pile of them began to form around two cave entrances in particular and she laughed lightly wondering what they would think when they woke up all in a pile like that. Of course they wouldn't, she had made certain to use enough power to knock them all out for at least ten hours. She couldn't be quite as exact as Charles could be in such a thing, but she made up for that with power, which would be enough for this.
After a few minutes she sent forth her telepathy again, trying to make certain there were no more terrorists around. After a moment she nodded in satisfaction and pulled up her communicator from her belt.
"This is Phoenix to Hogwarts, hostiles are down, searching for the markers now, but start looking for the nearest UN base, I'll have some refuse to drop off."
"Roger that," Dennis replied, sounding a little nonplussed, but rather amused besides. "You know, I believe it is going to be a true delight to work with you lot, I'll get back to you on where a UN base is. Be aware though it might not be the closest one, I think I read a report somewhere… anyway I'll get back to you when you're done."
Jean moved up the ravine further into the mountains to an area well above the terrorist's caves, and soon she found what she was searching for. This was a small pebble that was an oddly stark white color stuck among the otherwise basalt and shale rock face.
Once again Jean rose into the air and then began to pummel the ground with telekinetic bursts, seeing if there was a false wall anywhere. Soon enough the façade of rock that had covered the entrance to this cache had shattered under her blows. The dust and noise receded slowly, then Jean blanched, hearing a scuttling noise within. "Oh what now?"
That question was answered as out of the ruins came several dozen large stone scorpions, growing larger the moment they came out of the ragged entrance. At first they had been size of kittens, but the moment they hit the ground outside the hole they all grew significantly, and each of swiftly towered up as tall as 9 feet at the tail, though their main body was only 3 feet above the ground.
Jean groaned leaping into the air and holding her head momentarily with both hands. "Selene, you were a paranoid bitch."
Despite her irritation however out in the open these constructs were not a real threat to Jean. She stayed well above them, ignoring their snapping claws and striking tails, raining down blows of telekinetic power slamming into and shattering them. However she remained up there for a few minutes, waiting to see if these would have the same trick that the golems back in the Atacama had.
Sure enough they began to reform and she scowled angrily. She looked around frowning for a moment. There was nothing here that was that important, so Jean decided to use the same trick she had against the golems initially. However Jean first threw up another shield downrange towards where the terrorist base was, enlarging it to cover the area around them.
Once that was done Jean turned her attention back on the scorpions, and concentrated, taking a large spark of flame and shrinking it down, down, down and then firing it off into the mass of scorpions still trying to reach up to strike her.
This time she was well out of range, and when the explosion occurred it ballooned large, almost looking like a nuke had gone off.
It was only after she recognized that fact that Jean scowled. "Damn it, I hope it doesn't actually register like a nuke on the satellite above us, that would start a lot of awkward questions. In point of fact it didn't, what Jean had created by her powers was called a compressed air bomb mixed with a tiny amount of a fuel air bomb. The flame and the oxygen around it greatly expanded, creating a shockwave and explosive effects that read to sensors much like those types of bombs. Since both were low yield however they wouldn't register on satellites and unless someone was close enough to see they wouldn't notice it. Thankfully this was not the case, there weren't even many locals to see it.
Jean waited a few minutes to make certain the scorpions weren't able to put themselves again then made her way down towards the ground again, landing lightly outside the cave. She moved inside, her aura up and ready as well as providing her light but it turned out to be unnecessary. This wasn't the entrance to a large system of tunnels, that was why there was an active defense right on the door. This place was simply a much simpler cache, little more than a 30 x 30 foot cave.
Oh, and it was filled with gold. Gold ingots, gold coins, gold statues, a gold mirror, numerous gold figurines that going by Harry's description of the woman might have been made in worship of Selene. "Good grief, was she the center of a religion or something somewhere?" Jean suddenly chuckled, then burst into laughter. "This solves all our money issues, but first…"
She reached to her belt again pulling out the small handheld mirror that could connect her to Ororo, Harry or Emma. She pressed her finger to the top and said "Emma?"
It took a minute for Emma to answer, though when she did she looked pleased. "Jean, how are you? "It's lovely to see you but I thought we were talking tonight?"
"We are," Jean assured her. "I wouldn't miss it, we'll have a lot to fill you in on the last few days, and I bet you will too."
"Oh yes," Emma nodded. "I've had quite a busy week, though I think I have a few things I'd like to talk to Harry about. My designers looked at his designs, and I think they'll sell like hot plates, and I was… feeling a little… guilty about pressing him so hard on the deal. I've also added a young woman to my security team, and I would like him to look at her regarding her powers."
"Don't be," Jean replied firmly. "He needs to learn this whole business thing, don't let up on him. And I'll look forward to hear all about it tonight, but I want to show you something first. You now Harry said that his supply of gold was running out?"
"Yeeeessss," Emma said slowly.
"Well," Jean said and turned the mirror around so that it faced the rest of the cave, "I think I just solved that issue." She paned the mirror around but stopped halfway when she heard a faint thump. She looked around quickly, but didn't see anything around her and turned the mirror back, one eyebrow raised in surprise. She looked through it and saw Emma had fainted in a heap on the floor.
The sight caused Jean to break out into laughter again, and she lifted the mirror into the air letting it hovering there with through her telekinetic powers as she opened the mokeskin pouch and, still not touching anything for fear of it all being cursed, simply threw the gold into the pouch as fast as she could. Two of the largest statues didn't fit at first, so she had to bend and twist them, something she took a bit of joy in doing, since they were both made in Selene's likeness.
Emma woke up halfway through the process muttering, "I just had the strangest dream…"
"Wasn't a dream," Jean replied cheerfully.
Emma once more looked through the mirror and saw the gold disappearing into the pouch and shuddered a little. "You have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now." Jean laughed again, and Emma pouted. "Damn redheaded tease, that's what you are."
"Still," the blonde went on more seriously, "That will definitely help Harry in the near future, though I don't think you'll have to wait much longer can you start up your company. I've been hearing rumors from several levels of my pharmaceutical company about new drugs on the market that can do things no drug has ever done before, and if companies like mine have heard about it, then the militaries of the world have all heard of it, and from there you can segue into the civilian sector easily. You three are due to talk to the British government and King William in another week or so right?"
"Yes," Jean replied. "Are you still going to be able to free up time to meet him with us?"
"Set up a definite date and I'll free up time on my schedule," Emma promised. "You have to get that deal done quickly, and Harry needs to get the best deal he can get. I've also thought up how much Harry should sell the potions themselves for. I know that he might be able to find a way to eventually meet demand, but that is well into the future correct? Until then, he needs to sell them dear."
"He won't like that," Jean warned finishing her task, before blasting out at the surrounding walls, causing nothing but the rocks to shatter. Satisfied there wasn't another hidden area, Jean once more tied the pouch to her belt and leapt into the air moving back towards the unconscious terrorists. "Harry's doing it as a business true, but he's also viewing it as a way to help other people, and that's a big thing for him."
"I know that," Emma responded sharply, "but they won't care for it if they don't have to pay for it, and he can't let himself be taken advantage of. No one will take him seriously, he'll never have the amount of clout he wants to have, if other people can take advantage of him."
"Which is why you feel guilty," Jean replied shrewdly. "You think you took advantage of him."
"I know I did," Emma returned, her face creased in worry. "He's given me not only this deal with this guns but so much other help, I should be deeply in his debt and I .. when he offered the deal I responded as a businesswoman."
"I still say you did the appropriate thing if only to give Harry a learning experience," Jean replied, "but if you're thinking of helping him out, there are other ways to do it. Information for one, you once said that you had one of the best information networks available in the private sector, if we can have access to it that would be a major help."
Emma frowned for a moment her instinct fighting against her desire to help for a second. But eventually she nodded. "So long as he realizes that he can access any information elsewhere in the world but that I want to handle things in America myself that's fine. There are several disturbing things going on with the American branch of the Hellfire Club in particular. I'm not certain when it will all come to a head, but I imagine it will in the next few months. At least it will concerning the first level shall we say."
"And you want to keep handling it yourself?"
By this point Jean was hovering over the terrorists, and she concentrated again, lifting them up into the air. She tied them up with various pieces of rope and other items lying around, including some chains from out of one of the caves whose past use Jean did not want to speculate upon. She briefly wished she could transfigure things like Harry could, but that at last was beyond her ability for now.
"Yes I do," Emma replied calmly. "You might think it foolish of me, but I want to fight my own fight. And in the world of the Hellfire Club, I don't think Harry would be of any use other than a blunt weapon. I don't want to use him like that."
Jean shrugged. "I'm in no position to question that, I prefer to fight my own battles when I can myself. Anyway, I'll talk to you tonight okay?"
Emma nodded, "I'll call you all on Harry's mirror."
"Fine," Jean said "See ya then."
The call ended and Jean flew away, dragging with her the 50+ (she hadn't bothered to actually count them) terrorists including the one that she knew was on the international most wanted list. She put her mirror away and pulled out her radio. "Hogwarts this is Phoenix, I'm finished here, have you found a UN base for me?"
"Roger, coordinates are…"
It took her about an hour flying nape of the earth to arrive in the air base controlled by the base, and almost immediately she got a sort of escort in the shape of two helicopters who pulled up on either side of the floating clump of terrorists. Suddenly someone with a trigger finger began to blast away with a heavy machine gun from the side of one helicopter.
The dissolution spell on Jean's costume had come back online after she had attacked the scorpions and ransacked the hidden cache. Indeed Jean was feeling the burn at the moment, and was looking forward to getting something to eat. However this meant the fire wasn't aimed at her it was directed at her prisoners, and she frowned. With a wave of her hand Jean sent out a wave of telekinetic power to stop them and her disillusion spell came down. But her frown wasn't from the necessity of that, it was from what she had sensed before the machine gun opened up, or rather what she hadn't felt.
There were some shouts from the helicopter, but the firing ceased, and she landed in front of the entrance to the base. Several guards stood there looking at her in shock, though how much that was from her outfit and how much of that was from the fact that she had just swatted bullets out of the air was a question. She didn't let them say anything simply saying quickly "I believe this gentleman is of interest to you all?"
Jean lifted the head of the terrorist she had recognized from the news but before any of the men at the gates could speak up a loud voice with a Boston accent shouted from inside the base. "He is indeed ma'am."
The man striding toward the base's entrance was a tallish man, though he was almost squat with muscle, and while he appeared to be middle aged, there didn't seem to be an ounce of fat on him. He had a magnificent orange handlebar mustache and was strangely wearing a bowler hat of all things. He was also wearing a uniform that had a shield logo like the one that Fury fellow had flashed at the mansion before trying to interrogate Harry. He was wearing two pistols of an odd design, but his hands were well away from them.
The man knelt down in front of the prisoner, smiling grimly before looking up at Jean. "Dum Dum Duggan, SHIELD international intelligence agency. My team and I have been looking for this ba-um person for over two months without even finding a clue to where he was hiding. Can I ask how you found him, and who do you work for? I don't recognize the uniform."
The words were bland but his eye were sharp, trying to see through the modified confounding charm that Harry had placed on Jean's mask for the day, but failed. Jean simply smiled, thinking up an idea on the fly. "If you're from an intelligence agency, I presume you heard of an incident a bit over a month ago in London?"
The man's eyes narrowed, and a few of the troopers nearby began to mutter to one another, their accents showing they were British. Jean ignored this however and went on "I was in the area to clean up some dangerous loose ends from that little mess in London and stumbled on these gentlemen right on the doorstep."
"Ha, ya wouldn't happen to be Irish would you, because that kind of luck is amazing!" Duggan nodded over to a younger man who was standing beside him dressed in the same uniform. "But you didn't answer my other questions ma'am, and why is it if I look away from you I can't even remember the color of your hair?"
Jean chuckled dryly. "No I didn't, and trade secret. My name is Phoenix, and I work for myself." Technically true, since Harry hadn't started to pay her just yet.
Duggan chuckled, not at all put out. After all, he wasn't about to tell the young lady all about him, and he wasn't so much about control or the future as his boss was. Duggan cared more about the job in front of him than stupid ass, made up political or social positions. "Duly noted ma'am. Still, can you at least give us a location?"
"Sir," a man in a major's uniform said, having joined the discussion a second ago. He was glaring at Jean distrustfully. "I realize it seems like she helped us out here, but don't you think we should take her into custody? She's broken several international laws after all."
"You wouldn't be able to hold me," Jean said, smiling thinly, her telekinetic aura crackling about her.
"It's my call major, not yours," Duggan said sharply. "And in my life, I've learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth."
Jean smiled faintly, finding herself liking Dum-Dum's gruff attitude. She gave them the coordinates, having made sure at the time that she had left nothing of Selene's behind. She frowned for a moment then decided not to share what she had felt when the man in the helicopter opened fire on her prisoners. There was a chance it would make things with the as-yet-unnamed major more difficult, since she couldn't figure out a way to inform them of it without giving away at least the fact she had empathic powers. And she in no way wanted to share anymore of her less obvious abilities than she had to.
So instead Jean said, "I would get this lot into their cells but watch the one with the scar, I think he has the look of a person who'd rather kill himself than talk." Duggan glanced at her sharply at that and she nodded her head slightly, then gather her power again. "And with that gentlemen, I will leave you to it." Without further ado Jean gathered her power and took off, zooming high into the sky and out of sight before any of the men could try and stop her.
The major looked after her spitting to the side in disgust as he muttered, "Mutant freak."
Duggan scowled at the man, but had other things to worry about right now than stamping on the blatant racism. Ironically, or possibly sadly, the major was a black man who probably put up with some prejudice at one point or another, yet didn't seem to see the connection.
However this and dealing with the prisoners meant that he didn't notice one of the soldiers who had been on the helicopters was staring surreptitiously at the prisoners even as his captain took him to task about firing on the terrorists Phoenix had dropped off. On one wrist was a small tattoo of a mythical beast, a hydra.
Jean didn't know about or care about that right now, all she knew was that she had had a very full day. "So," she said to herself as she skyrocketed up towards High Note. "Lots of magical items and books for Harry, a major new source of gold, and a terrorist dropped off with the UN to give myself and hopefully mutants in general, some good PR. Yeah I think I can call it a day." She laughed and zoomed onto the air dancing around him sheer joy.
OOOOOOO
That night the trio came together, and after spending some down time with Melody, they adjourned to a meal up in the headmaster's room, which had a small discreet dining area now. The dining hall would of course be used for main meals both for the students and the rest of the team they were putting together, but if they wanted to just have a simple meal romantic or otherwise simply be alone, this place would do nicely.
Melody had come down to Hogwarts, the animals having returned to the area around the castle at this point, and she was eager to see what the songs of wild animals sounded like.
After a brief round of kisses, which the trio had to stop themselves from getting too into they all sat down digging into the lovely lasagna the house elves had appeared for the evening. Melody did not like meat all that much, and had a chicken parmesan.
Ororo went first, having had by far the easiest day of the three. After she was finished Harry nodded thoughtfully sipping at the small glass of soda. While Melody was almost an addict for anything with grape in it Harry had decided that birch beer, despite its odd name, was truly one of the best drinks he had ever had. "So you think that Cassidy will join up with us?"
"I think he will think about it for a while but yes eventually Banshee will. My other interviews did not go nearly as well as I said." Ororo frowned, torn between anger and sadness at the thought.
While Emma had been able to help her compile quite a list of teachers both in America and in the UK who could teach at both the elementary and secondary levels, teachers were very good at keeping their political and social views to themselves, and it'd taken quite a bit of wrangling to get each interviewees opinion on the mutant question out of them without giving too much information in turn. And when Ororo had she had been appalled to find that only one out of every three came down on the side of mutants. Many were entirely neutral, a wait-and-see attitude that she could respect but most certainly wasn't what she wanted in one of their teachers especially starting off. The others had all been anti-mutants, though the reasons differed widely.
"Still, I think we can put together at least a preliminary group, and get them signed up and here to prepare their classrooms and assign them their roles. Assuming of course that they pass the final test of the anti-lying or trustworthiness ward, whichever you want to call it."
Harry nodded. "You're going to meet with Kitty's parents tomorrow right, if she can start work soon I'll put her to work on that project. Still, that's pretty good for a start. And with the gold and bullion that Jean found we'll be able to pay for them and everything else we need without making a significant dent for at least half a year." He turned to Jean now, "But let's go back over the first place you hit. Walk us through what happened there."
Jean did so, though she had already told Harry what she had found, including her worries about the gem. Once she was done giving a more detailed report her two lovers sat there thinking.
The weather goddess came out of it first reaching forward and grasping Jean's hand. "You faced far more today than we had expected Firebird, I believe that the next time we hit up one of these caches two of us at the very least should go. I could've helped you spot some of those traps, and it's very likely you would never have activated the trap that set off those golems. And without them you wouldn't have tripped the other one."
"But I also might not have found the gem," she cautioned
Harry shook his head. "There are a few spells I think you could figure out a way to duplicate the effect of telekinesis, though I would be more concerned about you Ororo, are you sure you would be all right in that kind of environment?"
"No," she said sadly, "but we can set up a video recorder and attach it to Jean as she goes in and I can walk her through. And besides if I am there, I might be able to help if she has to retreat."
Harry nodded, and asked Jean to hand over the mokeskin pouch. "I'll put this in the room of requirement set it to defense and lock it in that mode for now, so that only I can unlock it. I'll go over each piece carefully, but that's for another day. Right now, tell me about the gem in particular."
"Well like I said before, I think it's another one of those gems from Cytorrak I think his name was, only it's not the same color. It's about as large as my hand if I stretch out all my fingers, yellow in color and gives off this odd energy. It almost seemed to pulse after a pulled it out of that secret shelf. I didn't even let it come within a foot of me until I put it in the mokeskin pouch. Thankfully whatever vibes these things give off seem to have been stopped by the magic of the pouch."
Harry frowned. "A job very well done Jean. There were other gods that were part of that pantheon, I think I might need to talk to Stephen about it. Certainly I will be draining it of its power, but there's no need to rush at the moment. And as long as it stays in that pouch, he said nodding at it, "no magic is going to get out. At least, he thought to himself, I hope not.
Jean stretched a little wincing as a bruise bothered her and Harry said solicitously, "are you all right? What a back rub or something?"
"That would be lovely," Jean sighed leaning back. "While I had some time to rest after that first adventure it still took a lot out of me physically. Whatever that second trap was, it nearly got through my shields, I could feel them dimming as the seconds passed!" She shivered a little, "It was not a pleasant feeling."
"I can relate," Harry said nodding and moving around the table. He began to massage the redhead's soldiers, at the same time telling the two women about his own day.
Ororo smiled happily. "I think you had a full day as well Harry, and I am happy you found those house elf babies."
Melody, who hadn't been able to follow most of the conversation nodded firm agreement. "All things should have the right to live and make their own song. I hope Mertie will let me see them, babies have such amazingly wild tunes."
"Be that as it may, it is getting late, and if you want to head out tomorrow and see if you can find some animals, then you should head to bed now young lady." Harry said looking over at the young girl and smiling slightly.
Melody nodded and after a round of kisses Ororo went with her to tuck her in before coming back quickly. Harry meanwhile had enlarged the small mirror and placed it up on the wall of the bedroom, having moved Jean there and sitting her in a large conjured leather chair for now.
Ororo smiled faintly sitting at Jeans feet and leaning her head on the other woman's knees, looking over at the mirror. "So, unless Emma has something for us that disrupts it, what will you be doing tomorrow Harry?"
"Working on the Book of Students and connecting it to the air ley-lines." Harry replied firmly. Indeed he was actually going to start it as soon as his two ladies were asleep. He wanted that set up as fast as possible, so he could start bringing in mutants of all ages, not just for the team but to get them somewhere safe. Russia, China, the Middle East and America scared him with how they were acting toward the 'mutant threat'. The underlying reasons for those reactions were different, but the outcome was the same, and it worried him.
Both of his ladies nodded, though they didn't look at him. Ororo had her eyes closed now as Jean ran her hands through her white hair. Jean had long since closed her eyes in bliss under Harry's ministrations of her shoulders.
It was this scene that Emma appeared in on the mirror. She took in their content expressions and smirked. Another woman would have felt insecurity seeing the trio so happy with one another and without her there, but not Emma, she merely wanted to join them. "Oh I do hope I'm not interrupting."
Harry looked up from where his hands were working on Jeans arms at the moment, while the two women both opened their eyes to look at the mirror. Jean smiled in welcome, while Ororo simply smirked back at her. "Good evening Emma, or it's nighttime here at any rate. Jean said you had something special to ask about?"
Emma glanced over at Jean who smiled encouragingly at her and Emma nodded back. "I have several things I want to talk about Business first, the designs you made are very popular among my own weapons designers. Your profits from our deal there should be very good indeed. Second point of interest, I've worked up the kind of deals you should get for your potions. Tell me a time you want me to free up when you set a specific time to meet the king and whoever else, and I'll be there."
Harry nodded, smiling faintly. "Not going to tell us more about the assassination attempt Emma?" Emma had mentioned that in their first conference call after coming back from Vietnam, and all of them had reacted in their own ways, but that was several days back.
"No I am not because it is my problem to deal with." Emma said firmly. "Even with your abilities Harry you don't quite fit as a spy, and it would be an ill use of your talents. This is my problem, I wish to solve it my way."
"Even the ones with the Hellfire Club? I can tell you're worried about something there."
"Harry… these aren't your kinds of problems, and you're not a business man, so your ability to help would be limited. Once you have opened your potions business, maybe then you can start to truly help me. I think the London branch of the Hellfire club is ripe for the picking, you could take it over with ease once you have the capital to become its King. On that note," Emma said a little hesitantly, "I think once you do come out into the open I would like to introduce you to Paris. She is truly gifted in the world of public relations and media manipulation. If we can somehow convince her that mutant's aren't a threat, that would be a tremendous boon to that cause."
And if we can convince her, it might convince Buckman of the same thing. I wish I knew he was as serious about their relationship as Paris is, I really don't want to do anything that would take her dream away from her, but Edward and his Sentinel program is worrying me more and more, Emma thought to herself.
"I'll want to meet her before of course but I agree it would be a tremendous boon. And yes, joining the UK branch of the hellfire Club is something I'll look into at the earliest opportunity. Now, Jean mentioned that you had something you wanted to ask me?"
"Yes, She has decided to go by the name of Firestar, and I was thinking you could put her through her paces for me at some point, or at least give me some instruction on how to do the same or set up a facility to do the same. I'm also intending to add someone else to my security detail, but he will be what we are calling a rehab project. I researched several dozen young and middle aged superpowered criminals in custody in the US to find someone who could be rehabilitated and possibly become part of society again. The one I decided to possibly attempt to rehabilitate is named Sandman, or at least that's his chosen moniker is, and as the name implies he can turn into sand and manipulate his body into various sand based weapons. He's in jail for multiple violent crimes, but his personality isn't unrepentantly criminal. Going by his file it seems more as if he fell into a life of crime, and I've scanned him. If he is able to continue to use his powers which I will admit he's rather addicted to, and is able to live a high end life he might be able to keep on the straight and narrow. However, I would prefer some way of making certain that he doesn't turn on me, other than simply shutting down his brain of course."
"I can do that eventually I suppose," Harry replied, "though this next week is going to be damn busy, what with the business with the king, setting up the business, and of course meeting with Dr. Doom before that."
"Of course," Emma replied. "I wouldn't dream of doing anything that would take precedent over that, to put it bluntly Dr. Doom is one of several 'super villains' that frankly terrify me with their potential." She shuddered a little then went on. "In other news I'm trying to set it up so that you can access Frost Corps intelligence apparatus, without anyone realizing you're doing it. A back door like that is difficult to make however without any of my own people knowing about it, so it might take some time."
Harry blinked and then smiled. "Thank you, I hadn't realized you're even thinking of doing that."
"I owe you," Emma replied simply then winked flirtatiously at him. "I owe you a lot, and I like you a lot. Eventually I am going to be in a position to show that to my satisfaction," she purred, her eyes half lidded as she stared at him and Harry surprised himself by blushing a little. Emma giggled wickedly and smirked as Ororo cleared her throat but turned back to the conversation. "Until I set up that connection however, is there anything in particular you want me to have them be on the lookout for?"
Harry frowned for a moment moving past his embarrassment and thinking hard. "How good are your resources in China? Or Europe? I think we can assume that the X-Men will at least be able to keep a lid on the more dangerous elements in America and possibly Canada."
"Europe my company has almost complete penetration in," she replied crisply. "None of the governments there outside of the UK, Latveria and France have any idea how penetrated they are by other Nations intelligence agencies or even corporations like mine. They're rather a joke in many ways frankly, though I don't have as much resources in the Middle East as I could wish, its too chaotic and dangerous in many ways for my company to have expanded into it just yet, though that might change. Israel however is pure death on any other country's intelligence agencies, and that of course covers corporations like my own even if some of my companies have strong holdings there. You do not fuck with Mossad, and thankfully even my father was able to learn that."
"Good to know," Harry said wondering what was behind the rather firm declaration there. He had never actually made a study of the intelligence agencies of other countries, and had only done a very brief perusal of this world's history or even his own for that matter.
"China is worse, I have some representation in most of the coastal cities, but deeper into the interior those resources peter out."
"And in India?"
"Some more penetration there than in China. Not a lot, where the culture is rather against us, and the fact none of my companies at the moment have any one working at a high level of Indian descent. Is there any particular reason?"
Harry smiled faintly, remembering two twins that could never have been more different from one another, and yet deep down so very much the same, and both of them had been very dear to him, albeit in different ways. "India hasn't taken a position on mutual rights one way or another, but for some reason it hasn't broken out into violence either. I'm not quite sure why, but I'd like to keep it that way if we can. I also have some business deals that the government of India might be very interested in, and that can be the doorway into a discussion there."
Emma nodded. "I can see that, though if you go into India I would recommend getting a business expert that specializes in Indian affairs. I'm afraid I won't be of much help there."
"That's fine, I intend to hire several such experts over time, though I'll have to talk to the personnel director we've retained for that bit." Harry nodded. "It's only an idea at the moment, well away into the future. Will you want to meet with us before we go to see William and his government representatives to prep us or anything?"
"Oh yes," Emma replied fervently. "I want to make certain that you know what to say and most importantly what not to say."
"I'm going to go back to school aren't I?" Harry replied rubbing his forehead. "All right, that's fine I guess."
From there on the conversation turned to other matters, covering Emma's continued attempts to get to know her younger sister, a few things she decided to share with the others about the Hellfire Club while the trio shared with her what they had been up to lately.
Emma was not surprised that Ororo had run into the difficulties she had with hiring teachers. Most teachers simply kept their heads down in terms of politics and social issues, for fear of losing their jobs in case they espoused a point of view that the school wasn't willing to put up with or the community was against. Jean's adventures surprised her, but she was proud her friend had been able to get through all the traps the ancient sorceress had set up.
The conversation wound down after about an hour, and Emma at last yawned and declared "Enough, I will talk to you all again soon, but for now my bed beckons."
"We'll try to set up a time for us to test out this Firestar for you, and I'll want to see Sandman in action before I can tell you whether or not I can figure out a way to stop him if he goes out of control."
"Not a problem" Emma replied, yawning again. "Good night ladies, Harry." With that she waved at Jean smirked a final time in Ororo's direction and signed off.
Jean nodded as well stretching and wincing a little. "I'm for bed as well," she murmured leaning down to kiss Ororo lovingly on the lips for a moment and then turning around to the same day Harry. "Good night you two."
Harry raised an eyebrow as the redhead sauntered down the spiral staircase and shrugged. "I was going to offer to give her a more thorough massage, but I guess she's too tired."
Ororo chuckled wickedly standing up easily and pulling him into a deep lingering kiss. "More time for me then," she breathed into his ear and giggled (something she never did when around anyone else) as he picked her up easily her legs going around his middle as they made their way over to the bed locked in a deep kiss.
OOOOOOO
Later that evening while Ororo slept on blissfully, Harry softly removed himself from the bed and went to start his next job, that of connecting the massive cluster of spells and runic arrays of the Book of Students to the air ley-lines, which would take him all night and the next day.
While Harry was doing that, Jean continued with several personnel and business related projects while Ororo went to New York to speak with Kitty and her parent. Shiang-Chi surprisingly had bonded with Melody and the two of them were out the entire day searching out the different animals that had moved into the previously warded area around Hogwarts. Melody said the young man had several interesting songs that used different wind and string instruments she had never heard before. She also said he was sad about many things, and needed to be cheered up, so Harry and the others were happy enough to let them go out together, though the house elves had assigned one of their members to watch them both as long as they were in the warded areas.
Ser Dennis Wayland Smith was moving forward with his plans to create an intelligence apparatus for Harry's corporation/group, making up a list of possible agents, though Harry was pleased to note he never tried to contact any of them just yet. Dennis spent most of his time today just as he had for the past week, watching the news for them both international and local.
The UK government had begun to take a stance against mutant persecution, clamping down hard on several riots tossing the rioters into cells, and putting permanent black marks on their records. A local group much like America's Friends of Humanity was shut down hard, its organizers jailed and awaiting trial for hate crimes. It wasn't a popular move, and seems to have caused some backlash, but not much of one. Since the army and the navy had long believed that the same thing applied to mutants as it did to other minority groups there was a firm basis for integration, and King William was extremely well thought of. When he and his PM Thatcher agreed, the entire government swiftly followed.
Harry however didn't know anything about that at the moment, concentrating solely on his own job. He looked down probably at the huge book underneath his hands. It wouldn't be perfect, and it would definitely be a 'learn as you go' kind of thing, but when you were dealing with something as chaotic and wide ranged as the genetics when so many millions of things could constitute a mutation, that was almost to be expected. He had tried to set as wide parameters as he thought he could find, but he knew he would still miss some students, that their 'magic', which was the way it was defined by the massive series of spells and runic arrays he was working with. However Jean had volunteered to interact with the book as Charles did with Cerebro, and with her power directing the search they would be able to cover the entire world far better than Charles' old version of Cerebro could. The ward to provide that connection was the thing that had consumed the majority of Harry's time on this project.
With a final twitch of his fingers Harry connected the ephemeral line of magic from the spell array he had slowly, painstakingly constructed 'hooking' (words sometimes failed magic, they really did) the air ley line above Hogwarts. The magic then expanded, creating an effect on the line like a spider's web on a wall, and through it connecting every other air ley line in the world. After a moment he could tell the spell was flowing correctly, and Harry smiled, stepping back his hands moving to both sides, permanently fusing the spells of the book to the ley line. He rubbed his forehead for a moment closing his eyes as he did, that had been rather difficult, and most definitely a monstrous mountain of fiddly bits.
He smiled suddenly, as he realized the book had written down a name already then moved onto several others.
Harry looked at the area where the first name was, and blanched a little. That particular country was one he didn't trust more than he could throw it without using his magic, and he stood up abruptly. He waved a spell, sending out Patronus. "Jean, I'm done connecting the ley lines to the book of students, it's already started to write down the names of possible mutants, I'm going to go out and check the first one because I think he might be in danger if his powers just activated."
He smirked to himself, smiling faintly as he teleported away to High Note, which he would maneuver over the spot and then zoomed down. It was time to see if the book had found him a student or a team member, and Harry wondered which it would be.